Darkened plane, silent overnight train: how Biden got to Kyiv

Agence France-Presse
February 20, 2023

Biden ended the day back in Poland after another long train ride and was set to travel to Warsaw. (Evan Vucci / POOL/AFP)

President Joe Biden's surprise visit Monday morning to wartime Kyiv began in the dead of night at a military airport hangar outside Washington.

At 4:00 am (0900 GMT) Sunday -- unbeknown to the world's media, the Washington political establishment or American voters -- the 80-year-old Democrat boarded an Air Force Boeing 757, known as a C-32.

The plane, a smaller version of the one US presidents normally use on international trips, was parked well away from where Biden would usually board. And a telling detail: the shade on every window had been pulled down.

Fifteen minutes later, Biden, a handful of security personnel, a small medical team, close advisors, and two journalists who had been sworn to secrecy, took off en route to a war zone.

The US president is perhaps the most constantly scrutinized person on the planet.

Members of the press follow Biden wherever he goes -- whether to church or international summits. Every word he says in public is recorded, transcribed and published.

In this case, though, the usual pool of reporters, which for foreign trips would compromise 13 journalists from radio, TV, photo and written press organizations, was cut to one photographer and one writer.

The reporter, Sabrina Siddiqui from The Wall Street Journal, revealed -- once allowed by the White House to publish details -- that she and the photographer were summoned to Joint Base Andrews outside Washington at 2:15 am.

Their phones were confiscated -- not to be returned until Biden finally arrived in the Ukrainian capital about 24 hours later.

They flew for about seven hours from Washington to the US military base in Ramstein, Germany, for refueling. Here too, the window shades stayed down and they did not leave the plane.

The next flight was to Poland, landing in Rzeszow–Jasionka Airport. This may be a Polish airport, but since the Ukraine war it has also become an international hub for the US-led effort to arm the Ukrainians, funneling billions of dollars of weaponry and ammunition.

'Good to be back'

Up to this point, Siddiqui and the photographer, the Associated Press' Evan Vucci, had not seen Biden himself. That didn't change at the airport or when they got into a motorcade of SUVs.

Reporters traveling with Biden often go in motorcades, but something was very different about this one: no sirens or anything else to announce that the US president was headed to Przemysl Glowny -- the Polish train station near the Ukrainian border.

It was already 9:15 pm local time as they pulled up at a train. The journalists were told to board, still without laying eyes on Biden.

Running a route that has brought untold quantities of aid into Ukraine and untold numbers of Ukrainian civilians fleeing the other way, the train had about eight cars. Most of the people aboard, Siddiqui said, were "heavy security."

Biden is an avowed train buff.

He loves recounting his years of commuting by rail between Washington and home in Delaware when he was a senator, bringing up two young sons after their mother died in a car accident. One of his nicknames is "Amtrak Joe."

This 10-hour trip into Ukraine, though, was unlike any taken by a modern US president -- journeying into an active war zone where, unlike presidential visits to Afghanistan or Iraq, US troops are not the ones providing security.

The train rolled into Kyiv with the rising sun.

Biden, who had last visited the Ukrainian capital when he was vice president under Barack Obama disembarked at about 8:07 am.

"It's good to be back in Kyiv," he said.

Sneaking a president from DC to Kyiv without anyone noticing

President Joe Biden, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hug as they say goodbye at the Memorial Wall of Fallen Defenders of Ukraine in Russian-Ukrainian War, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

EVAN VUCCI, JOHN LEICESTER and ZEKE MILLER
Mon, February 20, 2023 

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Joe Biden’s motorcade slipped out of the White House around 3:30 a.m. Sunday. No big, flashy Air Force One for this trip -– the president vanished into the darkness on an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports.

The next time he turned up — 20 hours later — it was in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine.

Biden’s surprise 23-hour visit to Ukraine on Monday was the first time in modern history that a U.S. leader visited a warzone outside the aegis of the U.S. military — a feat the White House said carried some risk even though Moscow was given a heads-up.

Over the next five hours, the president made multiple stops around town — ferried about in a white SUV rather than the presidential limousine — without any announcement to the Ukrainian public that he was there. But all that activity attracted enough attention that word of his presence leaked out well before he could get back to Poland, which was the original plan. Aides at the White House were surprised the secret held as long as it did.

But Russia knew what the Ukrainian public did not. U.S. officials had given Moscow notice of Biden's trip.

The president had been itching since last year to join the parade of other Western officials who have visited Kyiv to pledge support standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the capital.

Biden's planned trip to Warsaw, Poland, and the Presidents' Day holiday provided an obvious opening to tack on a stop in Kyiv. A small group of senior officials at the White House and across U.S. national security agencies set about working in secret for months to make it happen, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday. Biden only gave the final sign-off Friday.

Sullivan said the trip “required a security, operational, and logistical effort from professionals across the U.S. government to take what was an inherently risky undertaking and make it a manageable risk.”

Once Biden was secreted aboard the Air Force jet, the call sign “SAM060,” for Special Air Mission, was used for the plane instead of the usual “Air Force One.” It was parked in the dark with the window-shades down, and took off from Joint Base Andrews at 4:15 a.m. Eastern time.

After a refueling stop in Germany, where the president was kept aboard the aircraft, Biden’s plane switched off its transponder for the roughly hour-long flight to Rzeszow, Poland, the airport that has served as the gateway for billions of dollars in Western arms and VIP visitors into Ukraine. From there, he boarded a train for the roughly 10-hour overnight trip to Kyiv.

He arrived in the capital at 8 a.m. Monday, was greeted by Ambassador Bridget Brink and entered his motorcade for the drive to Mariinsky Palace. Even while he was on the ground in Ukraine, flights transporting military equipment and other goods were continuing unabated to Rzeszow from Western cities.

Meanwhile, in Kyiv, many main streets and central blocks were cordoned off without explanation. People started sharing videos of long motorcades of cars speeding along streets where access was restricted — the first clues that Biden had arrived.

Biden traveled with a far smaller than usual retinue: Sullivan, deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon and the director of Oval Office operations, Annie Tomasini. They were joined by his Secret Service detail, the military aide carrying the so-called “nuclear football,” a small medical team and the official White House photographer.

Only two journalists were on board instead of the usual complement of 13. Their electronic devices were powered off and turned over to the White House for the duration of the trip into Ukraine. A small number of journalists based in Ukraine were summoned to a downtown hotel on Monday morning to join them, not informed that Biden was visiting until shortly before his arrival.

Even with Western surface-to-air missile systems bolstering Ukraine’s defenses, it was rare for a U.S. leader to travel to a conflict zone where the U.S. or its allies did not have control over the airspace.

The U.S. military does not have a presence in Ukraine other than a small detachment of Marines guarding the embassy in Kyiv, making Biden’s visit more complicated than visits by prior U.S. leaders to war zones.

“We did notify the Russians that President Biden will be traveling to Kyiv,” Sullivan told reporters. “We did so some hours before his departure for deconfliction purposes.” He declined to specify the exact message or to whom it was delivered but said the heads-up was to avoid any miscalculation that could bring the two nuclear-armed nations into direct conflict.

While Biden was in Kyiv, U.S. surveillance planes, including E-3 Sentry airborne radar and an electronic RC-135W Rivet Joint aircraft, were keeping watch over Kyiv from Polish airspace.

The sealing off of Kyiv roads that are usually humming with traffic brought an eerie calm to the center of the capital. It was so quiet that crows could be heard cawing as Biden and Zelenskyy walked from their motorcade to the gold-domed St. Michael’s Cathedral under skies as blue as the outer walls of the cathedral itself.

“Let’s walk in and take a look,” Biden said, wearing his trademark aviator sunglasses against the glare. The presidents disappeared inside as heavily armed soldiers stood guard outside.

Cathedral bells chirped at the stroke of 11:30 a.m. followed shortly by air raid alarms, at 11:34 a.m., just before the men reemerged. The sirens were first a distant howl rising over the city, followed seconds later by alarms from mobile phone apps wailing from people’s pockets.

Those alarms are voiced by “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill, and his Luke Skywalker voice urged people to take cover, warning: “Don’t be careless. Your overconfidence is your weakness.”

The two leaders walked at a measured pace with no outward signs of concern through the cathedral's arched front gate onto the square in front, where the rusting hulks of destroyed Russian tanks and other armored vehicles have been stationed as grim reminders of the war.

When the square isn’t blocked off, as it was during the leaders’ visit, people come to look at the vehicles, many taking selfies.

Biden appeared to pay the hulks no mind as he and Zelenskyy followed behind honor guards carrying two wreaths to the wall of remembrance honoring Ukrainian soldiers killed since 2014, the year Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and Russian-backed fighting erupted in eastern Ukraine.

It was only then that the first images of Biden in the capital popped up on Ukrainian social media and the secret visit became global news.

“He is like an example of a president who is not afraid to show up in Ukraine and to support us,” said Kyiv resident Myroslava Renova, 23, after Biden’s visit became known.

Biden headed to the U.S. Embassy for a brief stop before departing the country by train back to Poland aboard a well-appointed, wood-paneled train car with tightly drawn curtains, a dining table and a leather sofa.

The all-clear notice, also voiced by Hamill, sounded at 1:07 p.m., as Biden's train was pulling away from the station.

“The air alert is over," Hamill said. “May the force be with you.”

___

Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci reported from aboard Biden's aircraft and in Kyiv. Miller reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Washington and Nicolae Dumitrache in Kyiv contributed.

 

Struggling US companies are deliberately exaggerating how much money they expect to make – and that could lead to an economic crash


George Glover
Mon, February 20, 2023 

Most speculative-grade bond issuers exaggerate their earnings outlook, according to new analysis by S&P Global.Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images

As many as 97% of companies that issue poorly-rated bonds fell short of earnings forecasts made in 2019, according to S&P Global.

They've likely been deliberately exaggerating a key metric known as Ebitda.

The juiced-up earnings increase the risk that the companies will fail to repay their debt.

Most low-rated bond issuers are probably exaggerating their earnings outlook, according to a new study – raising the risk of widespread defaults or even a "black swan"-type event.

S&P Global analyzed every speculative-grade company that announced an acquisition in 2019 and found that all but 3% of them had failed to hit their target for a key earnings metric known as Ebitda the following year.

Ebitda, which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, is used by many companies as a measure of their core profitability – but S&P Global said its latest findings show that the metric is often abused by smaller companies.

"Most U.S. speculative-grade corporate issuers cannot come close to achieving the earnings, debt, and leverage projections presented in their marketing materials at deal inception," a team of credit analysts led by Olen Honeyman said.

"Our study is a reminder that, in general, Ebitda adjustments do not provide an accurate picture of future earnings," they added.

Speculative-grade companies are designated by ratings agencies like S&P Global, Moody's Analytics or Fitch Ratings as the bond issuers that are least likely to be able to repay their debt.

As many as 93% of speculative-grade issuers that announced deals in 2017 and 96% that announced deals in 2018 also failed to meet their Ebitda targets a year later, according to Honeyman's team.

Companies that aren't profitable can't repay bondholders – so S&P Global's findings highlight the elevated risk of a potential fixed-income market disruptions.

"Companies consistently overestimate debt repayment," the agency said.

"Together, these effects meaningfully underestimate actual future leverage and credit risk," the strategists added. "They also contribute to incremental event risk."

S&P Global isn't the first organization to be skeptical about Ebitda.

The Securities and Exchange Commission requires listed companies to show how they worked out an overall Ebitda figure and forbids them from reporting the metric on a per-share basis.

Sixth Street Partners co-founder Alan Waxman also warned in 2019 that so-called "fake Ebitda" would likely worsen the next economic crash.

Analysis-Looming U.S. default risk prompts investors to cut some debt exposure


U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen speaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington

Mon, February 20, 2023 
By Davide Barbuscia and Saeed Azhar

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bond investors are starting to trim holdings of U.S. debt to brace for a possible government default that they see as highly unlikely but potentially seismic for financial markets around the world.

The U.S. Treasury hit its $31.4 trillion borrowing limit last month. Unless congress raises or suspends that cap, the government could begin to default on bonds that underpin the global financial system and are considered some of the safest investments.

Some bond managers have started to adjust short-term exposure to Treasuries to avoid losses during the period when the government may exhaust its ability to pay its bills. Making preparations for a potential default is tricky, partly due to uncertainty over how much revenue the Treasury will collect from Americans filing income taxes in April.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc's asset management arm is minimizing its exposure to Treasuries that could be affected by the political standoff.

"You have to be thinking about what instruments you own, what maturities," said Ashish Shah, chief investment officer for public investing at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), which oversees more than $2 trillion. "Just because you own an instrument like a T-bill doesn't mean that you sit there and let it mature -- you may want to trade out of it."

Investors need to actively manage their positions during a prolonged turbulent period in which borrowing negotiations could disrupt markets, Shah said. The Federal Reserve's path of interest-rate increases further complicates the situation, said Shah.

Last month, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the government could only pay its bills through early June without increasing the limit, but some analysts have predicted that it will be the third or fourth quarter before the government exhausts its cash and borrowing capacity. The Congressional Budget Office warned it could occur between July and September.

The Treasury bills yield curve indicates investors are demanding higher returns to hold debt due in August, signaling that it is perceived to be riskier than other maturities.

Wider spreads between Treasury bill yields and matched-maturity overnight index swap (OIS) rates - a gauge for future policy rates - in mid-August reflect views that bills maturing then carry a higher risk of a missed payment, said Jonathan Cohn, head of rates trading strategy at Credit Suisse in New York.

"A kink (in the Treasury bill curve) has become evident through mid-August where the latest 6-month bill issues mature," he said.

Graphic: Treasury bills curve, https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xmpjkrzbwvr/Z7FWt-treasury-bills-curve.png

Standoffs over the debt limit in the last decade have largely been resolved without causing major financial turmoil. But Republican lawmakers with a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives could resist a compromise with Democratic President Joe Biden, which in turn could roil markets.

Bond investors are navigating uncertainty around what they're calling the X-date, when the government can no longer meet its payments. An actual default is considered an event with a low probability but potentially high impact. It could send shockwaves through global markets and raise borrowing costs for both the U.S. government and corporations.

"The probability of a default is very low, but I'm okay telling my clients to avoid T bills with a six-month maturity ... That is probably the most concrete way in which we're approaching this," said Ed Al-Hussainy, senior interest rate strategist at Columbia Threadneedle.

Al-Hussainy may also buy Japanese yen, because a U.S. default would likely challenge the safe-haven status of the U.S. dollar and spur investors to seek protection in other currencies, he said.

(Reporting by Davide Barbuscia and Saeed Azhar; Editing by Lananh Nguyen and David Gregorio)

Panic as Turkey, Syria rocked again by 6.3M earthquake


Aftermath of the deadly earthquake in Hatay

Mon, February 20, 2023 

By Ali Kucukgocmen and Henriette Chacar

ANTAKYA, Turkey (Reuters) -A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck southern Turkey near the Syrian border late on Monday, setting off panic and further damaging buildings two weeks after the country's worst earthquake in modern history left tens of thousands dead.

Two Reuters reporters said the tremors were strong and lasting, damaging buildings and leaving dust in the night air in central Antakya city, where it was centred. It was also felt in Egypt and Lebanon, Reuters reporters said.

The European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said the tremor struck at a shallow depth of 2 km (1.2 miles).

Police patrolled Antakya while ambulances rushed to the quake-hit area near the city center. Two people fainted, while others filled the streets around the central park making emergency calls on cell phones.

Reuters saw Turkish rescue teams running around on foot after the latest quake to check on residents, most of whom were living in temporary tents after the tremors two weeks ago.

Muna Al Omar, a resident, said she was in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the earthquake hit.

"I thought the earth was going to split open under my feet," she said, crying as she held her 7-year-old son in her arms.

"Is there going to be another aftershock?" she asked.

The two larger earthquakes that hit on Feb. 6, which also rocked neighbouring Syria, left more than a million homeless and killed far more than the latest official tally of 46,000 people in both countries.

Smaller tremors have jolted the region in the last two weeks but the Monday quake was the largest since Feb. 6.

"It was very strong. It jolted us out of our places," said Burhan Abdelrahman, who was walking out of his tent in a camp in Antakya city centre when the earthquake struck.

"I called relatives in Syria, Adana, Mersin, Izmir, everywhere, to check on them."

Turkey's disaster agency AFAD urged residents to stay away from the Mediterranean coast over a possible 50-centimetre rise in waters due to the quake.

Videos posted on social media, unverified by Reuters, showed passengers at Antakya airport taking cover in panic as the quake jolted the glass building.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay in Ankara; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Alexander Smith and Jonathan Spicer)

Another earthquake hits Turkey-Syria border, leaves six dead

By Reuters


ANTAKYA, Turkey – Six people were killed in the latest earthquake to strike the border region of Turkey and Syria, authorities reported on Tuesday, two weeks after a larger one killed more than 47,000 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes.

Monday’s quake, this time with a magnitude of 6.4, was centered near the southern Turkish city of Antakya and was felt in Syria, Egypt and Lebanon.

Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority said there had been 90 aftershocks. Six thousand tents were sent to the area overnight for residents alarmed by the new quake.

The Hatay provincial governor’s building, already damaged in the Feb. 6 quakes, collapsed in the latest tremor, television footage showed.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 294 people had been injured, with 18 seriously hurt and transported to hospitals in Adana and Dortyol.

REUTERS

Patients were evacuated from some health facilities that had remained in operation after the massive tremors two weeks ago, as cracks had emerged in the buildings, Koca said on Twitter.

In Samandag, where AFAD had reported one person dead on Monday, residents said more buildings had collapsed, but that most of the town had already fled after the initial earthquakes. Mounds of debris and discarded furniture lined the dark, abandoned streets.

Muna Al Omar said she had been in a tent in a park in central Antakya when the ground started heaving again.

“I thought the earth was going to split open under my feet,” she said on Monday, crying as she held her 7-year-old son.

An elderly man reacts after a new 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Hatay, Turkey on Feb. 20, 2023.ERDEM SAHIN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

A destroyed apartment block is seen on Feb. 20, 2023 in Hatay, Turkey.Getty Images
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A man walks down a street amid rubble from destroyed buildings on Feb. 20, 2023 in Hatay, Turkey.Getty Images

Men sit and talk in front of destroyed properties in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake in Antakya, Hatay, Turkey, on Feb. 20, 2023.

U.S. HELP

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on a visit to Turkey on Monday that Washington would help “for as long as it takes” as rescue operations in the wake of the Feb. 6 quake wound down, and the focus turned to shelter and reconstruction work.

The death toll from the Feb. 6 quakes rose to 41,156 in Turkey, AFAD said on Monday, and was expected to climb further, with 385,000 apartments known to have been destroyed or seriously damaged and many people still missing.

President Tayyip Erdogan said construction work on nearly 200,000 apartments in 11 provinces of Turkey would begin next month.

The bedroom is seen of a destroyed apartment on Feb. 20, 2023 in Hatay, Turkey.Getty Images

Total U.S. humanitarian assistance to support the earthquake response in Turkey and Syria has reached $185 million, the U.S. State Department said.

Among the survivors of the earthquakes are about 226,000 pregnant women in Turkey and 130,000 in Syria women who urgently need access to health services, the U.N. sexual and reproductive health agency has said.

Around 39,000 are due to deliver in the next month, and many are sheltering in camps or exposed to freezing temperatures and struggling to get food or clean water.
SYRIA AID

In Syria, already shattered by more than a decade of civil war, most deaths have been in the northwest, where the United Nations said 4,525 people were killed. The area is controlled by insurgents at war with President Bashar al-Assad, complicating aid efforts.

Members of rescue teams work on a collapsed building after a new 6.3 magnitude earthquake in Hatay, Turkey on Feb. 20, 2023.ERDEM SAHIN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Syrian officials say 1,414 people were killed in areas under government control.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said a convoy of 14 of its trucks had entered northwestern Syria from Turkey on Sunday to assist in rescue operations.

The World Food Program has also been pressuring authorities in that region to stop blocking access for aid from Syrian government-controlled areas.

A worker watches the digger as he stands on the rubble from destroyed buildings as she awaits the body of her relatives on Feb. 20, 2023 in Hatay, Turkey.Getty Images
A man walks in front of rubble from destroyed buildings on Feb. 20, 2023 in Hatay, Turkey.Getty Images
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A man holds his mobile phone near destroyed structures from a car in the aftermath of the deadly earthquake in Antakya, Hatay province, Turkey, on Feb. 20, 2023.REUTERS
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As of Monday morning, 197 trucks loaded with U.N. humanitarian aid had entered northwest Syria through two border crossings, a spokesperson for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

SEE ALSO

Turkish officials to largely end search for victims from earthquake as death toll tops 46K

Thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey have returned to their homes in northwest Syria to contact relatives caught up in the disaster.

At the Turkish Cilvegozu border crossing, hundreds of Syrians lined up starting early on Monday to cross.

Mustafa Hannan, who dropped off his pregnant wife and 3-year-old son, said he saw about 350 people waiting.

The 27-year-old car electrician said his family was leaving for a few months after their home in Antakya collapsed, taking up a pledge by authorities allowing them to spend up to six months in Syria without losing the chance to return to Turkey.

“I’m worried they won’t be allowed back,” he said. “We’ve already been separated from our nation. Are we going to be separated from our families now too? If I rebuild here but they can’t return, my life will be lost.”

Analysis-Hasty rebuild could leave Turkey at risk of another quake disaster

Aftermath of the deadly earthquake in Hatay

Mon, February 20, 2023
By Ceyda Caglayan and Can Sezer

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's plan to rebuild quickly after devastating earthquakes rocked the country risks courting another disaster unless urban planning and building safety are carefully re-considered, architects and engineers say.

Days after Turkey's worst earthquake in modern history, Erdogan vowed to rebuild the southern disaster zone within a year, an undertaking conservative estimates put at $25 billion and others expect to be far higher.

Authorities say more than 380,000 units in 105,794 buildings are in urgent need of demolition or have collapsed, out of 2.5 million structures across the region.

A building boom has defined Erdogan's two-decade rule, during which his government has collected some $38 billion in quake-linked taxes, according to Reuters calculations. The tax, still in place, could provide quick financing to start rebuilding efforts.

Facing elections by June, Erdogan's government has endured a wave of criticism over both its response to the devastation and what many Turks say were years of policies that led to tens of thousands of buildings being so easily destroyed.

Erdogan had said the government would cover rents of those who leave quake-hit cities. "We will rebuild these buildings within one year and hand them back to citizens," he said.

But experts believe he needs to carefully enforce seismic-safety standards and build safer structures in the area, which straddles one of three faultlines criss-crossing Turkey.

"It is not only necessary to replace the demolished buildings, but also to re-plan the cities based on scientific data such as not to build on faultlines and to learn lessons from past mistakes," said Esin Koymen, former head of Istanbul Chamber of Architects.

"The first priority is new planning, not new building."

OVER 1 MILLION HOMELESS

The quakes on Feb. 6, which also hit neighbouring Syria, left more than a million homeless and killed far more than the latest official tally of 46,000 people in both countries.

They devastated southern Turkey in the dead of winter, with overnight temperatures near freezing, leaving many emergency tents inadequate for the homeless. More than 2 million others have evacuated the region that was home to more than 13 million.

The earthquakes revealed the fragility of Turkey's infrastructure, experts said, given they ravaged both modern and ancient buildings including hospitals, mosques, churches and schools.

Some now worry the government's ambitious timeframe leaves little time to fix past mistakes.

"When they say 'we start the construction in a month, we finish it in a year', without the city planning work, frankly, this means that the disaster we are experiencing has not been noticed," said Nusret Suna, deputy head of the Chamber of Civil Engineers.

"It takes months to make city plans ... it is very wrong to ignore those plans."

Urbanisation Minister Murat Kurum said last week the government would consider detailed geological surveys in its city reconstruction plans, and that tenders would be held.

"FRIENDLY COMPANIES"

The bill to rebuild houses, transmission lines and infrastructure is around $25 billion, or 2.5% of GDP, U.S. bank JPMorgan said in a report. Another report from business association Turkonfed estimated damages to housing at $70.8 billion.

And analysts say costs could overshoot initial estimates.

Over 20 years in power, Erdogan used major real estate projects to showcase Turkey's rising prosperity. Public and private builds have boosted jobs and new housing stock, and helped his opinion poll ratings.

The looming presidential and parliamentary elections, which could be delayed due to the quake, pose Erdogan's biggest political challenge to date given a cost-of-living crisis weighed heavily on Turks well before the disaster struck.

Some critics have said the state exacerbated the crisis by awarding "friendly" companies lucrative construction contracts over the years in return for political and financial support.

Pinar Giritlioglu, the Istanbul head of the Chamber of City Planners, said: "Unfortunately, the rentier system instead of science continues to rule everything."

The government has vowed to investigate anyone suspected of responsibility for the collapse of buildings, and has arrested dozens of people so far.

QUAKE-PROOF BUILDINGS

Though there is no definite data on the more than 20 million buildings in the country, former Urbanisation Minister Mehmet Ozhaseki said when in office in mid-2018 that "probably more than 50% of all buildings" contravened housing regulations. The Urbanisation Ministry did not immediately respond to questions about current figures.

Opposition politicians accuse Erdogan's government of failing to enforce building regulations, and of mis-spending special taxes levied after the last major earthquake in 1999 in order to make buildings more resistant to quakes.

Erdogan has repeatedly dismissed what he calls opposition lies meant to obstruct investment.

In 2018, the government issued an amnesty for existing buildings that had broken the construction rules - for a fee, a practice also carried out under previous governments before 1999.

While state housing agency TOKI built just 1 million quake-resilient houses over past two decades, about 5% of buildings in Turkey, the private sector built slightly more than 2 million sturdy homes during the same period, according to Urbanisation Minister Kurum.

(Reporting by Ceyda Caglayan and Can Sezer; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Michael Georgy, Jonathan Spicer and Alex Richardson)

More than 350,000 pregnant women who survived Turkey-Syria earthquake need urgent healthcare

Maya Oppenheim
Mon, February 20, 2023 at 9:26 AM MST·3 min read

The agency said women are struggling to access sexual and reproductive healthcare as thousands of buildings, including hospitals and services which they support, have been destroyed or badly damaged (AP)

More than 350,000 pregnant women who survived the Turkey-Syria earthquake are in urgent need of healthcare, experts have warned.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the arm of the United Nations dedicated to sexual and reproductive health, said around 38,000 of these women are due to give birth in the next month.

Pregnant women, who have lost relatives, friends, and homes in the earthquake, are being forced to put their health at risk as they take refuge in makeshift camps where it is difficult to access food and clean water, the agency said.

It said women are struggling to access sexual and reproductive healthcare as thousands of buildings, including hospitals and services which they support, have been destroyed or badly damaged.


Dr Natalia Kanem, executive director of the UNFPA, said: “Amidst all the devastation in Syria and Turkey, women and girls affected by the earthquakes must be safe and protected, and able to access quality sexual and reproductive healthcare when they need it.

“These services save lives and need to be an integral part of the response.”

Her warning comes days after a Yemeni mother gave birth to a baby girl ten hours after being pulled from the rubble by humanitarian workers at her earthquake-ravaged home in Turkey.

Faten Al Yousifi, who was 39 weeks pregnant, had already decorated her baby’s nursery and had a hospital birth bag packed when the quake hit her apartment in Malatya in the Eastern Anatolia part of Turkey. “I did not believe I was still alive,” she told the BBC.

Earlier in February, Turkey endured the deadliest earthquake in nearly 100 years, with the lives of over 40,000 people claimed and at least 4,000 people killed in neighbouring Syria. Tens of thousands more were left injured by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake and over six million people have been displaced in Turkey and in bordering Syria.

ActionAid, a leading humanitarian NGO, recently warned women and girls are among those hardest hit by the recent earthquake with their circumstances becoming “increasingly alarming”.

The organisation raised concerns for the safety of women and girls seeking refuge in temporary shelters, as well as warning there are no resources for those who are pregnant, breastfeeding or on their periods.

Racha Nasreddine, regional director of ActionAid Arab Region, said: ‘‘This is a shocking situation, after 12 years of conflict in Syria, women and girls internally displaced in Syria and living as refugees in Turkey were already in a very vulnerable situation before the earthquake and now they have had their homes and livelihoods destroyed.

“We know that women and girls often suffer the most during humanitarian emergencies. Violence against them increases and they are more at risk of being exploited.

“There’s very limited access to services like hospitals and so pregnant women are at risk of complications if they can’t receive the medical care they need.”

She warned that they will also be without sanitary items while on their period and will have “very little privacy”.

Cattle, not coca, drive deforestation of the Amazon in Colombia – report

Luke Taylor in Bogotá
Sun, February 19, 2023

Photograph: Luisa González/Reuters

Cattle-ranching, not cocaine, has driven the destruction of the Colombian Amazon over the last four decades, a new study has found.

Successive recent governments have used environmental concerns to justify ramping up their war on the green shrub, but the research shows that in 2018 the amount of forest cleared to cultivate coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, was only 1/60th of that used for cattle.

Related: A third of companies linked to deforestation have no policy to end it

The study’s findings vindicate conservation experts who have long argued that Colombia’s strategy to conserve the Amazon – often centered on combating coca production – has been misplaced.

“We want to finally eradicate this narrative that coca is the driver of deforestation,” said Paulo Murillo-Sandoval at the University of Tolima, who led the study.

Deforestation spiked after the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) signed a landmark peace agreement with the government in 2016 and laid down their weapons.

As the rebels came out of the jungle, land-grabbers took advantage, clearing trees with chainsaws and burning vast areas. Deforestation reached a record high of 219,973 hectares (543,565 acres) in 2017, up 23% from the previous year.

Then president Iván Duque used the environmental destruction caused by coca cultivation to justify stepping up military action against coca farmers. Prohibited from spraying coca crops with glyphosate after the chemical was banned in 2015 for health concerns, the Duque government sent in choppers and armed troops into the Amazon rainforest, sometimes into deadly confrontations with coca farmers.

Yet while cattle ranches cleared more than 3m hectares (7.4m acres) of Amazon rainforest in 2018, coca’s impact was negligible.

Cattle roam the deforested Amazon in Guaviare, Colombia, in 2022. 

Photograph: Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda/EPA

Only 45,000 hectares (111,200 acres) were cleared for coca in 2018, the latest year available in the study.

Using a deep learning algorithm to differentiate between land used for coca and cattle, Murillo and his colleagues were for the first time able to distinguish between the activities on a mass scale from 1985 to 2019.

“We have always contested the government’s argument that coca was driving deforestation but lacked the evidence,” said Angelica Rojas, liaison officer for Guaviare state at the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development, a Colombian environmental thinktank. “Now we have real data with which we can oppose this mistake.”

The figures show that previous governments have used the environment as a false justification to wage war on coca farmers, said Rojas, who was not involved in the study.

“They didn’t want to prevent deforestation, they just wanted to justify spending more money and resources on their real political goal: eliminating coca,” she said.

The study also adds to evidence that despite lives being sacrificed and billions of dollars being spent, Colombia’s “war on drugs” has failed to halt coca production – and in some cases it may have even made it worse.

When farmers have their crops eradicated they simply establish new plots, often just a few kilometres deeper into the forest canopy, Murillo said. “The war on drugs started 40 years ago now, yet everyone knows where coca is: in the same place they have always been.”

As the government has engaged in a game of whack-a-mole with coca farmers, the real driver of deforestation, cattle farming, has been allowed to swallow up vast swathes of land, the authors argue.

Flaws in Colombian land regulation have incentivised the conversion of biodiverse tropical rainforests into barren pastures.

To get their deeds recognised, landowners must demonstrate that 75% of their plots are productive, and it is far easier for farmers to use cows than crops, said Carlos Devia, a forest engineer at Bogotá’s Javeriana University who was not involved in the study.

“Ranching is the easiest way to show you’re using land, as it’s unregulated. You could have 100 hectares of land and just throw 10 cows in there, whereas for potatoes or corn only a hectare would require a year of great work,” Devia said.

Landless farmers often clear a few hectares of rainforest and sell them illegally to members of criminal organisations who then join up multiple small lots, transforming them into vast swathes of lifeless, arid pasture.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who took office in August last year, is proposing a U-turn on Colombia’s failed anti-narcotics strategy.

Petro, a former member of the defunct M-19 rebel group, has turned the focus away from forced coca eradication, and is buying up millions of hectares of land to give to farmers.

“Reducing drug use does not require wars, it needs us all to build a better society,” Petro told the UN general assembly in September last year.

WAR CRIME AGAINST POW'S

Israel prison reforms would block convicted terrorists   PALESTINIANS from making their own bread, cut shower times: report

Israel to implement tougher prison regime for terror prisoners


Benjamin Weinthal

FOX ZIONIST NEWS 

Mon, February 20, 2023 

JERUSALEM—Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced sweeping reforms to reverse allegedly cushy prison conditions for convicted Palestinian terrorists, sparking protests from the terrorist movement Hamas and prisoners.

Ben-Gvir said he wants to "ensure that the murderers of Jews are not getting better conditions," adding Palestinian prisoners should no longer receive "fresh pita (bread)…every morning as if they were in a restaurant."

According to the Israeli news agency TPS, Palestinian prisoners threatened last week to engage in a campaign of violence and disobedience, including a mass hunger strike during Ramadan, against Bev-Gvir’s new measures.

Israel’s public news organization Kan News reported that representatives of the prisoners sent a letter Ben-Gvir, declaring "blood will be spilled" if prisons conditions are changed. The prisoners added that they will respond "with a war of liberation."

ISRAELI OFFICIALS DOUBLE DOWN ON SETTLEMENT CONSTRUCTION, REBUKE US CRITICISM

Earlier this month, the minister ordered the shut-down of bakeries run by inmates in two prisons. He also ordered the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to reduce shower time to four minutes and restrict usage of running water to one hour for each prisoner wing.

TPS reported that Palestinian prisoners were discovered "to be deliberately wasting thousands of liters of water by letting showers and faucet taps run for hours at a time."

In the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by the U.S. and EU-designated terrorist organization Hamas, protesters displayed placards stating, "Ben-Gvir, go to hell."

A former senior IPS commander described the independence enjoyed by the prisoners to TPS. "Conditions given to them in the wings – there are 10-15 cells around a courtyard, and a room assigned to be a supermarket. They have a supermarket. Fresh fruit, huge apples, metal cans … meat, fresh breads, whole trucks of bread every day," the source said. "Illusory conditions it’s unbelievable. Beyond the food, they have the supermarket that has everything good. Sweets everything."

Palestinian prisoners warned in their letter to the minister that his measures will lead to a "war" outside the prison system and will hit the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem.

A screenshot showing Palestinian security prisoners in an Israeli jail. Israel's national security minister is clamping down on the 'luxuries' that are given to prisoners convicted on terrorism charges.

"The current situation in Israeli prisons where Palestinian convicted murderers are held is borderline absurd and a threat to Israel's national security. No other western democracy allows convicted felons to organize themselves inside prisons, to dictate terms to prison management, and to conduct effective and independent communications with the outside world, retired Israeli General Shalom Kaatabi told Fox News Digital.

Kaatabi was appointed by former National Security Minister and now Israeli's U.N. ambassador Gilad Erdan to chair a committee tasked with recommending a policy for Israeli prisoner services.

ISRAELI AMBASSADOR SLAMS UN FOR MEETING OVER VISIT TO TEMPLE MOUNT

Israel's new far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, visiting the Al-Aqsa compound, said the holy site should be open for all religions and that Israel "Will not give in to Hamas."

He noted that "The committee filed a report with extensive conclusions and recommendations regarding the conditions in which convicted Palestinian murderers were to be held in order to generate deterrence while naturally respecting their basic human rights as convicts."

Kaatabi, who is a senior member of the Israeli Defense Security Forum said that "Families of convicted terrorists receive monthly stipends and substantial financial support from the Palestinian Authority, while the convicts themselves enjoy communal and social conditions, are incarcerated according to their organizational affiliation, which means that Hamas terrorists share cells only with other Hamas terrorists and Fatah terrorists are incarcerated only with Fatah terrorists. This is absolutely absurd."

Yishai Fleisher, an advisor to Ben-Gvir, told TPS that "Terrorists who murder and maim for jihadist and Israel-hating reasons should not expect a fun and rewarding life filled with fresh pitas, entertainment, and university courses waiting for them. Israeli prison should be a form of deterrence, and not a reward."

Palestinian men sitting in their brown prison uniforms behind glass talking on phones to relatives at the Gilboa Prison, east of the northern Israeli town of Afula. Most of the 850 adult male prisoners in this prison are serving very long jail terms and some are serving life sentences.

Ben-Gvir is considered as part of a new generation of firebrand politicians who want to shake up the Israeli defense and security system, with a view toward a harder line against Palestinian terrorists. Ben-Gvir has faced criticism from Democratic politicians in the U.S. as well from the Israeli center and left-wing parties.

Kaatabi, who was a police commander in Judea and Samaria—the biblical names for the West Bank said "For a very long time, incarceration in Israeli prisons has become desirable for Palestinian terrorists instead of deterring. The current minister of national security is determined to implement the recommendations made by the committee which I headed, which were also presented to previous governments."

The veteran counter-terrorism expert Kaatabi, who served as a commander of the police senior officer’s academy, added "I expect each and every step made by the Israeli government to be met with fierce Palestinian resistance, but we must not allow ourselves to be manipulated by external influence or the media and focus on the bigger strategic importance of fighting terrorism effectively while creating a deterring factor of incarceration. As a fighting democracy, Israel must stand strong, defend itself and its citizens while adhering to international norms and democratic principles."

Palestinian sources told TPS that "the approximately 4,800 Palestinians will collectively refuse to cooperate with prison officials by not obeying orders, locking themselves in their cells, refusing to let guards search their cells, and not wearing prison uniforms."

McCarthy gives Fox News’s Tucker Carlson access to Jan. 6 Capitol surveillance footage



Dominick Mastrangelo
Mon, February 20, 2023 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has granted Fox News host Tucker Carlson and his team access to surveillance footage from the U.S. Capitol around the time of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

Carlson was granted access to some 41,000 hours of footage by McCarthy’s office, Axios first reported on Monday. A Fox News spokesperson confirmed the report to The Hill.

During a press conference last month, McCarthy said he supported the idea of more footage from the Jan. 6 attack being made public while accusing Democrats of politicizing the investigation. Two Republicans were seated on the select committee that was formed to probe events surrounding the riot, though both were critics of former President Trump.

“I think the public should see what has happened on that,” McCarthy told reporters in January while discussing the footage.

“We watched the politicization of this. I think the American public should actually see all what happened instead of a report that’s written for a political basis,” the GOP Speaker added.

Carlson, Fox’s top-rated prime-time host, has on his show questioned the circumstances around the attack.

In 2021 he produced “Patriot Purge,” a documentary series that purports to tell an alternative story of the Jan. 6 insurrection and features at least one subject who suggests the event may have been a “false flag” operation.

The series led two contributors to leave their roles with the network and reportedly angered staffers within Fox News’s ranks.

The release of additional footage from the Jan. 6 attack has been a point of emphasis for Republicans in the new Congress.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who was at the center of a rebellion against McCarthy for the Speakership last month, appeared on Carlson’s program and called for releasing additional footage from Jan. 6.

“Every time, from the JFK files to 9/11 to now Jan. 6, it’s our own government — it’s our own Department of Justice — that seems to stand in the way of transparency,” Gaetz said.

U.S. Capitol Police had previously said they shared 14,000 hours of sensitive footage with the Jan. 6 select committee.

Mychael Schnell contributed.

U.$. ARM(S)TWISTING
Israel promises not to approve additional West Bank outposts

A view of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Eli, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. Israel has told the Biden administration it will rein in the approval of new West Bank settlement outposts, the prime minister's office said Monday, Feb. 20, 2023, a day after a potential diplomatic crisis was averted at the United Nations over Israeli-Palestinian tensions. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File) 

Mon, February 20, 2023

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has told the Biden administration it will rein in the approval of new West Bank settlement outposts, the prime minister's office said Monday, a day after a potential diplomatic crisis was averted at the United Nations over Israeli-Palestinian tensions.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not greenlight any new wildcat settlements in the West Bank beyond nine such outposts built without authorization that it approved retroactively earlier this month. The statement, however, made no mention of the thousands of additional settlement homes in existing settlements officials say are to be soon approved.

A contentious U.N. Security Council resolution pushed by the Palestinians and their supporters slated for Monday would have condemned Israel for settlement expansion and demanded a halt to future activity. According to multiple diplomats, the Biden administration managed to forestall the vote by convincing both Israel and the Palestinians to agree in principle to a six-month freeze in any unilateral action they might take.

“Israel notified the U.S. that in the coming months it will not authorize new settlements beyond the nine that have already been approved,” Netanyahu's office said.

The Security Council unanimously approved the watered-down statement Monday.

Dozens of unauthorized outposts dot the occupied West Bank, in addition to scores of existing settlements. These outposts, which sometimes are little more than a handful of trailer homes but can also resemble small villages, are built without authorization but are often tolerated and even encouraged by Israeli governments. The international community considers all Israeli construction on occupied land to be illegitimate or illegal.

The U.N. vote presented a headache for the Biden administration at a time when it is focusing its diplomatic efforts on Russia's war with Ukraine, which is coming up on one year this week. Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv on Monday.

It also highlighted the deep differences between Biden's administration, which supports Palestinian statehood and opposes settlements, and the Israeli government, which is made up of ultranationalists who oppose Palestinian independence and have pledged to ramp up settlement building.

The pledge to hold off on approving outposts contradicts the government's guiding principles and Netanyahu could face a backlash from his far-right, pro-settler coalition partners. Construction in established settlements is expected to continue, as it has under successive Israeli governments.

Netanyahu's office also said it would continue to demolish illegally built Palestinian homes in the 60% of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control. Palestinian residents in these areas say it is almost impossible to receive a building permit from Israeli authorities.

The United States, along with much of the international community, say the settlements are obstacles to peace by taking over land sought by the Palestinians for their state. Over 700,000 Jewish Israelis now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — territories captured in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians..