State and US officials tout spending to plug ‘orphan wells’

By GERALD HERBERT and KEVIN McGILL

1 of 9

A small alligator swims in the collected water around the dilapidated infrastructure of the B-5 orphan well site in the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge in Lottie, La., Thursday, Feb. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)


ATCHAFALAYA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, La. (AP) — Stacks of valves, networks of pipes and hulking, two-story-tall tanks litter parts of the swampy landscape of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin, rusting relics of sites where oil wells were drilled in the 1970s, an unwanted legacy of the energy industry that has long helped drive the Louisiana economy.

They are among an estimated 2 million unplugged U.S. “ orphan wells,” abandoned by the companies that drilled them. There are more than 4,500 such wells in Louisiana, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. The owners can’t be found, have gone out of business or otherwise can’t be made to pay in a state where there are decades-long political debates involving legislation and litigation over the environmental effects of oil and gas drilling.

The Biden administration plans to tackle the problem nationally with $4.7 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in late 2021. Administration officials joined their state counterparts in the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge recently to tout the efforts.

“The state and federal government, we are left to clean them up because of the hazard they present,” Martha Williams, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. She was visiting what is known as the B-5 well site with Thomas Harris, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources., and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Jack Montoucet.

The abandoned wells can leak oilfield brine and cancer-causing chemicals that are components of crude oil, such as benzene. They also can emit methane, a greenhouse gas that’s 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide.

In the south Louisiana wetlands, where salty water can exacerbate the deterioration, defunct wells threaten the environmental health of an area that is home to an abundance of wildlife: numerous species of migratory fowl; deer, beaver, bears and a variety of other mammals; the once-endangered alligator among many other reptiles. Coastal wetlands also act as nurseries for Gulf of Mexico crabs, shrimp and other fish species.

Williams’ agency last year announced it had received more than $13 million of infrastructure bill money to remediate 175 orphaned wells on six national wildlife refuges in Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Montoucet said the infusion of money to help plug the wells is welcome, but he also pointed to the need for greater oversight by the state.

“With this new injection of money and addressing the issue that we have, I think we’re on the right path,” Montoucet said. “And from now on, when people come for applications to drill, certainly we’re going to have more regulations in place to ensure that these sites are not left like this.”

VIDEO

McGill reported from New Orleans.

Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate

By DAVID KLEPPER

A black plume rises over East Palestine, Ohio, as a result of a controlled detonation of a portion of the derailed Norfolk Southern trains, Feb. 6, 2023. The Ohio attorney general said Tuesday, March 14, that the state filed a lawsuit against railroad Norfolk Southern to make sure it pays for the cleanup and environmental damage caused by a fiery train derailment on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border last month. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Soon after a train derailed and spilled toxic chemicals in Ohio last month, anonymous pro-Russian accounts started spreading misleading claims and anti-American propaganda about it on Twitter, using Elon Musk’s new verification system to expand their reach while creating the illusion of credibility.

The accounts, which parroted Kremlin talking points on myriad topics, claimed without evidence that authorities in Ohio were lying about the true impact of the chemical spill. The accounts spread fearmongering posts that preyed on legitimate concerns about pollution and health effects and compared the response to the derailment with America’s support for Ukraine following its invasion by Russia.

“Biden offers food, water, medicine, shelter, payouts of pension and social services to Ukraine! Ohio first! Offer and deliver to Ohio!” posted one of the pro-Moscow accounts, which boasts 25,000 followers and features an anonymous location and a profile photo of a dog. Twitter awarded the account a blue check mark in January.

Regularly spewing anti-US propaganda, the accounts show how easily authoritarian states and Americans willing to spread their propaganda can exploit social media platforms like Twitter in an effort to steer domestic discourse.

The accounts were identified by Reset, a London-based nonprofit that studies social media’s impact on democracy, and shared with The Associated Press. Felix Kartte, a senior advisor at Reset, said the report’s findings indicate Twitter is allowing Russia to use its platform like a bullhorn.

“With no one at home in Twitter’s product safety department, Russia will continue to meddle in US elections and in democracies around the world,” Kartte said.

Twitter did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story.

The 38-car derailment near East Palestine, Ohio, released toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, leading to a nationaldebate over rail safety and environmental regulations while raising fears of poisoned drinking water and air.

The disaster was a major topic on social media, with millions of mentions on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, according to an analysis by San Francisco-based media intelligence firm Zignal Labs, which conducted a study on behalf of the AP.

At first, the derailment received little attention online but mentions grew steadily, peaking two weeks after the incident, Zignal found, a time lag that gave pro-Russia voices time to try to shape the conversation.

The accounts identified by Reset’s researchers received an extra boost from Twitter itself, in the form of a blue check mark. Before Musk purchased Twitter last year, it’s check marks denoted accounts run by verified users, often public figures, celebrities or journalists. It was seen as a mark of authenticity on a platform known for bots and spam accounts.

Musk ended that system and replaced it with Twitter Blue, which is given to users who pay $8 per month and supply a phone number. Twitter Blue users agree not to engage in deception and are required to post a profile picture and name. But there’s no rule that they use their own.

Under the program, Twitter Blue users can write and send longer tweets and videos. Their replies are also given higher priority on other posts.

The AP reached out to several of the accounts listed in Reset’s report. In response, one of the accounts sent a two-word message before blocking the AP reporter on Twitter: “Shut up.”

While researchers spotted clues suggesting some of the accounts are linked to coordinated efforts by Russian disinformation agencies, others were Americans, showing the Kremlin doesn’t always have to pay to get its message out.

One account, known as Truth Puke, is connected to a website of the same name geared toward conservatives in the United States. Truth Puke regularly reposts Russian state media; RT, formerly known as Russia Today, is one of its favorite groups to repost, Reset found. One video posted by the account features ex-President Donald Trump’s remarks about the train derailment, complete with Russian subtitles.

In a response to questions from the AP, Truth Puke said it aims to provide a “wide spectrum of views” and was surprised to be labeled a spreader of Russian propaganda, despite the account’s heavy use of such material. Asked about the video with Russian subtitles, Truth Puke said it used the Russian language version of the Trump video for the sake of expediency.

“We can assure you that it was not done with any Russian propagandist intent in mind, we just like to put out things as quickly as we find them,” the company said.

Other accounts brag of their love for Russia. One account on Thursday reposted a bizarre claim that the U.S. was stealing humanitarian earthquake relief supplies donated to Syria by China. The account has 60,000 followers and is known as Donbass Devushka, after the region of Ukraine.

Another pro-Russian account recently tried to pick an online argument with Ukraine’s defense department, posting photos of documents that it claimed came from the Wagner Group, a private military company owned by a Yevgeny Prigozhin, a key Putin ally. Prigozhin operates troll farms that have targeted U.S. social media users in the past. Last fall he boasted of his efforts to meddle with American democracy.

A separate Twitter account claiming to represent Wagner actively uses the site to recruit fighters.

“ Gentlemen, we have interfered, are interfering and will interfere,” Prigozhin said last fall on the eve of the 2022 midterm elections in the U.S. “Carefully, precisely, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do,” Prigozhin said at the time.

Why cruelty towards asylum seekers is contagious

BY SHAILJA SHARMA, 

OPINION CONTRIBUTOR 

THE HILL

- 03/17/23

Guests at the Buen Samaritano shelter for migrants participate in a candle lighting ceremony in anticipation of Christmas in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, across from El Paso, Texas, on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. Tens of thousands of migrants who fled violence and poverty will spend Christmas in crowded shelters or on the dangerous streets of Mexican border towns. The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court not to lift pandemic-era restrictions on asylum-seekers before the holiday weekend. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

There was a poignant moment at the 2023 Academy Awards when Ke Huy Quan made his acceptance speech. “My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp, and somehow, I ended up here in Hollywood’s biggest stage.”

Quan’s words briefly highlighted the long and often difficult journey refugees face. And his story was a powerful rebuke of recent decisions by some of the most powerful governments in the world to curtail the rights of asylum seekers, the latest of which is coming from the United Kingdom.

The British Parliament has been in turmoil over the course of the last week following British Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s new proposed policy of pushing back small boats carrying asylum seekers, exiling them to Rwanda, and keeping them in substandard housing. Her politically motivated “performative cruelty” is a rollback of international human rights laws that protect people fleeing death, torture and war. Her rhetoric, labelling refugees illegal and claiming “they all want to come to the UK”, underscores her political ambitions and lack of moral compass.

In response, BBC commentator Gary Lineker’s tweet about the law’s cruelty and the subsequent fallout at the broadcasting network has obscured the long-term effects this policy will have on asylum worldwide. If the right to asylum is curtailed by major countries in the West, then poorer countries, like Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and Sudan, which host the majority of the world’s refugees, will have little incentive to continue doing so.

As a professor of migration, I am painfully aware that the United Kingdom is not the first country to flout international law for political gain. It is following the precedent set in 2013 by Australia and, to a lesser extent, by Donald Trump in the United States during his presidency. However, the risk it runs is of dismantling a system that has served Europe and most of the world very well in the last century.

Australia implemented a similar, armed forces led policy called “Operation Sovereign Borders” in 2013. Under this policy, anyone arriving in Australia illegally would be returned to their country of origin or confined in offshore facilities indefinitely. That’s right, for life.

Australian ships intercepted boats carrying asylum seekers and sent them to offshore “processing facilities” where they were offered a choice to stay in detention centers indefinitely or go back to their home countries. Once in detention, the asylum seekers had no rights and could not return home or seek to change their status by accessing Australian courts. Australia narrowly skirted the 1951 Convention’s Article 33, prohibiting non-refoulement, which is a clause that prohibits returning any asylum seeker to a place where their lives are in danger. It was able to do this by pressuring neighboring countries like Papua New Guinea and Manus and Nauru to keep the asylum seekers on their soil. Expensive and illegal, this law was finally amended in 2022.

Similarly, the United States continues to use Title 42, an emergency public health measure, to prevent migrants from requesting asylum. This applies predominantly to asylum seekers from Central and South America, countries such as Haiti and Venezuela, where corrupt governments, gang warfare and intimidation and militias threaten ordinary people.

There is an overwhelming reason that people are arriving at America’s southern border on foot or by boat to the EU and UK. Western governments have closed off and severely reduced ways for people to request asylum through any other means. Starting almost 23 years ago, the Carriers Sanction Directive was put in place by the EU, fining airlines for carrying any passengers who might claim asylum. Now boats are being turned away. For countries like Britain, which is an island, or the U.S., which has a huge land buffer in Mexico, this is an easy way to refuse asylum to practically anyone.

So why are Western governments making these changes? The reason is clear. Wealthier countries see no economic or political upside to continue their commitment to human rights in the form of providing asylum

With the end of the communist bloc, refugees and asylum seekers are only seen as a drain on welfare states. What wealthy countries want are skilled migrants, working age adults, who are educated and trained by other countries but can work for lower wages in the West. Importing skilled labor is cheaper than investing in education and training for their own citizens. At the same time, calling asylum seekers “illegal” or “migrants” is a politically popular way to be seen as nationalist.

The Financial Times notes that after Brexit, Britain has seen a huge upsurge in skilled migrants under schemes that make it easy for companies to import labor. The areas that have seen the highest number of migrants being hired: health care, tech and education. The Australians, British and Americans should be under no illusion that blocking migration has anything to do with protecting their jobs. It has everything to do with protecting corporate profits and underinvesting in the long-term health of societies.

Shailja Sharma is a professor of International Studies and co-director of the DePaul Migration Collaborative at DePaul University, Chicago.

Trixie Mattel, Katya urge drag fans to go into politics: ‘We don’t need more drag queens’

BY JUDY KURTZ - 03/17/23 

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Trixie Mattel speaks during the “Drag & Music: From Drag Race to the Top of the Charts” panel at Billboard and THR’s Pride Summit.

Two former contestants on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” say young people who are interested in drag should instead consider a future in politics.

“We don’t need more drag queens,” Trixie Mattel, who appeared on the seventh season of the drag queen competition, told Teen Vogue in an interview published Friday.

“Stop right now and go into law,” Katya, a fellow former contestant on the show, which now airs on MTV, told the magazine. “Stop right now, put the wig down and pick up the gavel,” Katya said.

“We don’t need you at the club. We need you in this at the state house, in the Senate, and in the House of Representatives. Put the wig down and pick up the letter opener or whatever,” the performer added.

Promoting their WOW Presents Plus web series “UNHhhh,” Mattel slammed GOP-led, anti-drag show legislation being introduced around the country. Last week, the Kentucky Senate passed a bill that would ban drag performances on public property or in front of children. Earlier this month, Tennessee House lawmakers advanced a second bill aimed at criminalizing certain drag performances in the state.

“I want everybody to think about the fact that the government officials who you pay their bills, their taxes, this is what they’re using the time and money for,” said Mattel, who earlier this year made headlines after sparring with Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) on Twitter.

“I’m just gonna say what the truth is. Something like 3,500 kids a year get killed by gun violence; zero get killed by drag. Give me a f—ing break,” said Mattel, the season three winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars.”

More than 6,000 children and young people were injured or killed by guns last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit independent research group.

“Not to mention like, men put on dresses and f— children at churches, not at drag shows,” Mattel said. “I mean, not all shows are kid appropriate. I don’t want children at my shows. Not at all. But there shouldn’t be a law about it.”

Lawmakers who are behind the anti-drag show legislation, Katya said, are “profoundly stupid,” calling it “extremely dangerous.”

“It’s the tired cliche of the person who’s doing the finger pointing is the person who is the most suspect,” Katya said.

“Like Trixie said, the people who are doing grooming behaviors are the church folk and the pastors and the religious people,” the entertainer added.

Eva Longoria: Don’t park a taco truck outside and think you’ll get my vote

“Drag queens don’t care about anything other than themselves, like come on,” Katya said.

“You point a finger so people go, oh good, that’s the witch not me… We’re talking about a group of people where it’s never been about facts, so it’s not worth arguing because data, studies, none of that matters. Because at the end of the day, ‘but God, but this make-believe man.’ OK bitch, like whatever,” Mattel said.

“Nobody is trying to indoctrinate people into drag,” Mattel insisted. “I don’t want more drag queens. In fact, I want most of them to stop.”

Yale School of Medicine researchers study ‘magic mushroom’ treatment for migraines

BY LISA CARBERG - 03/17/23 - THE HILL

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) – Could relief for migraines and cluster headaches come not just from pharmaceuticals, but nature as well?

The active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms is a compound called psilocybin. Instead of harnessing its psychedelic results, researchers at Yale School of Medicine tested very small doses of psilocybin on people with crippling headaches. Psilocybin also affects people’s serotonin levels.

“Over the next two weeks the likelihood of having a migraine attack was greatly reduced,” said Dr. Christopher Gottschalk, Professor at Yale School of Medicine.

Dr. Gottschalk said the small dosages resulted in patients having six fewer headaches a month, a big break for those who suffer.

Health Headlines: EPA proposes new standards to keep chemicals out of drinking water

Yale Physician Emmanuelle Shindler, the only researcher in the U.S. studying psychedelics on headache disorders, is leading the research.

One promising finding is that the study does not involve daily microdosing.

“You take two or three doses in a row spaced apart a few days and can then have complete cessation of further attacks,” said Dr. Gottschalk, who said the results should last for two weeks.

Dr. Gottschalk said the findings could be “a life-changing experience” for people who suffer from cluster headaches.

He said, unlike this mushroom research, current headache medications on the market are pills or injectables that can remain in the bloodstream for a month and can have side effects.

Research is early and an FDA-approved treatment could be years from approval, but it is some hope for relief.

“So all of this is tantalizing new information about ways that we could be treating headache disorders in the future,” Dr. Gottschalk said.

Researchers continue to conduct studies. Learn more here.

Yes, climate change influences atmospheric rivers

BY KAITLYN TRUDEAU, 

THE HILL

OPINION CONTRIBUTOR

 - 03/17/23 

People watch the high volume of storm rain water flowing downstream at the Los Angeles River in Los Angeles on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023. Storm-battered California got more wind, rain and snow on Saturday, raising flooding concerns, causing power outages and making travel dangerous. 

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Too often, we’re asking the wrong question about atmospheric rivers and climate change.

It’s understandable as Californians are bracing for the next system, watching footage of the Pajaro River levee break, wondering what fails next.

It’s not just Californians, either. Our atmospheric rivers don’t always stop at the Sierras. They can plow across the rest of the country, dumping more rain and snow when conditions are right, like they were earlier this week in the Northeast.

This year’s storms have seemed worse than many people remember, and the data back that up: This winter we’ve set new records for snowpack, rainfall intensity, snowfall. Weather is erratic and memories can be skewed, but clearly something is different. It’s natural to ask, “Is climate change causing all this?”

But the right question is, “How is climate change affecting all this?”

The answer is more straightforward than you might expect, but I want to start with some background.

I’m a Californian and a climatologist. Atmospheric rivers are nothing new here. Their scientific definition can sound technical, but they’re basically long, narrow bands of moisture that flow through the atmosphere, and they play a vital role in the health of a host of Western ecosystems. At lower elevations they replenish depleted soils, and at higher elevations they build up snowpack, which essentially stores water for delivery into the summer and fall. In some years, atmospheric rivers can account for 30 percent to 50 percent of total precipitation in the West.

Atmospheric rivers existed before carbon emissions began trapping heat and warming our planet, but their impact is different now: Simply put, climate change is making them worse.

First, their precipitation is more intense because climate change has warmed our atmosphere, which allows it to hold — and then release — more water.

For every Fahrenheit degree of warming, the atmosphere can store roughly 4 percent more moisture. Because carbon emissions have warmed our planet by nearly 2 degrees F, our atmosphere can store roughly 7 percent more moisture. Statistically, when it rains in a warmer world, it pours.

Second, increasingly in a warmer world, it rains more than it snows. That’s what we saw recently, when warmer storms brought rain, even at higher elevations. (That also made the fallen snow heavier, collapsing roofs around Lake Tahoe.)

Rain-instead-of-snow is already more common as winter temperatures trend higher across the country. When temperatures are low enough for snow, as they were across the Great Lakes earlier this winter, and across New England this week, it can snow a lot. Again, that’s the influence of climate change, making more moisture available to boost precipitation — which has been mostly rain in the East this year. Unlike the West, the story of 2023 in most eastern cities has been record warmth and barely any snow.

The first big problem with warmer atmospheric river systems in the West is flood risk, and we’re already seeing evacuations and massive losses directly caused by rain, with the potential for more coming early next week. That could place more stress on levees and dams.

Snowmelt from a storm that dumps rain at higher elevations would compound the risk, potentially overwhelming flood control structures that weren’t built for this much water. Our flood protections — as well as critical infrastructure, city planning and building codes — were designed for a cooler climate, with less intense rainfall and less violent shifting between extremes.

Catastrophic flood risk isn’t limited to a single storm, either. The last snowpack measurements of the year typically happen on April 1, because it’s near the annual peak. In many places, melting may have already started with this week’s storms, and a shift toward warmer, wetter weather may mean that the record-setting 2023 snowpack has already reached its peak depth. The transition to spring temperatures — which have also trended higher as the climate warms — would only accelerate the melting, sending immense volumes of water downhill for weeks.

The influence of climate change makes another wild swing more likely. Higher temperatures have been depleting the snowpack earlier in the season, reducing the water available to natural systems — as well as farms and cities — during the dry months. This year’s snowfall doesn’t mean we’ll buck that trend. Instead, after a fast thaw and devastating flood season, all the stored water in this historic year could be gone in a flash, leaving more drought in its wake — and then fire.

People logically assume that wet years mean lower fire risk, but when damp conditions supercharge spring blooms, and then give way to a hot, dry summer, the opposite can be true. New vegetation can turn into an abundance of fuel for wildfires.

As with atmospheric rivers, if someone asked whether climate change causes wildfires, they’d miss the point. Climate change influences all of these events. It makes extreme weather more intense and erratic. It amps up an array of risks. It makes disastrous outcomes more likely.

When it comes to these events, we need to ask questions that lead us to a better understanding of what to prepare for, and how to protect ourselves in a changing climate.

Kaitlyn Trudeau is a data analyst for Climate Central’s Climate Matters program. Her research includes analyzing atmospheric influences on western wildfire risk. She has a B.A. in physical geography from California State University, Sacramento and a M.S. in geography from the University of Nevada, Reno, where her research focused on climate change in the Arctic region.

U.S. ran secret probe into China's operations in Canada, new book alleges

Story by Alexander Panetta •

LONG READ

The United States ran a secret probe into national-security threats posed by Chinese overseas operations that drew alarming conclusions about Canada, alleges a new book co-authored by a former RCMP officer.

The book says the project, code-named Operation Dragon Lord, led to an unnerving takeaway: that Beijing's activities in Canada represented a security threat to the United States.

This investigation wasn't triggered by recent headlines. It happened in the 1990s. Yet it provides a window into current controversies, argues the soon-to-be-released book The Mosaic Effect: How the Chinese Communist Party Started a Hybrid War in America's Backyard.

The timeliness of that old episode will be underscored Monday when one of the key intelligence figures of the era testifies before a Canadian parliamentary committee.

In an interview with CBC News, Michel Juneau-Katsuya celebrated the public finally taking an interest in issues he and his U.S. intelligence colleagues warned about long ago.

"I say: 'Hallelujah'," said Juneau-Katsuya, former senior intelligence officer at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and chief of the spy agency's Asia-Pacific unit.

He will appear before a special committee of the House of Commons studying Canada-China relations amid a political furore over Chinese interference.

He was personally involved in some of the episodes recounted in The Mosaic Effect.

The book's authors argue that current headlines about Chinese interference in Canadian politics are but a mere snippet of a bigger story.

That bigger story, they say, was spelled out in detail years ago by intelligence officers in both Canada and the U.S. who tried, and failed, to draw policy-makers' attention.



Former CSIS Asia-Pacific Bureau Chief Michel-Juneau Katsuya testifies before Parliament on Monday. He says he wishes policy-makers had listened to his warnings in the 1990s.© CBC

U.S. probe allegedly sounded alarm about Canada

The intelligence officers warned of a tacit arrangement, allegedly struck between the Chinese government and criminal triads before Beijing regained control over Hong Kong in 1997.

In that arrangement, the criminals were left alone. In exchange, they provided services to the state, using their money and coercive power.

With money, the book says, they bought power — companies, especially high-tech firms with access to sensitive technology; and proximity to power through political donations.

The coercion isdirected especially at Chinese expats who run afoul of Beijing, similar to how pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong were allegedly beaten up by criminal triads.



Old intelligence reports accused Beijing of using criminal triads to do their dirty work outside mainland China. In one recent example, criminal groups are suspected of beating pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong, seen here in 2019.© Ming Ko/AP

"Canada was aware of these threats for 25 years and has allowed them to manifest," said Scott McGregor, a former military and RCMP intelligence official who co-authored The Mosaic Effect with B.C.-based journalist and filmmaker Ina Mitchell.

"The threats were significant enough to make [Canada's] largest trading partner in the world, [with an] undefended border, the United States, concerned that the threat is emanating from us.

"That's a pretty big thing to say."

Their book quotes a memo purportedly written within the U.S. Department of Justice in 1998; it describes a classified investigation led by that department, involving the CIA, National Security Agency, FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency, with input by partner agencies in Australia and Canada.

The five-page memo says the American probe examined this alleged alliance of convenience between Beijing and criminal groups.

It concludes with a statement that Canada, in particular, is cause for concern.

"The U.S. government can no longer tolerate such a threat emanating principally from within Canada's borders," it states.



Former RCMP and military intelligence official Scott McGregor, seen here during a trip to Washington, co-authored a book on Chinese hybrid warfare with B.C. journalist and filmmaker Ina Mitchell.© Alexander Panetta/CBC

CSIS veteran: 'I knew about it'

The memo expresses alarm over Beijing's influence over legitimate enterprise; it mentions, in a passing reference, the existence of FBI biographies for several Canadian business leaders from that era as well as a Canada-China business group.

CBC News obtained a copy of the purported 1998 memo from the book authors. It could not corroborate the authenticity of the document.

But it did get two intelligence officers from that era, one Canadian, Juneau-Katsuya, and one American, to confirm its substance: that U.S. intelligence agencies were sufficiently alarmed to be working on a wide-ranging investigation with international colleagues, as described.

When asked about the U.S. operation, Juneau-Katsuya said: "I knew about it."

He recalls exchanging information with U.S. colleagues about it.

U.S. officials were examining the above-mentioned issues and quickly realized Canadian colleagues shared common concerns, so they began working together, Juneau-Katsuya said.

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"We were all witnessing the same things," he said.


In the late 1990s, relations between Canada and the Chinese government were warm. Here, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is seen being scolded by China's Xi Jinping during a G20 summit in Bali last year.© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

A former senior intelligence analyst for the U.S. National Security Agency at the time said he would not vouch for the authenticity of the purported DOJ memo.

But John Schindler said, yes, American intelligence was absolutely concerned about Chinese activities in Canada and was probing the issue with Canadian colleagues.

He said those concerns spanned far beyond Canada.

Even in the United States, the Clinton administration was dealing with its own scandal involving a political donor who pleaded guilty to being instructed by a Chinese general to withdraw $300,000 and donate it to Bill Clinton's re-election campaign.


In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton was hit with a Chinese fundraising scandal. But Chinese interference remained a low priority, even in the U.S., as the country worked to build relations with a rising China. Here, Clinton is seen in 1999 with Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji during negotiations that led to China's acceptance in the World Trade Organization.© Reuters

Former CIA officer: 'Welcome to the party, Canada'

A former CIA official and expert on Chinese espionage tactics said several countries have been asleep to the negative effects of Beijing's influence operations.

"From my perspective it's like, 'Welcome to the party, Canada. You've woken up,'" said Nicholas Eftimiades.

"It's amazing it's gone on so long."

Eftimiades said the biggest victims are members of the Chinese diaspora, a point made in The Mosaic Effect, which has two forewords written by Chinese-Canadian and Hong Kong human-rights activists who argue that Chinese expats need public support.

Intelligence veterans from that era readily share their frustrations. They're frustrated politicians and policy-makers ignored their warnings in the name of maintaining good relations with a growing China which, they assumed, was liberalizing.

Juneau-Katsuya is one example. He was lead author of a provocative report for a joint CSIS-RCMP probe code-named Operation Sidewinder.

His project was scrapped by senior CSIS officials in 1997, much to the reported annoyance of the RCMP, and copies of his report were ordered destroyed.

But a surviving draft version was leaked and its claims resemble those in the purported U.S. memo from 1998.


Times have changed. Tensions with Beijing grew under the Trump presidency, and they've continued under U.S. President Joe Biden, who visits Ottawa next week.

© Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Former officials share frustrations about being ignored

Juneau-Katsuya wrote about the supposed non-aggression pact with triads before the 1997 Hong Kong handover, which Hong Kong police at the time are on the record complaining about.

He wrote that criminals were easily getting Canadian visas at Canada's high commission in Hong Kong under an investor program; that they transferred illicit money into Canada and laundered it; accrued influence by buying companies and donating to top political parties; and that they coordinated with Chinese intelligence in investing in high-tech industries to gain sensitive technology.

A review by a federal intelligence-review panel in 1999 criticized the report as sloppy and called its findings uncorroborated.

Juneau-Katsuya said he continues to stand by his findings all these years later. And he said the country would have been better off if policy-makers had listened back then.

"I knew about the repression in the [Chinese] community. I knew about the political interference taking place. I knew about agents of influence [working in government roles]," he said in an interview last week.



Members of Chinese communities in Hong Kong and Canada write that they are the biggest victims of Beijing's foreign interference.© Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

Garry Clement shared similar frustrations.

He was posted as an RCMP liaison officer at Canada's Hong Kong high commission in the early 1990s, in a career where he went on to become an RCMP superintendent and national director of the proceeds of crime division.

He said he heard from colleagues that criminals were abusing Canada's immigrant-investor program and the then-Royal Hong Kong Police had given up trying to alert Canada.

"Their position was: 'There's no point giving intelligence to Canadians.' Because we just ignored it," Clement said.

"Nothing was being done."

He said he kept writing memos back to Ottawa, about a half-dozen per week. His work fed into the Sidewinder report.

But he said nothing came of it.

Part of the problem at the time, he said, was that being a member of a criminal organization was not grounds for inadmissibility to Canada.

That's since changed. In subsequent years, successive Canadian governments also tightened political financing rules to make big-money and corporate donations, like those described in Sidewinder, illegal.

Yet, even in the 2010s, The Mosaic Effect co-author McGregor said he kept trying and failing to get officials in B.C. and Ottawa to take an interest in evidence he'd collected of massive amounts of drug cash being laundered by triads through provincial government-run casinos.

He'd started an integrated unit within the RCMP where police could use intelligence material for their cases, as happens more easily in the U.S.

The project was disbanded.

A Canadian case, cracked in the U.S.

That's why McGregor said he and his colleagues were delighted when a case crossed national borders, and his U.S. colleagues got involved in an investigation: they simply had more effective tools to make an arrest.

He cites a famous example involving a B.C.-based company that sold encrypted phones to criminals: the key arrest in the case, of a Canadian resident, was made while he was in Washington State, by U.S. authorities. Those American authorities decrypted his equipment and that led to a bombshell — criminal charges against the head of RCMP intelligence, Cameron Ortis, accused of leaking state secrets.

These intelligence veterans offer different suggestions for attacking the issues laid out in those long-ago memos.

They include a new racketeering statute in Canada, intelligence-sharing with police, a law against lying to police, ensuring money-laundering cases aren't thrown out of court because they take too long, a foreign-agents registry like the one Ottawa is studying, and an RCMP refocused on major crime instead of local policing.

Also, a public inquiry.

About that inquiry...

Juneau-Katsuya is scathing of anyone today still advising Prime Minister Justin Trudeau against one, for fear it might hurt the government: "Morons," he calls them.

He said every federal government dating back to the 1980s would be embarrassed by the details of a full public inquiry, saying there are numerous examples of connections between China's United Front Work Department and political officials and the bureaucracy, going back years.

He said both the national interest, and Trudeau, would be best served by ripping off that band-aid immediately and calling a probe.

As for whoever has been leaking allegations to the press about Chinese election interference and so-called police stations in Canada, Juneau-Katsuya says: "This whistleblower should receive the Order of Canada."

Chinese scientists hold out hope for silent Zhurong Mars rover

Story by Andrew Jones • Yesterday 

China's Mars rover may be stuck, but scientists using data from the mission are still hopeful that the vehicle can reactivate and explore once more.

A selfie taken by China's Zhurong Mars rover during the Tianwen-1 mission.

© China News Service

Zhurong, which is part of China's Tianwen 1 Mars mission, landed in Utopia Planitia in May 2021. The rover entered a dormant mode in May 2022, effectively allowing it to hibernate during winter in the planet's northern hemisphere.

It was supposed to autonomously resume activities in December last year, around the time of Mars' northern spring equinox, when temperatures and lighting conditions were more favorable for the solar-powered vehicle. That has not happened.

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However, Yi Xu, an associate professor at the Space Science Institute at Macau University of Science and Technology, told VICE World News that there may still be hope for Zhurong.

China has not commented on the status of Zhurong, but images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) prove the rover has remained stationary for a while.

The MRO images show that "it's covered by the sand and the dust, so it definitely hurts its ability to transform sunlight to electricity," Xu said.

"We have to wait, because now it's spring, and later, that'd be the summer season on Mars. Then it should receive more sunlight and the temperature also increases," Yi said. "When the battery is fully charged, then the rover or the instrument may operate again."

Zhurong has active means of cleaning its solar arrays, but its period of inactivity in an area prone to dust storms has apparently impacted its ability to generate electricity and retain heat. Zhurong does not have a radioisotope heater unit, like other rovers including China's Yutu moon explorers, but instead has a pair of "windows" allowing a chemical called n-undecane to store heat energy.

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The rover was expected to wake up autonomously when two conditions are met. These are key components reaching a temperature of greater than 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius) and energy generation of greater than 140 watts.

Xu is a co-author of a recent paper that used data from Zhurong's ground-penetrating radar to build a picture of the layers immediately below the Martian surface and reveal complex layering.

Whether or not Zhurong rises again, the mission already exceeded its planned lifetime of three Earth months. The rover has also, like its companion Tianwen 1 orbiter, completed its primary science goals.

Scientists Just Discovered a Molten Layer Below Earth's Surface

Story by Tim Newcomb • Yesterday 

Scientists found a molten layer about 100 miles under Earth’s surface. 

Here's what it actually does.

© RyanJLane - Getty Images

Scientists found a molten layer about 100 miles under Earth’s surface.

They believe this is a new layer of Earth’s interior found globally.

The discovery could help determine how tectonic plates move.

Scientists have found Hell on Earth. Well, more accurately: Hell in Earth.

In a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers from the University of Texas detected a layer of molten rock hidden under Earth’s tectonic plates, about 100 miles from the surface and exceeding 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the past, scientists believed molten melt existed in patches, but the new findings reveal the global extent of the molten layer and its relationship to plate tectonics. The layer is part of the asthenosphere, which sits under Earth’s tectonic plates in the upper mantle and gives needed topography, forming a relatively soft boundary that lets plates move through the mantle. Without the softness, Earth’s upper layers would be too rigid for tectonic plate movement.

“When we think about something melting, we intuitively think that the melt must play a big role in the material’s viscosity,” Junlin Hua, research lead from the University of Texas Jackson School of Geoscience, says in a news release. “But what we found is that even where the melt fraction is quite high, its effect on mantle flow is very minor.”

That means the heat and rock in the mantle have the influence on the motion of tectonic plates, giving less prominence to the molten layer. So even though Earth’s interior is largely solid, “over long periods of time, rocks can shift and flow like honey,” Hua says.

The melt layer doesn’t have any influence on plate tectonics. Instead, coauthor Thorsten Becker says the layer is more a byproduct of what is happening on Earth.

“Through this study, not only do we have a much better understanding of the internal dynamics of the planet,” co-author Esteban Gazel, of Cornell University, says in a news release, “but also the physical properties of a boundary layer that really is critical for everything, including life on Earth.”

Ozone pollution is linked with increased hospitalizations for cardiovascular disease

Peer-Reviewed Publication

EUROPEAN SOCIETY OF CARDIOLOGY

Sophia Antipolis, 10 March 2023:  The first evidence that exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO) ozone limit is associated with substantial increases in hospital admissions for heart attack, heart failure and stroke is published today in European Heart Journal, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).1 Even ozone levels below the WHO maximum were linked with worsened health.

 

“During this three-year study, ozone was responsible for an increasing proportion of admissions for cardiovascular disease as time progressed,” said study author Professor Shaowei Wu of Xi’an Jiaotong University, China. “It is believed that climate change, by creating atmospheric conditions favouring ozone formation, will continue to raise concentrations in many parts of the world. Our results indicate that older people are particularly vulnerable to the adverse cardiovascular effects of ozone, meaning that worsening ozone pollution with climate change and the rapid ageing of the global population may produce even greater risks of cardiovascular disease in the future.”

 

Ozone is a gas and the main air pollutant in photochemical smog. Ozone pollution is different to the ozone layer, which absorbs most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Ozone pollution is formed when other pollutants react in the presence of sunlight. These other pollutants are volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides which are emitted by motor vehicles, power plants, industrial boilers, refineries, chemical plants, and biomass and fossil fuel burning facilities. Previous studies have suggested that ozone pollution harms the heart and blood vessels, but there is limited and inconclusive evidence about its influence on the risk of cardiovascular disease.

 

This study examined the association between ambient ozone pollution and hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease. Data on daily hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease during 2015 to 2017 in 70 cities in China were collected from the two main national health insurance systems. During the study period, the two databases covered approximately 258 million people across the 70 cities, equivalent to more than 18% of China’s population. The types of cardiovascular disease included coronary heart disease, stroke and heart failure, plus subtypes such as angina, acute myocardial infarction, acute coronary syndrome, ischaemic stroke and haemorrhagic stroke.

 

Daily eight-hour maximum average concentrations of ozone, fine particulate matter (PM2.5), inhalable particles (PM10), sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide were obtained for each city from the China National Urban Air Quality Real-time Publishing Platform.2

 

During the study period, there were 6,444,441 hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease in the 70 cities and the average daily eight-hour maximum ozone concentration was 79.2 μg/m3. Exposure to ambient ozone was associated with increased hospital admissions for all cardiovascular diseases studied except haemorrhagic stroke, independent of other air pollutants. For example, each 10 μg/m3 rise in the two-day average eight-hour maximum ozone concentration was associated with a 0.40% increase in hospital admissions for stroke and 0.75% for acute myocardial infarction.3

 

Professor Wu said: “Although these increments look modest, it should be noted that ozone levels may surge to higher than 200 μg/m3 in summer, and these increases in hospitalisations would be amplified by more than 20 times to over 8% for stroke and 15% for acute myocardial infarction.”

 

The researchers also estimated the excessive admission risk for cardiovascular disease associated with ozone concentrations at or above the WHO air quality guideline (100 µg/m3) compared to levels below 70 μg/m3. Ozone levels below 70 μg/m3 are mostly naturally occurring and not due to human activity. Compared to two-day average eight-hour maximum concentrations below 70 μg/m3, levels of 100 µg/m3 or higher were associated with substantial increases in hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease, ranging from 3.38% for stroke to 6.52% for acute myocardial infarction. Nevertheless, lower concentrations of 70 to 99 µg/m3 (vs. below 70 μg/m3) were also linked with increases in hospital admissions, ranging from 2.26% for heart failure to 3.21% for coronary heart disease.

 

During 2015 to 2017, 3.42%, 3.74% and 3.02% of hospitalisations for coronary heart disease, heart failure and stroke, respectively, were attributable to ozone pollution. When each year was analysed separately, the proportions rose with time. For coronary heart disease, ozone was responsible for 109,400 of 3,194,577 admissions over three years. Professor Wu said: “This suggests that 109,400 coronary heart disease admissions could have been avoided if ozone concentrations were 0 µg/m3. This may be impossible to achieve given the presence of ozone from natural sources. However, we can conclude that considerable numbers of hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease could be avoided if levels were below 100 μg/m3, with further reductions at lower concentrations.”

 

In an accompanying editorial, Professor Thomas Münzel and co-authors said: “Projections for Europe suggest that ozone will play a more dominant role as a health risk factor in the future due to climate change with rising temperature and, accordingly, increasing photochemical formation of ozone. The strong link between climate change and air quality means that reducing emissions in the long term to tackle global warming will play a key role in alleviating ozone pollution and improving the air that we breathe.”4

 

ENDS

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JOURNAL

European Heart Journal

DOI

10.1093/eurheartj/ehad091 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Ozone pollution and hospital admissions for cardiovascular events

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

10-Mar-2023