Neighbors Don’t Want to be ‘Test Dummies’ For Biden’s Carbon Removal Hubs

Ari Natter
Wed, August 23, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Roishetta Ozane knows a thing or two about pollution.

Twelve petrochemical facilities surround the 38-year-old single Black mother’s house in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, often flaring harmful chemicals. Another facility is slated to rise nearby that Ozane worries about. But unlike the petrochemical ones, the new installation is supposed to help fight climate change — and the Biden administration is backing it as part of a $1.2 billion investment.

“Everyone was against any new project coming here,” Ozane said. “We don’t want to be test dummies to see if it will work.”

Despite her and others’ pleas, the Biden administration announced last week that Calcasieu Parish will be one of the first sites in the US to become a so-called direct air capture (DAC) hub. There, companies and researchers brought together by Battelle Memorial Institute will pilot technology to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it underground.

The local opposition on environmental justice grounds shows the challenges that lie ahead for the technology researchers say is needed to stave off the worst affects of climate change. It also represents a political problem for US President Joe Biden, who pledged on the campaign trail and as president that he would fight for marginalized low-income and minority communities.

Scientists have found the world will likely need to remove billions of tons of CO2 from the air annually by mid-century to limit global warming to 1.5C. It’s not that Ozane isn’t concerned with climate change; her home has been damaged by storms, including Hurricanes Laura and Delta that both struck in 2020.

But she said she’s skeptical nascent DAC technology — which currently removes a few thousand tons a year — will work as advertised. And she’s also concerned about a pipeline to transport CO2 to storage sites that would cut through a path less than two miles from her backyard, concerns that have been mirrored in other parts of the country.

She and others voiced their opposition during a tour with officials from the Energy Department and then later at a community meeting with approximately 50 locals in Calcasieu Parish, where about one in five live below the poverty line.

“They said they have a mandate from Congress to get these rolled out,” said Elida Castillo, characterizing what officials from the Energy Department, including Shalanda Baker, the agency’s director of economic impact and diversity, told her and other community members in a meeting after the awards were announced.

Read More: Growing Number of CO2 Pipelines Face Major Opposition in Midwest

Castillo, who serves as program director for Latino grassroots organizing program Chispa Texas, said she, like Ozane, is concerned another DAC hub that will be run by a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp. won’t trap CO2 as intended. She also said she didn’t have enough details about the project and the proposed community benefit program.

“They have known that community groups have major concerns with all projects of this nature,” said Castillo, who lives about 20 miles north of Corpus Christi, Texas. “We should be investing more in renewables.”

The Energy Department said its reviewers looked at the technical merit, plans for mitigating negative impacts and societal benefits when selecting the projects. The agency said its requiring “meaningful engagement with host communities and impacted workers” as part of a mandated community benefits plan for the DAC hubs.

“DOE acknowledges the real concerns related to the history of harm already inflicted on underserved communities and is working to ensure these selected projects deliver meaningful economic and public health benefits to already overburdened communities, avoid harm, and align with the President’s vision of an equitable clean energy future,” the department said in a statement.

In a statement, Battelle said it’s committed to “ongoing, two-way communication” with locals in the region and planned to “involve all stakeholders” as the project evolves.

Carbon removal is a critical component of Biden’s goal to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The administration estimates the US will need to remove, capture and store as much as 1.8 billion metric tons of CO2 annually to achieve its goal. It envisions the DAC hubs, funded using a portion of some $3.5 billion set aside for them in bipartisan infrastructure legislation, as the first of a national network of carbon removal projects. The administration aims for each hub to remove 1 million tons of carbon a year by the end of this decade.

“These hubs are going to help us prove out the potential of this game-changing technology so that others can follow in their footsteps,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters in announcing the funding. “This is Bidenomics in action, making smart investments in our industries, making smart investments in our workers, our communities to build America’s clean energy economy from the middle out and the bottom up.”

The Energy Department and award winners have promised to adhere to the administration’s Justice40 initiative to ensure benefits from the projects accrue in the communities they’re situated in. That includes creating thousands of estimated jobs as the hubs get built out.

But the technology is drawing opposition from the environmental justice community who say the DAC hubs conflict with Biden’s vow to improve and prioritize the lives of marginalized communities hit hardest by toxic pollution and climate change. They see the hubs as another example where the administration’s rhetoric doesn’t match its actions.

Among the community’s concerns is that billions are being spent on technology they say is unproven, both technologically and economically, but the promise of which could allow the oil and gas industry to continue business as usual. DAC would also do nothing to clean up particulate matter, benzene and other health-harming emissions associated with oil, gas and petrochemical production.

“It’s the fossil fuel industry introducing a new false solution that hasn’t been proven to work,” Yvette Arellano, executive director of Houston-based environmental justice group Fenceline Watch, said.

The funding for the Texas and Louisiana projects “represents, once again, the sacrifice of our communities along the Gulf Coast in the interest of the oil, gas, and petrochemical industry,” Fenceline Watch added in a statement.

Further distrust was sowed in the fact that the funding went to Occidental Petroleum, which has indicated DAC could provide a means to keep producing oil. The company has invested billions in the technology — including the $1.1 billion purchase of Canadian startup Carbon Engineering Ltd. just days after it won the Energy Department funding.

“We believe that our direct capture technology is going to be the technology that helps to preserve our industry over time,” Vicki Hollub, the company’s chief executive officer, said at an oil and gas conference earlier this year. “This gives our industry a license to continue to operate for the 60, 70, 80 years that I think it’s going to be very much needed.”

In a statement to Bloomberg, Hollub said the project by its subsidiary 1PointFive has a community benefits plan and would invest in local communities, including workforce development opportunities, educational initiatives and community engagement.

The opposition from local residents and the larger environmental justice community poses a major challenge for the Biden administration and backers of the new technology. The stakes are high, a failure would make the pathway to scaling DAC rapidly much harder. If the large hubs don’t find innovative ways to engage with the public or otherwise stumble, the results could hurt the industry’s long-term prospects — and potentially lead to more climate damage as a result.

The need to build trust with communities where DAC technology is deployed and the need to rapidly test and scale that technology are somewhat in opposition. That means all eyes in the industry will be on Louisiana and Texas in the coming years.

“I think one of the tough things about community engagement, environmental justice engagement, is that there’s going to be a lot of different sentiments and there are going to be some communities who want these projects and some who don’t,” said Giana Amador, executive director of the Carbon Removal Alliance, which represents companies such as Climeworks AG and Heirloom Carbon Technologies Inc., which are partners on the Louisiana project.

--With assistance from Michelle Ma and Kevin Crowley.

Did Putin kill Prigozhin? It's one of 3 possible explanations Russia watchers came up with for the deadly plane crash

Erin Snodgrass,Kelsey Vlamis
Wed, August 23, 2023 

Yevgeny Prigozhin was a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin before staging a failed mutiny against the Russian defense ministry in June 2023.Getty Images

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin is presumed dead after his plane crashed on Wednesday.

His apparent death comes two months after he staged a failed mutiny against the Russian military.

Security officials and Soviet experts believe Putin is likely behind Prigozhin's death.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the bombastic Wagner Group leader who led a short-lived uprising against Russia's defense ministry earlier this summer, is presumed dead after his business jet went down in a fiery crash outside of Moscow on Wednesday.

It was not immediately clear if Prigozhin was on the downed plane, though his name was on the flight manifest. Russian state media outlet TASS later appeared to confirm that Prigozhin and his second-in-command Dmitry Utkin, were among those dead, citing the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency.

Wagner-affiliated social media said Prigozhin was killed in the crash, blaming "traitors of Russia." The Russian defense ministry did not immediately comment on the matter.

Even as the immediate chaos of the situation dissipates and official statements are issued, few are likely to ever learn the full scope of the saga due to Russia's winding web of propaganda.

There is a chance this was an accident: but a warlord going rogue, stabbing his political benefactor in the back, so to speak, and then apparently dying in a freak plane crash seems like a bit of a stretch compared to some other alternatives.

Here are three possible explanations experts have put forward on what could have happened to Yevgeny Prigozhin based on what we know so far.

Scenario 1: Putin ordered Prigozhin's death

An assassination ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin represents the "best explanation" for Wednesday's catastrophic plane crash, Simon Miles, an assistant professor at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy and a historian of the Soviet Union and US-Soviet relations, told Insider.

Putin, a notoriously unforgiving leader, had plenty of reasons to want Prigozhin dead after the mercenary leader led a mutiny against Russia's defense ministry in June seeking to oust top-level officials after he spent months publicly criticizing the Russian military's strategy in Ukraine. The uprising was short-lived but nonetheless represented the most prominent threat to Putin's regime in decades.

"It's no surprise that Putin would take his revenge," Robert English, a professor at the University of Southern California who studies Russia, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe, told Insider. "In fact, we Putin-watchers have been expecting it, and today it happened — on exactly the two-month anniversary of the Wagner mutiny."

In the months since the attempted coup, international officials and academic experts alike have been predicting Prigozhin's death. CIA Director Bill Burns suggested just last month that Prigozhin was living on borrowed time.

Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin in happier times — a 2010 tour of a school lunch factory outside Saint Petersburg.

Alexey Druzhinin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images

"Putin is someone who generally thinks that revenge is a dish best served cold," Burns said at an annual security forum in Aspen. "In my experience, Putin is the ultimate apostle of payback so I would be surprised if Prigozhin escapes further retribution for this."

A seemingly uneasy truce emerged between Putin and Prigozhin after the uprising. Prigozhin was apparently exiled to Belarus for his role in the attempted coup, but seemed to spend much of the last two months traveling between St. Petersburg and Moscow, and even appeared to take a trip to Africa to visit his Wagner troops, Miles said.

Soon after the exile agreement was made public, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claimed he was the one who stopped Putin from "wiping out" Prigozhin immediately after the uprising, Reuters reported, indicating Putin's desire for blood may have been brewing for months.

In the aftermath of the plane crash, an undated interview clip of Putin circulated on social media highlighting the president's distaste for disloyalty such as Prigozhin's revolt, which Putin expressly called a "betrayal."

"Does one need to be able to forgive?" the interviewer asks Putin.

"Yes, but not everything," the president replies.

"What can't be forgiven?"

"Betrayal," Putin says without hesitation.



The Russian president has a long history of making his enemies "disappear." At least 14 individuals linked to Putin's government have died under violent or mysterious circumstances since he took the presidency.

Following the Wednesday plane crash, US President Joe Biden suggested Putin could be behind the crash in comments to reporters.

"I'd be careful what I rode in," he said. "There is not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind."
Scenario 2: Someone else ordered Prigozhin's assassination

Up until his ill-fated uprising, Prigozhin remained a close ally of Putin. The mercenary leader's grievances were exclusively directed at the Russian defense ministry — not the president himself.

It is not "inconceivable" that elements within the military who were on the receiving end of Prigozhin's abuse could have taken action against the Wagner leader without Putin's approval, Miles told Insider.

"It's very hard at this early stage to put together an explanation for what we've seen that does not involve some state assets being used to knock this plane out of the sky," Miles said. It's unclear at this point what specifically caused the plane to crash, though some Wagner-affiliated social media channels suggested it was shot down.

It's the military that has access to such capabilities, he said, adding that the level of command needed to launch such an attack within the Russian military is "very low."

Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin.Press service of "Concord"/Handout via REUTERS

This possibility could also account for Prigozhin's two months of seeming freedom following the coup, Miles said.

Why allow Prigozhin to live for weeks, flaunting his apparent immunity, if there were top-level plans to kill him, Miles posited. An immediate strike against Prigozhin would have sent a louder message and illustrated the immediate consequences awaiting traitors.

"He was running around basically unmolested since the coup attempt," Miles said of Prigozhin. It's possible members of the defense sector found that reality unacceptable, especially after members of the Russian armed forces were killed in his mutiny, and "decided to take matters into their own hands."

There is substantial evidence of dysfunction within the Russian government. Russia this week, for instance, fired Gen. Sergei Surovikin weeks after The New York Times reported he had advance knowledge of Prigozhin's mutinous plans, posing questions of whether the mercenary leader had help from within the military.

English, however, rejected the idea that someone within Putin's military would act without the president's explicit permission. But in ruling out a Russian defense perpetrator, English raised another potential culprit.

"Who else might want Prigozhin dead and have the capability to carry it out? Of course, the Ukrainians!" he told Insider.

Both English and Miles noted the "unnecessarily dramatic" and "aggressively public" manner of the plane crash — a stark departure from the mysterious deaths of other Putin foes from poison and falls out of windows.

"If so, it's a stroke of genius," English said of Ukraine's possible role in the incident. "Dramatically assassinate the killer of many Ukrainians. Pull off another brilliant strike inside Russia. Humiliate Putin. And all on the eve of Ukraine's independence day."
Scenario 3": Prigozhin is not dead

The most conspiracy theory-driven possibility of all is that the mercenary leader is not dead, and yet a Prigozhin fake death plot cannot be entirely ruled out, given the Wagner leader's affinity for disguises and doubles coupled with Russia's less-than-trustworthy media landscape.

Matthew Schmidt, an associate professor of national security and international affairs at the University of New Haven, said in comments shared with Insider that it is "prudent to be skeptical" of Russian government updates on the situation given "how Byzantine Russian politics is."

"People I know seriously argue it might not be the real Prigozhin," Schmidt said.

In the early hours following the plane crash, some on social media considered the possibility that Prigozhin had somehow faked his death, perhaps sending a double in his place.

A Pentagon official told The New York Times in July that Prigozhin was known to have used body doubles in the past, and photos of Prigozhin donning bizarre disguises were circulated by pro-Kremlin Telegram channels following his failed mutiny.

But the likelihood that Prigozhin managed to escape death seems to have lessened in the hours since the crash as more information becomes available and people turn to the most probable perpetrator: Putin.

Prigozhin’s jet crash ‘isn’t an accident’ and has hallmarks of FSB, say British security sources

Ben Riley-Smith
Wed, August 23, 2023

Prigozhin’s death was 'like some sort of Russian opera', said John Foreman, the former British defence attache in Moscow - AFP via Getty Images

British security sources believe that the shooting down of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private jet was carried out by the FSB intelligence agency on the orders of Vladimir Putin.

“Of course it’s Putin,” one source said.

“Putin as a leader cannot afford to be humiliated in the way that he was. Putin functions on two things: Loyalty above talent… and the consequence of betrayal”.

Another said: “All the mood music, all the habits, all the history point to the FSB.”

The source added: “The FSB remains loyal to Putin.”

Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, told the Telegraph that news of Prigozhin’s death was “unsurprising”.

“Most people will jump to the conclusion that this isn’t an accident,” he said.

‘Putin’s revenge’

“I’m sure it’ll be presented as an accident and there will be an element of doubt but everyone in the West will come to the same conclusion that this is Putin’s revenge on people who challenge his power base.”

He added: “We used to have a saying when I worked on the Soviet Union, which was that the wise line to take on Soviet Russia was that nothing happened by accident and one might apply that to this event.”

John Foreman, the British defence attache in Moscow from 2019 to 2022, told the Telegraph that Prigozhin’s death was “like some sort of Russian opera”.

“The timing is not accidental,” he said.

“Two months to the day Prigozhin had his march on Moscow, his mutiny, a few days later he’s dead. Mr Putin’s revenge has been served on Prigozhin. The speed with which the Russian system has acknowledged it strikes me as preorganisation has been going on.”

‘Only a question of time’

He added: “Putin is willing to take revenge against those who threaten him and sends a chilling effect to anyone who wants to come for him. It’s in the daytime, all over the media, anyone else thinking they would come for the tsar will think again. It shows the brutality and violence at the heart of the Russian regime, which is how he has stayed in power for so long.”

Orysia Lutsevych, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia programme and head of the Ukraine forum at Chatham House, said: “If Prigozhin is indeed dead, as claimed, it is a logical development that follows a failed mutiny against the Kremlin.

“After the revolt that challenged Putin’s narrative about the invasion of Ukraine and undermined his stronghold on power, it was only a question of time and mode of Prigozhin’s elimination.

“Alive, he was always a threat and a reminder that Putin is weak. It remains to be seen if Prigozhin’s supporters just swallow a bitter pill or further grow their ranks. In any case, the conflict within security and defence agencies of Russia will only deepen, as Ukraine’s summer and fall offensive further degrades Russian armed forces.

Biden admin shrugs at Prigozhin’s death as questions about Wagner’s future linger

Alexander Ward
Wed, August 23, 2023

AP Photo

While the news of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death stunned the world, the response within official Washington was a collective shrug.

Officials demurred from commenting on the circumstances of the downing of a flight with Prigozhin aboard, stressing instead that everyone knew this was the likely outcome of his failed mutiny against Moscow in June and that it doesn’t change the U.S. calculation on Russia or its war in Ukraine.

Asked during his vacation in Lake Tahoe if Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind the crash of Prigozhin’s private plane, carrying him and nine others, President Joe Biden said “there’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind, but I don’t know enough to know the answer.”

The Wagner Group chief, a once-close Putin confidant and a backer of coups and repressive governments around the world, had widely been considered a dead man walking ever since his June insurrection. Russia’s civil aviation agency confirmed Wednesday that Prigozhin was aboard the doomed aircraft.

Adrienne Watson, the National Security Council’s spokesperson, said before confirmation of Prigozhin’s demise that “no one should be surprised” by the initial reports. “The disastrous war in Ukraine led to a private army marching on Moscow, and now — it would seem — to this.”

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated Wednesday “no one should mourn Prigozhin’s death,” adding that it’s “another reminder of the brutality of the Putin regime, and why we must continue our support for Ukraine in its fight for freedom.”

So far, little seems to have shifted in terms of thinking or operations inside the administration. Officials seek more intelligence about what occurred, but ultimately they expect Putin to stay the course in Ukraine. Not having to contend with Prigozhin, who was openly critical of the Kremlin’s conduct of the invasion, could help Putin consolidate control and tamp down internal rivalries.

Experts warn that the administration will encounter a different Wagner Group now that Prigozhin is gone. “It’s the definitive end of Wagner as we knew it,” the RAND Corporation’s Samuel Charap summarized.

Charap and four other U.S.-based Russia watchers said in interviews that Moscow will likely let the mercenaries act with pseudo independence in Africa, likely under the leadership of a quieter figure.

“You don’t want to be well known because it makes you a threat to the regime,” said Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis.

Eric Green, who recently left the NSC as the top Russia specialist, said “it will be hard for Russia to project power in Africa as effectively without Prigozhin.” He added: “Prigozhin was an odious human being but he had managerial skills and a kind of charisma. That’s not easy to replicate.”

Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry will continue to bring some Wagner forces into the official military, perhaps deploying them as special forces in Ukraine or elsewhere, experts agreed.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Max Bergmann argues that removing Wagner’s beloved leader might backfire on Putin. “Decapitating Wagner — an effective tool for the Kremlin globally and in Ukraine — keeping incompetent loyalists in charge of the war, and removing effective generals will lead to growing frustration in the ranks, especially if there are more battlefield losses,” he said.

More tumult inside Russia’s ranks could further complicate Putin’s war on Ukraine, giving Kyiv a boost as its counteroffensive sputters and inspiring confidence in Ukraine’s Western backers to further pump arms into the fight.

In the immediate term, there “certainly is no effect on U.S. policy,” said Green.

The largest looming question is what Moscow will do with the more than 3,000 Wagner mercenaries in Belarus. They’ve been training Belarusian special forces near the Polish border, spooking the NATO country and Western powers. The mercenaries could come back to Russia to serve in the conventional military, but, if so, those who served alongside Prigozhin in the short-lived revolt will be met with skepticism.

Loyalty to Prigozhin is still on display in Russia. Images circulating online showed the windows of Wagner’s headquarters in St. Petersburg lit up in the shape of a cross.

Russian mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin's plane appeared fine on radar until last 30 seconds

Valerie Insinna and Allison Lampert
Wed, August 23, 2023

Plane crash in Tver region

(Reuters) - An Embraer Legacy 600 executive jet, believed to have carried Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to his death on Wednesday, showed no sign of problem until a precipitous drop in its final 30 seconds, according to flight-tracking data.

Rosaviatsia, Russia's aviation agency said Prigozhin, who led an aborted mutiny in June, was one of 10 people on board the downed plane. It was traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg when it crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Tver Region, Russia's emergency situations ministry said.

At 3:19 p.m. GMT, the aircraft made a “sudden downward vertical,” said Ian Petchenik of Flightradar24. Within about 30 seconds, the aircraft had plummeted more than 8,000 feet from its cruising altitude of 28,000 feet.

“Whatever happened, happened quickly,” Petchenik said.

“They may have been wrestling (with the aircraft) after whatever happened," Petchenik said. But prior to its dramatic drop, there was "no indication that there was anything wrong with this aircraft.”

Video showed the plane descending rapidly with its nose pointing almost straight downward and a plume of smoke or vapor behind it.

Russian investigators opened a criminal probe to determine what happened. Some unnamed sources told Russian media they believed the plane had been shot down by one or more surface-to-air missiles. Reuters could not confirm that.

Brazilian planemaker Embraer SA said it had not been providing any service or support in recent years to the plane, which seats around 13.

The company said in a statement it has complied with international sanctions imposed against Russia. The luxury jet was identified on Flightradar24 with registration RA-02795, the same as the plane that carried Prigozhin to Belarus after the mutiny, an industry source familiar with the matter said.

Online flight tracker Flightradar24 last recorded the position of the aircraft at 3:11 p.m. GMT, before the crash. Jamming or interference in the area probably slowed the collection of further location data.

Other data continued for nine minutes. Flightradar24 said the jet went thorough a series of ascents and descents of a few thousand feet each over 30 seconds before its final, disastrous plunge. Flightradar24 received its final data on the jet at 3:20 p.m.

(Reporting by Valerie Insinna in Washington, Allison Lampert in Montreal; additional reporting by Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo and Caroline Pulice in Mexico City; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Embraer jet model that crashed, reportedly carrying Prigozhin, had good safety record

Carolina Pulice and Gabriel Araujo
Updated Wed, August 23, 2023 

European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva

(Reuters) -The Embraer executive jet model that crashed in Russia, apparently with Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin onboard, has only recorded one accident in over 20 years of service, and that was not related to mechanical failure.

Russian authorities said Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet that crashed on Wednesday evening, killing all those onboard. Russia's TASS news agency said the plane was a Brazilian Embraer jet.

Embraer said it was aware of a plane crash in Russia involving a Legacy 600 aircraft, but it did not have further information about the case and had not been providing support services for the jet since 2019.

"Embraer has complied with international sanctions imposed on Russia," the planemaker said. Sanctions block Western planemakers from providing parts or support for planes operated in Russia.

Flightradar24 online tracker showed that the Embraer Legacy 600 (plane number RA-02795) said to be carrying Prigozhin had dropped off the radar at 6:11 p.m. local time (1511 GMT). An unverified video on social media showed a plane resembling a private jet falling out of the sky toward the earth.

The Legacy 600 entered service in 2002, according to International Aviation HQ, with almost 300 produced until production ceased in 2020.

There is only one recorded accident involving a Legacy 600, according to International Aviation HQ, which occurred in 2006 when it crashed mid-air into a Gol Boeing 737-800 on its way from the Embraer factory in Brazil to the United States.

Despite damage to the aircraft, the pilot landed the Embraer plane and there were no deaths or injuries. The Boeing commercial airliner was downed and all 154 passengers killed.

Two years later, a Brazilian air force report blamed two U.S. pilots, traffic controllers and faulty communications for the mid-air collision.

At the time, a lawyer for the pilots said individual air traffic controllers and flaws in Brazil's air traffic control system caused the accident.

(Additional reporting by Allison Lampert; Editing by Gabriel Stargardter and Stephen Coates)

The ‘silent genocide’ haunting Canada’s liberal dream

THE UK RIGHT DELIBERATELY CONFUSING liberal FOR THE LIBERAL PARTY

Sarah Green

THE TELEGRAPH
Wed, August 23, 2023 

Indigenous women are 16 times more likely to be murdered or missing than caucasian women - Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images


For more than a decade, Canada has successfully cultivated a pristine image of liberalism, progression and inclusivity, presenting itself as everything that its brash neighbour is not.

When Donald Trump built the wall, Justin Trudeau threw open his country’s doors to the world’s refugees. While Americans continue to grapple with relentless gun violence, Canadians have proactively tightened their firearms regulations. And where the US resists renewable energy, Canada has embraced all things green.

But scratch beneath this veneer and the nation’s darker side starts to surface.

Unbeknown to much of the world, a culture of extreme violence against indigenous women and girls – amounting to “genocide” in the government’s own words – has become deeply entrenched in Canadian society.

Researchers have reported that indigenous women are 16 times more likely to be murdered or missing than caucasian women, and are three times more likely to be sexually assaulted or raped.

Suicide rates are far higher for this group, too – at 35 deaths per 100,000 indigenous women, compared to 5 per 100,000 for non-indigenous women.

Even forced sterilisation – a procedure more commonly associated with the world’s poorest nations, and not developed Canada – is still practised in parts of the country, typically at the hands of white doctors.

Senator Yvonne Boyer says at least 12,000 women have been affected by forced sterilsation since the 1970s - Senate of Canada

There are no official statistics on how many indigenous women are still being sterilised against their will, but senator Yvonne Boyer, whose office is collecting the limited data available, says at least 12,000 women have been affected since the 1970s.

Although an awareness of the plight of indigenous women is beginning to grow in Canada, experts believe the full scale of suffering endured by this group has yet to be realised, with decades’ worth of crimes going unregistered by police.

Over the past several years, Dr Karine Duhamel has heard testimonies from more than 3,000 indigenous family members and survivors of violence, and served as an investigator in Canada’s National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, published in 2019.

“During the national inquiry, we became aware of numerous indigenous murder cases that weren’t on the police’s official list,” she says.

“If you add up all the cases where victims were misidentified or where families were too afraid to say the victim is indigenous, you start to see that in fact, the scope of this violence is actually much bigger than even we are able to document.”
‘I was ignored. I was alone’

It took Morningstar Mercredi four decades to realise that she had been sterilised against her will. After years of not being able to conceive, she first uncovered the truth during a gynaecologist appointment.

“I’m sitting on an examining table. The gynaecologist is looking at me,” Ms Mercredi recalls. “He tells me that I have scar tissue damage in my uterus, and my left ovary and fallopian tube have been removed.”

The specialist then went on to explain that in his professional career, he had never seen a damaged uterus like hers.

Ms Mercredi was only 14 years old when she was sterilised at Saskatoon City Hospital in Saskatchewan, central Canada. She underwent a non-consensual procedure while six months pregnant from rape after being admitted for spotting and cramping.

“I did not agree to the surgery that the doctor was adamant I should have. When I asked, ‘Why?’, I was ignored. I was alone, underage, and there was no one I could contact,” she says.

Weeks later, Mercredi was released from hospital with an incision from her panty line down to her belly button, and without her baby.

Morningstar Mercredi was only 14 years old when she was sterilised

Cases like this are not exceptional – nor as historic. Earlier this year, a Canadian doctor was sanctioned by authorities for removing an indigenous woman’s fallopian tubes without her consent in a standard surgery to relieve abdominal pain – despite objections from other medical staff during the procedure.

A Senate report published as recently as July 2022 concluded that forced sterilisation is not “confined to Canada’s distant past”, rather the practice is “ongoing” and is largely rooted in a racist strategy to “subjugate and eliminate indigenous peoples”.

Four years before that, the UN Committee Against Torture told Canada it was concerned about persistent reports of forced sterilisation, saying all allegations should be investigated and those responsible should be held accountable.

Many of these reports follow a typical pattern, with doctors taking advantage of indigenous women during surgical procedures or in the aftermath of labour. Victims who have come forward in recent years detail accounts of doctors telling them that they could not see their newborn until they agreed to a sterilisation procedure.

“I’ve been screaming my head off about forced sterilisation for years. My question is, ‘Why don’t people give a damn?’’’ says Senator Boyer. “We’ve collected hundreds and thousands of stories documenting this horrific practice. It’s undeniable that this is still occurring.”
Canada’s dark colonial past

Experts say the practice – and wider mistreatment of Canada’s indigenous women – stems from the country’s colonial past and its eugenics movement, which attempted to control the reproduction of “inferior” persons.

Both Alberta and British Columbia passed Sexual Sterilisation Acts in the 1920s and 1930s, permitting surgical procedures to be imposed on minorities without their consent. These laws were repealed in the 1970s – yet the attitudes remain.

“So much of what’s still happening today is based on an underlying set of values that maintain that indigenous women and girls are somehow less deserving of basic human rights and of safety than everyone else,” says Senator Boyer.

“It’s baffling that our country has such a sterling reputation for human rights because indigenous women have always been exploited and treated as worthless.”

As such, very rarely do cases of violence against indigenous women and girls make the headlines, and when they do, they detail grave tales of discrimination and a lack of accountability within Canada’s justice system.

Dr Duhamel highlights a recent case in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where police are refusing to search a landfill for the remains of two indigenous women who were murdered by an alleged serial killer. The suspect, Jeremy Skibicki, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder, yet authorities stand by their decision not to fund the search, citing safety risks.

“The longer the government waits, the less likely those women will be identified,” says Dr Duhamel. “I dread to think, ‘What if these women were non-indigenous?’ The search would already be happening.”
Perpetuating cycle

This sense of institutional indifference allows perpetrators in Canada to continue to target this group with limited fear of detection, prosecution, and penalty – and so the cycle continues.

As many as 4,000 indigenous women and girls are believed to have been killed or gone missing in Canada over the past 30 years, despite making up less than 5 per cent of the total population. Every death is a tragedy, and these disproportionate figures point to an epidemic in violence that has gone largely unaddressed by authorities.

The “Highway of Tears” is just one example. This infamous 450-mile stretch of road in British Columbia has become synonymous with the deaths and disappearances of indigenous women, dozens of whom have been found murdered along this corridor since the 1950s. Yet more than 50 cases remain open, in a trend that is repeated across the country.

Red dresses have come to signify the disproportionate number of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls - AMBER BRACKEN

According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada, nearly half of murder cases involving indigenous women and girls in their database have yet to be solved. Only 53 per cent of these have led to charges of homicide, which is much lower than the national clearance rate of 84 per cent.

“I’ve heard from family members who have been travelling from one end of the country to another, with stickers on their cars, trying to raise awareness about their missing loved ones,” says Dr Duhamel. “They haven’t been at this for two weeks or two months, they’ve been at it for 20 years. 30 years. 40 years. And they’re still waiting.”
The institutional failings

It’s been decades since advocates began raising the alarm about this crisis, eight years since the federal government launched a national inquiry, and four years since Canada’s national inquiry on the matter released its final report.

In this publication, Dr Duhamel and other experts outlined 231 “Calls to Justice”, a series of actionable steps directed at all levels of government and society to end and redress this genocide. Yet very few have been put into action – a source of “national shame,” say advocates.

Instead, “the government keeps trying to put band-aids on gaping wounds,” says Dr Duhamel.

The persistence of forced sterilisation demonstrates this. Rather than seeking to tackle the practice, says Senator Boyer, the government is simply “giving money to somebody who says, ‘Let’s create a cartoon with some indigenous characters to raise awareness about forced sterilisation. My job is done now’.”

But despite the scale of Canada’s genocide, as acknowledged by the 2019 national inquiry, there have been some recent signs of progress.

A participant of the annual Red Dress Day march, hosted by Project REDress, commemorating the lives of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls across Canada

 - Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In the Senate’s report, The Scars that We Carry, Ms Mercredi and numerous other witnesses publicly shared their experience as survivors of forced sterilisation for the first time.

Since then, the government has officially recognised the 13 recommendations that were put forward, including Bill S-250, which will make the practice a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison, if it passes through parliament.

Indigenous women are increasingly raising their voices in the public domain, too, leading discussions about how to address Canada’s silent genocide and making clear they are no longer willing to accept lesser lives.

“I’ve taken my power back,” says Ms Mercredi. “Not only have I been heard for the first time, I’ve been validated and embraced by warrior women who have endured something similar to me.

“I’ve been able to recognise the scope and atrocity of the violence that was done to my body, as well as the degree that I was forced to compartmentalise my trauma. This has begun my healing process.”

China’s LGFV Insiders Say $9 Trillion Debt Problem Is Worsening

Bloomberg News
Wed, August 23, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- China is attempting to diffuse risks from its $9 trillion pile of off balance-sheet local government debt, without resorting to major bailouts.

That path forward is a treacherous one for President Xi Jinping’s government. To thread the needle, the provinces and cities whose borrowing drove the world’s largest infrastructure boom will need to roll back their spending and restructure debt — all without drastically dragging down economic growth. If they fail, it could thrust the world’s second-biggest economy into a prolonged malaise.

At the center of this dilemma are local government financing vehicles, companies set up across China to borrow on behalf of provinces and cities but not explicitly in their name. Xi’s government has sought to turn these firms into profitable businesses so they’d no longer need government money to pay the interest on their debts.

But interviews with employees at six such firms in separate provinces suggest the effort isn’t working in poorer inland regions.

Several companies haven’t been able to generate enough income to pay interest on loans. Banks are unwilling to lend, investors are shunning their bonds, bonuses are being cut and it’s becoming harder to find viable investment projects, the employees said, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of discussing government finances publicly.

If the central government avoids a bailout, the burden of repayment will fall increasingly on local governments or on banks tasked with lowering interest rates and extending maturities on the debt. Both options will limit the capacity of local governments and banks to support economic growth.

It’s a worry for investors, as well, since any default on LGFVs $2 trillion of bonds — which account for nearly half the country’s onshore corporate debt market — would destabilize China’s $60 trillion financial system, producing global shockwaves.

“The most important variable impacting China’s economic growth over the next two years will be the success or failure of local government debt restructuring,” said Logan Wright, director of China markets research at Rhodium Group. “A collapse in local government investment would be comparable to the economic impact of the crisis in the property market.”


China’s Ministry of Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s economic planning agency, didn’t respond to questions on the matter.

The Communist Party’s Politburo hinted in July at steps to resolve the debt risks, and Beijing now appears to be following through. It’s allowing Chinese provinces to raise about 1 trillion yuan ($137 billion) from bond sales, which can be used to pay-off LGFV debt, according to people familiar with the matter.

While that’s a fraction of all LGFV debt — the International Monetary Fund estimates a total of 66 trillion yuan this year — the move has increased market confidence in the companies’ bonds. Beijing is also considering using the central bank to provide liquidity to the most-strained LGFVs, local media Caixin reported.

But these fixes were not Beijing’s first choice. It set in motion a plan before the pandemic to inject state-owned assets into the companies and permit them to enter new business areas to generate enough cash to service debt on their own. This was known as the “market-oriented transformation” model.

An example from a mountainous district in southwest Chongqing shows how that plan is falling short. A local government-owned company there borrowed billions of yuan to build roads, water pipes, factory buildings, and affordable housing. It transformed a former mining area into a development zone for factories, which converts coal into chemicals.

Economic output in the zone increased fourfold in just over a decade. Like other LGFVs, the infrastructure built was provided for free or very cheaply to the public and businesses as part of their responsibility to promote “public welfare” and economic growth.

To make the LGFV more financially self-sufficient, the local government in Chongqing gave the company a license to sell coal to factories. But profit from that business wasn’t enough to cover the company’s interest payments. As a result, the most recent reports show the company’s short-term debt is six times its cash on hand.

“We are indeed talking about transformation,” said an employee who works at the company in Chongqing. “But to be honest, so far we have not found out any good path to transformation yet.”

China has thousands of these LGFVs spread out across the country, businesses that were set up to develop local economies. Last year alone, they pumped more than 5 trillion yuan into the economy, according to a tally from Rhodium Group.

The companies rely on local governments for income, in the form of payments for infrastructure and pure subsidies. They also borrow from banks and by selling bonds, which are generally seen as carrying an implicit government guarantee of repayment.

That was fine so long as banks were willing to roll over the company’s debt when it was due, and so long as the economy was growing fast enough that the local government made enough revenue to pay subsidies to the company.

But that funding model is now under unprecedented strain. Firstly, a record amount of LGFV debt is maturing. Secondly, local governments, especially in poorer areas, are seeing revenues drop due to a two-year slump in home sales.

And thirdly, banks and investors have become less convinced Beijing will bail out some LGFVs if they go bust, pushing up the interest rates on bonds and loans, and making it harder for weaker companies to access financing.

Beijing’s plan was to make LGFVs more self-sufficient by injecting state-owned assets — ranging from hotels to mines and tourist sights and even utilities like electricity, water and gas — and giving them permission to move into new business areas.

That’s worked in some wealthy areas like Shanghai, but China’s poorer areas – the vast inland provinces where about half of the population lives – often lack the resources needed to make it work.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates that by 2022, the median LGFV had cash on hand worth less than half short-term debt.

Market forces are only adding to the problems. Since Beijing began hinting pre-pandemic that it wouldn’t help local governments with bailouts, bond buyers are demanding LGFVs in poorer areas issue debt at higher interest rates or shorter maturities – increasing debt service costs and refinancing pressures.

Some regions have been frozen out of the bond market entirely.

“We’re in a total mess right now — no one would like to buy our bonds,” said an accountant surnamed Yang, who works at a LGFV in western China. Salary levels at the company have been frozen since 2016, and staff are leaving, she added.

An employee at a separate LGFV said banks are demanding interest rates of nearly 10% for refinancing.

Cutting staff salaries hurts local economies, but a drop in LGFVs other expenses would have national consequences. Various estimates from economists suggest the companies fund anything from a fifth to more than half of China’s total infrastructure spending.

LGFVs are already missing payments at record rates on bills owed to construction companies and shadow banks, leaving projects unfinished and investors without returns.

Moutai Tensions

Even in places where local governments have valuable assets, politics can stand in the way of using them.

For example, Guizhou province is home to some of the country’s most financially strained LGFVs, yet owns the country’s second-largest company by market value: liquor producer Kweichow Moutai Co., worth about 2.23 trillion yuan. The company was pressured into buying a stake in a local road-building LGFV when it ran into financial trouble in 2020. Moutai shareholders, which include investment funds and retail investors, were not happy, and have resisted further cash injections.

As a result of these struggles, some asset additions by local governments were purely cosmetic.

“We have bus companies, heat, water, sanitation companies as our subsidiaries nominally, but we don’t have actual control of them,” said Yang. “We have been talking about transformation for like 10 years, but it is not happening,” she added.

Toll Roads

One good asset available to local governments are highways, which can charge tolls. LGFVs involved in that business have a chance of achieving debt-sufficiency.

For example, a toll road operator in southwest China generates enough cash from tolls to service its current debt. Salary payment hadn’t been a problem, said a staffer in the company’s investment and financing department.

But the problem is that now the company has built a lot of roads, additional ones aren’t generating good returns. So to fund new investments, the company is pursuing a partial transformation into a private equity and venture capital fund.

Thanks to their government ownership, LGFVs can borrow more cheaply than most private companies or start-ups can. For example, LGFVs in Hefei, the capital of eastern Anhui province, have become famous in China for making returns worth many multiples of their equity investments into electric vehicle and LCD-screen manufacturers.

But, like the other options, it isn’t a model that can work easily for economically disadvantaged regions.

“It’s difficult to find good projects to invest in because the real economy isn’t doing well,” the road company staffer said.

To ensure infrastructure investment in poorer regions won’t collapse, Beijing has been allowing local governments to sell so-called “special purpose” bonds — 3.8 trillion yuan of them this year to build roads, railways and bridges. The issuance of those bonds, though, isn’t growing fast enough to make up for a fall in LGFV borrowing.

Local government officials don’t want to have their careers ruined by having their LGFVs default on bonds, so they continue to rustle up cash, sometimes at the last minute, to help them service their debt. That leaves them with less money to spend on infrastructure spending.

As a result, economists are expecting infrastructure investment in water, roads and other low-return projects to slow over the next decade, lowering Chinese growth.

According to one former LGFV executive, the future is clear: “The historical mission of LGFVs to invest in pure public welfare infrastructure projects has come to an end.”

--With assistance from Shuqin Ding and Alice Huang.

Labor Union Turns Up Heat in Battle Over Sale of US Steel

Joe Deaux
Wed, August 23, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- In a scathing letter sent by United Steelworkers to its members at United States Steel Corp., the president of the labor group said the company doesn’t prioritize its union workforce and accused it of betrayal.

In the letter seen by Bloomberg, USW President Tom Conway said workers cannot rely on management to put their interests first. “That’s why the contract we negotiated with US Steel contains strong protections that apply in this very circumstance,” he wrote.

The union plays a pivotal part in any transaction involving the sale of US Steel mills or assets where the steelworkers are employed, and the USW has been vocal about its exclusive support of Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.’s $7.3 billion bid to buy the Pittsburgh-based producer.

If US Steel is presented with a “bona fide offer,” the company will provide the union the earliest practical notification and grant it “the right to organize a transaction to purchase the assets,” according to a labor contract signed last year.

Conway last week advised US Steel and Cliffs that the union would transfer its legal right to Cliffs to launch a counteroffer for US Steel. Conway said in an interview last week that if Cliffs’ USW-assigned bid were to succeed, Cliffs would become owner of US Steel, not the union. The USW won’t become owners unless they’ve specifically formed an employee-ownership structure, Conway said, something they won’t be doing.

Read More: US Steel, Cliffs Spar Over Union’s Rights in Dueling SEC Filings

Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves in 2019 and 2020 acquired AK Steel and ArcelorMittal USA assets, all of which had a heavy USW workforce presence. Goncalves famously kept all those jobs, promising not to close steel mills. It was a stark contrast from competitor US Steel which idled various assets over the years that resulted in union job cuts.

Conway in his letter pointed to US Steel scrapping an investment in the Mon Valley facility just outside Pittsburgh, and the company’s continuing effort to sell its blast furnace at Granite City to outsource production of pig iron instead of rebuilding the furnace for its own operations.

“It betrayed workers in the Mon Valley by cancelling the $1.2 billion investment,” Conway said in the letter. “Instead, US Steel purchased non-union Big River Steel for $1.5 billion and in 2022 began construction of a $3 billion state-of-the-art mini-mill at the non-union plant.”


“None of this preserves USW jobs or invests in our plants or communities.” Conway wrote. “We know we cannot rely on management to put workers’ interests first.”

US Steel representatives weren’t immediately available for comment.

'Dark Brandon' Takes Over Fox News' Homepage on Day of Republican Debates: 'I'm Bringing Roe Back' (Exclusive)

Kyler Alvord
Wed, August 23, 2023 


President Joe Biden's 2024 reelection campaign is flooding Milwaukee — and FoxNews.com — with a pro-choice message from the president's satirical alter-ego

"Dark Brandon," President Joe Biden's satirical alter-ego, is making a bold appearance on the day of the first 2024 Republican debate — not only on billboards in Milwaukee, where eight GOP candidates are set to take the stage on Wednesday evening, but in digital ads plastering the homepage of FoxNews.com.

From midnight on Wednesday until 11:59 p.m., the internet meme-turned-campaign tool is taking over Fox News' website with pro-choice ads touting Biden's mission to defend abortion rights, one year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Related: Who Is Dark Brandon? Understanding Joe Biden's 'No Malarkey' Alter-Ego

For Biden's 2024 reelection team, the unexpected ad campaign — not only reclaiming an antagonistic character, but doing so on a conservative news site — was a no-brainer.

Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager for Biden's 2024 campaign and former director of digital strategy in Biden's White House, tells PEOPLE that Fox News' website is prime real estate for a campaign ad since the network is hosting Wednesday's debate. And, perhaps more importantly, "it's a surprising place for the president to show up."

"I think it fits both the president's ethos of going everywhere and not writing off any voters," Flaherty says. "It also speaks to the sort of strided, swaggy Dark Brandon personality of, 'Yeah, we're going to go on Fox News and talk about protecting and restoring Roe.'"



Biden for PresidentOne of four "Dark Brandon" ads that went up on the day of the first 2024 Republican presidential debate

The new Dark Brandon campaign doesn't only touch on abortion rights, though that's the one that was selected to appear on Fox News. Three other versions of the ad will pop up on billboards in Milwaukee Wednesday, each hitting on an issue that Americans overwhelmingly support, but the Republican Party opposes.

One ad reads, "Get on board, folks. We're lowering prescription drug costs." Another reads, "Social Security cuts? Try me." And the final reads, "Tax cuts for yacht owners? Good luck with that, champ."

"These are places where we see an effective contrast between ... the president and the entirety of the Republican field," Flaherty says of the issues featured in the ads.

Related: President Biden Vows to Codify Abortion Rights if Voters Install Democratic Majorities in Congress

Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz 

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at 

the White House

White House officials first embraced Dark Brandon around this time last year, when staffers like Flaherty and deputy press secretary Andrew Bates posted images of the cartoonized president on Twitter, now known as X.

At the time, Biden was riding an administration high after steering major pieces of legislation through Congress, and his tone toward Republicans was getting feistier. A couple of buzzy moments — like when the official White House Twitter account called out GOP lawmakers who opposed student loan forgiveness — fueled the rise of the Dark Brandon meme among Biden-supporting social media users.

"Our supporters started using [Dark Brandon] as a way to talk about how the president was kicking ass," Flaherty tells PEOPLE. "The underlying message is exactly what we want — the implication that Joe Biden is brutally effective at accomplishing things for the American people and getting obstacles out of his way, which is one of the core components of the campaign."

Dark Brandon has already been fashioned onto Biden 2024 merchandise, and products featuring the design now account for 44% of the campaign store's orders and 54% of its revenue, according to a campaign official.

"Dark Brandon has been a really resonant thing with our grassroots supporters," Flaherty says, noting that it's a "fun" and "joyous" representation of the president's mission.

But as for whether Dark Brandon will make any other surprise appearances before the 2024 election, Flaherty stays mum: "Only Dark Brandon knows where he'll appear."

Biden's campaign is plastering 'Dark Brandon' ads across Fox News' website and the city of Milwaukee on the day of the first GOP presidential debate

Madison Hall
Wed, August 23, 2023 



A Biden campaign ad found on Fox News' website on August 23, 2023.Insider/

Joe Biden's campaign plastered "Dark Brandon" memes across Fox News' website and Milwaukee.


The ads went up on Wednesday, the day of the first GOP presidential debate.


In 2022, Insider reported that Capitol Hill Democrats are embracing the "Dark Brandon" meme.

The day of the first GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, President Joe Biden's campaign plastered the "Dark Brandon" meme on Fox News' website and on billboards across the city.

First reported by People, Biden's campaign told the publication it would be hosting a pro-abortion rights campaign message with the president's face on Fox News' website (which is hosting a live stream of the debate) until just before midnight Wednesday.



This isn't the first time Biden has embraced the "Dark Brandon" meme — a combination of the anti-Biden "Let's Go Brandon" slogan and the popular "Dark MAGA" movement. In late 2022, members of his administration shared the meme several times across social media, with one saying, "Dark Brandon is crushing it."

Firmly sitting in the lead in GOP primary polling, former President Donald Trump recently confirmed he will not attend the debate on Wednesday. Instead, he'll appear in a pre-recorded interview airing at the same time with former television host Tucker Carlson.

While Trump won't be in Milwaukee, the Republican National Committee invited eight other GOP candidates to the debate who met its polling and donor requirements: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, and former Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Nikki Haley of South Carolina.

Despite loaning nearly $10 million of his own money on his campaign to qualify for the debate stage, CNN reported on Wednesday that Burgum may not be able to make it after suffering a last-minute injury while playing pickup basketball.

THANKS HILARY

Heavy rain helps douse wildfires in Canada's British Columbia

Associated Press
Wed, August 23, 2023

Thick smoke from wildfires burning in the area hangs in the air as motorists travel on the Trans-Canada Highway east of Kamloops, British Columbia, on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.

 (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP) 


KELOWNA, British Columbia (AP) — Firefighters in a scenic region of British Columbia said Wednesday that heavy rain overnight helped douse wildfires that forced the evacuation of thousands of people from the Canadian province, as the cost of the devastating fires became clearer.

Officials in southern British Columbia said 174 properties were partially or totally damaged by the fires that raged for days in the Okanagan Valley threatening towns in the Kelowna area, a summer destination about 90 miles (150 kilometers) north of the U.S. border.

“Things are looking good,” West Kelowna fire Chief Jason Brolund said.

“It rained last night and that’s a very positive sign. We had about an hour of rain. That combined with cooler temperatures and increased humidity is going to be a boost,” he said.

Brolund said a total of 84 properties were partially or totally damaged in West Kelowna and the Westbank First Nation.

Fire Chief Ross Kotscherofski of the North Westside fire rescue department said his region had “received rain, and a lot of it,” and it will help with “mopping up” fires on the east side of the lake.

Kotscherofski said 90 properties in his firefighting region were damaged or destroyed, although some, including the Lake Okanagan Resort, consist of multiple structures.

About 27,000 people in British Columbia have been under evacuation orders, with 35,000 more under alert to be ready to evacuate on short notice.

To the north, in Northwest Territories, the mayor of Yellowknife said late Tuesday it’s not safe for residents to go home to the territorial capital, but she notes city officials are working on a return plan. A fire continued to burn about 15 kilometers (nine miles) away from the city. Most of the 20,000 residents left by air or road late last week.

Canada has seen a record number of wildfires this year that have caused choking smoke in parts of the U.S.

Niger observers link coup to president’s support for EU migration policies


Zeinab Mohammed Salih
Wed, 23 August 2023 


Observers have linked Mohamed Bazoum’s support for European Union policies aimed at stifling migration routes through north Africa to his ousting as president of Niger last month.

Army officers toppled Bazoum on 26 July, as Niger became the fourth west African country since 2020 to have a coup, following Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali.

Domestically, Bazoum had been closely associated with a law against people smuggling that was brought in by Niger’s government with the support of EU authorities in 2015, at the height of the European refugee crisis.


Under the terms of a deal struck with EU leaders, Niger – one of the poorest countries in the world and a transit point for people heading for Libya and then southern Europe – received aid money in return for blocking routes north.

Bazoum became interior minister in 2016, the same year the law was implemented. The legislation became known as the “Bazoum law”. In 2021, he was feted by the international community including the former colonial power France after winning elections that ushered in Niger’s first peaceful transition of power.

The legislation was opposed by figures in the Nigerien military who had previously benefitted financially from bribes paid by people smugglers and those being smuggled.

People sit on the back of pickup trucks, as they leave the outskirts of Agadez, Niger, for Libya 

Photograph: Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images

Alkontchy Mohamed, a community leader in Agadez – a desert city through which thousands of people used to pass – said everyone related to the people-smuggling industry had been affected by the law. “The army officers who used to stand on the checkpoints, the people who drove the migrants, the people who would take migrants into Libya – the whole population used to depend on this business,” he said.

On Sunday, people from the Tuareg and Toubou communities protested in front of the offices of the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR to call for the law to be repealed.

The reasons the army launched a coup were many, according to a university professor in the Nigerien capital, Niamey, who did not want to be identified. “Among them was the impact of their loss of revenues from illegal migration, but also the fact that Bazoum comes from a minority group in Niger.”

Jérôme Tubiana, a French researcher and journalist who has covered conflict and displacement issues across the Sahel region and Horn of Africa, said the EU had ignored warnings that its Niger policy could undermine democratic progress in the country.

“Much like in Sudan, EU countries like Italy and Germany were not listening to warnings of the destabilising effects of the migration policy, they were just obsessed with [reducing] migration,” Tubiana said.

“Now, I’m afraid that within the French establishment voices who believe Africa is not ripe for civilian democracy will rise again, since they see that armies are turning against France only when France supports civilian democracies.”

The coup has heightened international worries over instability in the Sahel region, which faces growing jihadist insurgencies linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

On Monday, a representative of the west Africa bloc Ecowas described a call by the coup leaders for a three-year transition back to democracy as unacceptable.

Ecowas has agreed to activate a “standby force” as a last resort to restore democracy in Niger and has said it is ready to act, though it is still pursuing diplomacy. But the regional bloc has given no date for or details about any potential military intervention.

Majority of Scots support introduction of carbon land tax on large estates

Ross Hunter
Wed, 23 August 2023

It is hoped the tax would lead to landowners choosing to protect areas which sequester large amounts of carbon, including peatlands

A MAJORITY of Scots support the introduction of a carbon emissions tax on Scotland’s biggest estates, according to a new poll.

Last month, a range of community groups, trade unions, charities and businesses backed proposals from wild places charity the John Muir Trust calling on the Scottish Government to introduce a world-leading tax for greenhouse gas emissions on landholdings over 1000 hectares in Scotland.

The tax was proposed as a way of encouraging large landowners to manage their properties in a manner which realises the potential of their land to sequester carbon and making them pay for failing to do so.

Now, a poll commissioned by the John Muir Trust has found that a majority of Scots are in favour of the tax.

It found that 64% of those surveyed supported the introduction of a carbon land tax on Scotland’s biggest landholdings, with just 14% opposed to the proposal.

Voters from all parties backed the policy. Even among Tories support for the tax outnumbered opposition.

Mike Daniels, head of policy for the John Muir Trust, said: “Much of Scotland’s land, especially in the mountains and uplands, is failing to pull its weight in helping the nation deliver climate and biodiversity targets. The Scottish Government is now trying to address this huge gap. We applaud these efforts.

“This YouGov poll should give confidence to politicians to act boldly. There is clearly a great public appetite for using fiscal measures to compel big landowners to face up to their responsibilities and manage their land in the wider public interest.

"This level of support gives the Scottish Government the mandate required to legislate for a new Carbon Emissions Land Tax.”

The poll also found overwhelming support for landowners to take responsibility for improving nature and minimising climate damage.

Almost 80% of voters agreed that “landowners who produce polluting greenhouse gases should have to pay for any costs resulting from it”.

So far, organisations such as Oxfam, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland have lent their support to the proposal.

Under the John Muir Trust’s plans, revenue from the scheme would be retained by local councils, who would also be given the power to introduce the tax in the first place.

The trust would like to see the money generated ringfenced for spending on projects which contribute to climate and biodiversity.

It comes as the Scottish Parliament’s summer recess is set to end and MSPs are due to begin working the Land Reform Bill.

A petition in support of the tax has also been launched by the John Muir Trust.

Rare ‘fire tornado’ caught on camera as Canada wildfires rage



Tamara Davison
Wed, 23 August 2023 at 4:24 am GMT-6·2-min read

Footage has emerged of a rare “fire tornado” sweeping through British Columbia as wildfires raged in the Canadian province, prompting thousands to flee after authorities declared a state of emergency.

As fire crews battled blazes around Gun Lake in North Pemberton, firefighters were able to capture the rare fire tornado on camera. The footage shared on the BC Wildfire Service’s social media showed a giant plume of smoke swirling past blazing trees alongside the lake. The huge inferno, filmed as ground personnel raced against time throughout the night, continued to whip up smoke throughout the 30-second clip.

The recent fire tornado is believed to have formed after a cold front came through the state after several days of extreme heat. BC wildfire crews suggested that a unique mix of conditions had helped the hellish-looking burning tornado form.

Strong winds had fanned the flames and increased the intensity of the wildfire, which crews said became more intense throughout the night. However, a cold front then swept through the area and contributed to an “air mass instability”. This led to the creation of the fire tornado, a phenomenon that is a rarity in BC wildfires.

Alongside the video, the fire service shared an explanation of what caused the fire tornado, suggesting that unique conditions as well as the terrain had contributed.

Fires in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Emergency evacuation flights from the area began on August 17 (European Space Agency/AFP via Gerre)

“Fire whirls are an incredibly rare phenomenon. These unique conditions and extreme fire behaviour are not experienced on the majority of fires in BC,” said one post.

The fire tornado was filmed just days before thousands of Canadian residents were forced to flee from their homes in the face of encroaching wildfires. The military was brought in to help residents evacuate as the fast-spreading fires continued.

Over the weekend, land roughly the size of New York state had already burnt throughout British Columbia. Chronic drought-like conditions have exacerbated the issue, meaning that firefighters could be battling fires well into autumn.

The wildfire in Kelowna, British Columbia on August 17 (George Solowan via Reuters)

BC’s premier, Daniel Eby, recently said: “This is a historic wildfire season for British Columbia.”

New reports have indicated that the wildfires could be slowly easing as the cold front helped firefighters tackle the blaze. However, thousands remain displaced from their homes.