Why Cuba Hasn’t Adjusted to US Sanctions after Six Decades

by Roger D. Harris / November 11th, 2024

For the thirty-second time in so many years, the US blockade of Cuba was globally condemned at the UN General Assembly’s annual vote in October. Only Tel Aviv joined Washington in defending the collective punishment, which is illegal under international law.

For the vast majority of Cubans, who were born after the first unilateral coercive measures were imposed, life under these conditions is the only normalcy they have known. Even friends sympathetic to socialism and supporters of Cuba may question why the Cubans have not simply learned to live under these circumstances after 64 years.

The explanation, explored below, is that the relatively mild embargo of 1960 has been periodically intensified and made ever more devastatingly effective. The other major factor is that the geopolitical context has changed to Cuba’s disadvantage. These factors in turn have had cumulatively detrimental effects.

Cuba in the new world order

 The Cuban Revolution achieved remarkable initial successes for a small, resource-poor island with a history of colonial exploitation.

After the 1959 revolution, the population quickly attained 100% literacy. Life expectancy and infant mortality rates soon rivaled far richer countries, through the application of socialized medicine, prioritizing primary care. Cuba also became a world sports powerhouse and made noteworthy advances in biotechnology. At the same time, Cuban troops aided in the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa, among many other exercises of internationalism.

Cuba did not make those advances alone but benefitted from the solidarity of the Soviet Union and other members of the Socialist Bloc. From the beginning of the revolution, the USSR helped stabilize the economy, particularly in the areas of agriculture and manufacturing. Notably, Cuba exported sugar to the Soviets at above-market prices.

The USSR’s military assistance in the form of training and equipment contributed to the Cuban’s successfully repelling the US’s Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. In addition, the Socialist Bloc backed Cuba diplomatically in the United Nations and other international fora. East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, for example, also assisted with economic aid, investment, and trade to help develop the Cuban economy.

The implosion of the Socialist Bloc in the late 1980s and early 1990s severely impacted Cuba.

No longer buffered by these allies, the full weight of the US-led regime-change campaign sent Cuba reeling into what became known as the “Special Period.” After an initial GDP contraction of about 35% between 1989 and 1993, the Cubans somewhat recovered by the 2000s. But, now, conditions on the island are again increasingly problematic.

A new multipolar world may be in birth, but it has not been able to sufficiently aid Cuba in this time of need. China and Vietnam along with post-Soviet Russia, remnants of the earlier Socialist Bloc, still maintain friendly commercial and diplomatic relations with Cuban but nowhere the former levels of cooperation.

Ratcheting up of the US regime-change campaign

 The ever-tightening US blockade is designed to ensure that socialism does not succeed; to strangle in the cradle all possible alternatives to the established imperial order.

The initial restrictions imposed by Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 banned US exports to Cuba, except for food and medicine, and reduced Cuba’s sugar export quota to the US. Shortly before the end of his term in 1961, the US president broke diplomatic relations.

He also initiated covert operations against Cuba, which would be significantly strengthened by his successor, John Kennedy, and subsequent US administrations. Since then, Cuba has endured countless acts of terrorism as well as attempts to assassinate the revolution’s political leadership.

John Kennedy had campaigned in 1960, accusing the Eisenhower-Nixon administration of failing to sufficiently combat the spread of communism. Kennedy was determined to prevent communism from gaining a foothold in America’s “backyard.” He made deposing the “Castro regime” a national priority and imposed a comprehensive economic embargo.

After Kennedy’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis the following year, he initiated Operation Mongoose. The president put his brother Robert Kennedy in charge of attempting to overthrow the revolution by covert means. This CIA operation of sabotage and other destabilization methods was meant to bring to Cuba “the terrors of the earth.”

Post-Soviet era

Subsequent US administrations continued the policy of blockade, occupation of Guantánamo, and overt and covert destabilization efforts.

Former CIA director and then-US President George H.W. Bush seized the opportunity in 1992 posed by the implosion of the Socialist Bloc. The bipartisan Cuban Democracy Act passed under his watch. Popularly called the Torricelli Act after a Democratic Party congressional sponsor, it codified the embargo into law, which could only be reversed by an act of congress.

The act strengthened the embargo into a blockade by prohibiting US subsidiaries of companies operating in third countries from trading with Cuba. Ships that had traded with Cuba were banned from entering the US for 180 days. The economic stranglehold on Cuba was tightened by obstructing sources of foreign currency, which further limited Cuba’s ability to engage in international trade.

The screws were again tightened in 1996 under US President Bill Clinton with the Helms-Burton Act. Existing unilateral coercive economic measures were reinforced and expanded.

The act also added restrictions to discourage foreign investment in Cuba, particularly in US-owned properties that had been expropriated after the Cuban Revolution. The infamous Title III of the act allowed US citizens to file lawsuits in US courts against foreign companies “trafficking” in such confiscated properties.

Title III generated substantial blowback and some countermeasures from US allies, such as the European Union and Canada, because of its extraterritorial application in violation of international trade agreements and sovereignty. As a result, Title III was temporarily waived.

Later, US President Barack Obama modified US tactics during his watch by reopening diplomatic relations with Cuba and easing some restrictions, in order to unapologetically achieve the imperial strategy of regime change more effectively.

But even that mild relief was reversed by his successor’s “maximum pressure” campaign. In 2019, US President Donald Trump revived Title III. By that time, the snowballing effects of the blockade had generated a progressively calamitous economic situation in Cuba.

Just days before the end of his term, Trump reinstated Cuba onto the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) after Obama had lifted it in 2015. The designation has had a huge impact on Cuba by reducing trade with third countries fearful of secondary sanctions by the US, by cutting off most international finance, and by further discouraging tourism.

President Joe Biden continued most of the Trump “maximum pressure” measures, including the SSOT designation, while adding some of this own. This came at a time when the island was especially hard hit by the Covid pandemic, which halted tourism, one of Cuba’s few sources of foreign currency.

In the prescient words of Lester D. Mallory, US deputy assistant secretary of state back in 1960, the imperialists saw the opportunity to “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

US siege on Cuba perfected

In addition to the broad history outlined above of incessant regime-change measures by every US administration since the inception of the Cuban Revolution, some collateral factors are worthy of mention.

Major technological advances associated with computer technology and AI have been applied by the US to more effectively track and enforce its coercive measures. In addition, the fear of US fines for violation of its extraterritorial prohibitions on third-country actors has led to overcompliance.

Uncle Sam has also become ever more inventive. Visa-free entry (VWP) into the US is no longer available to most European and some other nationals if they stopped in Cuba, thereby significantly discouraging tourism to the island.

The internal political climate in the US has also shifted with the neoconservative takeover of both major parties. Especially now with the second Trump presidency, Cuba has fewer friends in Washington, and its enemies now have even less constraints on their regime-change campaigns. This is coupled by a generally more aggressive international US force projection.

Under the blockade, certain advances of the revolution were turned into liabilities. The revolution with its universal education, mechanization of agriculture, and collective or cooperative organization of work freed campesinos from the 24/7 drudgery of peasant agriculture. Today, fields remain idle because, among other factors, the fuel and spare parts for the tractors are embargoed.

Cuba’s allies, especially Venezuela, itself a victim of a US blockade, have been trying to supply Cuba with desperately needed oil. Construction of 14 oil tankers commissioned abroad by Venezuela, which could transport that oil, has been blocked. Direct proscriptions by the US on shipping companies and insurance underwriters have also limited the oil lifeline.

Without the fuel, electrical power, which run pumps to supply basic drinking water, cannot be generated. As a consequence, Cuba has recently experienced island-wide blackouts along with food and water shortages. This highlights how the blockade is essentially an economic dirty war against the civilian population.

Cumulative effects on Cuban society

Life is simply hard in Cuba under the US siege and is getting harder. This has led to recently unprecedented levels of out migration. The consequent brain-drain and labor shortages exacerbate the situation. Moreover, the relentless scarcity and the associated compromised quality of life under such conditions has had a corrosive effect over time.

Under the pressure of the siege, Cuba has been forced to adopt measures that undermine socialist equality but which generate needed revenue. For example, Obama and subsequent US presidents have encouraged the formation of a small business strata, expanding on the limited “reforms” instituted during Raúl Castro’s time as Cuba’s president.

 The Cubans will surely persevere as they have in the past. “The country’s resilience is striking,” according to a longtime Cuba observer writing from Havana.

Besides, the imperialists leave them little other choice. A surrender and soft landing is not an option being offered. The deliberately failed state of Haiti, less than 50 miles to the east, serves as a cautionary tale of what transpires for a people under the beneficence of the US.

Now is an historical moment for recognition of not what Cuba has failed to do, but for appreciation of how much it has achieved with so little and under such adverse circumstances not of its making.

Roger D. Harris was an international observer for Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election. He is with the US Peace Council and the Task Force on the Americas. Read other articles by Roger.

 

The Military-Industrial Complex Is Fueling Climate Catastrophe

Let’s Demand Accountability at COP

by Aaron Kirshenbaum and Melissa Garriga / November 12th, 2024

As we write, New York City is an unsettling 70 degrees in November. Meanwhile, a cohort of war profiteers, their pockets lined by the very industries destroying our climate, are flying to COP, the annual U.N. climate summit hosted by a petrostate, no less. They’re gathering to “discuss climate solutions”—but one of the world’s biggest contributors to the climate crisis will be entirely overlooked: the U.S. military-industrial complex.

The world’s largest institutional emitter, the U.S. military, sits beyond the reach of the metrics meant to hold countries accountable for climate pollution. Exempt from transparency requirements at the COP or within U.N. climate agreements, the military sector is, in fact, the leading institutional driver of the climate crisis. It burns through fossil fuels on a scale that surpasses entire nations while waging wars that destroy lives, communities, and the land itself. It’s a deliberate omission, one meant to hide the environmental and social costs of militarism from view.

Leading the U.S. delegation to COP is John Podesta — a career defender of militarism, a lobbyist who has worked to fortify the very military establishment poisoning our air, water, and land. Now, he arrives in the conference halls of COP wrapped in a cloak of environmentalism. Yet, as long as he skirts around the elephant in the room, no amount of recycled paper or energy-efficient lighting at COP will address the core driver of the climate crisis. If Podesta ignores the environmental impact of U.S. militarism, he’ll be dooming us.

For those of us directly feeling the crisis, there’s no question that the U.S. Empire’s military machine is central to our climate emergency. Appalachians living through floods and those of us in New York watching temperatures soar out of season are witnesses to the toll. And yet we watch as our leaders, claiming to care about climate, push forward with policies and budgets that only deepen our climate emergency.

In the past year alone, the war on Gaza has been a horrifying example of militarism’s environmental toll. Entire communities were leveled under the firepower of U.S.-funded bombs. In just two months, emissions from these military activities equaled the yearly carbon output of 26 countries. This violence bleeds beyond borders. U.S. police forces train with the Israeli military, and they’ll soon bring their war tactics to Atlanta’s Cop City, where a training center is planned on sacred Indigenous land. Militarism is woven into every facet of our society — taking lives, razing homes, and desecrating land — all while stoking climate disaster.

This crisis can’t be solved by those who are its architects. It can’t be fixed by Podesta’s well-crafted speeches or the administration’s empty pledges. The Biden administration just passed one of the largest military budgets in history, pumping more dollars — and more carbon emissions — into the climate catastrophe. Each weapon shipped, each tank deployed, is an environmental crime in the making, one funded by American tax dollars. We can’t ignore this fact as COP progresses and climate talks fall short yet again.

It’s easy to despair in the face of such unaccountable power. But in times of crisis, clarity can become a weapon. We must expose the truth that militarism is antithetical to climate justice. True climate solutions don’t come from polite panel discussions led by those who wield the tools of destruction. They come from radical honesty and demands for accountability. They come from a commitment to ending the empire choking our planet and communities. And they come from a shared goal of mutual liberation that doesn’t ignore the plight of the many to serve the few.

The cost of militarism is clear, and its environmental toll demands our fiercest opposition. This COP, let’s not let the elephant in the room fade into the background. It’s time for those responsible for our climate crisis—the war machines, the lobbyists, and the industries that back them—to be held accountable. For our survival and for each other, we must demand climate justice that tells the truth.

Aaron Kirshenbaum is CODEPINK's War is Not Green Campaigner and East Coast Regional Organizer. Based in, and originally from Brooklyn, NY, Aaron holds an M.A. in Community Development and Planning from Clark University. They also hold a B.A. in Human-Environmental and Urban-Economic Geography from Clark. During their time in school, Aaron worked on internationalist climate justice organizing and educational program development, as well as Palestine, tenant, and abolitionist organizing. Melissa Garriga is the communications and media analysis manager for CODEPINK. She writes about the intersection of militarism and the human cost of war. Based in Mississippi, Melissa holds a B.A. in Public Relations from Tulane University. Read other articles by Aaron Kirshenbaum and Melissa Garriga.

 

Spain’s Climate Catastrophe

A Glimpse into the Near Future

by Media Lens / November 12th, 2024

In the 35 years since we first protested for action against climate change on the streets of London, we have often wondered what it is exactly we are trying to avert. Sometimes, notably in the wee small hours, we have tried to imagine how a destabilised climate might one day cause society to collapse. Would the lights just go out? Would supermarkets suddenly be empty of food? Would there simply be no-one to call for help? Would law and order progressively vanish from a newly barbarised world? For a long time, this all seemed like far-distant, dystopian science fiction.

Unfortunately, the catastrophic floods in Valencia, Spain offer a glimpse of how, in the absence of the kind of drastic action that is currently nowhere on the horizon, human societies will ultimately be dismantled and destroyed.

The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, described the floods as the ‘worst natural weather disaster’ Spain has witnessed ‘this century’.

But of course, there was nothing straightforwardly ‘natural’ about what hit Turis, Chiva, Paiporta and other towns in the region. Yes, high-altitude isolated depressions, known locally as ‘cold drops’, are a painful fact of life on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, but this ‘cold drop’ was different.

The town of Turis, for example, received 771.8 mm (30.4 inches) of rainfall in 24 hours; the equivalent of a year and a half’s rain in one day. Rubén del Campo, the spokesperson for Spain’s meteorological agency Aemet, commented:

‘A relatively strong storm, a powerful downpour like those we see in spring or summer, can bring 40 mm or 50 mm. This storm was almost 10 times that amount.’

Dr Ernesto Rodríguez Camino, a senior state meteorologist and member of the Spanish Meteorological Association, observed:

‘Events of this type, which used to occur many decades apart, are now becoming more frequent and their destructive capacity is greater.’

The floods left at least 223 dead with 32 people missing. Power outages have affected 140,000 people, closing more than 50 roads and most rail lines.

An idea of the scale of the event is also provided by the fact that more than 100,000 cars were damaged or destroyed. These now constitute 100,000 obstructions weighing about 1.5 tons each that take half an hour to be removed by heavy machinery. Moving them all may take months. An estimated 4,500 businesses have been damaged, around 1,800 of them seriously.

Despite his awareness of the severity of the floods, Prime Minister Sanchez has not covered himself in glory. While 7,500 soldiers and 10,000 police officers, trucks, heavy road equipment and Chinook helicopters have been deployed, they were desperately slow to arrive. After one week, many residents were reportedly still surviving without electricity and water, and without seeing a single emergency worker. Numerous streets remained filled with debris and increasingly toxic mud.

The sight of elderly couples sleeping outside on balconies without heating, water or light one week after the rains offered a glimpse into the near future. The Spanish authorities have clearly been overwhelmed by the scale of the event. We can imagine how this will become an overwhelming problem as temperatures rise – the lights will go out one day and will stay out.

Widespread anger at the inadequate relief effort culminated in mud, rocks, sticks and bottles being thrown at the Spanish King and Queen, and Sanchez, on a visit to the disaster zone. Two bodyguards were treated for injuries: one receiving a bloody wound to the head. While the King braved the angry crowd, and the Queen was hit in the face with mud, Sanchez beat a hasty retreat as citizens screamed ‘Killer!’ and ‘Son of a bitch!’ The PM’s car was repeatedly kicked and hit with sticks that smashed the rear and side windows. At the weekend, more than 100,000 protesters took to the streets in Valencia, clashing with riot police.

Again, this offers a glimpse of how escalating climate disasters devastating communities will fuel extreme, ultimately uncontrollable, anger and violence. People who lose everything, including their loved ones, will be looking to blame local authorities and national governments, not carbon emissions, or fossil fuel companies.

Climate deniers have made much of the fact that Spanish engineers have described how the extreme loss of life was the result of a failure to properly maintain and clear flood channels. This led to blockages in the flow of floodwater which, when subsequently breached, released a tsunami-like wave of water that tore through residential areas at lower levels where it had not even been raining. But the fact is that nearly a year’s worth of rain fell in just eight hours. Dr Friederike Otto, who leads World Weather Attribution (WWA) at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, commented:

‘No doubt about it, these explosive downpours were intensified by climate change.’

Dr Linda Speight, lecturer at the University of Oxford’s School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE), said:

‘Unfortunately, these are no longer rare events. Climate change is changing the structure of our weather systems creating conditions where intense thunderstorms stall over a region leading to record-breaking rainfall – a pattern that we are seeing time and time again.’

Otto adds:

‘With every fraction of a degree of fossil fuel warming, the atmosphere can hold more moisture, leading to heavier bursts of rainfall. These deadly floods are yet another reminder of how dangerous climate change has already become at just 1.3°C of warming.’

In fact, last week, the European climate agency Copernicus reported that our planet this year reached more than 1.5°C of warming compared to the pre-industrial average. The Mediterranean Sea had its warmest surface temperature on record in mid-August, at 28.47 degrees Celsius (83.25 degrees Fahrenheit).

The wider context is deeply alarming:

‘Fuelled by climate change, the world’s oceans have broken temperature records every single day over the past year, a BBC analysis finds.

‘Nearly 50 days have smashed existing highs for the time of year by the largest margin in the satellite era.’

An additional factor is that the ground in many parts of eastern and southern Spain is less able to absorb rainwater following severe drought.

WWA expert Clair Barnes commented:

‘I’ve heard people saying that this is the new normal. Given that we are currently on track for 2.6 degrees of warming, or thereabouts, within this century, we are only halfway to the new normal.’

The results of Valencia’s floods will also be felt elsewhere. Dr Umair Choksy, senior lecturer in management at the University of Stirling Management School, said:

‘The severe flooding in Spain could lead to shortages of many products to the UK as Spain is one of the largest exporters of fruits and vegetables to the UK.’

Shoppers have already suffered fruit and vegetable shortages in supermarkets this year in the weeks after storms wrecked Spain’s greenhouses growing food exported to Britain. The Daily Mirror reported:

‘Spain provides a quarter of Britain’s fresh food produce, mostly from Almeria, where 4,500 hectares of 13,000 hectares of greenhouses and polytunnels have been damaged by hail and floods. Cold weather in the region in February 2023 hit harvests, and saw many British supermarkets forced to ration customers to two or three items of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, salad, cauliflower broccoli and raspberries.’

It is not hard to imagine how an escalating stream of climate disasters will one day genuinely threaten the food supply.

Top Ten Extreme Weather Events: The Role of Human-Caused Climate Change

Valencia follows a dizzying list of similar disasters in Europe and globally. Earlier in October this year, flooding killed 27 people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, causing landslides and major damage to infrastructure. In September, Storm Boris caused 26 deaths and billions of euros in damages in Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Austria and Italy, in what was described as the worst flooding to hit Central Europe for almost 30 years. In June, Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria in southern Germany suffered massive flooding, with some areas receiving a month’s rainfall in 24 hours. In September, in the United States, Hurricane Helene was the deadliest mainland storm in two decades, claiming 233 lives, cutting off power to 4 million people and causing damage estimated at $87.9 billion.

WWA published an analysis of the ten most deadly extreme weather events of the past 20 years as a result of which more than 570,000 people died. George Lee, environment correspondent for RTE, Ireland’s national broadcaster, reported:

‘They concluded unequivocally that, yes, human-caused climate change intensified every single one of those most deadly events.’

Four of these top ten global weather disasters occurred in Europe:

‘Almost 56,000 people died during the 2010 heatwave in Russia from extreme temperatures made 3,000 to 7,000 more likely by climate change.

‘Nearly 54,000 deaths were attributed to the European heatwave of two years ago. Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Romania, Portugal and the UK were all impacted. Daily temperature peaks were up to 3.6C hotter and 17 times more likely because of climate change.

‘Then last year, 2023, yet another European heatwave made it onto the top ten, most deadly list.

‘More than 37,000 people died when mostly the same group of countries as in 2022 were impacted. Portugal and the UK escaped it this time.’

Impossibly, one might think, fossil fuels continue to benefit from record subsidies of $13m (£10.3m) a minute in 2022, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF analysis found the total subsidies for oil, gas and coal in 2022 were $7tn (£5.5tn). That is equivalent to 7% of global GDP and almost double what the world spends on education.

The Disaster 0f Corporate Media Coverage

The standard pattern of responses in corporate media coverage continues. At the more idiotic end of the spectrum, we have the likes of James Whale in the Daily Express:

‘The flooding in Spain has been a tragedy. But blaming it solely on manmade climate change is short-sighted at best, and dangerous at worst. The climate has always been changing and the planet has changed with it.’ (Whale, ‘Climate change not sole reason for disasters,’ Daily Express, 4 November 2024)

Despite the highly credible evidence cited above, one BBC report was absurdly cautious:

‘The warming climate is also likely to have contributed to the severity of the floods.’ (Our emphasis)

Elsewhere, brief references to climate change do appear, typically towards the middle or end of news reports:

‘Scientists trying to explain what happened see two likely connections to human-caused climate change. One is that warmer air holds and then dumps more rain. The other is possible changes in the jet stream – the river of air above land that moves weather systems across the globe – that spawn extreme weather.’ (Graham Keeley, ‘211 now dead after Europe’s deadliest floods in 57 years,’ Mail on Sunday, 3 November 2024)

To its credit, the Guardian went further in its leader on the floods, titled, ‘The Guardian view on climate-linked disasters: Spain’s tragedy will not be the last’:

‘In Spain, a large majority of the public recognises the threat from climate change and favours policies to address it. There, as in much of the world, catastrophic weather events that used to be regarded as “natural disasters” are now, rightly, seen instead as climate disasters. Policies that support people and places to adapt to heightened risks are urgently needed.’

Jonathan Watts wrote an Observer piece titled, ‘Spain’s apocalyptic floods show two undeniable truths: the climate crisis is getting worse and Big Oil is killing us’:

‘We are living in a time of unwelcome climate superlatives: the hottest two years in the world’s recorded history, the deadliest fire in the US, the biggest fire in Europe, the biggest fire in Canada, the worst drought in the Amazon rainforest. The list goes on. This is just the start. As long as people pump gases into the atmosphere, such records will be broken with increasing frequency until “worst ever” becomes our default expectation.’

Should we be impressed by Watts’ piece and the Guardian leader? In reality, these are the same worthy, toothless analyses we have been reading for the last three decades. The pattern is so familiar, so universal, that it is hard to perceive the true disaster of corporate media coverage. As Nietzsche said:

‘The familiar is that to which we are accustomed; and that to which we are accustomed is hardest to “know”, that is to see as a problem, that is to see as strange, as distant, as “outside us”.’ (Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘A Nietzsche Reader’, Penguin Classics, 1981, p.68)

Imagine if Valencia had been comparably devastated by an ISIS-style terror attack. Imagine if the same attackers had recently devastated Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Austria, Italy, the United States, and numerous other countries.

Yes, reporting would focus on the precise details of the attacks and their impacts. But would the agency responsible be mentioned as an afterthought towards the middle and end of news reports, and almost never mentioned in the headlines?

The terrorists responsible would be front and centre in lurid headlines, as was the case with Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Priority would be given to the blistering denunciations of Western political and military leaders, and their calls for immediate action to counter the threat. The public would be mobilised – each day, every day, for months and years – for ‘WAR!’

Almost none of this appears in corporate media in response to a rapidly growing climate threat which, as Valencia’s fate shows very well, is infinitely more serious than anything offered by terrorism.

The impact of climate change continues to be presented as a human-interest story, or as a niche scientific issue best covered by the likes of Sir David Attenborough in glossy BBC documentaries. It is not presented as an immediate, existential threat that dwarfs in importance literally every other subject – even Gaza, even Ukraine, even Trump’s re-election – on the front pages. The disastrous impacts are afforded massive, alarming coverage, but the causes are not.

The strange, fake, otherworldly quality of the ‘mainstream’ response to the crisis was captured in an encounter between a traumatised survivor of the Spanish floods and Spain’s Queen Letizia. The survivor, breathless with grief and despair, said:

‘They didn’t warn us. They didn’t warn us. That’s why this happened. Many dead. Many dead.’

Queen Letizia responded:

‘You’re right. You’re right.’

Did this despairing woman who had lost everything really need to have the truth of her experience affirmed by a member of the fabulously privileged Royal Family? Did the Queen have anything material or medical to offer a woman with nothing? Did she have any expertise on any related issue to render her reassurances meaningful?

Queen Letizia’s words, like the royal visit – like humanity’s entire stance on climate collapse – were a benevolent-seeming but vacuous public relations non-response to a desperately real problem that needs real solutions.Email

Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. The most recent Media Lens book, Propaganda Blitz by David Edwards and David Cromwell, was published in 2018 by Pluto Press. Read other articles by Media Lens, or visit Media Lens's website.

India and China Push Gold to Record Highs, then Pull from Western Vaults after Russia Sanctions

by Inside China Business / November 12th, 2024

Gold prices are at historic highs, buoyed by India and China central bank buying in OTC markets. Further, all-time high levels of gold repatriation are underway, to vaults in Asia. Industry insiders and market experts are puzzled at the intensity and the timing of the gold buys, which seem divorced from economic fundamentals.

But these moves are an essential aspect of the BRICS countries’ de-risking from Western banking systems. Following the sanctions on Russia, whereby billions of dollars of Russian reserves in US and European banks were seized, China and India were strongly motivated to reduce their exposure to Western regulators. China sold off huge portfolios of US Treasury bonds, and both China and India demanded physical deliveries of gold previously held by European custodians.

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Inside China Business looks at insights, strategies, and life at the top of the world’s supply chains. We are saying a quiet prayer for the peace of the world, and that its content is helpful to our listeners. We live and work in Mainland China. Read other articles by Inside China Business.

Private prison stocks soar after Trump names Tom Homan 'border czar'


Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Tom Homan speaks at a daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C. on June 28, 2017. On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump named Homan as the nation's next "border czar," prompting private prison stocks to soar. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Private prison stocks soared Monday after President-elect Donald Trump announced immigration hardliner Tom Homan as the nation's next "border czar."

GeoGroup jumped 4.5%, while CoreCivic increased 6.3% following Homan's promise that he "will run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen."
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Homan is well known, having served during Trump's first administration as head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"I've known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our borders," Trump said in a statement on Truth Social, as Vice President-elect JD Vance suggested starting with 1 million undocumented migrants "and then we can go from there."

Trump's new pick for 'border czar' says workplace immigration raids planned

After Trump's election win last week, analysts predicted a strong rally for the two stocks.

"With Trump returning to the White House, there will be a far firmer embrace of GeoGroup and CXW," Isaac Boltansky, an analyst at BTIG, told clients on Nov. 6. "More importantly they would take a far more aggressive stance on border enforcement, which would impact the ICE business lines at these firms."

Both GeoGroup and CoreCivic surged last week, scoring one of their best weekly gains since Trump's last election win in November 2016. The president-elect had vowed throughout his campaign to crack down on crime and illegal immigration.

CoreCivic -- which owns, leases and manages correctional facilities -- soared nearly 88% last week before settling for a weekly gain of 69%. GeoGroup increased by almost 76% after the election.

GeoGroup founder and chairperson George Zoley hailed the "unprecedented opportunity" during last Thursday's earnings call.

"We have 18,000 available beds across contracted and idle secure services facilities, which if fully activated, would provide significant potential upside to our financial performance," Zoley said last week. "The GeoGroup was built for this unique moment in our company's and country's history, and the opportunity it will bring."

Trump says EPA pick Lee Zeldin will promote clean air, water through deregulation

COUGH, COUGH, THIS WATER IS CLOUDY


Former New York Republican congressman Lee Zeldin speaks at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on July 17, 2024. On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump chose Zeldin to run the Environmental Protection Agency, as he called for "U.S. energy dominance" while "protecting access to clean air and water." File Photo by Tannen Maury/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 11 (UPI) -- President-elect Donald Trump has chosen former Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

"I am pleased to announce that the highly respected former congressman from New York, Lee Zeldin, will be appointed to serve as the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency," Trump announced Monday.

"He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water, on the planet," Trump added in a statement.

Zeldin confirmed in a post on X, that he had accepted the appointment.

"It is an honor to join President Trump's Cabinet as EPA administrator," Zeldin wrote.

"We will restore U.S. energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs and make the United States the global leader of artificial intelligence. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water," Zeldin added.

Zeldin, 44, served in active duty in the U.S. Army and deployed to Iraq in 2006. He served in Congress between 2015 and 2023, and did not seek re-election in 2022 to challenge New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in a race he lost by 6 percentage points in the blue state.

While in Congress, Zeldin served on the House Foreign Affairs and Financial Services committees. He also served on Trump's legal team during the former president's first failed impeachment in 2019.

Following the 2020 election, Zeldin was criticized for voting against certification of the presidential election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, over what he claimed was evidence of fraud and interference.

"Today's debate is necessary especially because of the insistence that everything that President Trump and his supporters say about the 2020 election is 'evidence-free.' That's simply not true," Zeldin said on the House floor on Jan. 6, 2021, the same day election rioters entered the U.S. Capitol.

In 2022, Zeldin voted against Biden's climate law, along with every other House Republican. He also voted against the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. Based on his environmental voting record, the League of Conservation Voters has given Zeldin a lifetime score of 14%.

Since leaving office, Zeldin chaired the China policy initiative and has written about national security threats posed by China at the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit that promotes Trump's agenda.

By the end of this year, the EPA will be obligated to spend nearly $38.3 billion from Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. While Zeldin -- who is subject to Senate confirmation -- is expected to roll back a number of Biden environmental regulations during the Trump administration's first 100 days, he has not specified which regulations could be targeted.

23andMe to cut 40% of workforce, end therapeutics program


Genetic-testing company 23andMe announced plans to cut its workforce by 40% and end its therapeutics program in an effort to cut costs and restructure for "the long-term success of our core consumer business." Photo courtesy of 23andMe

Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Genetic-testing lab 23andMe plans to cut its workforce by 40% and end its therapeutics program in an effort to cut costs, the company announced Monday.

The layoffs will impact about 200 employees at the California-based firm and are expected to save the company about $35 million in annual costs.

"We are taking these difficult but necessary actions as we restructure 23andMe and focus on the long-term success of our core consumer business and research partnerships," co-founder and Chief Executive Anne Wojcicki said in a statement.

"I want to thank our team for their hard work and dedication to our mission. We are fully committed to supporting the employees impacted by this transition," Wojcicki added.

Related

23andMe admits 6.9 million customers' ancestry, personal data hacked

While 23andMe shares are down about 75% since the start of the year, the company's stock jumped more than 5% in after-hours trading following Monday's announcement.

23andMe went public in 2021 and grew to a market valuation of $6 billion. Since April, Wojcicki had been trying to take the company private until independent directors of 23andMe resigned in September. As of Monday, the company had a market cap of approximately $116 million.

23andMe also lost between $1 million and $2 million in "onetime expenses" last year related to a breach after hackers stole ancestry and personal data from 6.9 million customers.

The October 2023 leak -- which compromised DNA data, birthdates, locations and profile photos -- impacted nearly half of 23andMe's 14 million customers.

While the consumer genetics company also offers research programs for cancer drugs, it plans to refocus on the personalized DNA and ancestry tests that first made it successful.

"We continue to believe in the promise shown by our clinical and preclinical stage pipeline and will continue to pursue strategic opportunities to continue their development," Wojcicki said.

"We remain deeply grateful to the patients, investigators and study staff for their participation in our clinical trials."

Five additional monkeys from S.C. research lab recovered; 13 remain at large

A COVEN


A Rhesus Macaque monkey watches the traffic on the road to Tai Wai, Hong Kong, on January 15, 2004. Forty-three such primates have escaped from a South Carolina research facility. As of Monday night, 30 have been recaptured. Photo by Paul Hilton/EPA



Nov. 11 (UPI) -- An additional five rhesus macaque monkeys that escaped from a South Carolina research facility last week have been recovered, local authorities said Monday evening, meaning about a dozen of the rhesus macaque primates remain at large.

A total of 43 monkeys escaped on Wednesday after a caretaker did not properly secure the door to their enclosure at the Alpha Genesis research facility in Yemassee, S.C., which is located about 95 miles west of Charleston.

Since then, Alpha Genesis has been using baited traps and other methods to try and recapture the monkeys from the wooded region surrounding the facility.

In an update issued at 5:40 p.m. local time Monday, the Yemassee Police Department said five monkeys had been recovered over the course of the day, increasing the total number of monkeys recaptured to 30.

Thirteen still remain unaccounted for.

The statement came hours after officials said three had been recovered on Monday, all of which appeared to be in good health.

"Efforts to safely capture the remaining primates will continue throughout the evening and as long as necessary," the Yemassee Police Department said in the statement.

The monkeys have been described as "very young females" between 6 and 7 pounds and have never been used for testing because of their age and size.

Alpha Genesis has also said that they are "too young to carry disease," according to the Yemassee Police Department.

The local police have advised the public to contact them immediately if they spot a monkey and to not approach or interact with them.

"We cannot stress enough the importance of the public avoiding the area, and under no circumstances should drones be operated near the facility, as they can startle the animals and cause further stress," the Yemassee Police Department said Monday.

SEE

The monkeys that science has experimented on for over a century

18 escaped rhesus macaques remain on the loose in South Carolina

1 monkey captured, 42 monkeys still on the loose after escaping research facility in SC

More than 40 monkeys escape U.S. research facility as residents urged to keep doors closed

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