TRUMP'S 25% TARIFFS 

ON CANADA AND MEXICO

ARE NOT ABOUT 

FENTANYL OR IMMIGRATION

THEY ARE ABOUT BREAKING 

USMCA/NAFTA 2

BECAUSE CANADA AND MEXICO 

ARE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS

 

Trump calls for China to execute drug dealers as he vows drastic steps against Mexico and Canada 'border invasion'

26 November 2024, 07:00

Donald Trump. Picture: Alamy

By Kit Heren

@yung_chuvak

Donald Trump has called for China to execute its fentanyl producers as he also pledged to impose tariffs on Mexico and Canada to crack down on drugs and illegal immigration

The tariffs, if implemented, could dramatically raise prices on everything from gas to automobiles.

The US is the largest importer of goods in the world, with Mexico, China and Canada as its top three suppliers, according to the most recent Census data.

Mr Trump made the threats in a pair of posts on his Truth Social site Monday evening in which he railed against an influx of illegal migrants, even though southern border crossings have been hovering at a four-year low.

"On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders," he wrote, complaining that "thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before," even though violent crime is down from pandemic highs.

He said the new tariffs would remain in place "until such time as Drugs, in particular, Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!"

Read more: US judge asked to drop 2020 election interference charges against Donald Trump

Read more: Donald Trump planning to 'kick transgender troops out of US military' on return to White House

Fentanyl pills seized by U.S. Custom and Border Protection officers. Picture: Alamy

Mr Trump also turned his ire to China, saying he has "had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States - But to no avail."

He added: "Representatives of China told me that they would institute their maximum penalty, that of death, for any drug dealers caught doing this but, unfortunately, they never followed through, and drugs are pouring into our Country, mostly through Mexico, at levels never seen before,' the incoming president complained.

"Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.

"Thank you for your attention to this matter."

A US Customs and Border Protection agent searches an automobile for contraband in the line to enter the United States. Picture: Getty

The Chinese Embassy in Washington cautioned on Monday that there will be losers on all sides if there is a trade war.

"China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature," embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu posted on X.

"No one will win a trade war or a #tariff war."

He added that China had taken steps in the last year to help stem drug trafficking.

It is unclear whether Mr Trump will actually go through with the threats or if he is using them as a negotiating tactic before he takes office in the new year.

Arrests for illegally crossing the border from Mexico have been falling and remained around four-year lows in October, according to the most recent US numbers.

The Border Patrol made 56,530 arrests in October, less than one-third of the tally from last October.

Much of America's fentanyl is smuggled from Mexico.

Border seizures of the drug rose sharply under president Joe Biden, and US officials tallied about 12,247 kilograms of fentanyl seized in the 2024 government budget year, compared with 1,154 kilograms in 2019 when Mr Trump was president.

Mr Trump's nominee for treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, if confirmed, would be one of several officials responsible for imposing tariffs on other nations. He has on several occasions said tariffs are a means of negotiation with other countries.

He wrote in a Fox News op-ed last week, before his nomination, that tariffs are "a useful tool for achieving the president's foreign policy objectives. Whether it is getting allies to spend more on their own defence, opening foreign markets to US exports, securing cooperation on ending illegal immigration and interdicting fentanyl trafficking, or deterring military aggression, tariffs can play a central role."

If Mr Trump were to move forward with the threatened tariffs, the new taxes would pose an enormous challenge to the economies of Canada and Mexico, in particular.

They would also throw into doubt the reliability of the 2020 trade deal brokered in large part by Mr Trump, which is up for review in 2026.

Spokespeople for Canada's ambassador to Washington and its deputy prime minister, Chrystia Freeland, who chairs a special Cabinet committee on Canada-US relations to address concerns about another Mr Trump presidency, did not immediately provide comment.

Mr Trump's promise to launch a mass deportation effort is a top focus for the Cabinet committee, Freeland has said.

A senior Canadian official had said before Mr Trump's posts that Canadian officials are expecting Mr Trump to issue executive orders on trade and the border as soon as he assumes office.

The official was not authorised to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department and Economy Department also had no immediate reaction to Mr Trump's statements.

Bad ads banned by medical mag

The British Medical Journal has set a global precedent and banned adverts from banks that back fossil fuels.


Brendan Montague 

| 26th November 2024 |
THE ECOLOGIST
Creative Commons 4.0


International Labour Organisation / Creative Commons 2.0

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has become the first major publication in the world to announce it will no longer accept advertisements from banks that fund fossil fuels.

As a result of the policy, advertising by several major UK high street banks, including Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, Santander and Lloyds, who all finance the fossil fuel industry, will not be permitted across the BMJ’s publications.

Dr Hilary Neve, GP, Plymouth has long campaigned to stop Barclays ads being placed in the BMJ. They told The Ecologist: "So many organisations declare a climate emergency but then do not act in accordance with this.

Funder

"As doctors we see the devastating impact that our heating world has on people's health and know that banks like Barclays that fund fossil fuels are a big part of this. We are pleased that the BMJ listened to us and has now banned adverts for these banks. We hope many other organisations will follow their lead".

Veronica Wignall, from the campaign group Adfree Cities, said: “We welcome the BMJ’s principled step to prevent major banks like Barclays from health-washing their public image while they continue to funnel billions into the world’s worst polluters.

“Bans on advertising for fossil fuel companies are becoming commonplace, to remove misinformation and protect the environment and our health. By the same logic we need to see an end to advertising for the financial institutions that are bankrolling climate breakdown.”

The announcement builds on the publication’s decision in 2020 to exclude advertisements from fossil fuel companies, on the grounds that advertising such companies is incompatible with global health priorities.

The BMJ stated in its editorial: “We will now strengthen our advertising policy further, following criticisms from readers that we carried advertising in our weekly print edition for Barclays Bank, a major funder of the fossil fuel industry.

Finance



We are pleased that the BMJ listened to us and has now banned adverts for banks investing in fossil fuels.


"We are not banning advertising from all banks, but we will allow it only from banks that do not fund fossil fuel companies…We seek to lead by example and do what we ask of our readers. Climate commitments and pledges are important, but they are meaningless without action.”

This groundbreaking policy shift comes after pressure from The BMJ’s readership, after medics expressed concerns that providing advertising space for fossil fuel financiers is inconsistent with the BMJ's editorial policy and commitment to sustainability.

The Journal received backlash after a series of advertisements for Barclays, Europe’s biggest funder of fossil fuels, appeared in the BMJ print edition in February and March 2024. Barclays poured £181.142 billion into fossil fuels between 2016-2023, including more than £18.5 billion in 2023 alone.

The BMJ’s updated policy marks growing support from health professionals for an end to high-carbon advertising, echoing the crucial role of the health sector in the eventual ban on marketing for tobacco products.

In October 2024, the UK Faculty of Public Health published new guidance calling for restrictions on fossil fuel marketing, to protect health. Medics in the Netherlands, Australia and Canada are also campaigning for policies to end advertising by fossil fuel companies, fossil fuel financiers and other high-carbon sectors that are failing to decarbonise, such as aviation.

Focus now turns to The Lancet, The BMJ’s closest competitor. The 2024 edition of the renowned annual Lancet Countdown report revealed that the health threats of climate change have “reached record-breaking levels”. However, The Lancet has yet to rule out running advertisements from fossil fuel companies and the banks that finance them.

This Author
Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist.

'Fury' over Scrooge's gravestone being smashed

Kate Baldock
BBC Radio Shropshire
Andrew Dawkins
BBC News, West Midlands

Helen Ball
The inscribed stone has lain in the graveyard next to St Chad’s Church since the movie was released

People in Shrewsbury have said they are "furious", after the "disgraceful" smashing of a gravestone for Ebenezer Scrooge.

The inscribed stone, used as a prop in a 1984 film adaptation of A Christmas Carol, has lain in the graveyard next to St Chad’s Church in the town for four decades.

Town council clerk Helen Ball has said staff would assess whether it might be possible to repair the broken gravestone.

"I'm just really furious, because why would they do it when people go there to see it?," resident Christine told BBC Radio Shropshire.


Christine (right, pictured with Linda on the left) said "they've ruined it" following the smashing of the gravestone

Nigel Hinton, a town guide, was planning Christmas Carol tours this December to coincide with the 40th birthday of the film based on the Charles Dickens classic.

He said the stone's condition had "attracted even more attention".

"It's very upsetting," said Mr Hinton about the damage.

"It's a very iconic piece of prop left over from a film, which had a major impact on Shrewsbury's tourism I think.

"People have been going along sympathising and really having a look at it."

He pointed out it was formerly a gravestone that was "unreadable".

Martin Wood, who hosts Christmas Carol tours around Shrewsbury and appeared in the film 40 years ago, said "we believe it was actually a gravestone for somebody else".

He added: "The film company had to do a lot of research to sort of try and discover who was underneath it before they got permission... to actually use it and put Ebenezer's name on the top of it.

"So, yeah, I mean it's been there for donkeys years."

In terms of its broken state, Mr Wood said: "When I saw the photographs, I thought 'why?'

"What pleasure do they actually get from doing something like this?"

Christine felt a tradition had been lost.

"It's a tradition, an old tradition and they've ruined it."

"My grandkids love going ..honestly, but they've ruined it."

And resident Linda said: "For people of our age to be able to tell your grandchildren about it, [it's] a special thing, isn't it?

She added residents had "grown up" with the film.

CYMRU/WALES

Unison healthcare support workers announce strike days



MORNING STAR  Tuesday, November 26, 2024


HEALTHCARE support workers in Swansea Bay have voted for strike action, their union said today.

Unison Cymru Wales said staff at hospitals in Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot are to strike for two days over pay.

Staff at eight hospitals in the area, including Neath Port Talbot, Morriston and Singleton, are set to walk out on December 10 and 11.

According to NHS guidance, healthcare support workers on salary band 2 should only provide personal care such as bathing and feeding patients.

But the union said the healthcare assistants undertake clinical tasks such as monitoring blood, performing electrocardiogram tests and inserting cannulas.

Unison Cymru regional organiser Lianne Owen said: “Healthcare support workers are some of the lowest-paid staff in the NHS.

“Yet they are routinely expected to carry out complex duties for which they’re not being paid.”

A Swansea Bay University health board spokesperson said: “We remain committed to our ongoing dialogue with Unison locally, and to resolving and progressing matters by working with our wider NHS colleagues and trade union partners across Wales.”

The Magic Number Is 2.5 in the UK

Dave Lindorff

 November 26, 2024
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Photograph Source: Brayden A. – CC BY-SA 4.0

In Europe it can be 2.0 or 2.5, while in the US it’s somewhere between 4 and 6

Those numbers in the above headline are the percentages of Gross Domestic Product that each country’s government and politicians figure needs to be spent on the military annually in order to be “safe” from potential Russian aggression.

Just to give readers a “sense” (if such a term can be applied to the concept of defense by percentages of national economic activity), that 4- 6% “safety” figure for the US represents an the share US GDP that military spending in the 2022 fiscal year represents. In FY2022 the actual dollar figure for he total military budget was somewhere between the $768.5 billion which the Office of Management and Budget reports went directly to the Pentagon and all the armed forces branches under its jurisdiction, and the $1.58 trillion figure which also includes all the military spending that goes to other agencies like the NSA, CIA, Energy Department (nuclear arsenal), NATO, Veterans Affairs, etc. and interest on the national debt for America’s wars.

Now think about this for a moment. The world is currently at the edge of a precipice like the sheer face of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park portrayed above as the US has been prodding and provoking Russia over Ukraine now for a decade, threatening to bring that former soviet of the old USSR into NATO. Once Russia invaded Ukraine to prevent such a thing from happening right on it’s eastern border, Washington has been providing advanced weapons as well as satellite intelligence to the Ukrainian military to help it kill Russian soldiers. Most recently, the provocations have reached the scary point of providing Ukraine with longer-range missiles which can strike deep inside Russia itself to hit military targets and key infrastructure like rail centers and oil depots. Britain, America’s faithful poodle, has joined in this dangerous game by providing its own longer-range cruise missile the Storm Shadow.

Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin has responded by accurately declaring as “acts of war” the escalatory actions by the US and UK in supplying these new weapons to Ukrainian troops, training them in how to use them, and providing them with the use the precise geolocation data from US military satellites necessary for successful guidance to targets inside Russia . He followed this up by openly changing Russia’s rules for the use of nuclear weapons to include targeting any nuclear powers that provide non-nuclear powers with the weapons to attack Russia.

Certainly anyone can understand the logic of that change. If Russia were for example to give Cuba or Venezuela missiles that could strike Florida or the US Gulf Coast and one of those countries were to start firing them at US targets, and Russia began flying in or shipping in more rockets, would the US refrain from attacking Russia, or its planes and ships and limit itself to bombing Cuba or Venezuela? Of course not!

To make matters even worse, after d Putin sent a powerful message by ordering the firing of a new Russian hypersonic strategic missile with a range of over 3000 miles to hit a city in central Ukraine with six independently maneuverable warheads. The missile, which Putin said was a “test,” took 15 minutes from its launch site in central Asia to reach the target \city of Dnipro. The explosions there were relatively small and involved conventional explosives, but the point was made that the same warheads are designed to carry nuclear bombs.

Putin pointedly said that the UK itself or any country providing weapons to Ukraine to strike targets in Russia, not just Ukraine itself, could be targets of Russian missiles like this new one called the Oreshnik.

The Pentagon confirmed that it has no anti-missile system that could defend against this new Russian missile. Okay, so what is all this nonsense about assigning percentages of GDP for military spending that are supposed to assure the safety of the US and the nations of NATO Europe all about?

If Russia has nuclear missiles that cannot be stopped, how is increasing the percent of GDP spent on a country’s military got anything to do with keeping the country “safe”?

There has been no word fromBiden’s White House or British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s No, 10 Downing Street about reversing the permission granted to Ukraine to use UK and US-supplied longer range rockets to hit deep inside Russia, as Ukraine has just. done. No word either on whether more such missiles will be supplied to Ukraine, as that country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called for.

If this fraught situation doesn’t sound insane, I don’t know what does.. Here’s the situation: Russia’s over-confident army was initially bloodied by Ukrainian forces backed with US and NATO supplied weapons, but eventually its much larger military figured out how to deal with those weapons and it has been steadily degrading Ukrainian forces, who have reportedly suffered 500,000 casualties and are losing ground daily. The US and UK missiles, unless supplied in vast quantities, will not turn the tide of battle, yet even if the small number currently n Ukrainian hands are used they could spark a Russian strike on Ukraine’s main government buildings in Kiev or even the huge US embassy compound there (the US Embassy was evacuated a few days ago because of fears that could happen). Then where are we? (It’s an act of war to deliberately attack a country’s embassy.)

Wars Have often begun small but then grow in tit-for-tat escalations. When nuclear weapons are added to that equation the time between steps on the upward-moving stairway can occur very quickly, as generals look at an opponent’s missiles, and their own and wonder if they hold their fire whether they will find their own missiles struck before they can launched, leaving them at the mercy of the enemy’s nukes. Given that risk, in a crisis a leader or even local commander could easily decide that if “use it or lose it” is the operative situation, launching first is the safest bet. And then it’s game over. Full scale nuclear war is on.

And all those percentage-of-GDP spending won’t have accomplished a damned thing.

The absurdity of it all was highlighted today as it was reported that Britain’s PM Starmer, after approving the launch of a British Storm Shadow missile by Ukraine into Russia, said Britain, which is facing a budget crisis at present that has it cutting winter heating subsidies for poor people, has “no defense” against a Russian missile attack, but that he would boost Britain’s military spending, despite the budget crisis, from 2% to 2.5%.

Would such a spending boost offer protection? Not when designing and building a whole new generation anti-missile system takes years and with no guarantee of success.

All he’s doing is offering magical thinking to the anxious masses.

The proper response to this current situation is to call a halt to escalation in Ukraine and negotiate an immediate cease fire between Russia and Ukraine with negotiations for an end to that to commence at the same time.

The idea of defense budgeting by percent of GDP has been idiotic from the outset. After all, GDP actually shrank during the recent Covid-19 pandemic, which automatically made the existing military spending a larger percentage of each country’s total economic activity, but with no gain in national security of course.

This kind of numerical nonsense would never be permitted if the budget were about education or healthcare spending.

It’s only in the area of national security where huge parts of the spending is kept secret, hidden in black boxes like the CIA budget.

And it turns out that all that $1.58 trillion the US is spending on “defense” (sic) isn’t making us or the world any safer. In fact it appears to be putting us in the greatest danger humanity has been in since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, except that back then we had a brilliant man, John F Kennedy, who knew when to fold ‘em and backed away from a nuclear war by secretly agreeing to remove nuclear tipped Jupiter missiles the US had provocatively placed just inside Turkey’s border with the Soviet Union — the whole reason Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev started setting up nuclear missiles in Cuba in the first place.

Now we have a brain-addled lame-duck President Biden with only weeks left in his White House tenure threatening us all with nuclear war in an attempt to leave office saying he “stood with Ukraine.”

That’s 100% nuts!

This article by Dave Lindorff appeared originally in ThisCantBeHappening! on its new Substack platform at https://thiscantbehappening.substack.com/. Please check out the new site and consider signing up for a cut-rate subscription that will be available until the end of the month.

BACKGROUNDER

What Would It Mean If President-elect Trump Dismantled The US Department of Education?

US President Donald Trump speaks at a press conference with Linda McMahon, head of Small Business Administration, March 29, 2019 at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP) 

By Kevin Welner
TPM
November 26, 2024 

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

In her role as former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, Linda McMahon oversaw an enterprise that popularized the “takedown” for millions of wrestling fans. But as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of education, the Trump loyalist may be tasked with taking down the very department Trump has asked her to lead.

If Trump does dismantle the Department of Education as he has promised to do, he will have succeeded at something that President Ronald Reagan vowed to do in 1980. Just like Trump, Reagan campaigned on abolishing the department, which at the time was only a year old. Since then, the Republican Party platform has repeatedly called for eliminating the Education Department, which oversees a range of programs and initiatives. These include special funding for schools in low-income communities – known as Title I – and safeguarding the rights of students with disabilities.

As an education policy researcher who has studied the federal role in addressing student-equity issues, I see the path to shuttering the department as filled with political and practical obstacles. Republicans may therefore opt to instead pursue a series of proposals they see as more feasible and impactful, while still furthering their bigger-picture education agenda.

To better understand how the proposal to eliminate the Education Department would fit within the larger educational agenda of the incoming administration, I believe it’s helpful to revisit the history of the Education Department and the role it has played over the past five decades.

Department of Education history and roles

By the time Congress established the department in 1979, the federal government was already an established player in educational policy and funding.

For instance, the Higher Education Act of 1965 began the federal student loan program. In 1972, Congress created the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant, the predecessor program to today’s Pell Grants. The G.I. Bill of 1944, which, among other things, funded higher education for World War II veterans, preceded them both.

At the K-12 level, federal involvement in vocational education began with the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917. Federal attention to math, science and foreign language education began in 1958 with the National Defense Education Act.

Two laws passed during the Lyndon Johnson administration then gave the federal government its modern foothold in education: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The 1964 law provided antidiscrimination protections enforced by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. The 1965 law, which is currently reauthorized as the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015, includes Title I, which sends extra funding to schools with high populations of low-income students.

In 1975, Congress added the law currently known as the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, or IDEA. The law helps schools provide special education services for students with disabilities. IDEA also sets forth rules designed to ensure that all students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education.

Department had early Republican support

When Congress created the Education Department, it divided the former Department of Health, Education, and Welfare into two agencies. One was the Education Department. The other was Health and Human Services, also known as HHS. Although President Jimmy Carter championed the move, it was bipartisan. The Senate bill to create the new department had 14 Republican co-sponsors.

Within a year, however, support for and opposition to the Education Department had become strongly partisan. Reagan campaigned on eliminating what he referred to as “President Carter’s new bureaucratic boondoggle.”

Those bureaucracies, however, existed before Carter and the new department. The only major addition was the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, which served primarily as the research arm of the Education Department. That office has since been replaced by the Institute of Education Sciences.

Congressional support needed

To dissolve the Education Department, both houses of Congress would have to agree, which is unlikely. In 2023, an amendment was proposed in the House to shut down the department. It failed by a vote of 161-265, with 60 Republicans joining all Democrats in opposing the measure.

Even assuming that sufficient pressure were exerted on Republicans in 2025 to garner almost complete Republican House support, the bill would likely need 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster – meaning that at least seven Democrats would have to support termination.

But what would such termination entail? The department’s functions and programs would need to be assigned to new institutional homes, since terminating a program’s department doesn’t terminate the program. That said, this shuffling process would likely be complicated and chaotic, harming important programs for K-12 and university students.

While details about what reorganization would look like remain to be seen, one option was proposed by Trump during his first term: merging the Education Department with the Labor Department.

Another approach is set forth in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a detailed policy blueprint that, among other things, specifies landing places for the Education Department’s major functions and programs. A CNN review found that over 100 people involved with Project 2025 worked in the first Trump administration.

The Project 2025 blueprint calls for the lion’s share of programs, including Title I and IDEA, to be moved to HHS – which already administers Head Start. Most vocational education programs would be moved to the Labor Department. The Office for Civil Rights would be moved to the Justice Department. And the Pell Grant program and the student loan program would be moved to the Treasury Department.

Part of a larger education agenda

In the scenario where existing Education Department programs are transferred to other agencies, those programs could continue without being closed or drastically cut. But Trump and Project 2025 have articulated a set of plans that do make radical changes. Trump has said he supports a federal voucher – or a “universal school choice” – plan, likely funded through federal tax credits. This idea is set forth in the proposed Educational Choice for Children Act, which is backed by Project 2025. Perhaps tellingly, Trump’s announcement of the McMahon nomination highlighted school-choice goals; it did not mention abolishing the department.

President Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America, right, listens as 25th Administrator of the US Small Business Administration, Linda McMahon, left, speaks during a press conference in Swannanoa, North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The Washington Post via Getty Images

Project 2025 also lays out other changes and program cuts, including ending the Head Start early childhood education program and phasing out Title I over 10 years, and converting most IDEA funds into a voucher or “savings account” for eligible parents.

Beyond these initiatives, Trump’s campaign shared his plan to target a variety of culture-war issues. This includes cutting federal funding for any school or program that involves “critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children.”

What we can expect

My expectation is that the Trump administration’s most likely and immediate changes will be in the form of executive orders that alter how laws will be implemented. For example, Trump may use an executive order to remove protections for transgender students.

Subsequently, I also expect some congressional budgetary changes to education programs. Based on past votes, I expect overwhelming but not universal Republican congressional support for Trump’s educational agenda. Using the budget reconciliation process, which circumvents the filibuster, a majority vote can make changes to revenue or spending. Accordingly, Congress may agree to program cuts and perhaps even to move some programmatic funding into education vouchers for individual parents.

As for closing the Education Department, which probably would not qualify for the reconciliation process, Secretary-designate McMahon may find that takedown to be a politically difficult one to achieve.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

EXCLUSIVE:

Nigerian Petroleum Company NNPCL Yet To Start New Port Harcourt Refinery, Resumed Old Refinery Built In 1965 Which Produces Only Diesel

SaharaReporters learnt that the Port Harcourt Refinery in Rivers State which was widely announced to have commenced crude oil processing, is not the new refinery built in 1989 and which is of 150,000 barrels per day.

The Port Harcourt Refinery reopened by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is the old refinery built in 1965 which could produce only diesel and is of 60,000 barrels' capacity, some of the top staff have revealed to SaharaReporters.

SaharaReporters learnt that the Port Harcourt Refinery in Rivers State which was widely announced to have commenced crude oil processing, is not the new refinery built in 1989 and which is of 150,000 barrels per day.

The NNPCL had announced that its Port Harcourt Refinery in Rivers State had commenced crude oil processing.

BREAKING: Port Harcourt Refinery Is Back, Begins Crude Oil Processing At 60,000bpd, Says NNPCL Nov 26, 2024

This had been disclosed by the Chief Corporate Communications Officer of the company, Femi Soneye, on Tuesday.

Soneye had revealed that the refinery would operate at 60 per cent capacity and process 60,000 bpd.

“Port Harcourt Refinery Begins Production; Truck Loading Starts Today, Tuesday,” he had announced via his X handle.

Speaking with SaharaReporters, sources revealed that the President Bola Tinubu-led government was engaging in a propaganda and the new refinery of 150,000 barrels capacity was yet to commence operations.

"The plant is running but it is the old one of 60 thousand capacity but you can’t get PMS (otherwise known as petrol) from it except diesel. The part that produces PMS is yet to start.

"The refinery is in two parts. The old refinery built 1965 of 60, 000 barrel’s capacity which when commissioned will only give you 1million litres of PMS. You have the new refinery built in 1989 which is of 150,000 barrels per stream day.

"If commissioned, it will give you 10 million litres of PMS. As of today, when they say Port Harcourt refinery is coming on stream, they are referring to the old one which we were battling with for months," another top source revealed.

"The new one is far from ready. We are looking at 2026 for the new one to be ready. If we finally commission the old one, it will be insignificant because Nigeria will not feel the impact," the source noted.

Tuesday’s move by the NNPC had come after a series of failed deadlines for the commencement of production at the refinery in Nigeria’s oil-rich Rivers State.

Inside The Last-Ditch Legislative Effort To Protect Journalists Before Trump Comes To Town

 Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., arrives to Rayburn building on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. 

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

By Kate Riga
November 26, 2024 

TPM

In the lame duck session, the energy on Capitol Hill is busy and frazzled, as Democrats try to squeeze in any lingering priorities before they’re shut out of power for at least two years. Republicans are largely intent on blocking or slowing down those priorities, while members jockey for position in the new trifecta.

Amid the frenzy, a bipartisan group — somewhat unusual in and of itself — is quietly making a longshot, eleventh-hour attempt to pass federal protections for journalists and other critics before President-Elect Donald Trump and his famously thin-skinned coterie take over.

On the House side, the effort is being led by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Kevin Kiley (R-CA). On the Senate side, it’s being spearheaded by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). Both sides plan to introduce their bills in early December, per spokespeople from Raskin and Wyden’s offices. TPM is first to report the existence of this legislation, and the plans to introduce it.

“I’m very interested in the whole anti-SLAPP issue,” Wyden told TPM in a Senate elevator on his way back from a vote.

The legislation, a federal anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) bill, would help journalists and other critics dismiss frivolous lawsuits in federal court. Both Trump and his close advisors, including billionaire Elon Musk, have made liberal use of the kind of suit anti-SLAPP legislation would address; plaintiffs often file these suits without any hope of winning their cases, but aim to chill criticism, bury their critics in legal fees and force them to disclose sensitive information through discovery. Trump has sued or at least sent letters threatening to sue a host of media companies, including CBS, the New York Times, the Daily Beast and the Washington Post. Musk is currently waging lawfare against Media Matters, which laid off staff, the advocacy news outlet said, in response to his legal assault.

Advocates have been pushing for a federal anti-SLAPP law because the state patchwork of laws varies in strength. Additionally, some federal appellate circuits allow state anti-SLAPP protections to be invoked in federal cases and some don’t, encouraging the often rich and powerful plaintiffs who want to file these suits to forum shop for a court in which the defendant can’t use state protections. This threat looms largest for vulnerable people including independent journalists or those at small outlets, who lack a battery of lawyers to protect them, and even low-profile critics who are dragged to court for circulating a petition or making critical comments online.

Raskin and Kiley are planning to reintroduce Raskin’s SLAPP Protection Act, which didn’t go far when he introduced it in 2022. Wyden will introduce a Senate version of the bill.

“He now has a Republican partner on the bill,” Caitlin Vogus, senior adviser for Freedom of the Press Foundation, told TPM of Raskin, who has long been pushing the issue. “That could be part of the ingredients going into making it happen now.”

The bipartisan team, an increasing rarity in Congress even on anodyne issues, stems at least in part from the men’s relationship outside of the House. Kiley took Raskin’s class at Yale Law when the latter was taking weekly trips from the Maryland Senate to give his lecture.

The two collaborated on the PRESS Act, which passed through the House in 2022. That bill, meant to protect journalists from the federal government forcing them to disclose information and identify sources, has stalled out in the Senate. The bill has bipartisan support in the upper chamber — including from Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — but was reportedly blocked by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) at the Senate Judiciary Committee. He previously said it “would open a floodgate of leaks damaging to law enforcement and our nation’s security.” Cotton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump likely ended any lingering chance that the bill would pass anyway, writing on Truth Social last week that “REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!” and linking to a PBS interview in which Jodie Ginsberg, the CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, urged the Senate to pass it.

“Based on the feedback we’ve received from Senators and President Trump, it’s clear we have work to do to achieve consensus on this issue,” Kiley said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to working with the new Administration on a great many areas of common ground as we begin a new era of American prosperity.”

After at least the moral victory of House passage for the PRESS Act, Raskin and Kiley are teaming up again — a notable collaboration, as recruiting Republicans to support the bills has proven difficult.

“This was a bipartisan issue historically,” Vogus said. “But we’ve seen an uptick in SLAPP cases filed by conservatives, or at least very high-profile cases filed by conservatives.”

Republican opposition will make the bills difficult to pass, particularly through the Senate — even though, as advocates point out, Republicans too have benefitted from anti-SLAPP protections in the past.

Trump himself has used state level anti-SLAPP laws in his defense at least twice. He invoked the Texas anti-SLAPP law when Stormy Daniels sued him for tweets in which he accused her of lying about their affair. That case was dismissed.

And just last week, Trump’s lawyers indicated that they may rely on Pennsylvania’s anti-SLAPP law in a case where the exonerated Central Park Five sued him for defamation.

“President-Elect Trump’s statements about the Central Park Five, made in the context of responding to accusations during a nationally televised debate, squarely fall within the protections afforded by Pennsylvania’s anti-SLAPP statute,” his lawyer wrote in a letter to the U.S. District judge.

Still, passing bipartisan legislation at all, much less in the graveyard of the lame duck, will prove daunting.

“Frankly, getting the bill passed during the lame duck shouldn’t be the goal — it’s very difficult to get anything passed during the lame duck when there’s so much going on,” Vogus said. “Getting the bill introduced puts down a marker that Congress cares about this and can tackle it right away in the next Congress.”

That would require a come-to-Jesus moment from Republican majorities in both chambers, and from their leader, who, in between touting his Cabinet nominees at midnight on Tuesday, was busy railing against the New York Times’ “Magot Hagerman, a third rate writer and fourth rate intellect,” for failing to write flattering stories about him.


Kate Riga (@Kate_Riga24) is a D.C. reporter for TPM and cohost of the Josh Marshall  Project