Saturday, June 20, 2020

#WW3.0 
TWO NUCLEAR IMPERIALIST POWERS 
CHINA AND INDIA 
USE IRON RODS WITH SPIKES TO BATTLE IN THE HIMALAYAS OVER A BORDER DISPUTE 

BARBARISM NOT SOCIALISM 

An image passed to the BBC by an Indian military official shows crude weapons purportedly used in the fight
China claims valley where Indian, Chinese soldiers brawled 

EMILY SCHMALL Associated Press•June 19, 2020

India Tibet China Protest
Exile Tibetans and local Indians participate in a protest against the Chinese government in Dharmsala, India, Friday, June 19, 2020. India said Thursday it was using diplomatic channels with China to de-escalate a military standoff in a remote Himalayan border region where 20 Indian soldiers were killed this week. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia)

NEW DELHI (AP) — China said the Galwan Valley high up in the Himalayan border region where Chinese and Indian troops engaged in a deadly brawl this week falls entirely within China, boldly renewing claims on the disputed area as the Asian giants continued using military and diplomatic channels to try to reduce tensions on Saturday.

The confrontation in the Galwan Valley, part of the disputed Ladakh region along the Himalayan frontier, was the deadliest between the two countries in 45 years. India blames China for instigating the fight by developing infrastructure in the valley, which it said was a breach of the agreement of what area remained in dispute.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said in a statement Friday that “the Galwan Valley is located on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control in the west section of the China-India boundary.”

He blamed incursions by Indian troops in the area from early May for a midnight clash on Monday that left 20 Indian soldiers dead. China has not said whether it suffered any casualties.


Soldiers brawled with clubs, rocks and their fists in the thin air at 4,270 meters (14,000 feet) above sea level, but no shots were fired, Indian officials have said. The soldiers carry firearms but are not allowed to use them under a previous agreement in the border dispute.

Indian security officials have said the fatalities were caused by severe injuries and exposure to subfreezing temperatures.

The valley falls within a remote stretch of the 3,380-kilometer (2,100-mile) Line of Actual Control — the border established following a war between India and China in 1962 that resulted in an uneasy truce.

Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Anurag Srivastava repeated on Saturday that China's claims to the valley were “exaggerated and untenable.”

“They are not in accordance with China’s own position in the past. Indian troops are fully familiar with the alignment of the (Line of Actual Control) in all sectors of the India-China border areas, including in the Galwan Valley. They abide by it scrupulously here, as they do elsewhere,” Srivastava said in a statement.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a meeting with political opposition leaders on Friday that no one "has intruded into our territory, nor taken over any post.”

Modi said India was “hurt and angry” about the deaths of its troops. He said India wanted peace and friendship, but had the "capability that no one can even dare look toward an inch of our land.”

Also on Friday, Zhao, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said that China was not holding any Indian soldiers, without addressing media reports that China had released 10 of them late Thursday.

“My information is that at present there are no Indian personnel detained on the Chinese side,” Zhao said, according to an English version of his daily briefing posted on the ministry's website.

Indian officials have denied that any soldiers were in Chinese custody.


An Indian army convoy moves on the Srinagar- Ladakh highway at Gagangeer, northeast of Srinagar, India, Wednesday, June 17, 2020. Indian security forces said neither side fired any shots in the clash in the Ladakh region Monday that was the first deadly confrontation on the disputed border between India and China since 1975. China said Wednesday that it is seeking a peaceful resolution to its Himalayan border dispute with India following the death of 20 Indian soldiers in the most violent confrontation in decades. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

China India
This June 18, 2020, satellite photo released by Planet Labs, shows the reported site of a fatal clash between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan River Valley in the Ladakh region near the Line of Actual Control, BKalong their disputed border high in the Himalayas. (Planet Labs via AP)

India Tibet China Protest
Exile Tibetans and local Indians participate in a protest against the Chinese government, in Dharmsala, India, Friday, June 19, 2020. India said Thursday it was using diplomatic channels with China to de-escalate a military standoff in a remote Himalayan border region where 20 Indian soldiers were killed this week. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia)

India Tibet China Protest
Exile Tibetans and local Indians burn a Chinese national flag during a protest in Dharmsala, India, Friday, June 19, 2020. India said Thursday it was using diplomatic channels with China to de-escalate a military standoff in a remote Himalayan border region where 20 Indian soldiers were killed this week. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia)

India, China accuse each other of violating de facto border 

Reuters•June 20, 2020

Border Clash Between India and China Turns Deadly


NEW DELHI/BEIJING (Reuters) - India and China on Saturday each traded accusations that the other had violated their shared de facto border, an area that this week became the site of the deadliest clash in half a century between the two nuclear-armed giants.

A day after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to downplay Monday's clash, which killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and injured more than 70, his government blamed the Chinese side for seeking to erect structures "just across the Line of Actual Control," as the demarcation is known, and refusing India's request to stop.

India will not allow any unilateral changes to the disputed border, it said in a statement.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian accused Indian troops of a "deliberate provocation" in the tense Himalayan area.

In a series of tweets, Zhao said the Galwan Valley was on the Chinese side of the line and that Indians had since April unilaterally built roads, bridges and other facilities in the region.

The Indian troops "crossed the Line of Actual Control" and attacked Chinese officers and soldiers who were there for negotiation, triggering "fierce physical conflicts", Zhao said. China has not released any casualty figures for its troops.

Modi on Friday appeared to downplay the clash with Chinese troops, saying, "Nobody has intruded into our border, neither is anybody there now, nor have our posts been captured."

Troops remain locked in a face-off at several locations along the poorly defined Line of Action Control, despite talks between local commanders to de-escalate.

(Reporting by Aftab Ahmed in New Delhi and Tom Daly in Beijing; Editing by William Mallard)

POST MODERN PRIMITIVES 



Galwan Valley: Image appears to show nail-studded rods used in India-China brawl 


BBC•June 18, 2020


An image has emerged showing a crude weapon purportedly used by Chinese forces in the fatal brawl along China's disputed border with India on Monday.

The fight in the Galwan Valley left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead and raised tensions between the two powers.

China did not acknowledge any casualties among its forces. Both sides accused the other of an incursion.

The border between the two nations in the region is poorly demarcated and can shift with topographical changes.


The image that emerged on Thursday showed crude weapons that appeared to be made from iron rods studded with nails. It was passed to the BBC by a senior Indian military official on the India-China border, who said the weapons had been used by the Chinese.
 An image passed to the BBC by an Indian military official shows crude weapons purportedly used in the fight

Defence analyst Ajai Shukla, who first tweeted the image, described the use of such weapons as "barbarism". The absence of firearms in the clash dates back to a 1996 agreement between the two sides that guns and explosives be prohibited along the disputed stretch of the border, to deter escalation.


The image was widely shared on Twitter in India, prompting outrage from many social media users. Neither Chinese or Indian officials commented on it.

Media reports said troops clashed on ridges at a height of nearly 4,267m (14,000 ft) along a steep terrain, with some soldiers falling into the fast-flowing Galwan river in sub-zero temperatures.



First deaths in four decades


The two sides have brawled along the disputed border in recent weeks, but Monday's clash was the first to lead to fatalities in at least 45 years. Unconfirmed reports in Indian media said at least 40 Chinese soldiers died, but China is yet to issue any information about casualties.
Indian officials said all of their soldiers involved in the clash have been accounted for, following reports some were missing.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said India had crossed the border twice, "provoking and attacking Chinese personnel, resulting in serious physical confrontation between border forces on the two sides", the AFP news agency reported.

China on Wednesday claimed "sovereignty over the Galwan Valley region" - a claim rebutted by India as "exaggerated and untenable".


 

Indian army trucks move along a highway leading to Ladakh on Wednesday

Members of the public in both nations have since staged protests over the clashes in the disputed Himalayan border area, while officials have spoken cautiously and moved towards a diplomatic resolution.

Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said the foreign ministers of both countries had shared a phone conversation on Wednesday on the developments and "agreed that the overall situation should be handled in a responsible manner".

"Making exaggerated and untenable claims is contrary to this understanding," Mr Srivastava was quoted as saying by Press Trust of India news agency.

An Indian government statement after Subrahmanyam Jaishankar's conversation with China's Wang Yi said Chinese forces tried to erect a structure on the Indian side of the de facto border, the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

The statement accused the Chinese of a "premeditated and planned action that was directly responsible for the resulting violence and casualties" and urged China to "take corrective steps".

Meanwhile, a Chinese statement quoted Mr Wang as saying: "China again expresses strong protest to India and demands the Indian side launches a thorough investigation... and stop all provocative actions to ensure the same things do not happen again."

 

Kashmir map

Why were there no guns?

The Galwan river valley in Ladakh, with its harsh climate and high-altitude terrain, lies along the western sector of the LAC and close to Aksai Chin, a disputed area claimed by India but controlled by China.

This is not the first time the two nuclear-armed neighbours have fought without conventional firearms on the border. India and China have a history of face-offs and overlapping territorial claims along the more than 3,440km (2,100 mile), poorly drawn LAC separating the two sides.

The last firing on the border happened in 1975 when four Indian soldiers were killed in a remote pass in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. The clash was variously described by former diplomats as an ambush and an accident. But no bullets have been fired since.


At the root of this is a 1996 bilateral agreement that says "neither side shall open fire... conduct blast operations or hunt with guns or explosives within two kilometres of the Line of Actual Control".

But there have been other tense confrontations along the border in recent weeks. In May Indian and Chinese soldiers exchanged physical blows on the border at Pangong Lake, also in Ladakh, and in the north-eastern Indian state of Sikkim hundreds of miles to the east.

India has accused China of sending thousands of troops into Ladakh's Galwan Valley and says China occupies 38,000 sq km (14,700 sq miles) of its territory. Several rounds of talks in the last three decades have failed to resolve the boundary disputes.

Nuclear powers, a disputed border and an uneasy truce: Explaining the India-China conflict 

Saphora Smith and Adela Suliman and Vivi Wu and Ed Flanagan and The Associated Press
NBC News•June 20, 2020

High up in the Himalayas, Indian and Chinese armed forces warily eye each other across a disputed border region that has become the scene of a tense standoff between the two nuclear powers.

The conflict in the remote Galwan Valley that spans their shared border sparked into life Monday with the killing of 20 Indian soldiers, the first reported deaths in 45 years. China has not disclosed whether its forces suffered any casualties, according to a report in its state-run newspaper, the Global Times.

The deaths have drawn the world’s gaze to a region that the two most populous countries have been contesting for decades. The implications go far beyond the lonely snowcapped mountains of this geopolitically complex region.

 

Burning posters of Chinese President Xi Jinping (Diptendu Dutta / AFP - Getty Images)

Chinese and Indian forces clashed along the 2,100-mile-long Line of Actual Control, a demarcation line established after a war between the two nations in 1962 that resulted in an uneasy truce.

No shots are reported to have been fired since 1975, according to the Indian press, but troops occasionally engage in hand-to-hand scuffles and throwing rocks.
So what happened this week?

The details of exactly what happened Monday remain in short supply.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a phone call with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, on Wednesday that Indian troops had crossed the line of control to “deliberately provoke and even violently attack” Chinese officers and soldiers, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

Meanwhile, on the same call Jaishankar accused China of seeking to erect “a structure” in the Galwan Valley on the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border.

“The Chinese side took premeditated and planned action that was directly responsible for the resulting violence and casualties,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement. “It reflected an intent to change the facts on ground in violation of all our agreements to not change the status quo.”


Why is this happening now?


Thousands of troops have been camped either side of the Galwan Valley, in the mountainous region of Ladakh, for weeks.

The tense standoff started in early May, when Indian officials said Chinese soldiers crossed the boundary in Ladakh at three different points, erecting tents and guard posts and ignoring verbal warnings to leave, according to The Associated Press. That triggered shouting matches, stone-throwing and even fistfights between the two sides, much of it replayed on television news channels and social media, the news agency reported.
What are the possible motivations behind the clashes?

Under India’s Hindu-nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, the country wants to be seen as strong, according to Gareth Price, a senior research fellow at Chatham House, an international affairs think tank in London.

“The one country that doesn’t respect India to the degree India would like is China,” he said. “India wants to be seen as an equal to China and talks about a multipolar Asia, but then it sees China as wanting dominance in Asia.”

However, Price said he thought it was unlikely that India would want to provoke China potentially to war particularly in the midst of a pandemic.

“It also knows China is bigger,” he said.

China on the other hand may have possible reasons to provoke a confrontation with India, Price said, although he cautioned that an overriding motivation there also remained unclear.

Among the reasons raised by analysts include China’s objection to India’s construction of a road through the Galwan Valley connecting the region to an airstrip, New Delhi’s increasing close alliance with Washington, and Beijing’s support for Pakistan in its dispute with India over the Kashmir region.


 

Image: An Indian army convoy (Mukhtar Khan / AP)

Others also pointed to China’s increasing assertiveness in the region as a potential broader explanation.


Walter Ladwig III, a senior lecturer in international relations at King’s College London, pointed to its more forceful conduct in the South China Sea and Hong Kong in recent months.

“There definitely is a clear sense that China is much more forceful at the moment than it has been in the past,” he said.

“They’re throwing their weight around a lot more in all theaters, both domestically and in terms of their foreign relations,” said Nick Reynolds, a research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London.


How dangerous is the clash?


India has said both sides had agreed not to “escalate matters and instead, ensure peace and tranquility.”

Modi echoed this but also underlined that India would give a “befitting reply” to any provocation. “India will firmly protect every inch of the country's land and its self-respect,” he said.

The Chinese foreign ministry also said both sides agreed after Monday’s clash to “cool the current situation” as soon as possible and “safeguard peace and tranquility in the border areas.”

The stakes are high. In the past year, China has increased its nuclear arsenal from 290 to 320 warheads, and India from 130-140 to 150 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI.
Experts say the broader dispute itself is not going away any time soon and Price points out that an agreement between New Delhi and Beijing after clashes in 2017 did nothing to stop this week’s deaths.

“No troops have died on this border since 1975, so this is kind of new territory,” he said.

Both Price and Reynolds said it would be difficult for either government to be seen to back down, considering their domestic politics. But Reynolds said international pressure may help and Price said there may be a way for both countries to claim victory but at the same time mutually back away.

“The elevation and terrain of this area means it’s highly unlikely this could escalate large scale,” Ladwig said. “But there’s plenty of opportunity for small-scale mistakes, skirmishes, accidents.”

Fighting the elements, not the enemy, on India's China border 



Aishwarya KUMAR AFP•June 20, 2020

The terrain is so high that soldiers need time to acclimatise to their new posting or they run the risk of serious altitude sickness that can kill even a healthy young person in hours (AFP Photo/STR) 


Death is a real and constant danger for the soldiers serving on India's Himalayan border with China, but until a deadly brawl on June 15 the only killers since 1975 have been the topography and the elements.


"We get more than 100 casualties every year just due to terrain, weather conditions, avalanches... There is constant danger," said retired Lt. General DS Hooda, who until 2016 headed India's Northern Command.

"You're talking about 14-15,000 feet (4,300-4,600 metres). It takes a huge toll on your physical and mental condition," Hooda told AFP after Monday's brutal hand-to-hand battle with fists, rocks and clubs which saw the first Indian combat deaths with China in over four decades.


In the "cold desert" of the Galwan river valley in the Ladakh region where the fighting took place, winter temperatures can plunge below minus 30 Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), cracking gun barrels and seizing up machinery.


There are few roads so troops -- who are fed a special high-protein diet -- must slog through the thin air themselves, carrying their own equipment as they navigate treacherous terrain.

For those who get injured or fall sick "evacuation becomes an enormous challenge," Hooda said. Getting them to a helipad "can take hours", and as soon as night falls, it's too dangerous for helicopters to fly.

This may be why the initial death toll of three shot up to 20 late on Tuesday.

Seventeen other troops critically injured in the clashes, which lasted until after midnight, were "exposed to sub-zero temperatures in the high altitude terrain" and succumbed to their injuries, the army said.

- Cold and confused -

The terrain is so high that soldiers need time to acclimatise to their new posting or they run the risk of serious altitude sickness that can kill even a healthy young person in hours.

"For an average human being who is not a resident of that place, survival in itself is a huge challenge," said Colonel S Dinny, who until 2017 commanded an Indian battalion in the region, told AFP.

"It is one of the toughest places to serve as a soldier," he said.

Normally soldiers do a two-year posting there, broken up by periods of leave. Those who smoke quickly kick the habit.

"With such low oxygen plus the weather plus the smoking, the chances of getting a heart attack shoot up," Dinny added.

The cold and the high altitude affects eyesight, adding to troops' disorientation. Weather, which can change quickly with little warning, and the hilly terrain can impair radio communication.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the "Line of Actual Control" (LAC) isn't properly demarcated, meaning that Indian and Chinese troops can bump into each other and believe the other side has trespassed.

"The maps have not even been exchanged so that the other person knows what someone is claiming. There are no boundary markers," said Dinny.

To avoid escalations, both sides have over the years developed detailed protocols on the procedures to follow -- while also agreeing that neither side shall open fire.

If rival patrols bump into each other, they keep their distance and unfurl banners warning each other they have left their territory and should turn back.

Apart from occasional flare-ups, when they meet, the troops conduct themselves like "professional soldiers serving their respective countries, they treat each other with that courtesy," Dinny said.

- Punch-ups -

But in recent months confrontations have increased with both sides building up troops and infrastructure. China appears to have been particularly irked by India building a new road.

China, according to New Delhi, is encroaching further into new areas, including some of the northern shore of the Pangong Tso lake and the Galwan valley which China now lays claim to in its entirety.

In May there were two punch-ups before the deadly clash in June which reportedly saw Chinese troops attack the Indians with nail-studded batons, rocks and fists.

"It is time we revisit our protocol and our rules of engagement so that any disagreements can be handled in a more military fashion rather than fighting it out like goons on the street," Hooda said.




Weather, which can change quickly with little warning, and the hilly terrain can impair radio communication (AFP Photo/Tauseef MUSTAFA)


In the 'cold desert' of the Galwan river valley where Indian and Chinese troops fought a brutal hand-to-hand battle, winter temperatures can plunge below minus 30 Celsius (minus 20 Fahrenheit) (AFP Photo/-)


India-China Himalayan standoff deadly for cashmere herds 



AIJAZ HUSSAIN Associated PressJune 19, 2020

India Kashmir China Himalayan Standoff
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members shout slogans as they burn an effigy of Chinese President Xi Jinping during a protest against China in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Friday, June 19, 2020. India's prime minister is meeting top opposition leaders Friday as the government tries to lower tensions with China after 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash in a Himalayan border region. India and China accuse each other of instigating the fight in the Galwan Valley, part of the disputed Ladakh region along the Himalayan frontier. It was the deadliest conflict between the sides in 45 years. China has not said whether it suffered any casualties. (AP Photo/ Dar Yasin)


 In this July 21, 2007, file photo, an elderly man belonging to the Changpa, the nomadic herders who rear the Pashmina goats, holds his Himalayan goat as his son cuts its horn that was hurting the animal's eye in Kharnak, some 185 kilometers (116 miles) from Leh, India. A months-long military standoff between India and China in 2020 has taken a dire toll on local communities as tens of thousands of Himalayan goat kids die because they couldn't reach traditional winter grazing lands, officials and residents said. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin, File) 

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Antagonisms between Indian and Chinese troops high in the Himalayas are taking a dire toll on traditional goat herds that supply the world’s finest, most expensive cashmere.

This week, a deadly brawl between Indian and Chinese soldiers caused the deaths of at least 20 Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley, an achingly beautiful landscape that is part of a border region that has been disputed for decades because of its strategic importance as the world's highest landing ground.

The months-long military standoff between the Asian giants is hurting local communities due to the loss of tens of thousands of Himalayan goat kids died because they couldn't reach traditional winter grazing lands, officials and residents said.


Nomads have roamed these lands atop the roof of the world, around the undemarcated borders with China and Tibet, for centuries, herding the famed and hardy goats that produce the ultrasoft wool known as Pashmina, the finest of cashmeres.

ashmere takes its name from the disputed Kashmir valley, where artisans weave the wool into fine yarn and exquisite shawls that cost up to $1,000 apiece in world fashion capitals in a major handicraft export industry that employs thousands.

This latest bout of friction between the rival nuclear powers is adding to pressures from climate change and longer-term losses of grazing land for the Changpa, the nomadic herders who rear the Pashmina goats.

With access to the usual breeding and birthing grounds blocked by militaries on either side, newborn goats are perishing in the extreme cold of higher elevations, herders say.

“Denial of pastureland has led to high mortality of goat babies. It’s so scary, it has never been like this,” said Sonam Tsering, the general secretary of All Changtang Pashmina Growers Cooperative Marketing Society.

He said thousands of newborns died this year because most of the 300,000-strong herd of goats, which yields around 45 tons of fine feather-like wool each year, remained trapped in the extreme cold.

uthorities in Leh, the capital of Indian-controlled Ladakh, would not give any information, saying they were still collecting data.

But two officials with Ladakh’s animal husbandry department said that according to field staff, the deaths were much higher than the usual 5 to 10% mortality rate among some 60,000 to 80,000 kids each year. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they said the Ladakh administration has barred them from speaking to reporters.

Demand for the cashmere, which is painstakingly combed from the goats, sorted, cleaned and hand woven, has always outstripped supply, so shortages are a certainty, said several people working in the trade.

“It’s going to be catastrophic for wool production,” said Namgyal Durbuk, a village official in the region.

India and China fought a border war in 1962 that also spilled into Ladakh. The two countries have been trying to settle their border dispute since the early 1990s without success, as their soldiers face off along a thousands-of-miles-long, undemarcated frontier that stretches from Ladakh in the north to the Indian state of Sikkim in the northeast.

For most of the year the Changpa raise their herds in the vast cold desert of the Changtang plateau of Ladakh, which straddles Tibet at over 5,000 meters (16,404 feet) above sea level.

The harsh, windy climate is what causes the goats to grow their super-soft wool. But the Abecomes inhospitable from December to February, when temperatures can fall to minus 50 Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit).

That's when the Changpas bring their livestock to slightly lower elevations and warmer grazing lands in the Demchok, Hanle, Korzok, Chumar and Chushul areas near the disputed border with China.

This year, Indian authorities barred their passage for months, several people involved with herding said.

The two sides blame each other for Monday night's clash, their deadliest conflict in 45 years.

Tensions have surged since August, when India unilaterally declared the region a federal territory while separating it from disputed Kashmir. China is among a handful of countries that strongly condemned the move, raising it at international forums including the U.N. Security Council.

Indian officials have kept a near-total silence on issues related to the confrontation with China. However, a security official in Ladakh, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with government regulations, said the grazing lands are close to the contested frontier and the restrictions in place in the area are to protect herders from Chinese soldiers.

Around 1,200 Changpa families have lost access to grazing lands even in the areas that are controlled by the Indian military due to the confrontation, Tsering said.

But the Chinese side also is interfering, he and other herders said.

Our nomads in recent years have increasingly faced difficulty in accessing pastures in these places. Chinese soldiers have blocked them while bringing herders from Tibet into our lands,” said Tsering.

Phuntsog, a local farmer who uses only one name, said local elders have been complaining to the Indian government about Chinese incursions for years.

“They would ignore every time. Now see where the Chinese are. Worst, these hapless, beautiful creatures which sustain our livelihood are becoming victim of this political and military game,” he said.

China's foreign ministry said Thursday that such allegations are “sheer fiction.” “Chinese border troops have always only patrolled Chinese territories,” the ministry said.

Tsering said herders began losing terrain years ago, when Chinese began “snatching our pasturelands in a concerted way over the years, like inch by inch.” He cited an example of a vast winter pastureland known as Kakjung, close to the Indus river.

“For the past four years it’s a no-go-zone for us. They (Chinese) have taken full control of it,” he said.

___

Associated Press reporters in Beijing contributed to this report.



Galwan Valley: The fake news about India and China's border clash 


Reality Check team - BBC News BBC•June 19, 2020
 

Feelings run high at an anti-China protest in Delhi

Following the deadly clash between Chinese and Indian forces in a disputed Himalayan border area this week, misleading images and videos have been widely shared by social media users.

We've found examples of images and video posted online claiming to be of the latest clash, but which are in fact completely unrelated.


1. A video claiming to show soldiers in combat

Screen grab of video labelled three years old

Our first example is a video on YouTube claiming to show the "real fight" between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Galwan river valley, where the recent clash took place.

It's had more than 21,000 views, and also been widely viewed on Twitter, where some posts talk of the Indian army "kicking out" Chinese forces.

However, the video is shot in daylight, whereas the latest clash in the Ladakh region took place at night.

We've also found this same video posted both in August 2017 and September 2019, on both occasions claiming to show previous skirmishes between Indian and Chinese troops.

The freezing battlefield where India and China clashed

The soldiers killed in the India-China border clash 



2. Indian soldiers mourning casualties is not what it appears

A video depicting an emotional scene with Indian soldiers crying and hugging, as others carry what appears to be a body bag, is doing the rounds on social media.

 


Screen grab of video labelled wrong location

It's been tagged by some users as related to the Galwan valley clash this week.

However, the video is from an incident more than a year ago in the Kashmir region, when Indian forces sustained a number of casualties in a confrontation with armed militants.

It's not connected at all to the current incident between Indian and Chinese troops in a disputed border area.



3. An old argument between military officers

 Twitter post showing a video of soldiers from China and India arguing has had thousands of views.

 


Screen grab of video labelled old
The Chinese troops are scolding an Indian soldier, and demanding that he leaves.

The video has been posted on TikTok's Chinese-language site, and has got more than 33,000 likes and has also been shared by the spokesperson of India's opposition party, the Indian National Congress.

However, the same video had also appeared on social media platforms in May, so it predates this week's clash. And a search reveals that the video was uploaded to YouTube in January this year.

Apart from that, it's pretty clear from the terrain depicted that the video is not from a mountainside in Ladakh.

Although we can't establish the exact location, a report by one fact-checking site suggests that it was from a border area in Arunachal Pradesh state, at least 1,000 miles away.
4. A funeral for a fallen Indian soldier

Another widely-shared video shows the funeral ceremony for an Indian army man, with his fellow-soldiers shouting out and chanting.

 


Screen grab of video labelled wrong incident

The video - viewed about 40,000 times - refers to the Galwan valley clash and praises Indian soldiers.

The video, however, has nothing to do with the soldiers who died on 16 June.

A reverse image search shows that a similar video was posted on YouTube in May.

Listening to the video, you can just make out the name of the soldier, and a keyword search on Google shows that the soldier in the video died in an accident in the Leh-Ladakh region in May.


The soldier's funeral took place in his home town in the state of Maharashtra, where he was given full state honours.


5. Images of dead bodies and coffins are the wrong continent

Chinese-language article on the recent India-China violence contains images purportedly showing the dead bodies of Indian soldiers from the clash.

 


Screen grab of video labelled wrong country

The article has been read more than 100,000 times, and an image from it has also been used on a Pakistani news website called Baaghitv.

The same image has also cropped up on social media.

A simple reverse image search showed that it's actually from Nigeria. It depicts the aftermath of an incident in 2015, when Nigerian soldiers were killed by Boko Haram militants.

And another image in the same article showing several army coffins with wreaths is the same as an image posted on social media in February 2019 after a major attack on Indian forces in the Pulwama district of Indian-administered Kashmir.


So again, this is completely unrelated to the current clash.

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 Reality Check branding


India-China clash: An extraordinary escalation 'with rocks and clubs'




Soutik Biswas India correspondent
16 June 2020
Related Topics
China-India border dispute

 

REUTERS
The two nuclear armed neighbours have a chequered history of face-offs

"It is looking bad, very bad," says security analyst Vipin Narang, of the deadly clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Ladakh on Monday night.

The most serious face-off on the world's longest unsettled land border in nearly half a century left 20 Indian soldiers dead. India says both sides suffered casualties.

"Once fatalities are sustained, keeping everything quiet becomes hard on both sides. Now public pressure becomes a variable," Dr Narang, a security studies professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told me.

"The scale, scope and swathe of the pressure across the border is seemingly unprecedented."

The two nuclear armed neighbours have a chequered history of face-offs and overlapping territorial claims along the more than 3,440km (2,100 mile), poorly drawn Line of Actual Control (LAC) separating the two sides. Border patrols have often bumped into each other, resulting in occasional scuffles. But no bullets have been fired in four decades.

That is why the latest clash, following months of roiling tension, has taken many by surprise.

"It is an extraordinary escalation," Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor at The Economist magazine, told me. "No shots fired for 45 years, and then at least 20 soldiers dead in one evening in rock-throwing and bludgeoning." The clash comes amid fresh tensions between the two powers, which have brawled along the border in recent weeks but not exchanged any gunfire.


PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU
The area has become a hotspot in part because of a road India has built

Reports say in early May, Chinese forces put up tents, dug trenches and moved heavy equipment several kilometres inside what had been regarded by India as its territory in Galwan valley in Ladakh. Ajai Shukla, a leading Indian defence analyst, has claimed that China had captured 60 sq km of Indian-patrolled territory in the area in the past one month. India claims China already occupies 38,000sq km (about 14,700sq miles) of its territory.

The move came after India built a road several hundred kilometres long connecting to a high-altitude forward air base which it reactivated in 2008.
'One of the most serious crises in years'

The details of how Monday's skirmish unfolded remain fuzzy.

India and China are accusing each other of violating the consensus to respect the Line of Actual Control that separates the both sides in the Galwan Valley.

India says the two sides have been exploring military and diplomatic channels to de-escalate the situation and that senior commanders had a "productive meeting" on 6 June. They agreed "on a process of de-escalation" and subsequently, the ground commanders had a series of meetings to implement the consensus, India's foreign ministry said.

India said both sides suffered casualties after the Chinese "unilaterally tried to change the status quo." And China accuses India troops of "violating" the consensus, crossing the border twice and carrying out provocative attacks on Chinese personnel".

Ankit Panda, a senior editor at The Diplomat magazine, says the ongoing crisis was "already among the most serious between the two countries - certainly since the 2017 Doklam standoff and possibly much longer". Road construction by the Chinese triggered a 73-day standoff in 2017 at a junction of India, China and Bhutan.


GETTY IMAGES An Indian soldier at the border in Ladakh

But Chinese behaviour this time has "been very different from what we have seen in the past," Shivshankar Menon, a China expert and a former national security advisor, says.

"What we have seen is multiple incidents, multiple moves forward and China occupying spaces which it never occupied before along the LAC. This is a worrying sign because it's different from Chinese behaviour in the past," Mr Menon told interviewer Karan Thapar in The Wire, an independent online news portal.

Theories abound on the reasons behind China's actions in the area.

In a tactical sense, Delhi's beefing up of the border infrastructure may have triggered the Chinese army into action in Ladakh. The pandemic may have provided the cover for China to act, particularly as the Indian army had delayed exercises in Ladakh in March. "But I doubt it was the only cause," says Mr Joshi.

"Is it about the road? Is it about Article 370 [India's action of unilaterally changing the status quo of Kashmir in August last year] Is it broader aggressiveness? We don't know," says Dr Narang. "But it is tense and it is not over."

Mr Menon, who served as India's ambassador to China, believes that China is resorting to strident nationalism, due to "domestic and economic stresses" at home. "You can see it in their behaviour in Yellow Sea, towards Taiwan, passing laws without consulting Hong Kong, more assertive on India's border, a tariff war with Australia."


On Tuesday evening, India said the troops had disengaged from the clash site. Early reports suggest that established military channels were being used and both sides were not escalating. "That's good news for India, which has few credible retaliatory options in the current environment," says Mr Panda.

Mr Joshi believes the most important consequences of Monday's clashes will be the "wider and long-term diplomatic one".

"For 10 years, Sino-Indian rivalry has steadily intensified, but remained largely stable," he said. India and China have also been more engaged. Bilateral trade increased 67 times between 1998 and 2012, and China is India's largest trading partner in goods. Indian students have flocked to Chinese universities. Both sides have held joint military exercises.

"Now we may be entering a new period of heightened mistrust and antagonism washing away much of the bonhomie on display at the Wuhan summit in 2018," says Mr Joshi.
India-China clash: 20 Indian troops killed in Ladakh fighting

16 June 2020
Related Topics
China-India border dispute


GETTY IMAGES 
India and China have been locked in a border dispute for decades

At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese forces in a disputed Himalayan border area, Indian officials say.

The incident follows rising tensions, and is the first deadly clash in the border area in at least 45 years.

The Indian army initially said three of its soldiers had been killed, adding that both sides suffered casualties.

But later on Tuesday, officials said a number of critically injured soldiers had died of their wounds.

India's external affairs ministry accused China of breaking an agreement struck the previous week to respect the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Galwan Valley.

BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says violence between two armies high up in the Himalayas is very serious, and pressure will grow on the two nuclear powers not to allow a slide into full-scale conflict.


What have both sides said about the incident?

Early on Tuesday the Indian army said three of its soldiers, including an officer, had died in a clash in Ladakh, in the disputed Kashmir region.

Later in the day, it released a statement saying the two sides had disengaged.

It added that "17 Indian troops who were critically injured in the line of duty" and died from their injuries, taking the "total that were killed in action to 20".

China did not confirm any casualties, but accused India in turn of crossing the border onto the Chinese side.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said India had crossed the border twice on Monday, "provoking and attacking Chinese personnel, resulting in serious physical confrontation between border forces on the two sides", AFP news agency reported.



Both sides insist no bullet has been fired in four decades, and the Indian army said on Tuesday that "no shots were fired" in this latest skirmish.

How a clash that did not involve an exchange of fire could prove so lethal is unclear. There are reports that it was fought with rocks and clubs

Local media outlets reported that the Indian soldiers had been "beaten to death".
How tense is the area?


The LAC is poorly demarcated. The presence of rivers, lakes and snowcaps means the line can shift. The soldiers either side - representing two of the world's largest armies - come face to face at many points. 


But there have been tense confrontations along the border in recent weeks

India has accused China of sending thousands of troops into Ladakh's Galwan valley and says China occupies 38,000sq km (14,700sq miles) of its territory. Several rounds of talks in the last three decades have failed to resolve the boundary disputes.

The two countries have fought only one war so far, in 1962, when India suffered a humiliating defeat.

In May, dozens of Indian and Chinese soldiers exchanged physical blows on the border in the north-eastern state of Sikkim. And in 2017, the two countries clashed in the region after China tried to extend a border road through a disputed plateau.

There are several reasons why tensions are rising now - but competing strategic goals lie at the root, and both sides blame each other.

India has built a new road in what experts say is the most remote and vulnerable area along the LAC in Ladakh. And India's decision to ramp up infrastructure seems to have infuriated Beijing.

The road could boost Delhi's capability to move men and materiel rapidly in case of a conflict.

India also disputes part of Kashmir - an ethnically diverse Himalayan region covering about 140,000sq km - with Pakistan. 



Kashmir: Why India and Pakistan fight over it 




The two nuclear armed neighbours have a chequered history of face-offs and overlapping territorial claims along the more than 3,440km (2,100 mile), poorly drawn Line of Actual Control separating the two sides.

Border patrols have often bumped into each other, resulting in occasional scuffles. But no bullets have been fired in four decades.

That is why Sunday's night's clash following months of roiling tension has taken many by surprise.

Whatever the result, the latest incident is likely to trigger a fresh wave of anti-China sentiments in India.

It will also present daunting foreign policy and security challenges to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government, which is struggling to contain a surge of Covid-19 infections and revive an economy which looks headed for recession.

Ten captured Indian soldiers released by China as evidence grows Beijing planned Ladakh ambush 






Joe Wallen The Telegraph•June 19, 2020
 

At least 76 Indian soldiers remain injured after the clash between the two superpowers in Galwan Valley - Tauseef Mustafa/AFP

Ten Indian soldiers captured by China in Ladakh on Monday evening have been released, as evidence grows Beijing “meticulously planned” the ambush.

The Indian Army has said no further troops are being held prisoner but 76 Indian soldiers remain injured, after Chinese troops attacked Indian forces with brutal weapons including nail-embedded rods.

Indian intelligence agencies flagged the unusual movement of Chinese soldiers to bases on the Tibetan side of the Line of Actual Control, which separates the two superpowers, as early as February.

Yet, Indian troops were slow to reinforce after the Himalayan spring snow due to the coronavirus and members of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) crossed the LAC and annexed 60 square kilometres of Indian territory at four locations - Pangong Tso Lake, Galwan River and Valley, Hot Springs and Demchok.

Former leader of the opposition, Rahul Gandhi, tweeted today that it was “crystal clear” that the government was “fast asleep”.

The Indian Army has officially declared that 20 Indian soldiers were killed in clashes but on condition of anonymity, sources told the Telegraph this figure was 23, as three bodies were unidentifiable due to the injuries inflicted by the Chinese weapons.

The Deccan Chronicle quoted intelligence sources today, saying the actual number of fatalities on the Indian side is as high as 40, as bodies fell in the Galwan River or are buried in deep snow on the mountainside.

 


Indian Army sources shared a photo of a nail-studded rod used by Chinese troops

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Beijing was not privy to any Indian prisoners: "As far as I know China has not detained any Indian personnel," said Zhao Lijian.

Official Indian sources say China suffered 35 casualties during the clash, quoting U.S intelligence material, a development Beijing said it also wasn’t aware of.

In the days leading up to Monday’s clash, satellite footage obtained by Earth-imaging company Planet Labs shows China brought in machinery, cut grooves into the mountainside and may have damned the Galwan River to change its flow.

A senior Indian government official told the Hindu newspaper that the PLA “meticulously planned” the ambush on an Indian patrol, which had set off to ascertain whether Chinese troops had withdrawn from the Galwan Valley, as per an agreement between senior army officers from the two nations.

The source said China was able to release freezing water at a high speed having blocked small rivulets, which made the Indian soldiers lose their balance.

The armed Chinese troops then charged and many Indian soldiers were either beaten to death or fell into the Galwan River below.

“It was pre-planned by China and Indian forces will give a befitting reply,” cautioned Indian Union Minister, Shripad Naik.

Bilateral talks are continuing today and both sides have expressed a desire to reach a peaceful resolution but Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is under increasing pressure from some MPs to respond with force.

Galwan Valley: India and China downplay reports of soldier release 

BBC•June 19, 2020

A cremation ceremony for one of the Indian soldiers killed took place on Thursday

China has denied having any Indian soldiers currently in custody, as both sides try to lower the temperature following a fatal clash along their disputed border in the Galwan Valley.

Indian media had reported that China detained 10 Indian soldiers in the fight, releasing them on Thursday.

Chinese government spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday that no Indian soldiers were "currently" being held.

The Indian government said only that none of its soldiers were missing.

The careful wording of the statements did little to clarify whether Chinese forces in the contested area had taken Indian soldiers into custody and subsequently released them.

Indian media reports suggested that a lieutenant-colonel and three majors were among 10 held by the Chinese, and that their release was the top priority in military and diplomatic talks between the nuclear powers on Wednesday.

Asked at a press conference about the reports, Mr Zhao said: "As far as I know, currently, China has not detained any Indian personnel".

The conflicting reports were the latest round of confusion over what exactly happened in the Galwan Valley on Monday.

At least 20 Indian soldiers died in the clash, which was fought without any firearms because of a 1996 agreement barring guns and explosives from the area, and at least 76 Indian soldiers were injured.

China has not released any information about casualties, though India said both sides suffered losses.

The two nations have accused the other of crossing the poorly demarcated border and provoking the fight.

Shiv Aroor, a senior editor at India Today, tweeted on Thursday with what he said were details of the release of the Indian troops.

To those asking, (and since it’s been reported now) — that’s what my tweet below 6 hours ago was meant to convey. And since the story will be in tomorrow’s papers, if you’re interested in hearing about it from me, here you go: https://t.co/xsMJtUWdaW pic.twitter.com/lxfQKb608N
Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) June 18, 2020

In his press conference Mr Zhao, acknowldged that the two nations were in communication over diplomatic and military channels. "We hope India can work with China to maintain the long-term development of bilateral relations," he said.




Brazil surpasses one million coronavirus cases

BRAZIL RUN BY TRUMP MINI-ME

AFP•June 19, 2020

Supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro protest on June 14, 2020 outside army headquarters against a decision by Brasilia's Governor Ibaneis Rocha preventing crowds from attending rallies (AFP Photo/Sergio LIMA)More

Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Brazil passed the bleak milestone of one million coronavirus cases Friday, reporting a new one-day record number of infections as the pandemic continues to surge in Latin America's largest country.

The health ministry said it had recorded 54,771 new infections, a jump it said was largely due to "instability" in its reporting system, which meant some states were reporting figures from multiple days.

That brought the total number of infections in Brazil to 1,032,913, with 48,954 deaths -- second only to the United States worldwide.

Experts say under-testing means the real numbers are probably much higher.

Despite the grim figures, the infection curve in Brazil is finally showing signs of flattening.

But the country of 212 million people is one of the most worrying hotspots in the pandemic.

Since the start of June, it has registered the most new infections and deaths of any country in the world, according to an AFP count based on official figures -- more than 518,000 and 19,000, respectively.

It has recorded daily death tolls of more than 1,000 on each of the past four days.

Brazil has struggled to set a strategy for dealing with the pandemic.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who has famously compared the virus to a "little flu," has clashed with state and local authorities over their use of stay-at-home measures and business closures to contain it.

The far-right leader argues the economic impact of such measures risks being worse than the virus itself, and has instead pushed his health ministry to recommend chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as treatments, despite uncertainty about the anti-malaria drugs' effectiveness against COVID-19.

Bolsonaro threatened this month to quit the World Health Organization, accusing it of "ideological bias" against the drugs, and has ditched two health ministers since the start of the pandemic after clashing over policy differences.

The health minister he fired in April, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, told AFP Brazilians have suffered because of mixed messages from the government.

"The health ministry and state governors are telling people to stay home and practice social distancing, and the president is saying and doing the opposite," he said.

A year and a half into his term, Bolsonaro has been weakened by the pandemic, as well as a series of investigations targeting him and his inner circle and spiraling clashes with Congress and the Supreme Court.

The World Bank meanwhile forecasts Latin America's biggest economy will shrink by a record eight percent this year.


Brazil minister quits as Supreme Court sends message to Bolsonaro


Reuters•June 18, 2020

Brazil's Education Minister Abraham Weintraub attends a session at the plenary of the Chamber of Deputies in Brasilia

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's firebrand education minister resigned on Thursday, following blunders that aggravated tense relations between the right-wing president and the country's Supreme Court.

Education Minister Abraham Weintraub has been one of the loudest ideological voices in the government. His aggressive style made trouble for the president, including racist remarks about China, Brazil's top trading partner, and a comment that Supreme Court judges should be locked up.

"If it were up to me, I'd stick all those bums in jail," the minister said in a videotaped cabinet meeting.

The court included Weintraub in its investigation of an alleged libel and disinformation network run by Bolsonaro's supporters after that recording became public in May.

Speaking on Thursday after justices voted 10-1 in favor of moving ahead with the "fake news" probe, Chief Justice Dias Toffoli warned that the gradual destabilization of institutions can lead to authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

"We cannot trivialize attacks and threats to the Supreme Court, guardian of the constitution," he said.

Bolsonaro has ramped up tensions with the Brazil's top court in recent months, participating in demonstrations calling for it to be disbanded after it authorized an investigation of his alleged interference in law enforcement.

In a bid to calm tensions with the court, Bolsonaro publicly rebuked Weintraub when he participated on Sunday in the latest protest, feeding speculation about the minister's departure.

In a video on social media, Weintraub said he would not discuss why he was leaving the government to take a role at the World Bank. He read from a statement to the stone-faced president and then gave him a hug.

Weintraub's departure came the same day Brazilian police arrested a former aide to Bolsonaro's eldest son in a graft investigation, threatening to ratchet up his battle with the judiciary.


(Reporting by Eduardo Simoes; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Brad Haynes and Dan Grebler)
Pause in fieldwork hurts scientists' plans for research, futures

By Anne Snabes JUNE 11, 2020 


U.S. NEWS

Sophia Horigan was supposed to study gypsy moths in a southwestern Michigan forest this spring and summer.

Instead, the University of Chicago PhD student is studying in her apartment, where she rotates between a wooden table and a grey armchair.

With her field research in Michigan shut down because of the pandemic, she has foregone conducting experiments on the gypsy moths and substituted using mathematical models to learn about diseases that kill the moths.

"It'll be helpful in the end, and I feel lucky that I am not at a total standstill, even though my fieldwork got canceled," she said.

Scientists in ecology, geochemistry and other fields often conduct field research in the spring or summer, but many of these research trips have been prohibited now due to the coronavirus pandemic. While the pause in field research has allowed scientists to spend more time on data analysis and reading academic papers, experts say that fieldwork is an important part of research in some fields, and the cancellation of this research could delay some students' completion of their PhD programs.

Diarmaid O'Foighil, chair of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan, said a large part of his department's work takes place in the field.

"And it happens worldwide," he said. "So we have people working on ecosystems all over the planet. Every summer, there's a major exodus of faculty, postdocs, grad students and undergrads working in the field, and they can't do that."

In March, fieldwork at the University of Michigan was stopped, but starting May 8, researchers were allowed to return to the field in southeastern Michigan. On June 1, they could start conducting field research anywhere in the state.

But, O'Foighil said, only a small fraction of the department's workforce does field research in the state.

On Wednesday, the university allowed researchers to start doing fieldwork anywhere in the United States. They have to receive permission from their college to do so, though.

To fill their time away from the field, some scientists have turned to their computers. Horigan is learning the programming language in which her model is written and grasping how to run the model.

Horigan said the gypsy moth populations grow rapidly and crash once every nine or 10 years. A virus and a fungus both contribute to the demise of the insects. Mathematical models allow researchers to see how a parameter, like precipitation, affects another variable, like the number of moths. Horigan said the parameter she is studying is a moth's susceptibility to the fungus if it has already been infected by the virus. She uses her model to inform her field research.

"You can see what values of different parameters actually have an impact that is interesting, and then you can take those numbers and put them into your fieldwork," she said.

Greg Dwyer, Horigan's adviser, said that normally his graduate students collect data in the field and then incorporate it into a model. Now, his students are running their models before they gather data in the field, he said.

Allie Balter, a geochemistry PhD student at Columbia University, was supposed to go to Alaska for two weeks in July to participate in the Juneau Icefield Program.

Balter would have skied on the icefield, collecting rocks with undergraduate students. She said the rocks were once in or beneath glaciers, and scientists determine the age that the rocks became exposed to air so they can find out when the glacier left that area. She also would have taught classes to the students. She said she's "really bummed" that her field research trip was canceled.

"I feel like, for me, fieldwork is a big reason why I got into the field I got into, like I really love doing fieldwork," she said.

Balter added that she makes interpretations in the field. She observes the sequence of glacial retreat events when she's in the field, she said.

Instead of doing research on the icefield, she will take her qualifying exam, required for all PhD students, in early July, three months later than the original test date, which was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

During the pandemic, she said she has been writing, analyzing data and reading papers. She said she skims abstracts of papers in her field or similar fields.

"I think it just gives me a better breadth of knowledge of both my field and like surrounding fields so that I can make connections and inferences from my data better," she said.

Balter added that it also allows her to have more in-depth conversations with scientists who do not study the same subject as hers.

Virginia Edgcomb, an associate scientist with tenure at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, also has spent time this spring writing papers and editing as well as writing grant applications.

Edgcomb's field research has "come to a complete stop for the time being." She planned to go on a field research trip on a boat in August, which will probably be pushed back to spring 2020. She said she also she studies denitrification -- a process that removes nitrogen -- in sediments beneath oyster aquaculture farms, but the town where the research takes place, Falmouth, Mass., canceled its aquaculture operations this summer.

"Every single project is set back," Edgcomb said.

The University of Michigan's O'Foighil said the halt in field research "impacts in particular graduate students who need to finish their work to finish their thesis projects" as well as post-doctoral students who are funded by grants.

Katie Dixon, an ecology and evolution PhD student at the University of Chicago, said she was supposed to go to Missoula, Mont., in the spring and summer to study a virus that infects Douglas-fir tussock moths. The third-year PhD student had been planning on conducting field research for two more summers. If she continues with that plan, she will have to stay in her PhD program for a sixth year.

"And that was not in my plan before," she said. "And then funding is always an issue. ... But I'm hoping people will be flexible, like this happened to a lot of people."

John Freudenstein, the chair of Ohio State University's Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, also said some PhD students in his department think they may need additional time to finish their PhDs.

The pause in field research also affects assistant professors, who are trying to earn tenure. To compensate, the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and other academic institutions have given these professors an additional year to earn tenure.

Not all field research was canceled this spring and summer, though. Douglas Buhler, Michigan State University's assistant vice president of research and innovation and the university's director of AgBioResearch, said some agricultural research at Michigan State has been allowed since the start of the pandemic.

Stephen Hsu, the university's senior vice president for research and innovation, sent a letter to faculty on March 23 saying that essential research activities could continue, including "seasonally dependent agricultural and environmental field research with critical implications for human and animal health, as well as food security."

Horigan said that field researchers are used to their plans changing.

"I think that ecologists and field researchers in particular are fairly used to the fact that nature is dynamic, and nothing will ever go to plan, really," she said. "So, hopefully, I think a lot of us are a lot more flexible and creative about what to do when that happens, and so I think it's kind of built some resilience for things like this."


William Barr sued in a personal capacity as protesters who were gassed seek damages for injuries

June 8, 2020 By Roger Sollenberger, Salon - Commentary

GIVING THE ORDER TO HIS FEDERAL TROOPS TO ATTACK

Protesters are suing President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr and a number of federal officials after they were tear-gassed to clear the way for an administration photo-op.

“This case is about the president and attorney general of the United States ordering the use of violence against peaceful demonstrators who were speaking out against discriminatory police brutality targeted at Black people,” the complaint reads.

The suit was filed on behalf of Black Lives Matter DC, along with a handful of individual protesters, by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia (ACLU), in conjunction with the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and Arnold & Porter LLP.


Along with Trump and Barr, the complaint names Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Army Gen. James McConville and the heads of the Secret Service, U.S. Park Police and D.C. National Guard, as well as dozens of anonymous officials who carried out the action.


The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks a court order declaring that the assault violated the protesters’ First and Fourth Amendment rights and affirming that administration officials engaged in a conspiracy to deny those rights.

It also demands a court order barring officials from repeating the action, as well as restitution “for trauma and injuries sustained from chemicals and physical blows.”

“What happened to our members Monday evening here in the nation’s capital was an affront to all our rights,” April Goggans, head organizer of Black Lives Matter DC, said in a statement.

“The death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor at the hands of police officers has reignited the rage, pain and deep sadness our community has suffered for generations,” she added. “We won’t be silenced by tear gas and rubber bullets. Now is our time to be heard.”

Approximately 10 minutes before the president addressed the nation in the Rose Garden last Monday — and nearly a half-hour ahead of the city’s 7 p.m. curfew — law enforcement officials backed by the National Guard unleashed tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang shells on peaceful protesters gathered in Lafayette Square, clearing a path for Trump to stage a photo-op as he held a Bible in front of historic St. John’s Episcopal Church.

“This appears to be grossly unjustified use of a chemical weapon on protesters and raises serious human rights concerns under international law,” the ACLU later posted to Twitter.

The White House and Trump campaign later denied that tear gas had been used, and no law enforcement agency has admitted to it. U.S. Park Police used the term “tear gas” in a statement, though it later walked back the use of the word as a “mistake.” At the same time, it admitted that pepper balls shot by officials cause tears. Reporters on the ground have produced canisters of natural and chemical tear gas agents collected at the scene.

Breaking: police canisters gathered by @wusa9 crews Monday night show federal police DID use artificial CS tear gas in addition to natural OC gas on #BlackLivesMatter #WashingtonDCProtests Asking @usparkpolicepio & @realDonaldTrump for response on statements claiming otherwise. pic.twitter.com/ouFi8NWC2s
— Nathan Baca (@NathanBacaTV) June 4, 2020

Scott Michelman, legal director of the ACLU’s Washington office, was frank in describing the gravity of the moment.

“It was an attack,” he told Salon. “Just a flagrant assault on our constitutional rights — on these people’s civil rights and liberties.”

“We average about 600-700 intakes per year, but that night we received 229,” he said, referring to requests for legal action filed with his office.

“The majority of them were connected to Lafayette and almost all of the rest to Swann Street,” he added, referring to the Washington neighborhood where protesters were gassed in a private home where they had been given refuge after curfew.

When asked whether there was case law precedent for such an injunction, Michelman pointed out that while it is not unusual for courts to issue stays on policies, this circumstances of this incident appear singular.

“I’m not sure anything like this has ever happened,” he said. “It’s something like I’ve never seen before.”

And the complaint itself makes the case.

“The peaceful assembly of people seeking systemic change in the criminal justice system, like the assembly of Plaintiffs and others on June 1, 2020, in Lafayette Square, is based on a decades-old history of civil rights activism in this nation,” it says, referencing a litany of landmark moments such as the 1965 march on Selma, Ala.

“The Lafayette Square assault was violence against black people and their supporters committed by state actors,” the complaint says. “What differentiates the actions here from the others is that the president and attorney general of the United States ordered the violence.”

The morning of the attack on the demonstrators, Trump, on a conference call with governors, pushed them to “dominate your city and your state.”

“In Washington, we’re going to do something people haven’t seen before,” he said.

On that call, the secretary of defense, also named as a defendant in the suit, told governors they needed to “dominate the battle space,” meaning the streets of the U.S.

Hours later, federal agents gassed peaceful protesters and helicopters performed counterinsurgency tactical maneuvers over the streets of the nation’s capital.

A Department of Justice spokesperson told The Washington Post that Trump had directed Barr to personally “lead” the response to the unrest.

“Bill Barr, the attorney general, the top law enforcement agent in the country, is going along, complicit,” the ACLU’s Michelman said.

Barr is the only defendant sued not only in his official capacity but also his personal capacity, which an ACLU spokesperson indicated in an email was reflected in the portion of the suit seeking damages for injuries and would also be the part of the suit most likely to come before a jury.


Barr personally ordered the protesters at Lafayette Square cleared, a pair of senior Justice Department and White House officials told ABC News. Barr “assumed that any resistance from the protesters of being moved would be met with typical crowd-control measures,” an official told The Post. Barr “basically said: ‘This needs to be done. Get it done,'” the official recalled.

A short while later, tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang shells were unleashed on protesters.

“This plan was happening, regardless of any plans of the president,” a DOJ official told The Post.


The ACLU’s complaint points out that Barr gave the order after several days of the president threatening violence against protestors, such as on the conference call and a tweet that Twitter masked for violating its policy against “glorifying violence.

The order was also given in conjunction with a Secret Service notice that the president would visit the church after his speech.

“President Trump has routinely been sympathetic to protesters whose views align with his own,” the complaint reads, citing the white nationalist protests that turned deadly in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.



The day before the assault, Trump invited demonstrators to Lafayette Square, urging supporters to form a counter-protest.

“The professionally managed so-called ‘protesters’ at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. The @SecretService handled them easily. Tonight, I understand, is MAGA NIGHT AT THE WHITE HOUSE???” he tweeted.

The government has two months to respond to the suit.

Photos show famed hidden treasure found after 10-year search

CBS News•June 18, 2020

An eccentric art dealer announced earlier this month the famed treasure chest he hid in the Rocky Mountains more than a decade ago was finally found. Now he has posted photos of the treasure that he says proves it was indeed discovered.

Forrest Fenn posted three photos on a blog dedicated to the search, showing the bronze chest filled with gold, jewels and other valuables worth more than $1 million. He said he is respecting the finder's wish to remain anonymous and not disclose where the stash was found.

Fenn announced on June 6 that someone had finally found the chest he claims he hid in 2010 with only a cryptic poem to guide treasure hunters. But the 89-year-old Fenn provided very few details, other than the man who found the loot was from "back East."

Fenn posted three photos on his blog Tuesday. The first, he says, shows the bronze chest on a trail "not long after" it was found. It appears to show a variety of coins, gold nuggets and a rusted key.
key.jpg

A photo showing the treasure chest "not long after: it was found, according to Forrest Fenn. dalneitzel.com

The second photo shows Fenn wearing a tarnished silver bracelet from the chest.

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Forrest Fenn wears a silver bracelet he says was in the chest. dalneitzel.com

The third photo shows him going through the contents of the chest, which he said was "darker than it was ten years ago."
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Forrest Fenn inspects items from the treasure chest. dalneitzel.com

Other than the photos, Fenn did not disclose much new information about the person who discovered the famed chest.

"The treasure chest was found by a man I did not know and had not communicated with since 2018," Fenn wrote. "The finder wants me to remain silent and I always said the finder gets to make those two calls. Who and where."

Fenn posted clues to the treasure's whereabouts online and in a 24-line poem that was published in his 2010 autobiography "The Thrill of the Chase."

At least four people died searching for it, including a snowmobiler in March. In 2017, police in northern New Mexico recovered the body of a Colorado pastor who disappeared while searching for the treasure.

Countless others have gotten stuck in steep canyons and rushing rivers while searching for the treasure. Some of the people tasked with rescuing those treasure hunters told the Associated Press that they are relieved the hunt is over.

"We are very happy," said Dan Johnson, spokesman for Dinosaur National Monument.
INSIDE THE SEATTLE SOVIET

A RIGHT WING EDITORIAL QUOTES MARX ON THE PARIS COMMUNE AND GETS IT RIGHT



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Matthew Continetti - JUNE 19, 2020 5:00 AM


"What," Marx asked, "is the Commune, that sphinx so tantalizing to the bourgeois mind?"

In 1871 the Commune was the revolutionary government of Paris, a revolt against the newborn Third Republic of Adolphe Thiers. The communards, drawn from the ranks of city-dwelling laborers, overthrew the republican army and replaced it with an armed guard. The police were disbanded—or "defunded"—and reconstituted as an agency of the Commune. "It aimed to expropriate the expropriators." Churches were closed, judges were disestablished, and offices redistributed among the masses of the people.

"In a rough sketch of national organization which the Commune had no time to develop," Marx wrote in "The Civil War in France," "it states clearly that the Commune was to be the political form of even the smallest country hamlet, and that in the rural districts the standing army was to be replaced by a national militia, with an extremely short term of service." The Russian word for the form of social organization exemplified by the Commune is "soviet."

The Commune was crushed when Thiers organized a new regular army from the French provinces and retook Paris. Recent events in Seattle, though, drew me back to my Marx-Engels Reader. On June 8, after days of violent clashes with protesters, Mayor Jenny Durkan ordered police to abandon the East Precinct headquarters in the crunchy neighborhood of Capitol Hill. The demonstrators quickly established an "autonomous zone" within a six-block area devoid of police and governed, if that is the word, by decentralized and rotating groups of social justice warriors, anarchists, and armed men. The Seattle soviet was born.

It, too, has tantalized the bourgeois mind. To the left, Capitol Hill is, as one entranced New York Times correspondent put it, "now a homeland for racial justice—and, depending on the protester one talked to, perhaps something more." To the right, it symbolizes anarchy, danger, mob rule, and the breakdown of civil order. "This is no different than ISIS taking over cities in the Middle East," said the lieutenant governor of Texas.

Yikes. The truth, writes Seattle radio host Jason Rantz in National Review Online, is somewhere between utopian hopes and conservative fears. Rantz says that the neighborhood is "at times a street fair and at other times a social-justice workshop, with an unhealthy dose of violence and intimidation mixed in." It is a problem for a left-wing municipal government, not a prelude to civil war.

What is happening in Seattle also has a fantastic, satirical quality, a frivolity that illustrates the differences between earlier periods of upheaval and our own. Both activists and officials seem to be playacting, inhabiting the roles of revolutionary Jacobin and timid liberal, even as they haphazardly work to resolve the situation, in a tragicomic script written by Tom Wolfe. The occupiers have no leaders—"They’re treating me like I’m the f—ing mayor!" says recording artist Raz Simone—and can’t even decide on a name. First they rechristened the neighborhood "Free Capitol Hill," then the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone," or CHAZ. Recently, though, they seem to have dropped the call for autonomy, perhaps because authorities have been so accommodating. Thus the designation has been changed to the "Capitol Hill Organized Protest" or, depending on whom you ask, the "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest" (CHOP).

It is not clear what CHOP wants. Walter Duranty’s successor in the Times noted that one petition listed three demands, another five, and an online manifesto thirty. The consistent theme is abolition of the police.

But this is an issue on which CHOP and the city of Seattle may wind up agreeing to disagree. The autonomous zone is shrinking. On June 16, city transportation crews placed concrete barriers around the empty precinct, subtly limiting the space available to activists. They met no resistance. "Minor changes to the protest zone," wrote the mayor’s office, "will implement safer and sturdier barriers to protect individuals in this area, allow traffic to move throughout the Capitol Hill neighborhood, ease access for residents of apartment buildings in the surrounding areas, and help local businesses manage deliveries and logistics." That is not how Thiers would have handled things.

Nor are the leaders of CHOP as stalwart as the communards. They are negotiating with city officials for the return of police to the precinct. Until then, according to city hall, "The Seattle Police Department will dispatch to respond to significant life-safety issues in the area," including but not limited to "an active shooter incident, an assault, a structure fire, significant medical emergency (i.e., heart attack, stroke, trauma) and other incidents that threaten a person’s life safety." What type of rebellion allows the sovereign to peaceably supply materials, and to respond to criminal complaints? Not a very serious one.

Old Karl would be disappointed. "This is not a party," a local NAACP official scolded the CHOP the other day. "This is a mission and we have a mission to accomplish." But it is becoming more difficult to draw the line between carnival and campaign, especially when the mission of the campaign is so ill-defined. CHOP seems destined to go the way of Occupy Wall Street as revolutionary energies dissipate, boredom sets in, local property owners lose patience, and protesters' grievances are coopted by legitimate political structures. Enjoy the show while it lasts. Because the Seattle soviet, like its predecessors, is doomed to fail.


Matthew Continetti is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and founding editor of the Washington Free Beacon. The author of The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine (Doubleday, 2006) and The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star (Sentinel, 2009), his articles and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Atlantic, and Wall Street Journal. He lives in Virginia.