US formally starts withdrawal from WHO

TRUMP EMBRACES JOHN BIRCH ANTI UN / NWO CONSPIRACY

THE STUPIDITY OF THIS MOVE IS BEST UNDERSTOOD AS BEING COUNTER 

TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE USA THAT FUNDED AND CREATED WHO 


(John Moore/Getty Images)



Ignoring Outrage, Trump Officially Pulls US Out of WHO During Virus Crisis
SHAUN TANDON, AFP
8 JULY 2020


President Donald Trump on Tuesday formally started the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, making good on threats to deprive the UN body of its top funding source over its response to the coronavirus.

Public health advocates and Trump's political opponents voiced outrage at the departure from the Geneva-based body, which leads the global fight on maladies from polio to measles to mental health - as well as COVID-19, at a time when cases have again been rising around the world.

After threatening to suspend the US$400 million in annual US contributions and then announcing a withdrawal, the Trump administration has formally sent a notice to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a State Department spokesperson said.

The withdrawal of the key WHO founding member is effective in one year - July 6, 2021. Joe Biden, Trump's presumptive Democratic opponent in November elections, vowed he would immediately end the pullout if he won the White House.

"Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health. On my first day as President, I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage," Biden wrote on Twitter.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus responded to the news with a one-word tweet - "Together!" - as he linked to a discussion by US health experts on how leaving the global body could impede efforts to prevent future pandemics.

In line with conditions set when the WHO was set up in 1948, the United States can leave within one year but must meet its remaining assessed financial obligations, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

'Total control'

In late May, Trump said that China exerted "total control" over the WHO and accused the UN body led by Tedros, an Ethiopian doctor and diplomat, of failing to implement reforms.

Blaming China for the coronavirus, Trump, a frequent critic of the UN, said the United States would redirect funding "to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, global public health needs."

Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of seeking to deflect criticism from his handling of the pandemic in the United States, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any nation despite the president's stated hope that the virus will disappear.

"To call Trump's response to COVID chaotic and incoherent doesn't do it justice," said Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

"This won't protect American lives or interests - it leaves Americans sick and America alone," he said.

Representative Ami Bera, himself a physician, said that the United States and World Health Organization had worked "hand in hand" to eradicate smallpox and nearly defeat polio.

"Our cases are increasing," Bera said of COVID-19. "If the WHO is to blame: why has the US been left behind while many countries from South Korea to New Zealand to Vietnam to Germany return to normal?"


Even some of Trump's Republican allies had voiced hope that he was exerting pressure rather than making a final decision to abandon the World Health Organization.

The investigative news outlet ProPublica reported last month that most of Trump's aides were blindsided by the WHO withdrawal announcement, which he made during an appearance about China.

The Trump administration has said that the WHO ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission in China, including warnings from Taiwan - which, due to Beijing's pressure, is not part of the UN body.

While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other options the world body had other than to work with China, where COVID-19 was first detected late last year in the city of Wuhan.

The anti-poverty campaign ONE said the United States should work to reform, not abandon, the WHO.

"Withdrawing from the World Health Organization amidst an unprecedented global pandemic is an astounding action that puts the safety of all Americans the world at risk," it said.

© Agence France-Presse

The United States has formally started its withdrawal from the World Health Organization,
 whose logo is seen here at its Geneva headquarters Fabrice COFFRINI AFP/File

Washington (AFP) 

Issued on: 07/07/2020 - 

President Donald Trump has formally started the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, making good on threats over the UN body's response to the coronavirus, officials said Tuesday.

The United States is the largest financial contributor to the WHO -- which leads the fight on global maladies from polio to measles to mental health -- but it has increasingly been in Trump's crosshairs as the coronavirus takes a heavy toll.

After threatening to suspend the $400 million in annual US contributions and then announcing a withdrawal, Trump has formally informed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that he has started the US pullout, a State Department spokesperson said.

The withdrawal is effective in one year -- July 6, 2021 -- and Joe Biden, Trump's presumptive Democratic opponent, is virtually certain to stop it and stay in the WHO if he defeats Trump in the November election.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesman for Guterres, confirmed that the United States gave its notice.

Under conditions set when the United States entered the World Health Organization in 1948, Washington has to give a one-year notice to pull out -- and meet its remaining assessed financial obligations, Dujarric said.

"To call Trump's response to COVID chaotic and incoherent doesn't do it justice," said Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, who said that Congress was notified.

"This won't protect American lives or interests -- it leaves Americans sick & America alone," he said.

Trump has accused the World Health Organization of bias toward China, saying it ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission of the deadly virus.

While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other powers the world body had other than to work with China, where COVID-19 was first detected late last year.

Critics say Trump is seeking to deflect criticism from his own handling of the pandemic in the United States, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any nation.

© 2020 AFP

Algae Blooms 'Without Historical Precedent' Are Turning US Lakes Green, Study Warns

PHINEAS RUECKERT, AFP
8 JULY 2020

Global warming is turning clear mountain lakes green in the western United States because of an increase in algae blooms "without historical precedent", researchers reported on Tuesday.

The concentration of algae in two remote mountain lakes more than doubled in the past 70 years, researchers at Colorado State University found.

Their results, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, highlight the potentially harmful effects of climate change on pristine and remote ecosystems.

"Even in relatively remote lakes located in protected areas... the fingerprint of human perturbation of Earth System is evident," lead researcher Isabella Oleksy of Colorado State University told AFP.

 

(AFP Photo/Isabelle Oleksy)

"Rapid warming of high elevation environments has resulted in the rapid acceleration and dominance of green algae, which until recently were found in low abundance in these lakes."

The team of scientists led by Oleksy examined algae concentrations in lakes in a mountain range about 100 kilometres (65 miles) from Denver, using a tool called a gravity corer to collect sediment cores without damaging the lakebed.

Drawing on measurements going back to the 1950s, they found "dramatic changes" in algal abundance in the form of green algal blooms called chlorophytes, which thrive in warmer temperatures.

The high level of algae "came as an ecological surprise", Oleksy said.

 

(AFP Photo/Isabelle Oleksy)

She noted that the amounts of algae documented in the study would more typically be found in highly polluted areas, such as those prone to agricultural run-off, and not in unsullied mountain environments.

"While we documented these changes in two lakes in Colorado, it is likely that this is not an isolated phenomenon," she said.


The results are not a smoking gun, the researchers acknowledged, but point to climate change as driving the excess accumulation of nutrients - such as phosphorus and nitrogen - that cause algal blooms.

In lakes and oceans, algae blooms sicken wildlife if ingested and destabilise aquatic environments by blocking out sunlight, the United States Environmental Protection Agency says on its website.

Fresh water and marine algae blooms have a huge negative economic impact, affecting fisheries, tourism and human health.

© Agence France-Presse

CORONAVIR-USA

US Cases Skyrocket in New COVID-19 Surge, But Deaths Seem Flat. Here's Why

ARIA BENDIX, BUSINESS INSIDER
6 JULY 2020

Those keeping an eye on the US's coronavirus case and death curves will notice a seemingly hopeful trend: New daily cases are skyrocketing, but daily deaths have so far remained relatively flat during this second surge.

Indeed, projections from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) suggest that this new peak is not expected to be as deadly as the one in April.

That's primarily because increased testing means more mild cases are being confirmed, and young people represent a larger share of coronavirus cases than they did at the start of the outbreak. (We know now that COVID-19 is far less fatal in younger people.)

In Florida, the median age of coronavirus cases has dropped to 35, compared 65 in March. Cases among people under 40 are also rising in Arizona, California, Minnesota, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas.

But even if higher case counts don't bring a proportional surge in deaths, there is still reason for alarm. The IHME model projects that the US will see nearly 50,000 new coronavirus deaths from July to October 1. That's close to the number of US combat deaths recorded during World War I.

Put another way, the model expects the US to see 500 or more people die of COVID-19 every day for the next three months, on average. The projection accounts for seasonality, the amount of testing being done, and how often people are interacting with others outside their household.


Currently, more than 128,000 people have been killed by COVID-19 in the US, so the additional projected deaths represent a nearly 40 percent increase. These deaths are expected to arrive as other countries' daily cases and deaths continue to drop precipitously.

And if that wasn't concerning enough, there's still a strong possibility that coronavirus deaths will rise in the near future.

"No one wants to say too early that deaths are not rising. That would really be a mistake," Howard Koh, a professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, told Business Insider.

"If somebody is infected and then has the risk of getting sick and being hospitalized and dying – that whole trajectory takes a number of weeks, at least, maybe up to a month or more."
Hospitalizations are on the rise, too

Over the last week, the US has recorded its highest numbers of coronavirus cases to date: around 47,000 daily cases, on average. Thursday marked the peak of the outbreak so far, with more than 55,000 cases. New cases are now rising in the majority of states.

Nationwide deaths, meanwhile, have declined considerably since their peak in April. Over the last week, the US has seen around 560 daily deaths, on average, compared to more than 2,7000 deaths on April 21, the deadliest day of the outbreak.

President Donald Trump has attributed the nation's rising cases to an increase in testing. The US is now testing 59 out of every 100,000 people – a lower rate per-capita than Russia, Iceland, and Australia, but a higher rate per capita than France and the UK.

But the nationwide percentage of COVID-19 tests coming back positive is rising – a sign that increased testing isn't the primary reason for the growth in new cases. Instead, experts suggest that the surge reflects increased transmission, since people have started interacting more without sufficient distancing or mask-wearing.

"We're all speculating that after Memorial Day, it was really the younger people who perhaps reengaged with society too soon and without the proper precautions," Koh said.

Epidemiologists usually predict a two- to three-week lag between when new cases and new deaths are reported. Based on that estimate, the US should already see an uptick in coronavirus deaths. But Koh said a surge is still possible in the coming weeks.

"In places where cases are rising, hospitalizations are increasing, too," Koh said. "We will inevitably see deaths coming in such situations, unfortunately."

Indeed, the daily death total has started to rise in Arizona and Texas. On Tuesday, Robert Redfield, director of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said hospitalizations were rising in 12 states as well.

"We're starting to see that uptick in deaths coming now," Dr. Theo Vos, who works on the IHME model, told Business Insider.
'All the trends are going the wrong way'

The IHME model accounts for two scenarios: Either social-distancing mandates continue to be lifted and mask use stays the same, or countries pull the emergency break by reinstating mandates if deaths climb too high.

Either way, nationwide deaths are projected to stay relatively flat – but at a number far too high for comfort.

"If you look at other countries, they are down on the other side of the curve. Their cases have dropped dramatically. Their deaths have dropped dramatically," Koh said. "We're nowhere near that right now. All the trends are going the wrong way."

The US is currently seeing around 39 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people. Of the 20 countries currently most affected by COVID-19, only the UK has a higher death rate per capita right now: around 66 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people. If US deaths continue at the current rate, however, the nation could climb to the top of that ranking.

The IHME predicts that total US deaths could top 175,000 by October. And that doesn't include deaths through the entire fall season, which many experts think will be the worst phase of the outbreak.

"Our model strongly suggests that there's quite a seasonable component to this disease," Vos said. "Come the fall, we expect the pressure on transmission to go up."
Deaths could surge in the fall, but masks can help

Experts worry that a surge of coronavirus cases on top of regular flu outbreaks this fall could place additional strain on hospital capacity, leading to many more deaths that could have been prevented.

"I see too many patients die too early of preventable causes and that's an absolute tragedy," Koh said. "What we can accomplish in the long run depends so much on whether we can maximise the power of prevention based on the tools we have: face masks, social distancing, and hygiene."

The IHME model predicts that about one-third of transmission – or 24,000 deaths – could be prevented if 95 percent of the US population wears masks in public from July to October.

"It is such a cheap and relatively easy option with quite a potential to make a substantial dent in this epidemic," Vos said.

Koh said a national face mask policy is perhaps the most critical step to preventing future coronavirus deaths. At least 21 states have instituted a statewide mask mandate so far.

Texas became the most recent addition to that list on Friday, when Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring masks in counties with 20 or more active COVID-19 cases. Failure to comply with the mandate could result in a fine of up to US$250.

But the specifics of mask requirements differ state to state, and some cities and counties have implemented their own policies.

"We have 50 states going in 50 different directions," Koh said. "This all leads to tremendous confusion among the public about what's the public-health standard."

Under a universal mask mandate, US coronavirus deaths could drop to less than 100 per day by September, according to the IHME model. Koh said it's important for individuals to realise that these aren't just numbers – they're real people's lives.

"When prevention works, absolutely nothing happens. All you have is the miracle of a perfectly normal, healthy day," he said. "Maybe because I'm a physician I've seen that gift forfeited so many times. We need to convey the fragility of our good health right now."

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

THE EVICTIONS BEGIN 

Dozens of Palestinians injured as Israeli soldiers, settlers storm West Bank towns

The New Arab Staff
Dozens of Palestinians injured as Israeli soldiers, settlers storm West Bank towns
Israeli soldiers stormed West Bank towns [Getty]

Date of publication: 4 July, 2020

Dozens of Palestinians have been injured as Israeli soldiers and settlers stormed towns in the West Bank, local reports confirmed.

Dozens of Palestinians were injured on Saturday in clashes with Israeli troops in various areas of the West Bank, as Israeli settlers stormed the town of Sila near Jenin in the north of the occupied Palestinian territory.

Palestinian official news agency WAFA said that Israeli forces had raided the village of Zabouba, west of Jenin, injuring dozens of Palestinians who protested the raid with tear gas.

A 17-year-old teenager from the village was also arrested.

Israeli soldiers also stormed the town of Qafin near Tulkarm, also using tear gas and injuring Palestinians. The troops broke into the house of a Palestinian detainee, Sheikh Majdi Ajouli, and destroyed some of his belongings, according to local Palestinian websites.

Read more: Formal annexation won’t change anything on the ground

The 58-year-old has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Israel but was released as part of a prisoner swap in 2014 but re-arrested a year later.

Israeli settlers also entered the town of Sila under the protection of the Israeli army and performed religious rituals.

The town is close to the site of the former settlement of Homesh, which was dismantled by Israel in 2005 as part of a “disengagement plan” which also saw Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

Other Israeli settlers on Saturday set fire to olive trees in the town of Hawara south of the West Bank city of Nablus, according to Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority official who monitors settler activity in the northern West Bank.

On Friday, 23 Palestinians were injured in clashes with the Israeli army in Abu Dis near Jerusalem. Palestinian medics said that one Palestinian was shot with live bullets while six had been shot with rubber bullets.

Clashes between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces have increased recently as Israel prepares to annex one-third of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley area and major settlement blocs, according to a plan approved by US President Donald Trump and overwhelmingly rejected by Palestinians.

European Union countries have voiced opposition to the annexation plan, saying it would be a violation of international law. The annexation plan, which was originally scheduled for July, has been delayed by the Israeli government, which has given confusing signals about when it will actually be implemented.

As Covid-19 Crisis Continues, UNEP and Global Partners Release 10-Point Plan to Prevent the Next Pandemic
"The science is clear that if we keep exploiting wildlife and destroying our ecosystems, then we can expect to see a steady stream of these diseases jumping from animals to humans in the years ahead."
by Jessica Corbett, staff writer

"Climate change is a force of growing importance that influences the future geographic distribution and abundance of species such as bats, monkeys, and rodents, including those in which zoonotic pathogens often originate," says a new UNEP report. (Photo: nutsiam / Shutterstock.com via Preventing the Next Pandemic)
As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide neared 11.5 million on Monday and the death toll topped 535,000, a new United Nations report detailed trends in human activity that are driving the emergence of zoonotic diseases and offered steps countries can take to prevent future pandemics.

"To prevent future outbreaks, we must become much more deliberate about protecting our natural environment."
—Inger Andersen, UNEP

The report, entitled Preventing the Next Pandemic: Zoonotic Diseases and How to Break the Chain of Transmission (pdf), was released on World Zoonoses Day. Zoonotic diseases, or zoonoses, are infectious diseases that are passed from animals to humans.

"The science is clear that if we keep exploiting wildlife and destroying our ecosystems, then we can expect to see a steady stream of these diseases jumping from animals to humans in the years ahead," U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) executive director Inger Andersen said in a statement announcing the report.

"Pandemics are devastating to our lives and our economies, and as we have seen over the past months, it is the poorest and the most vulnerable who suffer the most," Andersen added. "To prevent future outbreaks, we must become much more deliberate about protecting our natural environment."

Scientists of the UNEP, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), and the South African Medical Research Council produced the report in partnership with other multilateral agencies and research institutions.

Researchers identified seven human-caused drivers of zoonotic disease emergence: increasing demand for animal protein; unsustainable agricultural intensification; increased use and exploitation of wildlife; unsustainable utilization of natural resources accelerated by urbanization, land use change, and extractive industries; travel and transportation; changes in food supply chains; and climate change.



Our #ZoonosesReport with @ILRI

Identifies 7 trends driving the increasing emergence of zoonotic diseases - including climate change & increased demand for meat.

Provides 10 recommendations to prevent future zoonotic outbreaks.

Learn more: https://t.co/IUTwtf1MlT#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/pJi9LU5HeC

— UN Environment Programme (@UNEP) July 6, 2020




"This report makes many recommendations, all based on the One Health approach, which unites experts from multiple disciplines—public health, animal health, plant health, and the environment—to deliver outcomes that improve the health of people, wildlife, and the planet," Andersen explained in a foreword.

The UNEP summarized 10 key policy recommendations from the report:
Investing in interdisciplinary approaches, including One Health;
Expanding scientific enquiry into zoonotic diseases;
Improving cost-benefit analyses of interventions to include full-cost accounting of societal impacts of disease;
Raising awareness of zoonotic diseases;
Strengthening monitoring and regulation practices associated with zoonotic diseases, including food systems;
Incentivizing sustainable land management practices and developing alternatives for food security and livelihoods that do not rely on the destruction of habitats and biodiversity;
Improving biosecurity and control, identifying key drivers of emerging diseases in animal husbandry and encouraging proven management and zoonotic disease control measures;
Supporting the sustainable management of landscapes and seascapes that enhance sustainable co-existence of agriculture and wildlife;
Strengthening capacities among health stakeholders in all countries; and
Operationalizing the One Health approach in land-use and sustainable development planning, implementation and monitoring, among other fields.

In addition to acknowledging the devastation of Covid-19, the report highlights other recent examples of "headline-hitting and dramatically destructive novel diseases," including zoonotic influenza (Bird Flu), pandemic human influenza (H1N1), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).



Addressing zoonotic disease emergence requires addressing its root cause–primarily, the impact of human activities on ecosystems.

On today’s #WorldZoonosesDay, we’re releasing a new #ZoonosesReport with @ILRI - stay tuned for the launch at 19:00 EAT. pic.twitter.com/r8M7LKJQmJ

— UN Environment Programme (@UNEP) July 6, 2020

The report also underscores the importance of addressing "neglected zoonoses" that "are continuously present in affected (mainly impoverished) populations, yet receive much less international attention and funding than emerging zoonotic diseases," such as anthrax, bovine tuberculosis, brucellosis, rabies, cysticercosis (pig tapeworm), echinococcosis (hydatid disease), Japanese encephalitis, leptospirosis, Q fever, rabies, Lassa fever virus, and trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness).

Jimmy Smith, director general of the Kenya-based ILRI, noted in a statement Monday both the elevated risks faced by many African nations and the potential leadership opportunities in terms of future zoonotic pandemics, given population growth and experiences combating diseases in countries across the continent.

"The situation on the continent today is ripe for intensifying existing zoonotic diseases and facilitating the emergence and spread of new ones," Smith said. "But with their experiences with Ebola and other emerging diseases, African countries are demonstrating proactive ways to manage disease outbreaks. They are applying, for example, novel risk-based rather than rule-based approaches to disease control, which are best suited to resource-poor settings, and they are joining up human, animal, and environment expertise in proactive One Health initiatives."



African countries have the potential to lead the way in preventing the spread of new zoonotic diseases—learn more at the UNSG’s daily press briefing today at 12 pm EDT/7 pm EAT: https://t.co/RuyEM6IWSF

— ILRI Director General - Jimmy Smith (@ILRI_JimmySmith) July 6, 2020

The report was welcomed by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, according to U.N. News.

Echoing both the report and previous remarks he has made during the Covid-19 pandemic, Guterres said that "to prevent future outbreaks, countries need to conserve wild habitats, promote sustainable agriculture, strengthen food safety standards, monitor and regulate food markets, invest in technology to identify risks, and curb the illegal trade in wildlife."

Phoenix Police Shot and Killed a Man Sitting in a Parked Car

DISARM DEMILITARIZE DEFUND THE POLICE

By Hannah Gold

Photo: Matt York/AP/Shutterstock/Matt York/AP/Shutterstock

On Saturday, Phoenix police officers fatally shot a 28-year-old man named James Garcia in a parked car. The killing, which was captured on video, has led to renewed protests against police violence.

The video shows Garcia sitting in his parked car and several cops surrounding him with guns pointed at him. Onlookers can be heard begging cops to lower their weapons, while one officer shouts, “Stop fucking moving, I will fucking shoot you!” Then a series of ten or so gunshots can be heard in quick succession, even as the cops stand before bystanders who are clearly recording the incident. Garcia was later taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. None of the responding officers were injured, nor have they been identified.

Witnesses say they saw what the video makes evident: Cops escalated the situation out of nowhere and proceeded to use lethal force. The police department said in a statement that they were on the scene responding to a 911 caller who said a man who had recently tried to kill him had returned with a knife. They said that during that effort, they noticed Garcia sitting in a car and that when they approached him, he armed himself with a handgun. Garcia’s sister said in a Facebook post, “Phoenix P.D shot my brother who was unarmed sleeping in the car.” The police have not commented on whether Garcia had anything to do with the person they’d been called in on that tip to investigate. A police spokesperson the Guardian questioned about any possible connection replied, “We do not know yet.” Garcia was reportedly sitting in the driveway of a friend’s house when police shot him.

Lisa Wagner, the mother of 26-year-old Shawn Hensen, who considered Garcia to be his best friend, told the Arizona Republic that Garcia was waiting in the driveway while Hansen was getting ready for them to go out. She said she had no idea the police were outside her home until she heard the gunshots. “I keep thinking it’s a bad dream and we’re going to wake up and we’re all going to laugh about this,” she said. “Everyone kind of feels like [the police] murdered Jay.”

Jamaar Williams, a member of Black Lives Matter’s Phoenix chapter, told the Guardian that there was “no justification for what happened,” as Garcia “was boxed in, in a car, by himself; he literally had nowhere to go and you’re holding him at gunpoint, for whose safety? Who is in danger?” Carlos Garcia, a member of the Phoenix City Council, said in a Facebook post, “It does not shock us that despite all the scrutiny from community, Phoenix PD continues to respond violently to calls,” adding, “We cannot allow for dishonest narratives to be built by violent departments.”

The case bears some resemblance to that of Dion Johnson, a Black man killed by an Arizona Department of Public Safety trooper on May 25 after he came upon Johnson asleep in his car. The FBI launched an investigation into Johnson’s case in June. The cop who killed Johnson claimed he fired only after a struggle ensued and he feared being pushed into traffic, but there’s no video of the moments leading up to the shooting. There is, however, footage of the moments after, which shows paramedics on-scene were not permitted to approach Johnson for several minutes as he lay on the ground wounded. The Arizona Republic reported that in 2018, Phoenix police officers fired at more people than any other municipal police department in the country.

On Sunday night, protests convened demanding justice for Garcia and all those profiled and harmed by Arizona law enforcement. The protesters also called for the city to release the officers’ body-cam footage of the incident. Dozens of protesters gathered at the Maryvale Estrella Mountain police station, where they were met with some 30 cops in riot gear, according to social-media reports. On Monday, the police department released part of a body-cam video, but the department said releasing the whole video could interfere with its investigation.

GALACTICUS
Hungriest Black Hole in the Universe Gobbles Up One Sun Per Day

By Kelly Conaboy@kellyconaboy

Photo: Getty Images/Science Photo Libra

How many suns do you think you could eat per day, if challenged? To make it more interesting, let’s say the prize was $50,000 for whoever could eat the most suns. Now that you have incentive, what do you think? One sun, or fewer? If your answer is fewer, well, I hate to tell you that you’ve already been beaten.

In 2018, a team of scientists from the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University discovered the fastest-growing supermassive black hole in the known universe, called J2157. This week, the same team released new research explaining exactly how massive the hole actually is as well as how much it eats to sustain its growth. The answer may shock you.

According to a press release about the research, the black hole is 34 billion times the mass of our sun and about 8,000 times bigger than the black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Research team member Dr. Christopher Onken explained it like this: “If the Milky Way’s black hole wanted to grow that fat, it would have to swallow two-thirds of all the stars in our galaxy.” Damn.

Researcher Dr. Fuyan Bian said they were tipped off to the black hole’s impressive mass back in 2018, when they noticed its rate of growth. “How much black holes can swallow depends on how much mass they already have,” he said. “So for this one to be devouring matter at such a high rate, we thought it could become a new record holder. And now we know.”

And exactly how much can this black hole devour, you’re wondering? According to the release, the hole “gorges on nearly the equivalent of one sun every day.” The hole puts you to shame, it’s true. But please do not feel sad. I have faith that you too can one day eat a sun. Life is about challenging yourself, after all. It’s about growth.

The Arctic Is On Fire, and We Should all Be Terrified

By Bridget Read@bridgetgillard

Photo: Kirill Shipitsin/TASS/Getty Images

Not that you don’t have a lot on your mind already, but may I suggest one additional topic of alarm for consideration: Siberia is on fire.

Siberia, the proverbial coldest place, situated way up at the top of the globe in the Arctic circle, is experiencing record warm temperatures, melting sea ice, and massive wildfires — changes to the environment that even the scientists most urgently tracking the climate crisis didn’t expect to see for another several decades. As New York’s David Wallace-Wells wrote of one town that hit triple-digit temperatures on June 20, “In a world without climate change, this anomaly, one Danish meteorologist calculated, would be a 1-in-100,000-year event.”

“We always expected the Arctic to change faster than the rest of the globe,” one researcher told the Washington Post. “But I don’t think anyone expected the changes to happen as fast as we are seeing them happen.” Siberian towns are experiencing a heat wave throughout the region, with many smashing centuries-old temperature records, records that are now being broken year after year. Scientists say that the area is warming at three times the rate of the rest of the world, due to a phenomenon called “Arctic amplification,” in which melting ice exposes more dark sea and lake waters, turning zones that were once net heat-reflecting into heat-absorbing. And temperatures rise even more.

The effects of that increase are myriad and terrifying. Melting snow creates dry vegetation for wildfires, which have reached record levels this summer, sending out giant plumes of smoke and releasing more greenhouse gases than ever before. Some of these are troublingly named “zombie fires,” which don’t actually go out in winter, but burn under the snow and ice only to erupt in the air once again once the snow melts. People in Siberia are at risk of infrastructure collapse as towns built for the cold strain under new, extreme conditions while the melting of Arctic ice contributes to sea level rise and irregular weather patterns around the world. Perhaps scariest is the potential calamity of total permafrost melting: Permafrost is a layer of continuous ice that covers nearly a quarter of the land mass in the Northern Hemisphere, in which approximately 1,460 billion to 1,600 billion metric tons of organic carbon are trapped. That’s more than twice the amount of carbon currently in the atmosphere. If, with previously stable permafrost subject to never-before-seen heat, it is released, we could reach a tipping point beyond human intervention.

With much of the world consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, and with the United States engaged in a reckoning on racial injustice on top of reaching a record number of virus cases, temperature records in Siberia might seem like a faraway problem. But seemingly separate crises are not so disconnected; studies recently show, for example, how warming affects poor pregnant women in the U.S., and Black expecting mothers in particular, a disparity that will get even worse as warming continues. “When we develop a fever, it’s a sign. It’s a warning sign that something is wrong, and we stop and we take note,” a Colorado-based Arctic researcher said to the Post. “Literally, the Arctic is on fire. It has a fever right now, and so it’s a good warning sign that we need to stop, take note and figure out what’s going on.

Daily chart
Many Americans are ready to question the result of the presidential election

A study finds that a significant share of partisans will support a re-run if they don’t get their way
Graphic detail

Jul 7th 2020

DONALD TRUMP’S odds of being re-elected this November appear to have shrunk dramatically this past month. Our election-forecasting model now gives him just a one-in-ten chance of being re-elected in November. But as his prospects for a legitimate victory have faded, his critics worry that he may try to hold on to power by illegitimate means. Theories about what might happen range from Mr Trump claiming fraud and refusing to leave the White House after his challenger, Joe Biden, is inaugurated next January, to armed insurrection and violence against Democrats.

A new report from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, a collective of public-opinion researchers and political scientists, suggests that a surprisingly large minority are prepared to question the result of the election in November, and even to support violence. According to their survey of 5,900 Americans, detailed in a report released in June, 18% of respondents (including 29% of Republicans) think it would be appropriate for Mr Trump to refuse to leave office if he claims he lost because of widespread illegal voting. To many, Mr Trump has already set the stage for this in his opposition to postal ballots, tweeting that “Mail in ballots substantially increases the risk of crime and VOTER FRAUD!” (Political scientists who have studied the matter disagree.)


Democrats also have concerns. Nearly 40% of them say they would support a candidate calling for the election to be re-run if they won the nationwide popular vote but lost the majority of electoral-college votes—as was the case when Mr Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. And 57% support a re-run if investigators find credible evidence of foreign interference in the process.

Perhaps most alarming is the finding that roughly two out of every ten partisans (declared Democrats and Republicans) say there would be a “little” or even a “great deal” of justification for violence if their candidate loses. Americans are right to be concerned about the fairness of the electoral process. To remain healthy, democracy needs the buy-in of voters and a willingness by all to accept the result.

These Pictures Capture What Frida Kahlo Was Really Like

Left: Rivera and Kahlo raise their fists in a communist salute during an anti-fascist demonstration in Mexico City, Nov. 23 1936.

 Right: This undated picture depicts Frida Kahlo wearing a body cast with a communist hammer-and-sickle symbol painted on the front

The communist hammer-and-sickle emblem is draped over Kahlo's casket at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City where mourners viewed the remains prior to the funeral, July 19, 1954.

  

Kahlo's death mask inside her studio museum in Mexico City, Jan. 17, 2019.

Frida Kahlo sits in front of one of her paintings, circa 1945.

NOT JUST ANY ONE OF HER PAINTINGS
BUT A DENUNCIATION OF FEMICIDE


These Pictures Capture What Frida Kahlo Was Really Like

A look back at the incredible life of one of art history's most recognized and celebrated icons. 

Toni Frissell / Library of Congress
Frida Kahlo sitting next to an agave plant, 1937.

This week marks the 113th birthday of one of art history's most celebrated artists — Frida Kahlo. The Mexican painter rose to prominence in the mid–20th century with her unique approach to self-portraiture that blended elements of surrealism and naive folk art to create vibrant expressions of love, pain, tragedy, and passion.

As the daughter of a well-known photographer who immigrated to Mexico from Germany, Kahlo's upbringing in the visual arts had a lifelong impact on how she perceived and portrayed the world. Her childhood was also marked by tragedy when at age 6 she contracted polio, a disease that left her permanently scarred and in pain for the remainder of her life. At 18, Kahlo was impaled by a handrail in a bus crash that killed many passengers. She was bedridden for weeks in a Mexico City hospital; during this time, she began experimenting in expressing her agony through painting. Without nature or subjects to paint, she searched for inspiration internally and created some of her first self-portraits during the time.

In the years that followed, Kahlo became a vocal proponent of the Mexican Communist Party and through her activism entered a long and at times turbulent relationship with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. The pair maintained a studio in Mexico City, where Kahlo would continue to develop her distinct visual language by drawing from her life's struggles to create deeply psychological paintings. In 1953, she had her first solo exhibition in Mexico, one year before her death at the age of 47.

Today, her former studio has been transformed into a museum that celebrates the artist and her life's work. These pictures offer a glimpse into this museum and the colorful life of Frida Kahlo

THE REST OF THE PICTURES ARE HERE 

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/pictures-from-frida-kahlo-life

Gabriel H. SanchezSenior Photo Essay Editor
Posted on July 7, 2020

These Teens Making A TikTok Found Human Remains On A Seattle Beach
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RANDOMNESS 

IT IS SYNCHRONICITY 

Police have positively identified the remains as belonging to a man and a woman, whose deaths were ruled as homicides.

Posted on July 6, 2020, at 1:04 p.m. ET

@ughhenry/TikTok

A group of teens in Seattle stumbled upon human remains after going to a location prompted by the app Randonautica and then shared the experience on TikTok.

The TikTok, posted by user @ughhenry on June 20, shows a group of friends on a beach in Seattle who stumble upon a black suitcase that looks like it had washed up on some rocks. The teens were using the app Randonautica, which sends users random coordinates as a means of exploration.

In the TikTok, the group opens the bag to reveal a black plastic bag inside.

"As SOON as she opened it the smell was overwhelming," the TikTok caption reads.

According to the TikTok, they then called the police.

Seattle police have now confirmed that the teens had found human remains and said the group has since been interviewed.

"Police responded after receiving a call of a suspicious bag on the beach," Seattle police said in a statement on June 19. "Another bag was located in the water. Once the contents were determined to be remains, detectives responded to begin their investigation."

Local station KING 5 reported that the remains have been identified as belonging to 35-year-old Jessica Lewis and 27-year-old Austin Wenner, and said both died of gunshot wounds on June 16.

BuzzFeed News has reached out to @ughhenry on TikTok for comment.

In a statement, Randonautica told BuzzFeed News it was "shocked at the very unfortunate coincidence."

"Our first reaction was to reach out to the teenagers to make sure they were doing alright. We sent a message letting them know the intention of Randonautica is not to find something disturbing like this," it said.

The spokesperson added that Randonautica coordinates are "truly randomized" and "has no way of intercepting or providing specific locations."

"The coordinates are random so it is the user's responsibility to adventure safely!"

MORE ON THIS
A 19-Year-Old Found A Dead Body While Playing Pokémon

Julia Reinstein · July 8, 2016

Lauren Strapagiel is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Toronto, Canada.

Tanya Chen is a social news reporter for BuzzFeed and is based in Chicago.

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More Than Three Years After The Standing Rock Protests, A Judge Ordered The Dakota Access Pipeline To Shut Down
A federal judge ruled the Trump administration violated federal law when it approved the pipeline without doing a full environmental study.

Zoe Tillman BuzzFeed News Reporter
Reporting From Washington, DC
Last updated on July 6, 2020, at 1:47 p.m. ET

Robyn Beck / Getty Images
Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their supporters opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline confront bulldozers in an effort to make them stop working on the pipeline, Sept. 3, 2016.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington on Monday ordered a complete shutdown of the Dakota Access Pipeline after finding the US government violated federal environmental law, a major defeat for the Trump administration and the company that built the pipeline three years after it became operational.

The ruling is a long-awaited win for Native American tribes that have fought the pipeline in court for years, and who had lost when they tried to stop it from going online in the summer of 2017. They’ve argued that the pipeline could cause serious environmental harm to Lake Oahe, a large lake that spans the border of North and South Dakota.


The Obama administration had paused the project in 2016 — thousands of Native Americans and other protesters held large demonstrations at the site near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation — but the Trump administration reversed course and allowed construction to proceed.

US District Judge James Boasberg wrote Monday that even though a shutdown likely would have significant economic consequences, there was no other option until the US Army Corps of Engineers completed a full Environmental Impact Statement given the “seriousness” of the agency’s violation and the potential environmental harm the pipeline posed while it carried oil in the meantime.

“The Court does not reach its decision with blithe disregard for the lives it will affect. It readily acknowledges that, even with the currently low demand for oil, shutting down the pipeline will cause significant disruption to DAPL, the North Dakota oil industry, and potentially other states,” Boasberg wrote. “Yet, given the seriousness of the Corps’ [National Environmental Policy Act] error, the impossibility of a simple fix, the fact that Dakota Access did assume much of its economic risk knowingly, and the potential harm each day the pipeline operates, the Court is forced to conclude that the flow of oil must cease.”

Boasberg gave the pipeline company 30 days to empty the pipeline and shut it down by Aug. 5. The Trump administration could appeal Boasberg’s decision to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

“Today is a historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the many people who have supported us in the fight against the pipeline,” Mike Faith, chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said in a statement. “This pipeline should have never been built here. We told them that from the beginning.”

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of the pipeline project, said in a statement that they planned to pursue an expedited appeal before the DC Circuit if Boasberg refused to delay his order, and were "confident that once the law and full record are fully considered Dakota Access Pipeline will not be shut down and that oil will continue to flow."

"The economic implications of the Judge’s order are too big to ignore and we will do all we can to ensure its continued operation," the company stated. "This was an ill-thought-out decision by the Court that should be quickly remedied."

Monday’s ruling came several months after Boasberg issued a decision in March finding the US Army Corps of Engineers had violated the National Environmental Policy Act when it gave the pipeline company permission to build under Lake Oahe. The Army Corps conducted what’s known as an Environmental Assessment, and determined that a more in-depth Environmental Impact Statement wasn’t required.

Boasberg concluded at the time that the Army Corps was wrong. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the government isn’t always required to complete an Environmental Impact Statement before granting permits for a particular project, but the law lays out factors that can trigger a requirement to do one. One is if the effect of a project on the environment is “likely to be highly controversial.” It’s a factor that turns on how much dispute there is about the “size, nature, or effect” of an action by the federal government.

Boasberg found that when it came to the Dakota Access Pipeline project, the Army Corps had failed to resolve the controversy over the environmental effects of the pipeline when it approved the construction plan.

Recognizing that ordering a full shutdown was an extraordinary move, Boasberg in March gave both sides more time to argue over what he should do.

The judge noted in Monday’s decision that the pipeline’s owners raised significant concerns about the financial cost and potential job losses that would come with shutting down the pipeline now — the company submitted declarations saying it could lose $643 million over the rest of 2020 and another $1.4 billion in 2021. The company, along with other groups that submitted briefs to the court opposing a shutdown, argued there would be ripple effects on other industries that relied on oil coming through the pipeline, as opposed to by rail or other transportation routes.

The tribes, meanwhile, responded that the pipeline company’s prediction of economic problems were “wildly exaggerated” given that oil prices had already gone down because of economic instability during the coronavirus pandemic.

Boasberg wrote that it was clear the shutdown would have economic consequences, and that he did not take the issue “lightly,” but ultimately it didn’t “tip the scales” in favor of letting the pipeline continue to operate while the Army Corps did its full environmental review. A complete shutdown would give the Army Corps incentive to stick to its estimated timeline of 13 months to complete the review, the judge wrote, and he found that siding with the pipeline company now would undermine the purpose of the environmental policy law.


“When it comes to NEPA, it is better to ask for permission than forgiveness: if you can build first and consider environmental consequences later, NEPA’s action-forcing purpose loses its bite,” Boasberg wrote.

Leading up to the pipeline going operational in June 2017, Boasberg had denied requests by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other Native American tribes for injunctions based on arguments that the pipeline plan violated the tribes’ religious freedom and historic preservation laws.

The tribes continued to press the case even after the pipeline began carrying oil. Once the agency finishes the Environmental Impact Statement, the litigation could stretch on if the tribes decided to lodge a separate challenge to the outcome of that study. The judge noted that an Environmental Impact Statement is “a separate regulatory beast” and that the final product could be subject to its own round of court review.

UPDATE
July 6, 2020, at 11:47 a.m.
Updated with comment from Energy Transfer Partners.

MORE ON THIS
The Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Is Unprecedented — And 150 Years In The Making

Anne Helen Petersen · Sept. 15, 2016

Water Cannons Deployed At Oil Pipeline Protests In North Dakota

Claudia Koerner · Nov. 20, 2016

Dakota Access Pipeline Will Be Rerouted In A Victory For Standing Rock Tribe

David Mack · Dec. 4, 2016

Zoe Tillman is a senior legal reporter with BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

Contact Zoe Tillman at zoe.tillman@buzzfeed.com.

Got a confidential tip? Submit it here.

Trump’s Consumer Watchdog Just Allowed Payday Lenders To Give Loans To People Who Can’t Afford Them

Payday loan interest rates can top 600%. #USURY

Tuesday’s rule allows payday lenders to approve people without considering if they can afford to pay them back.

Paul McLeod BuzzFeed News Reporter


Posted on July 7, 2020, 

Alex Wong / Getty Images



CFPB Director Kathleen Kraninger


WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a final rule Tuesday that makes it easier for payday lenders to give out high-interest loans to people who may not be able to repay them.

The CFPB rule undoes an Obama-era requirement that payday lenders must first assess whether someone taking out a loan can actually afford to repay it. Essentially, it would have put the same onus on payday lenders that banks have for giving out long-term loans like mortgages.

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Democrats and consumer advocates have accused the Trump administration of gutting protections for the most vulnerable consumers in the midst of a pandemic-induced economic crisis.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the rule makes a mockery of the CFPB’s mission to protect consumers and gives the industry free rein to trap vulnerable communities in cycles of debt.

USURY BY ANY OTHER NAME 
Short-term payday loans regularly come with interest rates that top 300%; depending on state laws, they can top 500% or even 600%. Lenders often allow people to roll over their loans by paying a fee to delay repayment.
This is called “loan churn,” and it is how a two-week loan can balloon into long-term debt. The CFPB’s own analysis in 2014 found that 80% of payday loans were either rolled over or followed by another short-term loan within two weeks. Interest fees regularly surpass the original principal on the loan.
“The consequences could be devastating,” said Matt Litt, consumer campaign director at US PIRG, the federation of state public interest research groups. “If you’re already having trouble as it is, taking out a payday loan could make a bad situation worse where you’re taking out loan after loan and spiraling into a debt trap because you couldn’t afford the first one.”

The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment. In a press release, the agency's director, Kathleen Kraninger, said the move was made to provide consumers with more access to capital.

“Our actions today ensure that consumers have access to credit from a competitive marketplace, have the best information to make informed financial decisions, and retain key protections without hindering that access,” she said in the statement.

The "ability to pay" requirement was developed late in the Obama administration and finalized in October 2017. But the very next month, the Trump administration appointed Mick Mulvaney as acting director, and he announced that implementation would be delayed. The administration later began the process of getting rid of the requirement altogether.

In 2019, the Washington Post published leaked audio of payday lenders discussing the need to raise large sums of money for Trump’s reelection campaign to gain favor with the administration.

Ironically, some moves by the Trump administration to weaken the CFPB could end up being used to undo the president's policies.

The bureau was created after the 2008 financial crisis and designed to be independent of the president. Its directors would be confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms and could not be fired by the president without cause. The Trump administration argued in court that this is unconstitutional. Just last week, the Supreme Court agreed and ruled the president can fire a CFPB director at will.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden strongly hinted in a tweet that he will fire Kraninger.


Joe Biden@JoeBiden
Here’s my promise to you: I’ll appoint a director who will actually go after financial predators and protect consumers. https://t.co/LYY54KXbUk08:39 PM - 29 Jun 2020
Reply Retweet Favorite

Similarly, in 2017 the Republican-controlled Congress exploited the little-known Congressional Review Act of 1996 to roll back dozens of Obama-era rules and regulations. If the Democrats are successful in the November election, they could turn the tables and do the same to Trump's rules.

Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform, said if Biden wins he would have several avenues to restore the "ability to pay" requirement.

“I hope it’s high on their priority list,” she said. “Ability to repay is a common lending principle. The idea that you have to consider this like every other loan is what this rule is about. For them to say you don’t have to do that, I think that’s really disconcerting, especially when people are vulnerable.”


MORE ON THIS
New Rules Make It Harder For Payday Lenders To Put Borrowers In "Debt Trap"

Matthew Zeitlin · Oct. 5, 2017

Trump Named Someone Who Hates The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau To Lead It. The Deputy Director Is Suing To Block His Pick.

Matthew Zeitlin · Nov. 24, 2017

Paul McLeod is a politics reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

Deutsche Bank fined $150 million for failing to flag Jeffrey Epstein accounts

THE REAL DEAL NOT Q ANON BULLSHIT
THE BANK OF CHILD RAPISTS AND GRIFTERS 

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

A protester holds up signs outside the courthouse ahead of a bail hearing in U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking case in New York City, U.S. July 15, 2019. © Brendan McDermid, Reuters

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $150 million to settle claims that it broke compliance rules in its dealings with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, New York state announced Tuesday.

The penalty was announced in a release by Superintendent of Financial Services Linda A. Lacewell.

“Despite knowing Mr. Epstein’s terrible criminal history, the Bank inexcusably failed to detect or prevent millions of dollars of suspicious transactions,” Lacewell said.

According to the release, the agreement marked the first enforcement action by a regulator against a financial institution for dealings with the financier.

Epstein killed himself last August in a Manhattan federal jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

His ex-girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was arrested last week and brought to New York City to face charges she recruited girls for Epstein to sexually abuse in the 1990s. In civil lawsuits, she has denied involvement. Her Manhattan federal court arraignment is likely next week.

In a statement, the German bank said the settlement with New York state “reflects our unreserved and transparent cooperation with our regulator."

The bank said it had invested almost $1 billion to improve its training and controls and had boosted its staff overseeing the work to more than 1,500 employees “to continue enhancing our anti-financial crime capabilities."

In a statement, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said the bank failed to prevent millions of dollars in suspicious transactions.

Lacewell said the bank failed to properly monitor Epstein's account activity despite publicly available information about Epstein's crimes.

The financier with U.S. residences in Manhattan, Florida and New Mexico, along with homes in Paris and the Virgin Islands, had pleaded guilty to criminal sex abuse charges in Florida over a decade ago and was a registered sex offender before his July 2019 arrest on federal sex crime charges.

Lacewell said the bank processed hundreds of transactions totaling millions of dollars that, “at the very least, should have prompted additional scrutiny in light of Mr. Epstein’s history."

She said some payments that should have drawn scrutiny included money paid to people publicly alleged to have been Mr. Epstein’s co-conspirators in sexually abusing young women, settlement payments totaling over $7 million, and over $6 million in legal fees for Epstein and co-conspirators.

Other payments went to Russian models and transactions for women’s school tuition, hotel and rent expenses, she said, along with suspicious cash withdrawals totaling over $800,000 in a four-year stretch.

(AP)

#WW3.0

Accident or sabotage? What we know of deadly explosion at Iran's Natanz nuclear site

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

A handout picture provided by Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation shows a damaged warehouse at the Natanz nuclear facility on July 2, 2020. © Handout Iran Atomic Organization, AFP

Text by:FRANCE 24

Two people died and another three were injured Tuesday when an explosion rocked the factory south of Tehran, Iran's official IRNA agency reported, blaming human error.

The blast in "a completely industrial zone" of Baqershahr, 23 kilometres (14 miles) from the capital, was caused by "workers being negligent whilst filling oxygen tanks", IRNA quoted the town's governor as saying.

Iran's atomic energy agency first reported that an "accident" had damaged warehouses under construction at the Natanz site, some 250 kilometres (150 miles) south of Tehran, in a confusing statement on the morning after the incident.

There were no casualties, "no nuclear material (on site) and no potential of pollution", the agency's spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state television.

The organisation released a photo of a damaged building: a long, one-storey brick structure with few openings, part of an exterior wall blackened by fire, a collapsed section of roof and doors that appeared to have been blown outwards.

State TV showed several images of the building's exterior, but none of the inside.

On Sunday evening, Kamalvandi acknowledged to the IRNA state news agency that the incident had caused "significant financial damage", without elaborating.

But he said the damaged building had been designed to produce "advanced centrifuges", hinting that their assembly had begun prior to the "accident".

What is the Natanz nuclear complex?

The complex is central to Iran's nuclear programme and is kept under very tight security.

Israel and the United States accuse their arch-foe Iran of trying to build an atomic bomb — a charge the Islamic Republic has always denied.

Under the terms of its 2015 nuclear accord with world powers, Tehran had agreed to cap its enrichment of uranium — measured by the presence of fissile isotope Uranium-235 — to 3.67 percent.

It also limited the number of so called first-generation enrichment centrifuges to 5,060.

But a year after Washington unilaterally abandoned the pact and reimposed crushing sanctions, Iran began progressively stepping away from its commitments.

Since mid-2019 it has enriched uranium to 4.5 percent — reactor-grade but still far from the 90 percent required for military use.

Iran has also announced that it is working on developing more efficient centrifuges, without limits.

'Accurately determined'

The incident came at the end of a week marked by two explosions in Tehran, including one near a military site. Officials said the blasts were accidents, but many Iranians suspected covert Israeli operations were responsible.

On Friday, Iran's Supreme National Security Council announced that the "cause of the accident" at Natanz had been "accurately determined".

But it declined to release details, citing security reasons.

On the evening of July 2, IRNA published an editorial warning Iran's arch-foes against hostile actions, saying unnamed Israeli social media accounts had claimed the Jewish state was behind the incident.

The editorial warned Israel and the US against any attack on Iran's "security" and "interests".

A Twitter account linked to an Israeli analyst claimed in Arabic on July 1 that Israel had attacked an Iranian uranium enrichment plant.

The BBC's Persian service, which Iranian authorities consider hostile, said it received a statement "hours before" the incident from a group called the "Homeland Cheetahs" who claimed responsibility.

They claimed to be "dissidents present in Iran's security apparatus" and said the location was targeted as it was not "underground" and that therefore the alleged attack could not be denied.

Iran's civil defence chief, Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, told state TV on Thursday night that any proven cyberattack against Iran would elicit "a response".

Israel's Defence Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz stayed ambiguous on the events.

"Iran is aiming for nuclear [weapons], we can't let it get there," he said Sunday, though adding that "not every event taking place in Iran is necessarily connected to us."

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

#WW3.0

NYT: Israel planted bomb at Iran nuclear site

July 6, 2020

The groundbreaking ceremony of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, held in Bushehr, Iran on November 10, 2019 [Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency]

July 6, 2020 

Israel was behind an explosion at an Iranian nuclear facility last week caused by a powerful bomb, according to a report in the New York Times.

Citing an unidentified “Middle Eastern intelligence official”, the report alleges that Israel was responsible for the attack on the Natanz nuclear plant on Thursday, this claim was also made by a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who said an explosive was used.

However, Israel has not admitted its role in the attack, with Defence Minister Benny Gantz stating yesterday during a radio interview: “Everyone can suspect us in everything and all the time, but I don’t think that’s correct.”

The incident was the third of its kind in a week, including a major explosion reported near Parchin military site in north-east Tehran and an explosion at a Tehran clinic which killed 19.

READ: Israeli jets strike targets in Gaza Strip

Iran, for its part, has already threatened retaliation after what it initially labelled a cyber-attack, although the latest incident in Iran, could possibly be in response to Iran’s sophisticated, but failed cyber-attack on Israeli water systems in April, which according to the Times of Israel, aimed to increase chlorine levels in water flowing to residential areas. The head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, Yigal Unna, described the incident as “a point of change in the history of modern cyberwars”.

An Israeli retaliation previously took place two weeks later, in the form of a cyber strike temporarily disrupting operations at a busy Iranian port.

Last month, the Strategist said Iran is unlikely to be deterred from carrying out future attacks and it was likely that adversaries attempting to attack one another’s civilian infrastructure through cyber-attacks will become more common and sophisticated, in particular between Iran and Israel.

THE ISRAELI MEDIA REPORTED ON THIS BOMBING BEFORE THE IRANIAN PRESS DID