Rare salt formations appear along the Great Salt Lake
By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press Jan. 10, 2020 

In this undated photo provided by the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation, are rare salt formations that are being are being documented for the first time along the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Rare salt formations have been documented for the first time on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, and they could yield insights about Photo: AP

In this undated photo provided by the Utah Division of Parks and Recreation, are rare salt formations that are being are being documented for the first time along the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Rare salt formations have been documented for the first time on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, and they could yield insights about Photo: AP

In this undated photo provided by the Utah Geological Survey, are rare salt formations that are being are being documented for the first time along the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Rare salt formations have been documented for the first time on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, and they could yield insights about salt structures Photo: AP


SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Rare salt formations have been documented for the first time on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, and they could yield insights about salt structures found on Mars before they disappear for good.

They’re showing up now in part because water levels at the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi have been lowered by drought and water diversion, exposing more shoreline. It’s a story that’s playing out throughout the American West as a growing population puts more demand on scarce water resources.

Along the high-salinity waters Great Salt Lake, the expanded shoreline means there are more places where water can bubble up to the surface from warm, sulfate-rich springs. When it hits the cold air, a mineral called Glauber’s salt, or mirabilite, separates out.

“It has to be exposed to just the right conditions,” said park ranger Allison Thompson, who first saw them in October.

The tiny crystals have built up over the last several months, eventually creating flat terraces stacked atop one another like the travertine rimstone and dam terraces at Yellowstone’s Mammoth Hot Springs.

From far away, the mounds can blend into the snowy landscape along the flat blue of the lake edged by distant mountains. From above, though, the cascading terraces are like an enormous piece of lace laid over the sandy earth. An up-close look reveals long, spire-like crystals clustered jaggedly together like something out of science fiction.

There are now four mounds at the Great Salt Lake beach, growing up to 3 feet (1 meter) tall and several yards wide.

Mirabilite mounds are seen more often in places such as the Antarctic, bolstered by the constantly cold temperatures. There are also indications of similar structures on Mars, so study of the mounds in Utah could offer clues on how to examine salts found there.

Salt deposits on Mars could hold clues about whether groundwater or even life was ever supported on the red planet, said Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society, a nonprofit group that runs a station simulating the planet in the Utah desert that isn't involved with studying the Great Salt Lake mounds.

“What would that look like? What would be the right detection instrument or technique?” he said.

Mirabilite mounds are especially interesting because they're created by water bubbling up from underground, so they can provide clues about what's beneath the surface without expensive drilling, said Richard Socki. He studied mirabilite mounds in the Antarctic when he was a NASA geochemist in the mid-2000s.

“The mounds are bringing things up from below, that’s the beauty of those mounds,” he said.

But researchers don’t have long to study the Great Salt Lake formations: As winter turns to spring, warming temperatures mean the salt won’t continue to precipitate out of the water and the mounds will disintegrate into a fine dust.

“That powder will eventually get blown away or dissolve into the lake,” said Elliot Jagniecki, a geologist with the Utah Geological Survey. Park rangers will be conducting guided tours to the mounds in Utah this weekend.

The mounds are expected to be gone by February, and eventually melting snow will send runoff into the lake, raising lake levels and likely swallowing up the sites.

That’s part of normal fluctuations with the seasons and drought cycles, but overall the lake isn’t covering as much ground as it once did, said Kevin Perry, professor of University of Utah who has studied stretches of dry lake bed. Much of that is due to water being diverted away from rivers that feed the lake for agriculture and other uses before it reaches the lake, he said.

Other water bodies in the West have faced similar pressures, including California’s Owens Lake. It dried up as water was diverted to Los Angeles over the last century, leaving wind-blown dust that polluted the air before a recent anti-dust project brought some water back.

While the Great Salt Lake is now recovering from a drought cycle, the long-term trend has been a slow loss of about a ½ foot (15 centimeters) per decade, Perry said.

There can be a perception that water flowing to the Great Salt Lake is wasted because it’s too salty to support much life beyond brine shrimp, but Perry said that’s wrong. Brine shrimp are a $1.3 billion industry in Utah, and the wetlands around the lake are a welcome haven for migrating birds.

“People have this viewpoint that every drop of water that makes it into the lake is unusable,” he said. “They are missing the point that the lake and its ecosystem has needs, and those needs are not being met.”

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Exclusive: Trump’s top border official broke FBI rules to fund happy hours

Tal Kopan Nov. 26, 2019

1of2Acting Customs and Border Protection chief Mark Morgan was investigated by the Justice Department inspector general.Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images

2of2Mark Morgan, acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner, speaks with reporters at the White House on Nov. 14.Photo: Alex Brandon / Associated Press


WASHINGTON — President Trump’s top border official broke federal ethics rules in a previous job by seeking sponsors to buy alcohol and fancy food for FBI happy hours, according to a watchdog report exclusively obtained by The Chronicle.

Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection agency, continued asking the outside entities to pay for the social events even after being warned it was against federal rules, the Justice Department’s inspector general found.

The previously unreported finding raises questions about the Trump administration’s vetting process for top officials. Although Morgan’s role is typically subject to Senate confirmation, Trump has not nominated him for the job. That has circumvented the traditional review by the Senate — leaving it unclear whether the ethical lapse was ever known to the administration.

Customs and Border Protection and Morgan declined to comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The violations occurred when Morgan was working at the FBI in 2015 as deputy assistant director of the training division, according to the inspector general’s report. Midway through the investigation in the summer of 2016, Morgan retired from the FBI and was named under then-President Barack Obama to head the Border Patrol. He declined to cooperate with the probe after that, the report said.

Morgan’s hiring at the Border Patrol was specifically done with the goal of cleaning up the agency. It was the first time the agency had been led by someone who had never served in the Border Patrol.

It’s unclear whether the Obama administration knew about the open investigation. Inspector general procedures vary among agencies, and it would have been up to the Justice Department office to decide whether to tell the White House or Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the border agency, about the investigation.

Morgan, however, was aware of the probe, having been interviewed for it, and could have disclosed it.

The inspector general did not complete the report and issue the official finding of misconduct until January 2018. The FBI declined to comment on how it handled the inspector general’s findings.

The Trump administration initially saw Morgan as insufficiently supportive of the president’s hard-line immigration agenda, and Morgan was forced out of Border Patrol leadership in January 2017. However, Morgan became a vocal supporter of Trump on Fox News, and the president brought him back into the government in May 2019 to run Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which enforces immigration laws domestically.

In a reshuffling in June, Morgan was named acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, which handles immigration law at the nation’s edge and oversees the Border Patrol.

The report outlining Morgan’s misconduct in the FBI was never released publicly. The Chronicle obtained it from congressional offices, which were recently given copies. A brief summary of the “findings of misconduct,” without naming the officials involved, was released online by the Justice Department inspector general when the investigation was concluded, as is standard practice.

The probe began after an FBI employee reported concerns to the inspector general about an April 2015 meeting involving two officials under Morgan’s supervision. In that meeting, the two asked an outside group to sponsor the happy hours and buy alcohol and food for them, although a colleague who learned of the plan had warned them it would be against the rules.

They continued the sponsorship requests even after government lawyers told them in writing that doing so was against federal regulations, the inspector general found.

In two meetings with a potential sponsor, Morgan and an aide were told by a leader of the group that it was “inappropriate” to ask for sponsorship, the report said. The unnamed person then “coached” Morgan and the aide on how to present the idea as “an opportunity” for the group, the inspector general said.

Three such happy hours were ultimately held in June 2015.

The watchdog found that Morgan was fixated in 2015 on improving the FBI’s National Executive Institute course, a training program for leaders of large law enforcement agencies domestically and abroad. Key to that, he believed, was having social hours at the end of each day to provide alcohol and expensive meals to participants. Morgan was a graduate of the program.

Morgan and his aides asked three professional organizations to sponsor the happy hours, the report found: the National Executive Institute Associates, an affinity group for graduates of the program; the National Academy Associates, a group for graduates of the FBI National Academy; and the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a professional group for leaders of police departments.

The first two groups agreed to do so, while the police chiefs group declined. The National Executive Institute Associates spent roughly $3,000 on two of the happy hours, the report found. The cost of the third event was not specified. The groups did not respond to requests for comment on their recollection of the events.

In an interview with investigators, Morgan acknowledged that he had seen the lawyers’ written warning but disregarded it.

“That’s an opinion. It’s rarely set in stone,” Morgan told investigators.

“If there is a finding that we inappropriately solicited something, it’s absolutely on me,” he said.

The report does not include any feedback from the FBI, saying the findings were referred to the agency for follow-up action.

Tal Kopan is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: tal.kopan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @talkopan

Follow Tal on:https://www.facebook.com/SFChronicle/TalKopan
Tal Kopan is the Washington Correspondent for The San Francisco Chronicle. Previously, she was a political reporter for CNN Politics, where she covered immigration, cybersecurity and other hot-button issues in Washington, including the 2016 presidential election.
Prior to joining the network, Kopan was a reporter for POLITICO in Washington, D.C., where she reported for their breaking news team and policy verticals, including a special focus on the Department of Justice, courts and cybersecurity.
Kopan started her career working in Chicago with local media outlets ABC7 Chicago and Fox Chicago News.
Her work has earned her awards and fellowships from the Atlanta Press Club; National Press Foundation; Loyola Law School, Los Angeles; and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Kopan graduated with honors from the University of Chicago with a bachelor's degree in “law, letters and society.”
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Tested on poor minorities, French police violence hits Yellow Vest movement

ELIS GJEVORI 14 JAN 2019 FROM LAST YEAR

The Yellow Vest movement, mostly white and rural, is feeling the brunt of what ethnic minorities have endured and French society has largely ignored: police brutality.

“The Yellow Vest protests are starting to uncover how broad and deep the problem of police brutality is to a broader audience, it’s sad it took a social movement mostly led by rural white people to raise awareness,” Assa Traore, a spokesperson for the Justice for Adama Committee, tells TRT World.

On July 19 2016, Adama Traore, Assa Traore’s brother, would have turned 24, yet that night instead of celebrating his birthday with his family and friends he lay handcuffed and dead on the floor of a police station in Beaumont sur Oise, a small town north of Paris.

To this day, and four official inquiry reports later, no one has been held accountable for his death. The latest report in October of last year cleared the National Gendarmerie, claiming that Adama Traore died from compression to the vertebrae due to sickle cell - a disease affecting the blood that Traore suffered from - but the Traore family has categorically rejected these findings.

Adama’s death, far from being an accidental tragedy, as the authorities have claimed, instead reflects the actions of a police force that is institutionally racist, according to the Traore family.

“Police brutality is not just collateral damage occurring on occasional procedural mistakes, it’s one of the consequences of how our society sees the type of men who get killed,” says Assa.

Many victims of police violence and deaths are disproportionately black, Arab and Muslim, living in the outskirts of major French cities, in what are known as the banlieues.

According to reports, 47 unarmed men died from police brutality between 2007 and 2017.

An investigation by the French publication Street Press, found that none of the deaths of unarmed civilians had led to a police officer or gendarme facing jail time.

The Yellow Vest movement has gripped France over the last nine weeks and threatened the premiership of President Macron. Last weekend saw a video emerge on social media showing a French police officer, Didier Andrieux, approaching a young black man, peacefully protesting, and repeatedly punched him in the face.

Shortly after that attack, Andrieux, who only recently received the Legion of Honour – France’s highest award for military and civilian merit – is seen punching a young Yellow Vest protester pinned up against a car.

The regional governor of Val Jean-Luc Videlaine in Toulouse, where the video was filmed, announced on social media: "As part of my administrative responsibilities, I have asked the IGPN (Inspection Generale de la Police Nationale) for an investigation to shed light on the suspicion of police violence in #Toulon”.

The IPGN is a body ostensibly aimed at dealing with complaints against the police, however, its critics argue that the body has a fatal flaw: it is predominantly manned by police officers themselves.

Alexandre Langlois, Secretary General of VIGI, a police union that represents a number of police officers and other security personnel affiliated with the French Ministry of Interior, tells TRT World: “The people are more and more suspicious of their police because there is no dialogue.

“There is also an impression of opacity because it is the police that investigates itself via the IGPN, while the police themselves no longer want this institution contrary to the European Code of Ethics”.

The European Code of Ethics, adopted by the EU in 2001, sets parametres for impartial and effective complaints against the police.

“The people see us less and less as a police that protects, but more and more like a police of repression,” says Langlois.

Justice for victims of police violence can be a long road.

Amal Bentounsi’s younger brother was fatally shot in the back by the police in 2012. The police officer Damien Saboundjian, was finally convicted after five long years of the family pursuing their case. Saboundjian was given a five-year suspended sentence.

It is a victory Bentounsi calls “half-hearted”.

For Bentounsi, the violence that is currently being exerted to quell the Yellow Vest movement was institutionalised in decades-old policies that have targeted blacks, Arabs, the Roma and all other invisible communities.

“Working-class neighbourhoods served as a laboratory and today this violence extends to the entire population,” Bentounsi tells TRT World.

Bentounsi is not the only one who claims that the banlieues have been a testing ground of sorts, --- Police violence in working-class suburban areas has proved to be a ...perfected against the populations residing in these areas says Assa Traore.

Act 10, but an old story

Anti-government protests in France have entered their tenth week, or as the protestors call it “Act 10”.

President Emmanuel Macron’s government in trying to regain the initiative against a movement threatening his presidency stands accused of using police brutality to quell the Yellow Vests.

In early December, with the Yellow Vest protests entering their third week, the CRS, a police unit specialising in crowd control, fired more than 10,000 stun grenades, including 8,000 tear gas canisters.

The far-right infiltrates the police

There is strong anecdotal evidence that the French police force, and particularly the gendarmerie, has been infiltrated by far-right elements and Marine Le Pen’s supporters.

The National Front, which Marine Le Pen leads, was rebranded as the ‘National Rally’ in an attempt to shed its historic image of racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia.

In a poll conducted a few days before the 2017 presidential elections—in which Le Pen made it to the second round, garnering a record 34 percent of the vote—shows that more than 51 percent of the gendarmes would vote for Le Pen in the first round.

In their book The Politics of Racism in France, Dr Jim Wolfreys and Dr Peter Fysh outlined the extent of the infiltration of the police by the far-right, in particular the National Front led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine Le Pen’s father, starting in the 1980s.

“So successful were these efforts that by 1995 the Front was able to set up Front National Police, winning one in seven votes in the professional elections held at the end of the year. In some areas, notably in southern France, the NF vote approached 50 per cent,” they write.

Rooting out right-wing infiltration of the French police force will require political will, while reforming police tactics and complaints when dealing with protestors is an even harder task.

VIGI’s Langlois tells TRT World he believes that the French police are still well trained, but there is a need for competent policies and “methods of repression” currently employed are “unworthy of a Republic like France”.

It is impossible to account for police violence in France today without first looking at the racial profiling, discrimination, racism and inequality that has shaped and hardened the relationship with France's ethnic minorities in the banlieues.

“I think that the working-class suburban areas have been wearing Yellow Vests for a very long time as they have been early victims of unfair economic policies,” says Assa Traore.
Source: TRT World

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Portraits from the frontline of global protests

Climate change, inequality, corruption – these are just some of the reasons why demonstrators are taking to streets across the world

Tom Westbrook
1/11/2020

Portraits from the frontlines of global protests
  

Umm Mahdi, 66, an Iraqi demonstrator, during the ongoing anti-government protests in Baghdad, Iraq

“I come to protest for rights and against illegitimacy. The government is illegitimate, there are no jobs, no housing, no services and the protesters have a good cause. I should be with them because I am like a mother to them,” Mahdi said. “If the government provided jobs or housing or services to citizens the youth would not be protesting and sacrificing their lives. My message to the protesters is: I am with you until the last day of my life, I support you – keep your peaceful protests going until you get your rights,” she continued. “I will not back down from participating in protests until our youth get all their rights from the corrupt and unjust. Any people who protest do so because they have been oppressed.”

Axel Buxade, 18, a student, holds a Catalan flag during a protest at University Square in Barcelona, Spain

“We’re here, mainly young people, outraged by the sentences and the inability of politicians to talk,” said Buxade. Referring to Hong Kong, he said: “There have been acts of mutual support, if they reach their goal we'll be very happy.”

A protester nicknamed Liberty Girl God and her boyfriend nicknamed Little Brother, both 15, during a protest in front of Lennon Wall in Hong Kong, China

“We want the government to finally respond to our demands and to make changes quickly,” said Liberty Girl God. “In my opinion (protesters in other countries) have the same demands as us. This may be a hard way to achieve our wish but I believe we will win.”

Hiba Ghosn, 36, who works in the fashion industry, poses as her friends sit in the afternoon sun on Martyrs’ square, as people gather for a demonstration during ongoing anti-government protests in Beirut, Lebanon

“They are thieves, every single one of them. They’ve been robbing us for 30 years,” she said. “The new generation should come in and politicians that are more like us, and see what we see. I think it’s gonna take a very long time to reach there ... but we will. I think we’ve woken up the dragon. (Globally) people have had enough. I think they are all asking for those basic rights.”

Protests swept the globe in 2019, with people engaging in rallies from Catalonia to Colombia, and Haiti to Hong Kong – and continuing in the same vein into 2020 so far.

Each movement had its own trigger. Some were fed with corruption and entrenched elites. Others wanted democracy or independence.

Some called for reforms and others opposed them. Worries over climate change and environmental destruction also galvanised activists the world over.

The frustrations were sometimes similar, from inequality to powerlessness.

And often the protests turned violent, with security forces killing several hundred people in Iran, Iraq and elsewhere. Volleys of tear gas became a familiar sight in traditionally peaceful and stable Hong Kong.

Teacher Andres Felipe Vargas, 52, at a protest during a national strike in Bogota, Colombia

“The government that is currently in Colombia is an extreme right-wing government that wants to take away more and more of our rights... it is a government that only wants to encourage inequality, Colombia is the third most unequal country in the world,” Vargas said. “Throughout history it has been seen that things don't just happen, things change with revolutions ... with the French revolution, with the industrial revolution. Right now we are in a stage of awakening and we have to take advantage of that.”

Yet amid the gunfire and clouds of teargas, there was a feeling of solidarity as demonstrators drew on each other’s determination and strength.

“Right now we are in a stage of awakening and we have to take advantage of that,” said Andres Felipe Vargas, a professor joining an anti-government strike in Bogota, Colombia.

“What is happening in our country, and these injustices that generate inequities, are the same injustices that are destroying the planet,” he said.

Reuters photographers in more than a dozen countries documented the depth of feeling that linked disparate movements.

Amiri Yacine, 26, a student, poses for a photograph during a protest rejecting the December presidential election and against the country's ruling elite in Algiers, Algeria

“I am protesting against injustice and dictatorship,” said Amiri Yacine, 26. “People are protesting around the world. In Lebanon, Iraq Chile, France, Hong Kong and Haiti, because of injustice and corruption.” Yacine, who has joined rolling demonstrations since February in opposition to the shadowy elite that has controlled Algeria since independence in 1962, feels his demands are universal. “We want to build a new Algeria ... we want free media and a total respect of human rights. Also, we want jobs and infrastructure,” Yacine said. “My message to protesters is just be peaceful – be wise and keep calm. Fight the system with good ideas, because they don’t have ideas.”

“I am protesting against injustice and dictatorship,” said Amiri Yacine, 26, holding a poster depicting the world’s protests as a blossoming flower, packed amongst hundreds of mostly young demonstrators in Algiers.

Yacine, who has joined rolling demonstrations since February in opposition to the shadowy elite that has controlled Algeria since independence in 1962, likewise feels his demands are universal.

“We want to build a new Algeria ... we want free media and a total respect of human rights. Also, we want jobs and infrastructure,” Yacine said.

“My message to protesters is just be peaceful – be wise and keep calm. Fight the system with good ideas, because they don’t have ideas.”

 Jasper, 27, who works in a retail bank, during a demonstration in Hong Kong

“This is a universal demand for democracy and fairness,” said Jasper, who joined a downtown protest at lunchtime. Like many protesters, he declined to give his surname and wore a surgical mask to conceal his identity. “Every country in the world faces the same situation. This will not be an easy road, but we all know we are doing the right thing.”

Summer has turned to winter in Hong Kong, where demonstrations against a controversial extradition bill turned into a push for greater democracy.

The Beijing-backed government has refused to yield, while the protesters have gathered in vast numbers, turning shopping districts into a sea of black-clad people.

“This is a universal demand for democracy and fairness,” said Jasper, a 27-year-old bank worker, who joined a downtown protest at lunchtime. He cut a suave figure, in a sharp suit, red-and-blue striped tie and pocket square, standing on Pedder Street in the city’s central district.

Like many protesters, he declined to give his surname and wore a surgical mask to conceal his identity.

“Every country in the world faces the same situation. This will not be an easy road, but we all know we are doing the right thing.”

The movement has invited comparisons with protesters pushing for independence for the Spanish region of Catalonia, where the sentencing of separatist leaders to long prison terms led to renewed and sometimes violent protests.

Amiri Yacine, 26, a student, poses for a photograph during a protest rejecting the December presidential election and against the country's ruling elite in Algiers, Algeria

“I am protesting against injustice and dictatorship,” said Amiri Yacine, 26. “People are protesting around the world. In Lebanon, Iraq Chile, France, Hong Kong and Haiti, because of injustice and corruption.” Yacine, who has joined rolling demonstrations since February in opposition to the shadowy elite that has controlled Algeria since independence in 1962, feels his demands are universal. “We want to build a new Algeria ... we want free media and a total respect of human rights. Also, we want jobs and infrastructure,” Yacine said. “My message to protesters is just be peaceful – be wise and keep calm. Fight the system with good ideas, because they don’t have ideas.”

“We’re here, mainly young people, outraged by the sentences and the inability of politicians to talk,” said Barcelona student Axel Buxade, 18, holding a Catalan flag at a demonstrators’ camp on a city street.

Referring to Hong Kong, he added: “There have been acts of mutual support, if they reach their goal we’ll be very happy.” 

Alex Munoz Fuentes, 47, an accountant, holds a Chilean flag in Santiago, Chile

“People in the world are tired of injustice,” said Fuentes. “I don't want anything given for free. But I know that in Chile the institutions, the law and the constitution are made to abuse the working classes. I want a new deal. Hong Kong is similar, the authorities are not thinking about people’s wellbeing... I have a fraternal hug for them, and all my solidarity from Chile. Please don’t give up.”

Economics, and in particular inequality, has also proved potent fuel for protests in Lebanon, Chile, Ecuador and Iraq.

“People in the world are tired of injustice,” said Chilean Alex Munoz Fuentes, a 47-year-old accountant, standing before a burning barricade on a Santiago street.

“I don’t want anything given for free,” he said, the national flag in one hand and a pair of goggles to protect him from teargas in the other.

“But I know that in Chile, the institutions, the law and the constitution are made to abuse the working classes. I want a new deal.

“Hong Kong is similar, the authorities are not thinking about people’s wellbeing. I have a fraternal hug for them, and all my solidarity from Chile. Please don’t give up.”

Reuters

What is it about a black princess that provokes such anger in the UK media?



Black Britons believe Meghan Markle's black roots are responsible for the negative portrayals of her in the tabloids.

Britain’s Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle and her husband Prince Harry have withdrawn from senior royal duties setting off shock waves in the British media.

The move comes amid stirrings from the royal couple over media intrusion in their personal lives and in particular negative coverage of the princess.

Markle became the first person of African descent to marry into the British royal family, and the couple’s son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, is the first descendant of a ruling British monarch to be of African descent.

Given the superlatives, many have questioned whether the media’s coverage of Meghan has something to do with her ethnic background.

In recent years, the British media has been accused of targeting several high-profile black celebrities with an arguably more critical slant than their white counterparts.

Examples include England and Manchester City footballer Raheem Sterling, who has been the subject of critical tabloid articles over his performance on the pitch, his spending habits, as well as his choice of snack.

After suffering racist abuse while playing for Manchester City against Chelsea, Sterling hit out at the media for fueling the phenomenon.

In a recent New York Times piece, writer Afua Hirsch described the ways in which coverage of Markle had similarly been racialised in the British media.

She pointed to headlines, which described the princess as “(almost) straight outta Compton” and another incident where a BBC presenter was sacked for comparing Markle’s son Alfie to a chimpanzee.

There was no shortage of people on social media who agreed with that theory.

One Twitter user named Nick wrote: “I'm not a royalist. I think they are an unaffordable luxury and outdated but I liked Megan. She has had nothing but abuse from the press because she is mixed race. They just couldn't accept her. I hope she and Harry have a happy life! #meganandharry”

Writer Philip Pullman wrote: “Of course Meghan Markle is attacked by the British press because she's black, and of course Prince Harry is right to defend her. What a foul country this is.”

Debates surrounding race have become increasingly frequent in the UK with many criticising the country’s reluctance to accept that racism was an issue in the country or to deal with its colonial legacy.

Singer Stormzy was most recently the focus of controversy for suggesting racism was still an issue in British society.

How Meghan is treated is how Black people are treated in the UK all the time. Shut up, take any treatment meted out to you, be grateful. It’s stupid using successful Black people as an indicator of how this not racist the UK is. Racism can intensify. See Stormzy, Sterling etc.— Uppity Failed Whoopi Goldberg 🇩🇲🇧🇧 (@thetwerkinggirl) January 9, 2020

Source: TRT World

Islamophobia is being defined as a form of racism. Why?

Should the term 'black' to describe people of African origin be retired?

PUTIN'S PRIVATE ARMY KEEPING UP WITH THE BLACKWATERS OF THE WORLD

The Wagner Group: a private military company that's not exactly 'private'


ARUUKE URAN KYZY
1 DAY AGO

The Wagner Group is Putin's most potent weapon in advancing Russian policy objectives while maintaining plausible deniability.

The so-called Libyan National Army, warlord Khalifa Haftar's force in Libya, yesterday refused to honour a ceasefire proposed by Turkey and Russia. Haftar's forces have been carrying out an offensive to capture Tripoli from the UN-backed Government of National Accord based in the capital.

Turkey recently sent troops to Libya to defend the GNA and accuses Russia of supporting the GNA's main rival, Haftar, through the use of 2,500 mercenaries and other military support.

So who are these mercenaries and are they controlled by Russian President Vladimir Putin?

The Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group – a shadowy band of mercenaries exercising deadly force on behalf of the Kremlin – seem like something from Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina.

In the novel, the main character Count Alexei Vronsky leaves to Serbia as a volunteer to fight against the Ottoman Empire as a part of a squadron he formed at his own expense. Pervasive in Russian literature these militias were used by tsars to pacify internal unrest and to achieve directed military and policy objectives.

Today, Russian foreign policy has embraced many of the same ambitions that were born out of a need for “plausible deniability” in Kremlin’s military operations abroad.

Moscow’s PMCs have a unique understanding of service - “kill or train others to kill” - by providing intelligence, training, logistical assistance and infrastructure security. It is essential to highlight that ambiguity and confusion are unique features of Russian PMCs. Such companies are illegal under Russia law.

Moscow denies any links to Russian PMCs like the Wagner Group, which operates in active war zones. Like many other PMC’s, the company is used as a proxy by the Russian government to reduce both political and geopolitical “fallout”.

What is often left unmentioned, however, is the administrative and financial control of the company. With the Wagner Group commonly being used as a “bogey-man” by some outlets due to the group’s ostensibly private nature, it is imperative to question the degree of control the Kremlin exerts over this group.

In other words, how 'private' is this private military contractor?

The story of the Wagner Group has primarily been told as the story of an influential businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin who bears a resemblance to Tolstoy’s protagonist Vronsky. He is an influential figure with close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

Prigozhin’s role in the country’s foreign policy has set off international alarms. A US court has charged him with setting up an internet “troll factory” that attempted to influence the 2016 American presidential elections in favour of Donald Trump.

As one of the most successful caterers in the country with the moniker “Putin’s Chef”, he owns several companies that have lucrative contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defence and public school catering, as well as several construction deals since the mid-2000s.

While real monetary connections remain elusive, leaked documents and investigations paint a portrait of Prigozhin’s private structures pursuing Russian state interests and bolstering Russian diplomatic flexibility in war-torn Syria and Libya, as well as other hotspots in sub-Saharan Africa.

Simply put, the company’s presence in geopolitical hotspots illuminates coordination between Prigozhin’s commercial ambitions and the Kremlin’s pursuit of its national interests.

Through Wagner, Russia offers “information warfare” strategies in return for political influence and capital, opportunities for geostrategic expansion, or resource concessions.

Its first mission was to support the disarmament of Ukrainian military installations during the annexation of Crimea in 2014. By spring 2015, Wagner started to prepare for its next campaign: to become a crucial asset in support of Bashar al Assad in Syria.

Surprisingly, in June 2019, Putin admitted the presence of Russian PMCs in Syria, emphasising that they are not connected to the state. However, Russian online investigative newspaper Fontantka provided evidence that around 500 pro-Syrian fighters – most of whom spoke Russian – played a pivotal role in the efforts to seize Palmyra and Deir Ezzor in 2016 and 2017. Leaked telephone conversations revealed Prigozhin himself ordered the assault.

It seems that much of Wagner’s operations in Syria have been financed by deals between Prigozhin’s companies and the Syrian government. One such example is that Prigozhin owns a Russian company called Evro Polis in St. Petersburg, which signed a contract in 2016 with the Syrian energy ministry to receive a 25 percent share of natural gas and oil produced in Syria’s oil capital Deir Ezzor.

Much like in Syria and Ukraine, Russian foreign policy in Africa is also designated as defence cooperation in return for resource extraction. Concurrently, as Russia increases its diplomatic involvement in Africa, Wagner operations have expanded into Sudan, Central African Republic (CAR) and Libya, where it protects Prigozhin’s investments.

Researchers from the Stanford Internet Observatory uncovered evidence of Russia-linked influence operations in Africa’s cyberspace through Wagner Group and Prigozhin’s suspended networks.

Similarly, the company M-Invest, which Prigozhin is rumoured to own, has an interest in Sudan’s gold deposits and Libya’s oil-rich east region, presumably secured by offering various military services in exchange for natural resource contracts.

Wagner’s influence might go even deeper. Proekt Media, an independent Russian news outlet, produced four lengthy reports unearthing a CAR government mining contract with Prigozhin’s conglomerate Lobaye Invest.

It finances the training of army recruits in the CAR by some 250 Russian mercenaries. Attempts at scrutiny became even more complicated when three Russian journalists investigating Wagner’s activities in the CAR were murdered under mysterious circumstances in the summer of 2018, and two additional individuals who tried to investigate their murder were poisoned. Unfortunately, details on Wagner’s deployments in CAR are scarce, but based on what can be gleaned from sources available, they follow a similar pattern.

Amid this complex background, the secrecy around Wagner- including its origins, ties to the Putin regime, political and economic drivers - makes it difficult and even dangerous to determine how the Kremlin is using obfuscation in their relationship with states to sow confusion and chaos among Russia’s opponents.

It is a clear fact that the Wagner Group can be considered a private military company only to the extent that it feeds the wealth of a private individual. In reality, it bolsters Russia’s strategic interests while increasing Russia's plausible deniability.

The group does not offer the Kremlin entirely new ways to wage war or build influence. However, it is imperative to question how Wagner’s existence – regardless of its intricate networks of extraction, security cooperation and geostrategic benefit – will be used to further Russia’s geopolitical goals.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT World.

We welcome all pitches and submissions to TRT World Opinion – please send them via email, to opinion.editorial@trtworld.com

AUTHOR
Aruuke Uran Kyzy
AruukeUran
Aruuke Uran Kyzy works at TRT World Research Centre. She has a degree in International Relations, English and Literature from Istanbul University. Her current area of focus is Russian and Central Asian studies.

SEE
https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/01/war-whats-it-good-for-profit.html

In Mexican capital, red shoes protest killings of women

There are 10 women killed daily on average across Mexico, and only one in 10 such crimes are solved.

A portrait of Eugenia Machuca Campos sits amid women's red shoes placed by activists to protest violence against women in the Zocalo, Mexico City's main plaza, January 11, 2020. (Christian Palma / AP)

Activists placed hundreds of painted-red women’s shoes on Mexico City’s sun-drenched main square on Saturday to call attention to gender-based violence in a country where, on average, 10 women and girls are murdered each day and less than 10 percent of the cases are ever solved.

As residents and tourists milled about the plaza or Zocalo — the historical, political, cultural and religious heart of the country — demonstrators marched to the massive front door of the colonial-era National Palace and placed five pairs on the paving stones as a uniformed guard looked on.

“Not one more killed!” they cried to the beat of a drum.

“The shoes represent absence, visualizing absence,” said 60-year-old artist Elina Chauvet, who first realized the piece of performance-protest art in 2009 after her sister was killed by her husband in a domestic violence case in the northern border city of Juarez. “The red is for the blood that has been spilled, but it is also a work that speaks of love.”

The performance was the latest in a string of public demonstrations in recent months over violence against women, including angry anti-rape protests in which demonstrators tossed glitter and defaced monuments; thousands of women in blindfolds chanting the feminist anthem “A Rapist in Your Path,” a viral phenomenon across the Americas and around the world; and more low-key marches and even knit-ins.

The common thread running throughout: authorities’ inability to solve the problem of gender-based violence in one of the world’s most dangerous countries to be female.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has been in office a little over 13 months, and allied officials have pledged to make femicide and other gender-related crimes a priority.

In November, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum declared a gender violence alert for the capital, meaning that 20 of Mexico’s federal entities have now done so. Sheinbaum said the measure would raise awareness of the problem and deliver better results.

But for those at Saturday’s protest, little to nothing has been seen as far as results.

There were 3,662 femicides, or gender-related killings of women, in 2018, before Lopez Obrador took office, and the rate continued apace in 2019, though there are not yet final figures for the year.

Elizabeth Machuca Campos holds the portrait of her sister Eugenia Machuca Campos amid women's red shoes placed in the Zocalo by people protesting violence against women in Mexico City, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020. According to Elizabeth, her sister's ex-boyfriend is serving time in jail for her Oct. 2017 murder in the State of Mexico. (AP)

“On the contrary, they keep on killing us,” said Elizabeth Machuca Campos, a 39-year-old artisan and women’s rights activist from Ocoyoacac in the neighbouring State of Mexico, whose sister was murdered there in 2017. She said a suspect was detained and sentenced, but at the last minute the charge was changed from femicide to homicide — something that activists and groups such as Amnesty International say is frequently done by Mexican governments at multiple levels to juke the stats on gender violence.

Machuca brought to the Zocalo a photo of her sister and the shoes she was wearing when her body was found.

“Those pairs of shoes are missing their owners,” she said, fighting back tears. “The women who have been torn from us.”

The capital’s new chief prosecutor, Ernestina Godoy Ramos, acknowledged Friday that she faces an “enormous” challenge in delivering public security for the city and promised justice in femicide cases.

“May it be heard loudly and from afar: There will be no impunity in the matter of femicides,” Olga Sanchez Cordero, Lopez Obrador’s interior secretary, said the same day.

Women's red shoes are piled up in the Zocalo where they were placed by people to protest violence against women in Mexico City, Saturday, Jan. 11, 2020. (AP)

Violence against women is a problem that well predates the current government. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Ciudad Juarez was notorious for the unpunished killings and disappearances of hundreds of women and girls. Today activists often point to the State of Mexico, the country’s most populous, as a flashpoint for femicides.

Voices of Absence

Sacrisanta Mosso Rendon wore a T-shirt with the names and photograph of her 17-year-old daughter, Karen, and 12-year-old son, Erik. Karen was raped and murdered at their house in Ecatepec, State of Mexico in 2016, she said, and Erik was also home at the time and was strangled.

Mosso, who now leads the activist group Voices of Absence, said the killer was caught, but sentenced to just five years. She called for tougher sentences in the few femicide cases that are actually solved — the near-total impunity for killings of women reflects a broader pattern of crimes generally going unpunished in Mexico.

“Unfortunately women are not safe anywhere,” Mosso said. “Governments come, governments go, and we remain in the same situation because there is no progress.”

But Chauvet, the artist, said that even if concrete results are scant so far, this and the other demonstrations are turning what was once a taboo subject into an issue of national public concern.

“Even though it would seem there is no immediate change, I think there is, or rather that eventually there will be,” she said.
Source: AP

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Climate and Environment

‘We’re building an army’: Jane Fonda caps off weeks of climate protest in D.C.

Actress Jane Fonda leads a march to join the “Fire Drill Friday” climate change rally at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Fonda was joined by Golden Globe winner Joaquin Phoenix and Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen. (Shawn Thew/EPA-EFE)

By 

Sarah Kaplan 

Jan. 10, 2020 at 3:13 p.m. MST

Clad in her signature red hat and coat, clenched fist raised high, Jane Fonda saluted the sea of chanting people who had gathered for her final “Fire Drill Friday” this week. She cheered as 147 of them were arrested on the steps of the Capitol building. And then she marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Chase Bank branch at the junction of Seventh Street SE where environmentalist Bill McKibben and about two dozen fellow activists had staked out in protest of the bank’s financing of oil and gas companies.

“Move your money, Chase, or we’ll move ours,” the outside demonstrators shouted, as Metropolitan Police filed into the bank to apprehend McKibben and nine others. “Fossil fuels have got to go!”

It was a climactic end to the two-time Academy Award winner and longtime activist’s weekly protest in Washington. But it was also the start, organizers said, of broader movement and a more aggressive push against financial institutions’ ties to the fossil fuel industry.

Since October, each Fire Drill Friday installment has featured a rotating cast of experts, activists and Fonda’s celebrity friends giving speeches on environmental issues. And each one has ended the same way: with Capitol Police strapping zip ties around participants’ wrists and charging them with obstruction.

'The world is at stake’: Jane Fonda moves to D.C. to fight climate change

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Inspired by Greta Thunberg and millions of youths, Jane Fonda said she has moved to the nation’s capital for four months to rally against climate change. (Luis Velarde/The Washington Post)

But, fueled by the power of Fonda’s celebrity and a growing sense of urgency about the warming planet, the campaign has exploded in size and scope. Barely two dozen people attended Fonda’s first protest. On Friday, at a rally targeting the financial sector, she spoke to what looked like 500 protesters: mothers carrying infants, college students in pink hats, octogenarians like Fonda who brought their own stools to sit on as they shouted “Green New Deal” into the chilly January air.

“We’re building an army, folks,” Fonda proclaimed.

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During the rally, actors Joaquin Phoenix and Martin Sheen spoke alongside indigenous activist Tasina Smith, community banker Kat Taylor and writer Naomi Klein.

“Fire Drill Fridays has created this entry point, an on-ramp, for people sitting in their homes desperate to do something,” Klein said.

Among the crowd was Fran Cohen, a 68-year-old fan of Fonda’s who spent her youth marching for various political causes. But she hadn’t attended a protest in decades — until she began attending Fire Drill Fridays.

“That Jane moved here to do this, I had to come to say thank you to her,” Cohen said. “And now I want to keep doing it.”

All told, organizers said, more than 1,000 people have attended the weekly events and roughly 600 of them have been arrested for the cause, including Sheen, Phoenix and Klein this Friday.

“We didn’t know what to expect when we started,” Fonda said. “But I think people were waiting to be given something do, and [Fire Drill Friday] was the right thing at the right time.

“We wanted to move people who were concerned but not active into the activism column, and I think we succeeded,” she said.

Protesting fossil fuel companies, activists stand on the U.S. Capitol steps during Fire Drill Friday on Jan. 10. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

Fonda flies back to Los Angeles this weekend to begin filming the seventh season of her Netflix show “Grace and Frankie.” But her protest will continue in a new form, Greenpeace Executive Director Annie Leonard said. The group is helping to organize monthly rallies in California, and it is about to roll out a website with resources to help people organize events in their hometowns.

When, during her “Late Show” appearance on Monday, Fonda promoted a helpline that people could text for assistance planning their own climate protest, she got more than 3,000 responses.

Meanwhile, McKibben’s organization, 350.org, along with Sierra Club and a slate of other environmental groups, is launching a campaign calling on financial institutions to stop funding fossil-fuel projects. According to a report by the Rainforest Action Network, banks have provided nearly $2 trillion in financing for fossil-fuel projects since 2016. JPMorgan Chase was the largest contributor, providing $196 billion for coal mining, fracking and oil and gas projects from the deep ocean to the Arctic.

McKibben’s group has a list of more than 1,000 bank branches they aim to target in the coming months. “This marks an escalation of Fire Drill Friday,” he told the rally, speaking over a phone line from inside the Chase branch. “We’ve got to be here because ... they are the ones paying for the carbon bomb.”

“The two centers of power in this world are political and financial,” he said in an interview later. On Friday, he said, climate activists took their fight to both places.

Actress and activist Jane Fonda, right, cheers other protesters outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington during a protest on climate change on Jan. 10. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Fonda has activist credentials that go back to the 1970s, when she rallied for working mothers and marched against the Vietnam War. But she has said her climate awakening came after reading about 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, whose weekly strike in front of her country’s parliament sparked a global youth movement.

“She realized what was happening and that this was barreling at us like an engine,” Fonda told The Washington Post in October. “It rocked me, because I knew that Greta had seen the truth. And the urgency came into my DNA the way it hadn’t before.”

She moved to Washington and got a permit to protest on the Capitol’s southeast lawn. She reached out to leaders of Black Lives Matter and the Sunrise Movement and began lobbying her Hollywood friends to fly out. She organized online “teach-ins” at which scientists would explain various aspects of climate change.

And she knew she wanted to get arrested, because nothing else seemed to be working.

“We’ve been petitioning and writing and marching and begging the government and they don’t hear,” Fonda said in an interview with Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” earlier this week. “That’s why we’re engaging in civil disobedience.”

Fonda herself has been detained five times for public disturbance. After her fourth arrest — when she was held overnight at D.C. jail — she said an officer told her, “There‘s gotta be better ways to call attention to your cause. Don’t come back.”

“I think she’s right,” Fonda told The Post at the time. “My bones hurt.”

Nevertheless, on Dec. 20, the day before her 82nd birthday, she was detained again.

Washington’s young climate activists, many of whom have been protesting on Fridays for more than a year, say they welcome Fonda and the influx of older demonstrators who have followed her.

“It’s nice to see so many parents and grandparents,” said 17-year-old Jerome Foster II, who is in his 11th month of striking outside the White House. “People who can make a difference.”

Although young people hold the moral authority on climate issues, he added, it’s helpful to be joined by activists with bank accounts, driver’s licenses and the ability to vote. “And it’s cool they can get arrested,” he said with a grin.

Sarah Kaplan

Sarah Kaplan is a science reporter covering news from around the nation and across the universe. She previously worked overnights on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. Follow