Missouri Bill Bars Pharmacists From Questioning Ivermectin Prescriptions

BY THOMAS KIKA ON 5/14/22 

A bill coming out of the Missouri state legislature would bar pharmacists from questioning and potentially preventing ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine prescriptions.

The measure that would put this rule into effect was included in HB 2149, a bill that broadly concerns professional licensing. The bill passed the Missouri state House by an overwhelming majority on Thursday, 130-4, according to The Kansas City Star. It will now be sent to the desk of Republican Governor Mike Parson to potentially be signed into law.

As worded, the bill would bar pharmacists in the state from contacting patients or doctors "to dispute the efficacy of ivermectin tablets or hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets for human use." The measure also prevents doctors who "lawfully" prescribe either of the drugs from being stripped of their professional licenses or otherwise punished.

Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine rose to prominence during the pandemic as potential treatments for COVID-19 and gained significant popularity among anti-vaccination advocates. Neither drug has been approved by the FDA to treat COVID and several accredited studies have indicated that the drugs can be harmful to patients in certain cases. A recent study also found that ivermectin in particular is no more effective against the virus than a placebo.

Above, a representational image of a vial of ivermectin.

LUIS ROBAYO/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The measure was added to HB 2149 by Senator Rick Brattin, a Republican state lawmaker from Harrisonville, Missouri. Brattin, who admitted to buying ivermectin for himself in the past, said he had heard concerns from numerous doctors about the potential for losing their licenses over prescribing the drugs.


"Unfortunately, because of the politicization of those two drugs, [doctors are] being targeted," Brattin explained to The Kansas City Star. "I wanted to protect them from that."

The measure has also drawn heavy criticism, especially from Democrats.

"...The Missouri legislature has chosen to 'own the libs' by issuing a gag order against every pharmacist in this state from offering their medical opinion on taking either one of those medications—even if it could kill their patient," Lindsey Simmons, a former U.S. House candidate and Democrat, tweeted Thursday. "Pharmacists can be disciplined for informing the patient of the medication's risks, but not for simply handing it over. And for an authoritarian government that purports to be 'pro life' and for 'free speech,' they've put forward a law that prohibits one + could end the other.

Representative Patty Lewis, a Democratic state lawmaker and member of the committee that crafted the bill, explained to the Star that the measure was added in order to appease far-right elements in the state's Senate.

Ivermectin is traditionally prescribed as anti-parasitic for patients dealing with things like worms, and can also be useful against head lice and for skin conditions like rosacea. Hydroxychloroquine is typically used to treat malaria, and has also found use against conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Newsweek reached out to the office of Governor Parson for comment.

Major US baby formula producer agrees with regulators on restarting production

AFP
May 16, 2022

Abbott warned that it will take six to eight weeks to get baby formula back on the shelves even afer it resumes production at its facility in Sturgis, Michigan

Abbott warned that it will take six to eight weeks to get baby formula back on the shelves even afer it resumes production at its facility in Sturgis, Michigan

Washington (AFP) - Amid a US shortage of baby formula, officials announced Monday a previously closed manufacturer would re-open and encouraged foreign companies to apply to import their products -- although it will take weeks to see more stock back on store shelves.

A "consent decree" agreement between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and major formula manufacturer Abbott outlines steps needed to restart production at the company's plant in Michigan, which was shut down due to a recall, Abbott said in a statement.

"Once the FDA confirms the initial requirements for start-up have been met, Abbott could restart the site within two weeks," the statement said.

However, the company cautioned that "from the time Abbott restarts the site, it will take six to eight weeks before product is available on shelves."

Abbott, which produces the popular Similac brand used by millions of American families, announced a voluntary recall on February 17 after the death of two babies.

In a separate move, the FDA also said Monday it plans to accept applications from international baby formula manufacturers "who don't normally distribute their infant formula products in the US," FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said in a statement.

Currently, the United States produces about 98 percent of the formula it consumes.
Import applications

The FDA plans to work to quickly review such applications, especially ones that come from "countries that have health and safety inspection systems similar" to the United States, according to a senior White House official.

The process would also prioritize applications showing "clear quality and safety and nutritional adequacy," a different senior administration official added.

According to Califf, foreign-made baby formula could appear on US shelves within "weeks."

The Biden administration was also reaching out to US manufacturers to offer help with logistical challenges, such as shipping, the officials said.

US families have grown increasingly desperate for formula amid a perfect storm of supply chain issues and the massive recall.

The average out-of-stock rate for baby formula hit 43 percent earlier this month, according to Datasembly, which collected information from more than 11,000 retailers.

Abbott's agreement with the FDA to restart production at the plant in Sturgis, Michigan also needs to be reviewed by a federal court after the Justice Department filed a complaint on Monday.

The complaint says the facility "failed to comply with regulations designed to ensure the quality and safety of infant formula, including protection against the risk of contamination from bacteria."

"The actions we are announcing today will help to safely increase the supply of baby formula for families," US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Robert Ford, chairman and chief executive officer of Abbott said he regretted the situation and that the company already had begun "working to implement improvements and take corrective action."

"We know millions of parents and caregivers depend on us and we're deeply sorry that our voluntary recall worsened the nationwide formula shortage," he said in the statement.

The FDA and White House officials reiterated Monday that parents who are concerned about running out of baby formula should talk to their child's doctor, and that it is not safe to water down existing formula or to make your own at home.

The scarcity is the latest crisis to confound President Joe Biden's push to get the US economy on sound footing amid the highest inflation in four decades and the ongoing global supply chain bottlenecks.

Power outage: Could a solar storm switch off the world's technology?

DPA
May 16, 2022

The Northern Lights, also known as the aurora borealis, at Selfoss in southern Iceland. Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind, the stream of particles and plasma emanating from the sun. Owen Humphreys/PA Wire/dpa

The Northern Lights, also known as the aurora borealis, at Selfoss in southern Iceland. Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by the solar wind, the stream of particles and plasma emanating from the sun. Owen Humphreys/PA Wire/dpa

Solar storms make for wonderful light shows as auroras zipping through the heavens but they can also bring about a state of emergency.

The phenomenon doesn't present any danger to the Earth as a planet, but could well harm humans who are increasingly dependent on technology.

During a solar storm, or disturbance on the sun, high-energy particles and a massive plasma cloud can emanate outwards across the heliosphere towards the planets, potentially massively disrupting infrastructure on and around Earth.

Space company SpaceX felt the painful effects of such space weather recently, when a solar storm knocked out 40 of its satellites.

Solar storms mostly occur from giant explosions of plasma known as coronal mass ejections, and solar flares from active regions - and we are likely to see more of them in the coming years. The sun has a roughly 11-year cycle and its activity has been increasing again since 2019, with forecasts suggesting a peak in 2024 to 2026.

The violent particle and radiation bursts during phases of high activity are likely to have increasingly severe consequences on Earth, given our growing reliance on technology.

Solar storms hurl high-energy particles and billions of tons of plasma into space, which can swiftly come rocketing towards the Earth, some 150 million kilometres away.

Although the Earth is protected by its magnetic field and atmosphere, such storms can cause massive damage, wrecking satellites and power grids and causing the collapse of communication and navigation systems.

"It is possible at any time for a very extreme solar storm to occur, and it could have far-reaching consequences," says European Space Agency (ESA)'s space weather mission coordinator in Germany, Melanie Heil.

Space travellers use the site's satellite control centre to monitor solar storms. While Heil says it isn't "super likely" that all of the satellites will break down, some could be affected.

What's needed on Earth is a timely warning, in order to protect the power grids. Turning down capacities in generators and transformers might protect them from damage. However, a major event could be tough to predict. "The latest calculations say we can expect about a 10% probability of an extreme space weather event in the next 10 years," says Heil.

Any warning time is likely to be brief as solar particles shoot through the vastness of the solar system at a speed that is hard to imagine. "If we weren't able to observe something like this, we would be vulnerable at any time," Heil says. Certain observation points already provide data but work is still under way to expand capacities to create more reliable predictions.

Scientists hope that ESA's Vigil probe will allow them a much better look at solar storms. "Because of its location in space, the Vigil mission will be able to take a sharp look at potentially dangerous solar activity," says ESA mission chief Giuseppe Mandorlo. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2027 and, unlike in the past, is able to take a sideways look at the sun and track the storms, says Heil.

ESA was surprised at the damage suffered by billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX. "It wasn't actually a particularly strong solar storm, which is why no official warning was sent out," says Heil.

The SpaceX satellites were in the wrong place at the wrong time, she says. When it hit, the storm compressed the atmosphere so much that the orbiters were unable to reach their target point 300 kilometres higher up and burned up in the atmosphere.

SpaceX wants to use satellites to set up its Starlink system to provide high-speed internet connections.

The private space company is doing a "good job" with Starlink, says the US space agency NASA. Both NASA and US weather agency NOAA are currently working with SpaceX to further improve Starlink operations.

NASA is also working to better understand weather events in space, as everyone is wondering how severe the current solar cycle will be.

It is a question with no answer so far. Solar Cycle Prediction Panel (SCPP) suggested its maximum would be pretty muted, similar to the previous cycle, in a 2020 forecast. However, that prediction was countered by a team led by Scott McIntosh of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. His researchers say the maximum is likely to be strong, with many solar storms.

How Archaeologists Recreated a Lost Norwegian Village

2022/5/14
© InsideHook


By Tobias Carroll

Countless human settlements all over the world are lost to time and the elements. That can be a challenge for the archaeologists tasked with exploring the ways people lived in the past in these locations; it’s much easier to visualize how a specific place worked when one can walk around what remains of it, after all. All of this helps to explain why a new initiative around the town of Borgund, Norway is so exciting — and holds so much promise.

The Borgund Kaupang Project, begun in 2019, focuses on learning more about one of a handful of Norwegian towns to exist in medieval times. As the Project’s website notes, there have been a number of excavations of the town over the years, but “little research has been carried out on the extensive datasets available.” At least, not until now.

An article at Atlas Obscura documents the processes taken by the archaeologists involved in revisiting Borgund. As Gitten Hansen, one of the archaeologists working on the project, told Atlas Obscura, excavations began in 1953. “We’re talking about the largest excavation of a medieval site in Norway outside of the still existing towns,” Hansen said — all of which suggests there’s a lot for scientists and historians to revisit.

The excavations continued for decades, with most of what was found left in the care of the University Museum of Bergen. Using these items, archaeologists have done everything from restoring textiles found in the digs to speculating about the role of shipbuilding in the town. It’s both an interesting way to recall the past and a wide-ranging exploration of what can be gleaned from the most modest of objects and records.

Val Demings slams Rubio, anti-abortion rhetoric at pro-choice conference – Orlando Sentinel

May 14, 2022

The Black Chronicle News Service

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In a speech in Orlando on Saturday, U.S. Senate hopeful Val Demings touted her pro-choice stance and attacked Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s position on abortion as “radical.”

Rubio, who’s seeking a third term, has long supported bans on abortion with no exceptions, most recently saying a failed Senate bill to codify Roe v. Wade would legalize ”the killing of unborn children right up to the day of delivery.” The 1973 Supreme Court ruling is on the cusp of being overturned, according to a draft opinion obtained by Politico.

His campaign described his likely opponent in November as “a radical who supports abortion up until the moment of birth,” in what is likely to become a wedge issue in the race, Florida Politics reported.

Demings called the claim “foolishness,” voicing her support for abortions “up until the point of viability or when it threatens the health of the mother.” She also pointed to Rubio’s past support for a 2001 “scarlet letter” law signed and later deemed unconstitutional, which required unwed mothers in Florida who wished to put their children up for adoption to publish details about their sex lives in newspapers.

“Desperate people say desperate things,” Demings said in response. “… I know they are searching for something to draw the attention away from his extreme view about the constitutional right that people have in this country.”

She added, “The nerve of him to say there should be no restrictions, even including incest, rape and abuse — now I think that’s extreme.”

Speaking at the She’s The Change conference hosted at the Rosen Plaza Hotel by pro-choice group Ruth’s List, Demings also called Roe v. Wade “established law.” The Women’s Health Protection Act, the Senate bill that would have codified the ruling and invalidated state abortion bans, failed to overcome the Republican filibuster, with a 51-49 vote against moving the legislation forward.

“When I decided to raise my family, I didn’t ask my congressman, I didn’t ask my governor and I’m dang sure I didn’t ask my senator,” Demings said. “Women have a right to choose her own destiny. We’re not going back, we’re not shutting up, we’re not sitting down, we are going to fight and fight and fight some more.”

The leaked draft opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito sparked outrage throughout the U.S., with mass protests taking place around the country while doctors and abortion providers speak out as others, including religious conservatives, praise the possible decision.

It also comes as Republican state legislatures pass restrictive abortion bans in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s official ruling, expected to come down later this year. Last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, except if the fetus is found to have a “fatal fetal abnormality.”

Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book claps at the end of Congresswoman Val Demings speech at the Ruth’s List Florida’s, She’s the Change leadership conference in Orlando, Fla., Saturday, May 14, 2022. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel) (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

The law, which many fear could be expanded next year after the Supreme Court’s ruling, does not include exceptions for rape or incest. A statewide poll by the University of North Florida found nearly 60% of Floridians are opposed to the newly-signed ban.

“We are here today to protect life,” DeSantis said at a signing ceremony in Kissimmee. “We are here today to defend those who can’t defend themselves.”

Florida Democrats have scrambled to mobilize their base ahead of November’s elections, where Rubio’s Senate seat and the governorship are at stake, as the party nationally has embraced abortion as a key issue in this year’s midterms. A Pew Research Center poll in March found 61% of voters support legal abortion in all or most circumstances.

What killed the whales? Two found dead off the Florida Keys, and one towed to a marina

2022/5/11 1
 Miami Herald

Gwen Filosa/flkeysnews.com

Two sperm whales died within seven days of each other in the Florida Keys, according to state and federal officials.

One was a juvenile whale that died May 4 off Key Largo. The other, a large adult that died after beaching itself near Mud Key, about 15 miles northeast of Key West in the Gulf of Mexico, was found on Tuesday, according to state wildlife officials.

The adult whale, a male, was towed to Robbie’s Marina on Stock Island, just east of Key West.

Kelly Richmond, spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said the whale is 47 feet long.

“We just started a necropsy on the animal now,” Richmond said Wednesday morning. “It will likely take the better part of a day, and even then, we might not have all the results.”

Casey Taylor, manager of Robbie’s Marina, said he was called at about 4 p.m. Tuesday about the whale.

He said it arrived at the marina via TowboatUS, a sea towing business, around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. The marina workers used a travel lift to remove it from the water so it would not be damaged by other fish. Taylor said the mammal weighs 40 tons.

The other whale was a newborn female calf that still had an open umbilical cord when it was found on a small barrier island off John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo, said Blair Mase, southeast regional marine mammal stranding coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Fisheries Service.

“It looks like it just separated from mom, and that was likely the cause of death,” Mase said, although the official cause of death is still pending necropsy results.
How did the whales die?

After someone reported the young mammal swimming alone, rescuers from Dolphins Plus Marine Mammal Responder, a federally authorized whale and dolphin rescue nonprofit, followed it for about a half a mile as it swam to shore, said Allison Garrett, a NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman.

At least one tiger shark was trailing the 9 1/2-foot-long whale, but Mase said it did not die from bites inflicted by the fish.

“It died naturally on its own,” Mase said.

Given that the adult whale that died in the Gulf of Mexico was a male, there is likely no connection between his death and that of the calf that died last week, Mase said. But, it is unusual to have two sperm whale strandings in the same region within such a short time period, she added.

“There were two in a week, so this is something we are keeping a close eye on, and we’re trying to find as much information as possible to see what’s going on and see why (the adult whale) possibly died,” Mase said.
About sperm whales

Among the common human causes of deaths of sperm whales and other marine mammals are boat and ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear, Mase said. As part of the analysis, toxicology samples will be examined to see if any environmental factors contributed to the deaths.

Sperm whales are the largest of the toothed whales, according to NOAA Fisheries. They are named for the waxy substance found in their heads that allows them to focus on sound. It is this substance that made them a target of whaling when it was legal between the early 1800s and 1987. The substance was used as lamp oil, lubricants and candles, according to NOAA.

Females reach physical maturity around 30 years old, according to NOAA, and can grow to about 35 feet long. Males reach physical maturity around 50 years old, and grow about 52 feet.

Sperm whales live in oceans throughout the world, but are found mostly in deep water, and can dive to depths of more than 10,000 feet and stay under for up to over an hour, federal scientists say.

With whaling outlawed, their populations are recovering and they are still listed as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act and “depleted” under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Anyone who sees an injured or dead whale should call 877-942-5343 (877-WHALE HELP), said Garrett, the NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman.

She said people should keep a safe distance from the animals and not touch them.

“Please don’t intervene,” Garrett said. “If you can safely get a photo or video, that’s great, but do not go near them for your safety and the safety of the animal.”

The body of a 47- foot male sperm whale lies on the dock of Robbie's Marina in Stock Island Wednesday, May 11, 2022. - Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission/Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission/TNS

Fla. scientist probes flesh-eating bacteria for clues to next pandemic

2022/5/16
 Orlando Sentinel


ORLANDO, Fla. -- A bout with flesh-eating bacteria can start out with a day at the beach, a hardly worrisome cut and then, in less than 24 hours, a raging infection fought with heavy antibiotics and gruesome scalpel work.

It would be reassuring to know where and when Florida’s coastal waters are ripe with “one of the fastest growing organisms on earth,” said a University of Central Florida scientist.

Salvador Almagro-Moreno, a native of southern Spain, graduate student in Ireland and researcher at Dartmouth College, arrived at UCF in 2017, where he is now an assistant professor of medicine. He’s diving into the mysterious world of flesh-eating bacteria, which is nasty stuff for sure, but there’s a bigger target on his to-do list.

His main school of thought, from where he orchestrates research, instructs students and hopes to bring a difference, is from a concept called One Health, which the COVID-19 pandemic has ushered into prime time.

One Health acknowledges intricate, if often poorly known ties between people, animals, plants and their ecosystems in an interwoven fabric of life.

One Health expects that assaults from climate change, population growth and environmental destruction could fray that fabric or shred it disastrously, resulting in diseases such as cholera outbreaks, Ebola epidemics and, as suspected, the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19 pandemic and its 6 million global deaths, and still others nobody has heard of yet.

Almagro-Moreno wrote the cover story, “The Rise of New Pathogens,” for the current May-June edition of the American Scientist magazine.

“The emergence of novel human pathogens is without a doubt one of the most pressing problems that we face,” he said in the story. “I have been working for almost two decades trying to understand what the biological rules and evolutionary forces are that make a microorganism transition to causing disease in humans.”

Almagro-Moreno is pursuing simple but daunting questions: what are the warning signs for looming disease calamities, and how can they be interpreted and best communicated?

Each day, for example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issues predictions at airnow.gov for several days of air quality.

The ozone smog forecast for Orlando was for moderate concern on Wednesday, meaning that people who are “unusually sensitive” to the lung-damaging pollutant should consider shortening activities outdoors.

Otherwise, forecasts for Thursday through Sunday called for good, or low levels of ozone smog.

That’s something of the approach that Almagro-Moreno hopes to achieve.

But trying to predict the behavior of a potentially lethal organism as it ricochets among environmental fluctuations, interactions with animals and potential infections of humans – that’s way harder than forecasting the health risk of ozone smog, he said.

In no small part it’s harder because One Health science is in its infancy. In a sense, Almagro-Moreno is just beginning to develop momentum at laboratory.

“We know very little about the rules of pathogen emergence,” Almagro-Moreno said.

Florida struggles now with a pair of troublemakers that -- incubated in natural environments, exacerbated by pollution and affecting people -- speak to the One Health concept.

One is the occurrence along the state’s southwest coast of red tides, which are composed of single-cell organisms producing neurotoxins. They have caused massive die-offs of marine life and driven away tourists with lung-irrigating fumes.

Another is blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria producing toxins in fresh waters, including many Orlando lakes, and including Lake Ivanhoe, which is popular for aquatic sports but now is posted as hazardous because of cyanobacteria.

Almagro-Moreno lives nearby in the Mills 50 district and met at Lake Ivanhoe to discuss his research.

To understand the effects of chemicals or environmental exposures, or to unravel genetic traits, scientists often turn to four creatures, the fruit fly, zebra fish, roundworm and mouse, for experiments.

Those four, all well documented, are called model organisms.

For his One Health investigations, and more specifically to probe the behaviors of waterborne pathogens, Almagro-Moreno also chose model organisms, but of a different nature.

The first is cholera, a disease recorded in thousands of years of history. He and students are collaborating with Asian and Latin American countries to probe the evolution and outbreaks of cholera.

The second is a native of Florida, one that can be contracted through the prick of fish spine, nick from a seashell or, as well, from eating raw oysters.

It is flesh-eating bacteria. “This is their home – they have been here far longer than we have,” Almagro-Moreno said. The microorganism, he said in a TEDx talk a few years ago, “a very proud Florida native.”

To understand its behaviors, whether in a chill mode or on a rampage, his students have gone to the Indian River Lagoon in Brevard County for sampling of bacteria, environmental conditions and other factors.

“I thought it was really suitable,” he said of flesh-eating bacteria, “for understanding what do you need to become a pathogen, what do you need to colonize humans, what do you need to kill humans and how does the environment affect those traits?”

His ultimate goal is to develop a standardized approach for assessing and predicting emerging pathogens, an approach that can then have applicability for assessing other threatening organisms.

“But, to be honest … the beauty of it is that I live in Florida,” he said. “So this work matters to me as a Floridan. It’s a win-win.”

Terrible outbreaks of disease are not new, Almagro-Moreno said.

“Unfortunately for those of us trying to forecast them, they do not typically occur in a slow and predictable fashion,” Almagro-Moreno wrote in his American Scientist story.

“Harmless organisms can undergo quantum leaps in evolution to become deadly and then spread like wildfire.”

MEANING MORE U$D FOR CUBA

Reversing Trump measures, US will expand flights to Cuba and resume family reunifications

2022/5/16
Miami Herald


The Biden administration is restoring flights to Cuban cities other than Havana and reestablishing a family reunification program suspended for years, following recommendations of a long-anticipated review of U.S. policy toward Cuba, senior administration officials told McClatchy and the Miami Herald on Monday.

The administration will also allow group travel for educational or professional exchanges and lift caps on money sent to families on the island.

The policy changes come after a months-long review that began in earnest after a series of protests roiled the island nation on July 11, prompting a new round of U.S. sanctions on Cuban officials.

Cuba is facing the worst economic crisis since the Soviet Union collapsed, with widespread shortages of food and medicines, and thousands of Cubans trying to reach the United States.

One senior administration official said the new policy measures allow the administration to continue supporting the Cuban people and guarding U.S. national security interests.

“Our policy continues to center on human rights, empowering the Cuban people to determine their own future and these are practical measures intended to address the humanitarian situation and the migration flows,” the official said, adding that labor rights will also be at the center of any talks with the Cuban government.

As promised in his campaign for the White House, President Joe Biden will reverse several of the measures taken by his predecessor, including by allowing commercial and charter flights to destinations outside the Cuban capital. Currently, American airline companies can only fly to Havana, leaving Cuban Americans with few options to visit their families in other provinces.

The Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program, which has not taken new cases since 2016 and left 22,000 pending applications in limbo, will also be reinstated, the officials said, following bipartisan calls to address the issue.

An administration official said the United States intends to uphold migration accords with Cuba from the 1990s, under which the United States committed to issuing 20,000 immigration visas to Cubans annually, a request made by a Cuban government delegation that recently traveled to Washington to discuss an ongoing wave of Cubans trying to reach the U.S. mainland by land and sea.

One senior administration official also said the State Department will increase visa processing in the embassy in Havana, which resumed this month.

Other measures include lifting the cap on family remittances, currently $1,000 per quarter per person, with an eye on supporting the emerging private sector.

The officials said the administration will encourage more electronic payment companies to work in Cuba to facilitate remittances. Official remittance channels were shut down after the Trump administration sanctioned Fincimex, the financial firm run by the Cuban military, and the Cuban government refused to pass the business to a non-military entity.

Fincimex will not be removed from the Cuba sanction list, one senior official said, but the administration “has engaged” in talks with the Cuban government about finding a non-military entity to process remittances.

The administration will also expand travel to Cuba by once again allowing group travel under the “people-to-people” educational travel category, which was created under former President Barack Obama to allow Americans to visit the island on organized tours to promote exchanges between the two countries. The Trump administration later restricted most non-family travel to Cuba and eliminated the category in 2019.

The U.S. officials said there will be more regulatory changes to allow certain travel related to professional meetings and professional research, but individual people-to-people travel will remain prohibited.

Other measures aim at supporting independent Cuban entrepreneurs by authorizing access to expanded cloud technology, application programming interfaces and e-commerce platforms. The officials said the administration will “explore” options to facilitate electronic payments and expand Cuban entrepreneurs’ access to microfinancing.

Last week, the Treasury Department for the first time authorized an American company to offer a microloan and investment to a small Cuban private business.

The changes will be announced later on Monday but will be implemented in the coming weeks.

The Biden administration has fielded criticism for so far keeping in placer most measures taken by President Trump, who vowed a “maximum pressure” campaign against the communist government over its role in Venezuela. But some Cuban exiles, Cuban American Republican politicians and activists on the island have expressed concern about any easing of sanctions at a time the government has cracked down on protesters and handed down harsh sentences to July 11 demonstrators.

A senior administration official said the administration consulted the policy options with members of Congress and Cuban Americans.

Relations between Washington and Havana soured over the islandwide anti-government demonstration last July. President Biden ordered sanctions against the military, police and security forces involved in the crackdown. And Havana responded by saying the demonstrations were financed by the United States.

The more recent spat involves the invitations to attend the Summit of the Americas, a meeting of leaders from nations in the hemisphere to be held in Los Angeles in June. The U.S. government has said Cuba will likely not receive one. A senior administration said the invitations have not been issued yet.

But the current wave of Cuban migrants reaching the U.S. southern border got the two governments to sit down for the first time since president Biden took office. The Cuban diplomat leading the talks, Carlos Fernández de Cossio, said he left with the sense that the talks could be the first step to improving relations.

A senior administration official said the U.S. delegation did not address policy topics beyond migration.

Mass shooting in Buffalo: Tucker Carlson and other right-wing conspiracy theorists share the blame

Amanda Marcotte, Salon
May 15, 2022

Buffalo mass shooting site (Photo by John Norbile for AFP)

In the 16 months since Jan. 6, 2021, Donald Trump and the hosts Fox News hosts — especially its top-rated personality, Tucker Carlson — haven't exactly been subtle in approving of what happened and longing to see more right-wing violence. Trump has publicly mused about issuing pardons to the Capitol insurrectionists if he wins back — or rather steals back — the White House in 2024. Like many of the far-right Republicans in Congress, Trump has also made a martyr out of Ashli Babbitt, the QAnon believer who was shot during the Capitol riot when she tried to break into a secure area and quite likely attack members of Congress. Carlson, meanwhile, has been at the forefront of popularizing various often contradictory conspiracy theories, mostly intended to portray the Jan. 6 insurrectionists as noble patriots and lambaste any Republican who dares say otherwise. While these GOP leaders and media personalities are generally careful to avoid direct calls for violence, their overall message of sympathy and support for right-wing terrorism is undeniable.

So Saturday's mass shooting in Buffalo, while horrifying, is really no surprise.

The alleged shooter who killed 10 people and injured three others in a Buffalo supermarket is 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who appears to have target a busy location in a predominantly Black neighborhood. As has become far too common with these kinds of mass murders, Gendron reportedly live-streamed the massacre on video, and apparently also published a manifesto that echoes many of the paranoid right-wing talking points one can hear every day streaming from the mouths of Fox News hosts and Republican politicians: a series of scurrilous lies about "critical race theory," George Soros and the "great replacement."

Now a familiar refrain will commence. No doubt we will be hear a great deal of umbrage in the coming days from Republican leaders and right-wing pundits. "How dare you blame us?" they will proclaim, in almost hysterical terms, acting shocked, shocked, that anyone would suggest that their words have had horrible consequences. The point of this fake outrage will be to make it too emotionally exhausting to hold them accountable, and to reinforce the ridiculous victim complex that fuels the American right as it increasingly slides into fascism. But let's not mince words: These folks share the blame. They have been encouraging violence, and violence is what they got.

The "great replacement" theory has been a favorite of Carlson's for some time now. This particular paranoid hypothesis is deeply rooted in neo-Nazi and other white nationalist circles. A cabal of rich Jewish people, the theory holds, has conspired to "replace" white Christian Americans with other races and ethnic groups in order to gain political and social control. Carlson doesn't actually say "Jews," and generally blames the sinister plan on Democrats, socialists or unspecified "elites," but otherwise has kept the conspiracy theory intact. (Antisemitism remains the mix by singling out individual Jewish people especially Soros, as the alleged ringleaders.) It's not like Carlson only invokes this narrative on occasion. As Media Matters researcher Nikki McCann Ramirez has documented, Carlson is obsessed with this idea that the people he calls "legacy Americans" — a not-so-veiled euphemism for white Christians of European ancestry — are under siege from shadowy forces flying the banner of diversity. He uses anodyne terms like "demographic change" to make the point, but has gotten bolder more recently, using the word "replacement" to make it even clearer that he's borrowing his ideas from the white-supremacist fringe.

According to a New York Times analysis, in fact, Carlson has invoked the "great replacement" theory in over 400 episodes of his show, one of the most popular cable news shows in the country.

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Carlson has also explicitly linked this conspiracy theory to the threat of violence, repeatedly "warning" that America faces a new civil war unless these fictional conspirators stop trying to "replace" his cherished "legacy Americans." The GOP base has been getting the message. A poll conducted in December showed that nearly half of Republican respondents buy into the idea that there's a conspiracy to "replace" white Christians with different racial and ethnic groups. That proportion has probably risen since then, as Carlson's deluge has further mainstreamed this delusional and dangerous notion. Unsurprisingly, there has been a concurrent rise in hate crimes, of which this Buffalo shooting is merely the most dramatic recent example.

When called out for stoking a conspiracy theory that is likely to inspire violence, Carlson inevitably plays the victim, accusing liberals of being "hysterical" and characterizing these criticisms as "cancel culture." This only encourage his viewers to embrace the conspiracy theory even more, telling themselves that they (and he) are bold truth-tellers fighting against the forces of liberal oppression. That's why the how-dare-they posturing we will almost certainly see from Carlson and other right-wing pundits in coming days so predictable. This article, for instance, will quite likely be characterized as hysterical name-calling or an attempt to censor bold political speech. But let's understand this feigned outrage for what it is: an attempt to leverage an act of terrorism in a way that leads people to accept it or even condone it.

RELATED: Trump's anti-vaccine hysteria has a mission: violence

The "great replacement" theory fits in with the larger pattern of right-wing Republicans (especially our former president and his allies) and Fox News pundits encouraging not just right-wing paranoia, but the inevitable acts of violence that flow from it. The most straightforward example of this, of course, is the relentless rewriting of the history of Jan. 6, which began in the immediate aftermath and continues to this day. Republican leaders in Congress voted down Trump's impeachment only weeks after the riot and have tried to block congressional efforts to uncover exactly how the attempted coup went down.

Over this past winter, Fox News, Trump and other GOP leaders made another big push towards political violence, hyping outrageous conspiracy theories about COVID vaccines and encouraging their audiences toward aggressive acts of so-called resistance. As with Carlson, these threats are often packaged as "warnings," as when Trump declared on Fox News in February, "You can push people so far and our country is a tinderbox too, don't kid yourself." Around the same time, Carlson, Sean Hannity, Carlson and Glenn Beck all started pushed the idea that anti-vaccination fanatics were potentially justified in using violence as "self-defense."

Indeed, as the shooting was unfolding in Buffalo, there was an overt call for right-wing violence at Trump's rally in Austin, Texas, where oock geezer turned gun advocate Ted Nugent told the crowd of 8,000 that he'd "love" it if they all "went out and just went berserk on the skulls of the Democrats and the Marxists and the communists." In his speech afterward, Trump praised Republican politicians in Texas, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who have slavishly proven their loyalty to him.

Many of the people arrested for their actions on Jan. 6 , 2021, have stopped being apologetic about what they did, and are now portraying themselves as martyrs and heroes. Last week, one of the most prominent ringleaders on the insurrection, Tim "Baked Alaska" Gionet, a troll to the very end, dramatically declared at a hearing that he was changing his plea. He had agreed to plead guilty to a lesser offense, but now wants to plead not guilty, even though he filming himself inside the Capitol during the riot and put the evidence online. Other Jan. 6 defendants have also become more confrontational, including pulling a gun on probation officers, acquiring new guns in defiance of a court order, or claiming that their actions on that day amounted to "self-defense." In fairness, why shouldn't they feel emboldened? Most Republican voters, along with the party's leadership, are more interested in making excuses for Trump's coup than holding anyone accountable for it.

And all of the above doesn't even touch on the way Republican politicians and right-wing media have mainstreamed the QAnon conspiracy theory by regularly slurring Democrats, LGBTQ folks and their allies as "groomers." Demonizing political opponents with false allegations of pedophilia is unbelievably slimy, even by Republican standards. It also serves to inspire or encourage potential acts of violence, by dehumanizing their targets and creating a delusional narrative that makes such attacks seem justified.

RELATED: Tucker Carlson's insecurity and the "great replacement" theory

Perhaps the horror unleashed in Buffalo on Saturday will cause Carlson and his allies to rethink their paranoid, racist and inflammatory rhetoric. That is doubtful, however. After all, this is just the latest in a series of mass shootings inspired by the "great replacement" theory, including the Walmart shooting in El Paso that left 23 dead and the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh in which 11 people died. Since those massacres, the "great replacement" theory has only become more popular with Republican voters, largely thanks to Carlson and similar figures on the right. It has also become popular with Republicans, including J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee in Ohio's Senate race. Just this week, the conspiracy theory got another round of hype as Republican pundits and politicians pretended to believe that President Biden was stealing baby formula from Americans to feed "illegals," their slur for refugees applying for asylum. Those who would support deliberately starving babies for racist and xenophobic reasons aren't likely to feel any real empathy for the victims and their families in Buffalo. We cannot legitimately hope that they will be chastened by this latest round of violence, but we can make clear that their hateful rhetoric helped to unleash it.

HasanAbi gives commentary on the mass shooting in Buffalo, NY that was live streamed on social media (Twitch) and former Breitbart editor, conservative news host Ben Shapiro's tweet regarding the matter.

Hussein Picker

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Hasan Piker (Hasanabi) is a Twitch streamer, leftist political commentator, and podcaster. He streams everyday, posts stream highlights on his Youtube, does Leftovers (H3 Podcast) with h3h3Productions and Fear & Malding Podcast with Will Neff. His streams consist of news coverage, reaction content, and gaming. Hasan frequently reacts to Joe Rogan (JRE), Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, Jordan Peterson, Vice, Channel 5 (All Gas No Breaks), JCS - Criminal Psychology, Jubilee, and a revolving door of (bad) reality shows like MasterChef, 90 Day Fiancé, and The Moment of Truth. He often collaborates with other streamers like xQcOW, Mizkif, Ludwig, Pokimane, Austin Show, Myth, OTK, and OfflineTV. Not hasan minhaj.

Hasan reacts to Buffalo police say shooting suspect had racist agenda, posted extremist views, Buffalo Massacre: Gunman Cited Racist “Great Replacement” Conspiracy Theory Popularized by Fox News. People gathered Sunday at the supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on Sunday where a mass shooting left 10 people dead; Buffalo residents hold vigil at scene of mass shooting.

After 10 Killed In Buffalo Supermarket Mass Shooting, the Buffalo shooting raises questions about Red Flag Law in New York.

Here is why Fox News is terrified of covering the Buffalo shooter's racist manifesto

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
May 16, 2022



The mass shooter who killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday posted a racist manifesto online before targeting a majority-Black neighborhood. His writings took heavily from conservative conspiracy theories that white people were in danger of being replaced by people of color. This so-called Great Replacement conspiracy theory has been promoted by major far-right media figures including Tucker Carlson of Fox News. “What it does is create a dynamic where believers view immigrants and nonwhite people as an existential threat not only to themselves physically but to their position in society,” says Nikki McCann Ramírez, associate research director at Media Matters for America, who has researched how Carlson uses his show to launder white nationalist ideology. We also speak with prominent antiracist scholar Ibram X. Kendi, who says mainstream conservatives are increasingly parroting extremist talking points.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We’re looking at the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, Saturday, when an 18-year-old white supremacist wearing full body armor, carrying an assault rifle, opened fire on a supermarket in a Black neighborhood of Buffalo. We just went to Buffalo. Now we’re joined by Ibram X. Kendi, the Andrew W. Mellon professor in the humanities at Boston University, founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, contributing writer at The Atlantic, where his new piece, published — well, it looks like it was published yesterday, but it was actually published last month, before the attack in Buffalo, headlined “The Danger More Republicans Should Be Talking About: White-supremacist ideology is harmful to all, especially the naive and defenseless minds of youth.” He is also the author of many books, including Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, also author of How to Be an Antiracist and the children’s book Antiracist Baby. He’s got two forthcoming books out in June, How to Raise an Antiracist and the picture book Goodnight Racism.
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I hope those books won’t be banned the way a number of your books have been around the country, Professor Kendi. But as you watched this horror unfold this weekend, I think it’s very critical to talk about taking the word “fringe” out of fringe theory, the “Great Replacement” theory, because how mainstream what is motivating, quite explicitly, this young self-identified white supremacist fascist, who only wished he had killed more people.

IBRAM X. KENDI: Exactly. I mean, the leading — some of the leading politicians and media figures and intellectuals, particularly over the last two years, if not the last 10 years, have been asserting this idea that antiracism, that critical race theory, that Latinx immigrants, that so-called Black criminals, that Muslim terrorists, that people of color are harming or seeking to replace or even engage in a genocide against white people. That’s the “Great Replacement” theory, that is a dominant talking point particularly among members of the Republican Party. And so, this is certainly not a fringe theory. It was a fringe theory, on many levels, a decade ago, but it’s certainly not now.


AMY GOODMAN: So, respond to what took place this weekend, how it’s covered, the issue of it being a domestic terror attack, not a lone gunman, you know, who is suffering from mental illness. Last year his school was so concerned about what he was saying, they called in the New York state police, who had him taken for a mental evaluation, yet he could still lawfully buy, in his hometown, the weapon used in this attack.

IBRAM X. KENDI: For years now, law enforcement officials and FBI have been talking about and have been acknowledging, whether you’re talking about the head of the Justice Department or the head of the FBI or even local officials — have been referring to white supremacist domestic terror as the leading terrorist threat of our time. And it’s indisputable. And we also know that the people who are most likely to carry out these acts of domestic terror are younger white males.

And so, the fact that people — that this nation still does not recognize that we have a serious problem on our hands and these younger white males are engaging in all sorts of acts of terror against Jewish Americans, against Black Americans, against Asian Americans, against women, against people from the LGBTQ+ community, and that — you know, I mean, that, to me, is part of the sort of horror. That, to me, is part of the toll that I think is weighing on people, because even after all of these mass murders and shootings over the last few days, people still don’t feel as if this nation is seeking to protect them, is seeking to keep them safe.


AMY GOODMAN: As we continue our coverage of the massacre in Buffalo and what led to it, I want to look at the role of Fox News in pushing the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory and opposition to gun control, particularly through Fox’s most popular host, Tucker Carlson. A New York Times investigation last month found he invoked the conspiracy that Democrats are trying to force demographic change through immigration in more than 400 episodes of his show on Fox News.

I want to also bring in another guest to join Professor Kendi. Nikki McCann has spent years compiling evidence for the watchdog group Media Matters of how Tucker Carlson has used his show to launder white nationalist ideology. Nikki McCann Ramírez is going to join us in a second, but first just a few examples she found of Tucker Carlson repeatedly defending the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. This is Carlson lashing out last April at President Biden’s immigration policy.
TUCKER CARLSON: An unrelenting stream of immigration. But why? Well, Joe Biden just said it: to change the racial mix of the country. That’s the reason, to reduce the political power of people whose ancestors lived here, and dramatically increase the proportion of Americans newly arrived from the Third World. And then Biden went further. He said that nonwhite DNA is the, quote, “source of our strength.” Imagine saying that. This is the language of eugenics. It’s horrifying. But there’s a reason Biden said it. In political terms, this policy is called the “Great Replacement,” the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from faraway countries.


AMY GOODMAN: That’s Tucker Carlson on Fox News last April. This is another clip noted by Media Matters from last year as Carlson’s fearmongering about white replacement, genocide and a race war.
TUCKER CARLSON: The left and all the little gatekeepers on Twitter become literally hysterical if you use the term “replacement,” if you suggest that the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World. But they become hysterical because that’s — that’s what’s happening actually. Let’s just say it it. That’s true.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, in addition to Professor Kendi, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Nikki McCann Ramírez, associate research director at Media Matters for America.


Nikki, thanks so much for being with us. As we talk about what motivated this 18-year-old white supremacist, talk about the “Great Replacement” theory, where it came from and what Tucker Carlson is doing with it and how it’s being weaponized by everyone from the New York Congressmember Elise Stefanik to the senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, Congressman Perry and more.

NIKKI McCANN RAMÍREZ: Yes. Good morning. Thank you so much for having me on.


The “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory has existed for decades. It is a subset of a larger conspiracy known as the white replacement or white genocide conspiracy theory. And it really came into a renewed era prominence in the last decade, with a period of acceleration in the last three to four years. In 2012, a French writer published a book called Le Grand Remplacement, and what it essentially argues is that there is a cabal, comprised typically of elites, Jewish people — because this is fundamentally an antisemitic conspiracy theory — and media figures, who are using immigration, birth rates and multiculturalism to eliminate or replace the white race. The theory baselessly makes these accusations of what are essentially natural or cyclical changes in demographics. And what it does is create a dynamic where believers view immigrants and nonwhite people as an existential threat, not only to themselves physically but to their position in society. And importantly, this theory wants believers to act against their supposed replacement.

So, when people like Tucker Carlson present a ready-for-cable version of the theory, it makes more extreme versions of it more accessible to audiences who would have never encountered it or would have never really thought about it. And if people believe in portions of the theory, like the idea that immigrants are being, quote-unquote, “imported” to replace them demographically, it becomes easier to tack on more extreme versions of the theory and fold them into their beliefs.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how Fox News has been covering this massacre?


NIKKI McCANN RAMÍREZ: Absolutely. So, a notable thing that we’ve seen, pretty much since the coverage broke, is that Fox has been very hesitant to make any reference to the “Great Replacement” theory or talk about specifics about what was in that shooter’s manifesto. And to be clear, the shooter’s manifesto did not directly reference Tucker, but Fox News is aware that they have been pushing this theory, selling it toward their audience, and they do not want to make that connection themselves, to explicitly connect that theory to their audience once again.

I believe what we’re seeing Fox News do right now is kind of fold back and fall back onto the traditional reactions that they have, that this will be used in an attempt to promote greater — or, sorry, to promote more gun restrictions, or, as we saw yesterday, one of their hosts on a Sunday show said that this shooting will be exploited to unfairly censor conservatives. I think Fox News is very aware of the hand that they’ve had in bringing this conspiracy to mainstream audiences. An Associated Press poll recently found that one in three Americans now believe that immigration is being used as a form of electoral manipulation, electoral replacement. And they are very aware that they have a hand in this narrative, so they are being very cautious about how they cover this, and are really trying to deflect the narrative onto other issues that don’t necessarily implicate them.

AMY GOODMAN: Do we know where the 18-year-old shooter, alleged shooter, Payton Gendron, learned about these theories — I mean, it’s a vast screed that he’s got, what, something like 180 pages — where he lived online, etc.?


NIKKI McCANN RAMÍREZ: Yes. So, the shooter did publish a more than 100-page manifesto. And I want to make a caveat here: As we already know, the manifesto was largely plagiarized from writings of other shooters, writings that he found online, so we should always take these, like, self-published screeds with a bit of a grain of salt.

What the shooter claims is that he was radicalized on 4chan and other online forums, that he didn’t really have a lot of direct contact with cable news. But what extremism researchers know is that Tucker Carlson’s rhetoric is very present on these forums. A lot of people on these forums view Tucker Carlson as an ally in presenting their messaging to a layman’s audience. So it’s not unlikely that this shooter encountered Tucker Carlson, his rhetoric, his statements about immigration, people of color. It wouldn’t be unlikely that he encountered them online.

And it’s important to point out here once again that presenting a sort of stripped-down version of this theory, which is what Tucker Carlson does — he doesn’t explicitly make references to racial superiority or explicitly make references to antisemitism when he talks about “Great Replacement,” but what he does do is give viewers context clues that allow them to make those connections themselves. He regularly attacks Jewish billionaire George Soros as an enemy of Western civilization who’s attempting to destroy America. He uses very racialized language when discussing the theory. And what that does is make it easier for his audience to find these more extremist spaces, to make those connections, and directs them toward a place where when a shooting like this happens and you have a third of the population that already believes that a large portion or a central tenet of this theory is true, it’s a lot harder for people to disavow it or to say, “That theory is incorrect. I shouldn’t subscribe to it.” They can say, “Oh, well, this was a,” quote-unquote, “‘lone wolf’ attack,” or “This man was crazy and acting on his own.” But the underlying beliefs can still be considered true. And that is a very dangerous thing for the most watched cable news host to be doing.


AMY GOODMAN: I mean, you can’t help think about what happened here, what happened at the church in South Carolina, what happened in El Paso in 2019. The shooter deliberately went to a place with a large Latino population clientele, customers, the local Walmart. He also issued a screed railing against a Hispanic invasion and posted that online. This was in 2019.

OTHER DEMOCRACY NOW VIDEOS

Antiracist Scholar Ibram X. Kendi: Republicans Must Address How White Supremacists Target Youth - YouTube

 Buffalo Massacre: Gunman Cited Racist “Great Replacement” Conspiracy Theory Popularized by Fox News - YouTube

Mysterious US Army PSYOPS recruiting video has critics scratching their heads -- and wondering about its real intent

Sarah K. Burris
May 16, 2022


A hacker at work (Shutterstock)

A recruitment video made by the U.S. Army Fort Bragg’s 4th Psychological Operations Group-Airborne (Psy-Ops) talked about an effort involving witchery. Psych-Ops is the group that focuses on ways in which the military can use mental and emotional manipulation to try and fight the enemy at the same time that traditional ground forces are.

The video, titled "Ghosts in the Machine," is described by the Charlotte News-Observer as a kind of conspiracy theory, movie trailer with the tagline “All the world’s a stage. Join us.”

The video, posted on May 2, begins with clips of cartoons and then empty city streets and public trains and then gets darker with a shadow man and flashing articles with headlines like “The Occult History of the U.S. Military’s PSYOPS and its Highly Symbolic Recruitment Video.”

“Have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings?” the video asks. “You’ll find us in the shadows at the tip of the spear. ... Anything we touch is a weapon. We can deceive, persuade, change, influence, inspire. We come in many forms. We are everywhere.”

The Psy-Ops website says that they use informational warfare, which is like fake news and the like. It is not to be confused with the psychic operations being tested until the 1990s in which the military attempted to use ESP, remote viewing, walk through walls and achieve a level of invisibility. There is still an ongoing effort to achieve invisibility, focusing primarily on aircraft but also for soldiers as well. The Chinese military claimed that they figured it out last month. Lying about the ability to be invisible, however, could be an example of informational warfare often deployed by the military Psy-Ops.

“We use all available means of dissemination – from sensitive and high-tech, to low-tech, to no-tech, and methods from overt, to clandestine, to deception."

As one article observed about the Psy-Ops video, “Here’s the odd thing — clandestine Army units like this DON’T make recruiting material, because that material brings unwanted attention,” the Pipeline said. “Have you ever seen an official Delta Force recruiting video? Exactly.”

The video, however, could also be an act of informational warfare.

Read the full report at the Charlotte News-Observer.

You can watch the video below or at this link.

GHOSTS IN THE MACHINEyoutu.be

 Love, Will, and Wisdom: The Temple of Witchcraft Documentary

Edited and directed by River Ouellet, Love, Will, and Wisdom is an insightful look into The Temple of Witchcraft, a religious organization based in Salem, New Hampshire through the eyes of experts: High priests, ministers, and founders in the temple. As lots of the people involved with this project are capable authors and speakers, River gives them the floor and lets them move through their personal and unique experiences with witchcraft and the temple. Alexander Bardo does the score, which was both crafted scene by scene for the documentary and incorporates Rites used in temple rituals and initiations. Co-founded by Christopher Penczak, Steve Kenson, and Adam Sartwell, the Temple of Witchcraft started in 1998 as a system of magickal training and personal development, and eventually developed into a formal tradition of Witchcraft. Now, as an outgrowth of the work of students, initiates, and graduates of the programs, the Temple of Witchcraft has evolved into an organization based on traditions of modern magick, Witchcraft, and neopaganism. This documentary follows the founders and several members of the temple as they talk about their past, experiences, and the community within the temple.

Japan: Why are There So Few Women in Top Managerial Roles?

Despite decades of promises that women would have the chance to "shine" in Japan's corporate and political worlds, the country lags behind other industrialized nations in gender equality.

Julian Ryall (Tokyo)
13 May 2022



Japan ranks 120 out of 156 nations in the world for overall gender gap

Japan's financial services watchdog is introducing a new regulation designed to encourage companies to employ more women in senior management positions, although women are divided on whether the change will have an impact on the nation's male-dominated business world.

The Financial Services Agency will require firms listed on the stock exchange to reveal the ratio of women in senior positions within their organizations in their annual securities report.

The new regulation will affect around 4,000 companies and is expected to become mandatory in reports from April next year, the start of the financial year.

The plan also requires companies to disclose average pay by gender and the ratio of male employees who take child care leave, with the intention of providing investors with a better picture of how companies are performing on gender equality metrics.
SHRINKING WORKING POPULATION

Aware of deepening structural imbalances in the population and the need to get more women into the workplace, successive Japanese governments since the turn of the century have passed legislation designed to assist women to stay in employment after having a family and to climb the corporate ladder.

In 2014, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe went as far as to say that his administration was going to make Japanese women "shine" in the workplace, in the political world and broader society.

That ambition, however, has failed to materialize.

According to the most recent statistics released by the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum, Japan ranked 120 out of 156 nations in the world for overall gender gap, and an only narrowly better 117 in economic participation and opportunity. Japan ranked significantly lower than other G-7 nations.

The country also fell short of its own targets. In 2003, the government announced that it wanted to see 30% of all management positions filled by women by the year 2020. Official statistics released in 2021, however, revealed that just 13.2% of managers were female, well below the average of 30-40% seen in European and North American companies.

"The agency's regulations are a very positive thing, we believe, especially when Keidanren [The Japan Business Federation] is making similar requests of its member companies," said Tsumie Yamaguchi, an executive of the Tokyo-based pressure group Women in a New World Network.

Yamaguchi said she had been encouraged when previous prime ministers announced targets for women in both the workplace and Japan's political world, but was subsequently disappointed at the lack of progress.

And for that, she blamed the men of Japan's traditionally male-dominated society.

"The number of men in politics and business in Japan is much larger than women and those men have a strong desire to keep their positions," she told DW.
A TRADITIONAL PLACE IN SOCIETY

"Historically, Japanese men were told by their parents and society that their responsibilities lay outside the family, but women were taught that they had to stay home and care for the household," she said.

"Even today, that kind of attitude exists in many people's minds."

Chisato Kitanaka, an associate professor of sociology at Hiroshima University, agreed that the Financial Services Agency's new regulation was a "positive development," albeit long overdue.

"Japan lags behind other developed countries badly and even today it is rare to find a woman who is a department or division head at a corporation," she said.

"Old attitudes and stereotypes still linger in too many workplaces," said Kitanaka, who specializes in workplace issues. "Lots of companies do not hire as many women as men, even when they have the same qualifications, and then they are slow to promote them."

A major part of the problem is that while legislation was enacted as far back as 1986 to guarantee employment equality between the genders, the law is toothless because it contains no sanctions on any companies that fail to abide by the rules, she pointed out.

The only punishment for firms that ignore the law is publication of their name, a measure designed to shame companies into compliance. To date, Kitanaka said, two companies have been named for breaking the 1986 law.
OPTIMISM OR PESSIMISM?

And she is not optimistic that meaningful change is on the horizon for Japanese women.

"It is difficult to change laws, but it is even harder to change attitudes," she said. "It is easy for men in the business and political worlds here to do nothing instead of doing the right thing."

Women in a New World Network's Yamaguchi, however, is more positive about the future.

"I am positive because more and more young women today have all the skills and abilities that they need to do well in business environments, plus they are bringing other attributes to the workplace," she said, adding that "many are more efficient, for example, than men and I think that senior managers are beginning to recognize that."

"More companies will slowly realize that having women in leadership positions is a benefit to their organization and I see young women graduating from universities today as being more positive about their futures."

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

Ukraine War is Accelerating New Space Race

The suspension of collaborative projects between Russian and Western space agencies will enhance their traditional rivalries. But the new space race is also being driven by other countries—as well as private companies.

John P. Ruehl
14 May 2022



Shortly after Russia was sanctioned for invading Ukraine in late February, Russia’s state-run space agency, Roscosmos, announced that it was officially suspending the U.S. from an upcoming Venus exploration mission. Weeks later, on March 17, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the suspension of a joint mission to Mars with Roscosmos, and further said that it would not be taking part in upcoming Roscosmos missions to the moon.

These decisions have naturally generated concern across the space industry and political landscape. For decades, Russian and Western countries have collaborated in space despite flare-ups in tensions on Earth. In 1975, the U.S. Apollo capsule linked up with the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft briefly as a symbol of cooperation amid the Cold War. In 1995, the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir.

And in 1998, the International Space Station (ISS) was launched, featuring a Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) and a United States Orbital Segment (USOS), the latter being operated by NASA, the ESA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Sustained cooperation on the ISS has been a notable exception to the growing tensions between Russia and the Western states over the last decade. But in April, Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, declared that Russia would end cooperation on the ISS, as well as other joint projects, if sanctions against Russia were not lifted. While such threats have been issued before, notably after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the heightened confrontation between Russia and the West since the start of the Ukrainian invasion has reinforced this possibility.

NASA, meanwhile, chose to downplay Rogozin’s claims and stated that it will continue to operate the ISS until at least 2030. But Roscosmos has previously stated that it intends to develop its own space station by 2025, and has also revealed plans for a potential manned mission to the moon. Russia’s GLONASS satellite navigation system, which achieved global coverage in 2011, has also become a viable rival to the United States’ GPS system. These developments show the Kremlin’s growing commitment to pursuing its own interests in space without partnering with Western states.

In comparison, Roscosmos has increased its collaboration with the China National Space Administration (CNSA), particularly after the first wave of Western sanctions in 2014. In 2021, China and Russia announced plans to build a lunar research station, a direct rival to NASA’s Gateway project, which will be coordinated with the space agencies from Europe, Japan, and Canada.

China has already created its own space station, the Tiangong Space Station, which was launched in 2021. While far smaller than the ISS, China’s space agency has six more launches planned this year to complete the installation. China also sent a rover to the far side of the moon in 2019, as well as to Mars in 2021, and has announced plans for its own manned moon mission this decade.

While the space programs of some countries in the Global South, such as India, Brazil, Indonesia, and Iran, are certainly less impressive, their development demonstrates the growing accessibility to space, which has long been dominated by Russia, China, and Western states. More than 70 countries now have space agencies, while 14 are capable of orbital launch.

For these countries, success in space in recent years has often come from collaborating with existing space powers. In 2005, Iran’s first satellite was built and launched in Russia, while in 2008, China, Iran, and Thailand launched a joint research satellite on a Chinese rocket. Technology sharing, domestic innovation, and decreasing costs have also allowed more countries to compete in space. India made history in 2013 after it sent its own orbiter to Mars, notably on a smaller budget than the space movie “Gravity,” which came out the same year.

The growing number of countries active in Earth’s orbit and beyond have also revitalised fears of the possibility of the militarization of space. So far, only Russia, China, the U.S., and India have successfully demonstrated anti-satellite weapons. Other countries, however, including Iran and Israel, are believed to either be developing or already have similar capabilities.

Of course, Western countries remain far ahead technologically than any other state or group of states. NASA’s Artemis 1 mission, for example, aims to place humans on the moon again by 2025, while three NASA rovers are currently active on Mars. NASA’s unmanned X-37B programme—which began in 1999, was transferred to the U.S. military in 2004, and is now being run by the Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office—has so far conducted four missions, while collaborative projects with the ESA have further underlined Western dominance in space.

But a growing phenomenon in space is the role of private companies. They have been involved in many of NASA’s and the ESA’s high-profile projects, including Boeing’s involvement in the X-37B project. Largely based in the U.S. and the UK, these companies have helped reduce costs and have increased opportunities for government space agencies, and they will be essential for exploiting the vast resources on the moon, asteroids, and other celestial bodies.

Though hundreds of space-related companies exist, a handful have stood out as pioneers of the modern space age. Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, owned by entrepreneurs Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson respectively, both made history in 2021 after conducting their own manned space flights. Blue Origin, defense contractor Lockheed Martin, and other corporations have also signed contracts to create private space stations in the future.

The most notable private company operating in space, however, is SpaceX, which is owned by entrepreneur Elon Musk. In recent years, the company has helped reduce the United States’ dependency on Russian Soyuz rockets to bring astronauts and deliveries to the ISS following the termination of the NASA program as a consequence of the Ukraine war.

SpaceX has launched more than 2,000 Starlink satellites into space, with plans to launch more than 12,000 by 2026. Most will form part of the Starlink project that aims to provide internet access to populations around the world.

Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov tweeted at Elon Musk in February to use the Starlink project to bring internet to Ukraine after some services were disrupted by the Russian invasion. Within days, Starlink was active across the country, and in early May, Ukrainian officials stated that 150,000 Ukrainians were using the service daily.

The use of Starlink satellites was no doubt seen in Moscow as a direct challenge to the Kremlin. While Russia is currently unlikely to attack the network, it has raised questions as to how future confrontations between private companies and countries in space might play out. The growing use of private military companies on Earth by both states and the private sector could inspire similar moves to protect government and private assets in space.

The growing profile of private space-related companies threatens to upend the rules of regulations regarding space, most of which were written decades ago. This includes the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which through Article VI established that countries have the legal authority to regulate space and not international bodies, with private companies not yet having started space exploration when the treaty was finalized. The Artemis Accords, a modern U.S.-sponsored agreement to regulate space created in 2020, has so far only been signed by 16 countries.

Nonetheless, the increasingly competitive space industry has already demonstrated that even smaller countries can play a large role in it. Overseeing the development of technologies and tempering the weaponization of space, by both countries and companies, should become a priority globally to help ensure that growing competition in space does not lead to avoidable and destructive consequences on Earth.

John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. He is a contributing editor to Strategic Policy and a contributor to several other foreign affairs publications. He is currently finishing a book on Russia to be published in 2022.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.