CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M  PRICE FIXING
Washington state lawsuit accuses chicken producers of illegally inflating prices

"If you've eaten chicken in the last decade, this conspiracy touched your wallet"

The Washington state lawsuit names 19 chicken producers. 

File Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 26 (UPI) -- The state of Washington on Tuesday sued 19 chicken producers, accusing them of illegally conspiring to inflate prices, the attorney general announced.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said the 19 companies named in the lawsuit account for about 95% of all broiler chicken sales in the United States. Broiler chickens are those raised for meat, including raw chicken sold at grocery stores and those made into chicken nuggets and sandwiches at restaurants.

Ferguson accused the companies of violating the state's Consumer Protection Act by coordinating to reduce supplies and rig contract bids to manipulate and boost prices. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says broiler chickens had wholesale sales between $21 billion and $33 billion each year from 2008 to 2018.

"If you've eaten chicken in the last decade, this conspiracy touched your wallet," Ferguson said. "This conspiracy cost middle-class and low-income Washington families more money to put food on their table. I will hold these companies accountable for the profits they illegally made off the backs of hardworking Washington families."

The companies named in the suit include Tyson Foods Inc., Pilgrim's Pride Corp., Sanderson Farms Inc., Perdue Farms Inc., Koch Foods Inc., Foster Farms LLC, Mountaire Farms Inc., Wayne Farms LLC, Amick Farms LLC, George's Inc., Peco Foods Inc., House of Raeford Inc., Fieldale Farms Corp., Case Foods Inc., Mar-Jac Poultry, Claxton Poultry Farms, Simmons Foods Inc., O.K. Foods Inc. and Harrison Poultry Inc.


The lawsuit also names Agri Stats, a company that collects and distributes industry data.

WINNIPEG

WSD support staff fed up with workload, planning job action

Frustrations among support staff, who say they were underpaid and overworked before the pandemic added even more responsibility to their plates, are mounting in Manitoba’s largest school division.

A walkout is on the table amid tense contract negotiations between the Winnipeg School Division and the union that represents educational assistants, interpreters, clerical staff and other support workers in city schools.

“That’s what we feel like: invisible. But if we’re not there, maybe then they’ll notice that we actually exist and we actually do a lot more than we get credit for or get paid for,” said one a member of the Winnipeg Association of Non-Teaching Employees.

The educational assistant, who spoke to the Free Press on the condition of anonymity, said she and her peers are “absolutely fed up.”

She was among the 330 employees who received a layoff notice in spring 2020, when schools shuttered at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Upon a return to school last fall, she said EAs were overwhelmed by new duties tied to public-health orders and forced to take on more work because of a rise in absences. All the while, she said, they felt “underappreciated and disrespected.”

Data obtained by the Free Press through freedom of information requests show a higher percentage of EAs left their jobs last year than teachers.

During the last academic year unaffected by the pandemic, 140 EAs took a leave from work and 21 resigned from WSD. Last year, those figures increased, by 24 per cent and 119 per cent, respectively. Retirements among support staff were also up five per cent.

Teacher leaves, by comparison, rose seven per cent during that time. Retirements increased eight per cent. And the number of educators who quit their jobs actually dropped, with three fewer resignations recorded in 2020-21 versus 2018-19.

The EA was not surprised by the figures: “There’s a lot more that we had to take on and it’s not like that was noticed,” she said.

The reality support staff faced last year included missing breaks because no coverage was available due to staffing shortages and being unable to properly distance because they often have to sit beside children to work through academic and behavioural challenges.

When public-health orders required physical distancing of two metres between pupils, some classes were split into two or more rooms, with the teacher travelling between. Support staff were deployed to supervise and at times, carry out lessons.

“EAs are not supposed to be in a classroom for more than half an hour without a teacher. All of a sudden, that’s out the window,” said the EA, adding she and her colleagues became the only in-person support for children of essential workers when teachers were sent home to do remote instruction in the third wave.

Another support staffer echoed that experience. “We were basically teachers, not getting teacher wages,” said the substitute EA.

EAs in the division start at $16.72 per hour. Their peers in River East Transcona make $18.96 and in Pembina Trails, the base rate is $20.17.

Last week, WANTE members were polled on what job action they would prefer: work-to-rule, a rotating strike or a general walkout. An official vote on a job-action mandate will take place in the coming weeks.

“We are still negotiating to have a fair contract,” said Carla Paul, president of WANTE.

In an email Friday, division spokeswoman Radean Carter said WSD does not comment on such negotiations.

Maggie Macintosh, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press

Biden set to nominate Rosenworcel for new term at telecoms regulator - sources


FCC commissioners testify before U.S. Congress in Washington

David Shepardson
Mon, October 25, 2021

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to nominate the acting chair of the Federal Communications Commission to serve another term and designate her as the permanent chair, two people briefed on the matter told Reuters.

Biden tapped Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel in January to serve as the acting chair of the five-member telecoms regulator. Biden has waited more than nine months to make nominations for the FCC, which has not been able to address some issues because it currently has one vacancy and is divided 2-2 between Democrats and Republicans.

Rosenworcel will be the first woman designated as the permanent chair of the FCC; Mignon Clyburn in 2013 served as acting FCC chair.

Last month, a group of 25 U.S. senators wrote Biden emphasizing their support for Rosenworcel, a former Senate staffer, to be nominated for a new term and to designate her as the first female permanent chair, saying, "further delays will unnecessarily imperil our shared goal of achieving ubiquitous broadband connectivity."

Rosenworcel and her staff did not respond to requests for comment late Monday on the announcement expected as soon as Tuesday. Without being confirmed to a new term, Rosenworcel would need to leave the FCC at the end of the year.

Politico and Communications Daily reported Biden plans to nominate Gigi Sohn for the open FCC seat. Sohn is a former senior aide to Tom Wheeler, who served as an FCC chair under President Barack Obama, a Democrat.

Sources told Reuters Sohn is under advanced consideration but did not confirm she would be nominated. Sohn declined to comment Monday.

The FCC under Obama adopted net neutrality rules in 2015 that barred internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic, or offering paid fast lanes.

The protections were overturned in 2017 by the FCC under President Donald Trump, a Republican, over the objections of Rosenworcel and Clyburn.

Rosenworcel in 2017 said the decision put the FCC "on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the American public."

Supporters of net neutrality argue the protections ensure a free and open internet. Broadband and telecoms trade groups contend their legal basis from the pre-internet era was outdated and would discourage investment.

Rosenworcel has said the lack of broadband access leads to a “homework gap” for lower income Americans because most teachers assign homework that requires Internet access.

Rosenworcel has overseen the FCC's temporary $3.2 billion broadband subsidy program created by Congress in December that now provides more than 6 million lower-income American households or people impacted by COVID-19 with discounts on monthly internet service and on purchasing laptops or tablet computers.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Christopher Cushing)

Govt U-turns on dumping of raw sewage in English rivers after huge backlash

26 October 2021

Activist Steve Bray protests outside Downing Street. Picture: Alamy

By Patrick Grafton-Green

The Government has U-turned over the dumping of raw sewage in seas and rivers by pledging to introduce tougher action against water companies.

Environment Secretary George Eustice this evening promised to bolster measures in the Environment Bill by making companies pay legal duty.

It came before a Lords vote which threatened to defeat the Government.

READ MORE: Shocking drone footage shows raw sewage being pumped into sea in conservation area

READ MORE: Campaigners demand end to raw sewage being dumped in rivers after MPs voted not to stop it

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the bill will now "be further strengthened with an amendment that will see a duty enshrined in law to ensure water companies secure a progressive reduction in the adverse impacts of discharges from storm overflows".

The department said the amendment it would bring forward in the Commons would be "very similar to amendment 45" which peers are debating in the House of Lords.

Last week, 268 MPs disagreed with that proposal, which also included putting a legal duty on water companies to stop sewage from being poured into waterways.

This led to a huge backlash.

The amendment had been put forward by crossbench peer the Duke of Wellington and would have forced companies and the Government to "take all reasonable steps" to avoid using sewer overflows when drains are overwhelmed.

Campaigners this week insisted it was unacceptable that raw sewage was put into coastal waters and rivers in England more than 400,000 times in the last year.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said: "Earlier this summer, the Government published a new strategy for Ofwat mandating them to progressively reduce the discharge of sewage from storm overflows in the next pricing review.

"Following a debate in the House of Commons last week during the final stages of the Environment Bill, today we are announcing that we will put that commitment on a statutory footing with a new clause."

It comes despite a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying earlier today that the intentions of the Duke of Wellington's amendment was "already being delivered".

Labour's shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard said: "It should not have taken a public outcry for this Government to take the scandal of raw sewage being discharged into our rivers seriously.

"Having spent the past few days defending their position, this screeching U-turn will do little to convince the public that the health of our rivers, rather than the health of Conservative polling, is at the forefront of ministers' minds.

"The Government still has no clear plan and no grip on the issue of raw sewage being pumped into our seas and rivers."

Trump's White House ignored advice on COVID-19 that could've saved over 130,000 lives, Birx said

John Haltiwanger

Then-President Donald Trump speaks with Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Robert Redfield, and members of the White House coronavirus task force during a COVID-19 briefing on April 22, 2020.

 Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Trump's COVID-19 response led to many preventable deaths, Deborah Birx told House lawmakers.

 
Over 130,000 lives could've been saved if Trump's White House followed the science, she said.

 
Birx also testified that the 2020 election distracted Trump from the pandemic.

Dr. Deborah Birx, the former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, in testimony to the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis said that former President Donald Trump's approach to the pandemic led to a massive number of preventable deaths.

"No," Birx said when asked if Trump did everything in his power to curb the spread and save lives, per excerpts of her testimony released by the committee on Tuesday.

"And I've said that to the White House in general, and I believe I was very clear to the president in specifics of what I needed him to do," she added.

Birx, who testified before the committee in mid-October, said that over 130,000 lives could've been saved in the early stages of the pandemic had Trump's White House adhered to the science and pushed for measures advocated by experts.

"I believe if we had fully implemented the mask mandates, the reduction in indoor dining, the getting friends and family to understand the risk of gathering in private homes, and we had increased testing, that we probably could have decreased fatalities into the 30% less to 40% less range," Birx said.

She also suggested that the 2020 election distracted Trump and took attention away from the nation's pandemic response.

"The governors and mayors and others that were campaigning, as well as the White House that was campaigning, just took people's time away from and distracted them away from the pandemic in my personal opinion," Birx said. "They were actively campaigning and not as present in the White House as previously."

Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

From the earliest days of the pandemic, Trump downplayed the threat of COVID-19 and repeatedly spread misinformation on the virus. He routinely pushed against public health recommendations, including wearing a mask or face covering. Trump during an interview with veteran journalist Bob Woodward admitted that he deliberately sought to downplay the dangers of the virus in an effort to avoid inducing "panic."

Top public health experts have excoriated Trump over his pandemic response, saying that his approach led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

By the time Trump left office, there had been over 400,000 reported COVID-19 deaths in the US.

Scott Atlas defends COVID work, slams Deborah Birx testimony as 'Orwellian attempt to rewrite history'

Birx testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis earlier this month

By Brooke Singman | Fox News

EXCLUSIVE: Former Trump COVID special advisor Dr. Scott Atlas slammed Dr. Deborah Birx for her reported testimony to congressional investigators as "an Orwellian attempt to rewrite history," defending his work on the Trump COVID-19 task force, and telling Fox News that history's "biggest failure of public health policy lies directly at the hands of" officials who recommended lockdowns during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic.

Birx testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis earlier this month, saying that officials in former President Trump's White House did not take steps to push mask-wearing, social distancing and other mitigation steps that could have prevented thousands of COVID-19 deaths.

MORE GOP BS
SCALISE SAYS GOP MEMO ON CLOSED-DOOR BIRX TESTIMONY CONFIRMS WORLD WAS 'MISLED' ON COVID

Birx also reportedly slammed Atlas, saying he advocated for letting COVID-19 spread through the population to reach herd immunity. The New York Times reported Birx testified that she repeatedly raised her concerns about Atlas' positions and theories to other doctors on the task force.

Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator, speaks during a Coronavirus Task Force news conference at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, April 7, 2020. 

Photographer: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Atlas, defending his work to Fox News, said during his time at the White House, he recommended policies "designed to reduce both the spread of the infection to the vulnerable and the harms of the policies themselves to those impacted the most-- low-income families, the working class of America, and our children."

Atlas, delivering a point-by-point rebuttal to reports of Birx's testimony about his role, told Fox News that her claim that he advised Trump to "let the infection spread widely without mitigation to achieve herd immunity," telling Fox News that "is false."

"I never advised the president, the Task Force, or anyone else while in Washington to allow the virus to spread," Atlas said. "Dozens of my writings and interviews during my Washington service explicitly called for specific mitigations, including social distancing, extra hygiene, and masks when not able to socially distance, and 'focused protection,' a heightened protection of those at risk, to allow a safe opening and end the public health destruction from lockdowns."

US President Donald Trump (L) listens to White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas speak during a press conference in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House on September 23, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Atlas told Fox News that "it is not a surprise that Dr. Birx, the official Task Force Coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force from late February, 2020 through January 19, 2021, might want to blame others for the failure of her policies," adding that, in her position, she "held the authority over the official federal advice on medical policy."

Atlas said Birx "personally detailed the state of the pandemic" during all task force meetings, and COVID meetings attended by top Trump advisors, adding that Birx "composed in writing and communicated all recommendations from the Task Force to every state."

"I visited only one state, Florida, during my time in Washington," Atlas said.

HISTORICAL REVISIONISM OF THE ANTI VAX/ANTI MASKER

"It is an Orwellian attempt to rewrite history to blame those who criticized the lockdowns that were widely implemented for the failure of the lockdowns that were widely implemented," he said, adding that Birx's recommendations "were implemented by governors throughout nearly the entire nation during 2020."

"Those policies failed to stop the dying, failed to stop the infection from spreading, and inflicted massive health damage and destruction, particularly on working class and lower-income families and on our children," Atlas told Fox News. "History's biggest failure of public health policy lies directly at the hands of those who recommended the lockdowns and those who implemented them, not on those who advised otherwise. Period."

Atlas jointed the Trump White House COVID-19 Task Force in August 2020 as a special government employee, serving just a 130-day detail. Atlas' role expired in November 2020.

 

Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Friday, April 3, 2020, in Washington.

 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Atlas was criticized throughout his time at the White House for advocating for a reopening, while blasting COVID-19 lockdowns as "extremely harmful" to Americans.

MORE LIES 
Meanwhile, last week, Republican House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said a memo by Republican leadership on the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis outlining Birx’s closed-door congressional testimony confirms the world was "misled" on the origins of COVID-19.

"President Biden and Democrats have politicized Covid from the start and refused to acknowledge its origins from China," Scalise told Fox News in a statement. "Republicans have been sounding the alarm on these issues for well over year, and Dr. Birx’s closed-door testimony confirms that the world was misled."

The memo highlights several of Birx’s testimonial revelations, including that there were preventable deaths and that "neither the federal government or state and local governments are doing everything that they could at this moment." According to Republicans on the committee, Birx also testified about the importance of coordinating with state and local leaders.

According to the memo, Birx took aim at China’s role in suppressing information on the virus to the World Health Organization (WHO) at the onset of the pandemic, saying she believes "that there had to be evidence of human-to-human transmission weeks before the WHO or the world was notified" and that China "misled" the world on the virus.

The doctor also said she believed that China was giving false information to the WHO on the virus, resulting in a delay of two weeks before worldwide confirmation of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19.

Fox News' Houston Keene contributed to this report.

Skull found at Philadelphia high school prompts districtwide search



Taylor Allen
Mon, October 25, 2021, 

The School District of Philadelphia is asking high school principals and other officials to search for skeletal remains in their buildings after the discovery of a human skull at Central High School.

Driving the news: The school district announced the finding of the "human skeletal item," believed to have belonged to a Native American male, on Friday. The district told Axios that a staff member originally discovered the skull in June.

Now district officials are working with the Department of Interior and Temple University to repatriate the remains.

What they're saying: District officials said the skull was likely used as a teaching tool from the mid-1850s to the early to mid-1900s.

The district said it hasn't used human skeletons in lessons for at least a decade.

"Despite the fact that this individual is long deceased, they were an individual who was a member of a community," Kimberly Williams, chair of Temple's Anthropology Department, said in a statement.

The big picture: Mishandling of Indigenous remains isn't uncommon in American history, especially in the context of forced residential boarding schools.

And according to a report from NPR, many skeletons in classrooms across the country are real.

In Pennsylvania, remains of nine Native American children who attended a government-run school were returned home earlier this year.

Of note: Researchers in the 19th century used to collect skulls and conduct experiments to promote white supremacy. The trade and selling of crania propelled the practice.

The Penn Museum came under fire in April following reports that a curator used the remains of victims of the 1985 MOVE bombing for an online forensics course.

This past May, the city revealed its discovery that in 2017, Thomas Farley, the former health commissioner, ordered a separate set of MOVE bombing victims' remains to be cremated without notifying family members.

The remains that were thought to be destroyed were found a day later after a subordinate didn't go through with the order.

Farley resigned at the request of Mayor Jim Kenney.

What's next: The school district asked high school principals to conduct surveys of any skeletal teaching collections within their schools by Nov. 5, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Chrétien under fire for residential school comments

Duration: 02:36 

WARNING: This story contains distressing details. Former prime minister Jean Chrétien is under fire after saying on the Radio-Canada’s Tout le Monde en Parle he never heard about abuse at residential schools during his tenure as minister of what was then called Indian affairs from 1968 to 1974.

VIDEO

Chrétien under fire for residential school comments (msn.com)

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; ECOCIDE

Illegal waste dumps wreak environmental havoc in French countryside



Issued on: 26/10/2021 - 

Text by: FRANCE 24

Near a forest barely 20 kilometres from Paris, an impromptu landfill covering more than 16 hectares is just one of many illegal waste dumps polluting the French countryside. The industrial waste is dumped by polluters evading garbage disposal fees.

Toufik Bouallaga, a volunteer at a local citizen’s collective, is visibly disturbed as he walks across an illegal dump filled with plastic tubs, asbestos sheets and metal waste. “It breaks my heart, knowing this could have been a place for kids to go on walks … this is a forest…it’s sickening,” he explains.

Legal waste disposal in France can cost up to 115 euros per tonne for industrial refuse while illegal dumping can cost as little as four euros per tonne.

It's a lucrative business for illegal operators, one that is causing enormous environmental damage since the fermentation of the trash produces methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas.

Sinkholes on receding Dead Sea shore mark 'nature's revenge'

'Hikers walk next to sinkholes in the southern part of the Dead Sea 

(AFP/Menahem KAHANA)

Claire GOUNON
Tue, October 26, 2021, 7:59 PM·4 min read

In the heyday of the Ein Gedi spa in the 1960s, holidaymakers could marinate in heated pools and then slip into the briny Dead Sea. Now the same beach is punctured by craters.

A spectacular expanse of water in the desert, flanked by cliffs to east and west, the Dead Sea has lost a third of its surface area since 1960.

The blue water recedes about a metre (yard) every year, leaving behind a lunar landscape whitened by salt and perforated with gaping holes.

Going forward, "you might be lucky to have a channel of water here, that people will be able to put their toes in," laments Alison Ron, a resident of Ein Gedi who once worked at the spa.

"But there will be a lot of sinkholes."

The sinkholes can exceed 10 metres (33 feet) in depth and are a testament to the shrinking sea. Receding salt water leaves behind underground salt deposits. Runoff from periodic flash floods then percolates into the ground and dissolves the salt patches. Without support, the land above collapses.

- Ghost town -

At the Ein Gedi thermal baths, the roughly three kilometres (two miles) of rocky sand that now separate the spa from the shore are dotted with holes and crevices.

Further north, a whole tourist complex has turned into a ghost town, disfigured by craters and enclosed in fences. The pavement is gutted, the lampposts overturned, the date plantation abandoned.

Ittai Gavrieli of the Israel Geological Institute told AFP there are now thousands of sinkholes all around the shores of the Dead Sea, in Jordan, Israel and the occupied West Bank.

They reflect human policy that has literally decimated the flow of water into the Dead Sea. Both Israel and Jordan have diverted the waters of the River Jordan for agriculture and drinking water. Chemical companies have extracted minerals from the seawater.

Climate change further accelerates evaporation. In Sodom, Israel, southwest of the Dead Sea, the country's highest temperature in over 70 years was recorded in July 2019 -- 49.9 degrees Celsius, or nearly 122 Fahrenheit.

- 'Nature's revenge' -

Gavrieli said the Israel Geological Institute is monitoring the formation of sinkholes from space but it is not an exact science.

He said they are certainly "dangerous" but also "magnificent."

"It has potential to become a tourist attraction, if you're willing to take the risk on one hand and if insurance issues are clear," he said.

Much too perilous, answers Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director of the NGO EcoPeace, for whom the sinkholes are "nature's revenge" for "the inappropriate actions of humankind".

"We will not be able to bring back the Dead Sea to its former glory," he said. "But we are demanding that we stabilise it."

His organisation, comprised of Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists, advocates increased desalination of seawater from the Mediterranean to relieve pressure on the Sea of Galilee and the River Jordan, which could then flow back to the Dead Sea.

EcoPeace would also like the industry to be "held accountable" by paying more taxes.

- Inescapable decline -

Asked by AFP, a spokesman for Jordan's water ministry offered no detailed fix for the crisis. Instead, he said the donor community should play a "vital role" in sparking interest "to find reasonable solutions to the Dead Sea problem".

In June, Jordan abandoned a long-stalled proposal to build a canal with Israel and the Palestinians to carry water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.

Instead, Amman announced it would build a desalination plant to supply drinking water.

Even if the canal had been built, it could not have saved the lake on its own, said hydrologist Eran Halfi of the Dead Sea-Arava Science Center.

"The Dead Sea is at a deficit of one billion cubic metres per year and this was supposed to bring 200 million cubic metres," he said. "It would slow the drop but not prevent it."

So is the Dead Sea doomed to evaporate? Scientists say its decline is inevitable for at least the next 100 years. Sinkholes will keep spreading over the century.

However, the lake could reach an equilibrium because as its surface decreases, the water becomes saltier and evaporation slows down.

In Ein Gedi, Ron said that forecast gave her little satisfaction. By diverting rivers and building factories, she said, "man has interfered".

"We have to be ashamed of ourselves that we have allowed this to happen," she said.

cgo-dac/jjm/kir

Brazil Senate committee backs criminal charges against Bolsonaro



Issued on: 27/10/2021 -
Text by: NEWS WIRES

A Brazilian Senate commission approved a damning report on Tuesday that recommends criminal charges be brought against President Jair Bolsonaro, including crimes against humanity, for his Covid policies.

Seven of the panel's 11 senators voted to endorse the text -- presented last week after a six-month investigation into Brazil's pandemic response -- which also calls for the indictment of 77 other people, including several ministers and three of Bolsonaro's children.

The nearly 1,200-page report also urges Brazil's Supreme Court to suspend the far-right leader's access to his accounts on social media platforms YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for falsely alleging that Covid-19 vaccines were linked to AIDS.

Following dozens of often tense and harrowing hearings, the report finds Bolsonaro "deliberately exposed" Brazilians to "mass infection" in a disastrous attempt to reach herd immunity from the coronavirus.

The report calls for the president to be indicted for nine crimes related to his downplaying Covid-19 and flouting expert advice on containing it.

They include "crimes against humanity," "prevarication," "charlatanism," and incitement to crime.

The committee does not have the power to bring charges itself, and it is unlikely the attorney general or lower-house speaker -- both Bolsonaro allies -- will open criminal or impeachment proceedings.

But the report adds to the damage as Bolsonaro reels from his lowest-ever approval ratings, heading into an election in one year's time that polls place him on track to lose to leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

And the crimes against humanity charge theoretically has the potential to be tried at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

After the vote the senators observed a minute of silence in tribute to the 606,000 Brazilians who have died from Covid -- a toll second only to the United States.

"We can no longer tolerate this type of behavior," the lawmakers said in a court filing earlier signed by the panel's deputy chair, opposition Senator Randolfe Rodrigues.

Debunked AIDS claim

The committee hearings, broadcast live, have featured emotional witness statements and chilling revelations about the use of ineffective medication on "human guinea pigs."

The senators' court filing called for the authorities to lift the data confidentiality on Bolsonaro's social media accounts and order Facebook and Twitter, as well as YouTube owner Google, to provide normally secret information on the president's usage.

The document also called on the high court to order Bolsonaro to make a retraction in a nationally televised address, "refuting any correlation between vaccination against the coronavirus and developing AIDS," or face a fine of 50,000 reais ($9,000) for every day he fails to comply.

Bolsonaro made the controversial claim Thursday in his weekly social media live address.

He said "official reports" from the British government -- which has debunked the claim -- "suggest that people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are developing Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome much faster than expected."

Facebook removed the video for violating its policies on spreading misinformation. YouTube went a step further Monday, suspending Bolsonaro for a week, in addition to blocking the clip.

'I don't want to lose Facebook'

Bolsonaro appeared to have taken the information from a supposed news story spreading online.

"I recommend you read the article," he said in his video, without saying where the information came from.

"I'm not going to read it here, because I don't want to lose my Facebook live video."

Like former US president Donald Trump, his political role model, Bolsonaro relies heavily on social media to rally his base.

Bolsonaro has had social media posts deleted numerous times in the past for spreading misinformation and inciting people to violate social distancing policies.

However, this is the first time Facebook has taken down one of his weekly live videos, a cornerstone of his communications.

The president, who took office in January 2019, has said he does not plan to be vaccinated against Covid-19, and joked in the past the vaccine could "turn you into an alligator."

(AFP)

Donald Trump Endorses Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil Senate Recommends Charges Over Pandemic

BY JUSTIN KLAWANS ON 10/26/21 
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has received a reelection endorsement from former President Donald Trump the same day that the Brazilian Senate recommend he face criminal charges for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"President Jair Bolsonaro and I have become great friends over the past few years," former President Trump said in a statement. "He fights for, and loves, the people of Brazil."

"[Bolsonaro] is a great president and will never let the people of his great country down," the statement continued.


The president of Brazil since 2019, Bolsonaro has often been compared to Trump because of his numerous similar policies. The Daily Beast has even called Bolsonaro the "Trump of the Tropics."
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An independent who was a former official in Rio de Janeiro, Bolsonaro was elected on a far-right platform of nationalist conservatism. He has also advocated pro-life views and supports less restrictive gun laws in Brazil.

Additionally, Foreign Policy noted in January that Bolsonaro "[idolized] the outgoing U.S. president" and was "peddling similar false claims and conspiracy theories in Brazil" after the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Trump's endorsement comes hours after a Brazilian Senate committee voted 7-4 on a recommendation that Bolsonaro should face criminal charges for his handling of COVID.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has received an endorsement from former President Donald Trump the same day that the Brazilian Senate recommended he face charges for his handling of the pandemic. Here, Bolsonaro can be seen giving a speech in 2020.

EVARISTO SA/GETTY

While Bolsonaro is up for reelection in 2022, his approval ratings have been falling as a result of hyperinflation and his response to the pandemic. Brazil has had the second-most deaths from COVID-19 in the world, behind only the United States.

The Senate committee had been investigating Bolsonaro and his administration's actions regarding COVID for the past six months.

A copy of the committee's report obtained by the Associated Press states that Bolsonaro should be charged with a number of offenses, from inciting crime to charlatanism and crimes against humanity.

The author of the report also stated that Bolsonaro was "the main person responsible for the errors committed by the federal government during the pandemic."

Bolsonaro allegedly did not purchase the needed amount of COVID vaccines to inoculate the Brazilian population, and has additionally expressed doubt about the vaccines' efficacy. He has also reportedly downplayed the severity of the pandemic and pushed back against mask mandates and quarantines.

The only major government policy that Bolsonaro endorsed against the pandemic was the use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug also advocated by former President Trump.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has stated that "the potential benefits of these drugs do not outweigh their risks," and the use of hydroxychloroquine has not been proven effective against the virus.

Bolsonaro himself contracted COVID-19 in July 2020.

Nationwide protests occurred in Brazil this past June, with people demanding that Bolsonaro resign due to what they felt was poor handling of the pandemic. German outlet DW reported that the protests extended across 43 Brazilian cities.

Despite the findings of the Senate, Bolsonaro has maintained that he did not handle the pandemic improperly, and has brushed off the recommendations of health officials as "political correctness". Additionally, the nation's Prosecutor-General is viewed as a Bolsonaro loyalist who is likely to protect him in a court of law.

Newsweek has contacted the Brazilian government's press office for comment.

 EXPLAINER: Brazil senators urge COVID charges for Bolsonaro 

BY MAURICIO SAVARESE 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

 OCTOBER 27, 2021

SAO PAULO 

A Brazilian Senate committee is recommending that President Jair Bolsonaro face a series of criminal indictments for actions and omissions related to the world’s second highest COVID-19 death toll. The 7-to-4 vote Tuesday by the 11-member committee ended its six-month investigation of the government’s handling of the pandemic and calls for prosecutors to put Bolsonaro on trial for charges ranging from charlatanism and inciting crime to misuse of public funds and crimes against humanity. More than 600,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Brazil. 

What lies ahead for Bolsonaro, who denies any wrongdoing:

WHAT ARE THE RECOMMENDATIONS AGAINST BOLSONARO? 

The most debated of the recommended charges is of inciting an epidemic that leads to deaths. Prison time for those convicted ranges between 20 and 30 years. Gustavo Badaró, a law professor at Sao Paulo University, argues that is a “thin legal case” because Bolsonaro did not start the pandemic himself. Bolsonaro is also accused of violating health protocols, charlatanism, falsification of private documents, irregular use of public funds, crimes against humanity, violation of social rights and breach of presidential decorum. Badaró argues the strongest case against Bolsonaro in the final report is the accusation of delaying or refraining from action required as part of a public official’s duty for reasons of personal interest. Prison time for a conviction ranges from three months to one year, but as a sitting president that could be enough to suspend Bolsonaro from office. Ricardo Barretto, a law professor at IDP university, says Bolsonaro's open challenge of health protocols and his defense of drugs that don't work against the coronavirus are also well substantiated. The president was repeatedly seen unmasked at gatherings that he encouraged himself. He also touted use of anti-malarial drug chloroquine as if it was a cure for the virus. 

Senators had debated whether they should recommend charges of homicide and genocide against Bolsonaro, but they decided not to include those in the final report. 

___ WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? 

Brazil’s prosecutor-general, Augusto Aras, who in the past has sided with the president and is widely seen as protecting him, has to decide whether the Senate inquiry warrants him opening an investigation. He would then have to get authorization from the Supreme Court to proceed since Bolsonaro is a sitting politician. Sen. Omar Aziz, the chairman of the Senate inquiry, said he planned to deliver the committee's recommendations to Aras on Wednesday. If the prosecutor-general presented charges against the president, the case would move to Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress. Two-thirds of the 513 deputies would have to vote for the Supreme Court to suspend the president for at least six months and put him on trial. Senators, however, do not expect Aras to move forward with charges against Bolsonaro. The inquiry also offers two alternatives for punishing Bolsonaro for crimes he allegedly committed. The first is a request for an impeachment proceeding that would join more than 100 others in the files of Speaker Arthur Lira, who has stymied several attempts to remove Bolsonaro from office. The second is to get a case against Bolsonaro at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, but there are no details on how or when that might occur. 

___ WHO ELSE COULD BE CHARGED?

 The Senate inquiry recommends charges against a total of 78 people and two companies. It includes Bolsonaro’s three eldest sons, Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro, federal Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro and Rio de Janeiro city council member Carlos Bolsonaro. All three are accused of spreading false information about the pandemic online. A former health minister, Gen. Eduardo Pazuello, and his successor, Marcelo Queiroga, are also on the list, which includes four other Cabinet ministers. The report also names Wilson Lima, governor of the state of Amazonas, and his health secretary. The Amazonas capital, Manaus, experienced severe shortages of oxygen supply at the beginning of the year, causing many COVID-19 patients to die breathless. Charges are also recommended for several businessmen who staunchly support Bolsonaro. 

___ WHAT ARE THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS?

 Bolsonaro faces a difficult reelection path for next October's election, and the probe is one of the reasons his popularity is at record lows. His nemesis, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leads all polls to return to the office he held in 2003-2010. The end of the Senate inquiry gives some relief to the president, who won't have damaging daily news on the investigation being shown on primetime television. His allies in Congress are now expected to push for reforms and new measures to deal with another trigger for Bolsonaro's unpopularity — a sharp acceleration of inflation that has added to Brazil's economic woes with high unemployment. Barretto, the IDP law professor, says the recommendations of charges against Bolsonaro could affect his political future even more if he loses reelection. He notes other courts and prosecutors could prosecute the far-right politician for the same alleged crimes once he was out of office, regardless of the prosecutor-general's decision. They could also pursue charges of administrative dishonesty, a crime under Brazilian law that leads to a defendant losing his political rights for a conviction.

\

Satellites used to track methane leaks in climate fight

Issued on: 27/10/2021 

Gaslighting: A NASA illustration of methane lit up as is the greenhouse gas is emitted around the world Handout NASA/AFP/File


Paris (AFP)

A yellow streak representing high concentrations of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas, is visible over southern Iraq on a map produced by Kayrros, a French firm that uses satellites to track leaks from fossil fuel facilities.

The source of the immense leak discovered in 2019 was never officially confirmed -- and it is only one of many.

The satellite map shows blotches of colour splattering the globe from the United States to Russia, and Algeria to Turkmenistan, bearing witness to poor maintenance in the oil and gas industry.

Methane (CH4) ranks number two in greenhouse gasses emitted after carbon dioxide (CO2). But while it receives less attention, it is extremely dangerous for the environment. By weight, it creates 28 times as much warming as CO2 over a century.

"We see huge leaks, intentional or unintentional releases that are linked to the production and transport of natural gas and petrol just about everywhere in the world," said Kayrros's Jean Bastin.

"Today we can track them and link them with events that can be avoided easily," he added.

Kayrros uses free data from Europe's Sentinel satellites to find and track the methane leaks.

The fossil fuel industry is an important source of methane emissions.

The International Energy Agency estimates that it emitted 120 million tonnes of methane last year, about a third of the amount linked to human activity. Moreover, much of that leaked methane can be easily prevented at little or no cost, it believes.

The IEA said in a recent report that it "estimates that more than 70 percent of current emissions from oil and gas operations are technically feasible to prevent and around 45 percent could typically be avoided at no net cost because the value of the captured gas is higher than the cost of the abatement measure."
'We see them'

The European Union and the United States are drafting an agreement to reduce methane emissions by at least 30 percent by 2030.

"That's completely feasible," Kayrros President Antoine Rostand said, pointing to the all too frequent practice of emptying gas left in pipelines into the atmosphere ahead of maintenance work.

Old and poorly maintained pipelines are the biggest culprit of leaks.

"Now that we see them, there's rising awareness," he said.

Kayrros works for the IEA as well as oil and gas producers who are seeking to improve their environmental practices.

It also counts among is clients investment funds who are seeking to evaluate the climate risks of the companies in which they invest, Rostand said.

The use of satellites is "one of the most recent and promising advances in understanding the level of methane emissions worldwide," the IEA said last year.

Previously companies had to set up networks of heat-sensitive cameras to catch methane leaks, which usually meant they had at best a partial view of the situation.

"A key advantage of satellites is that they can help locate large emitting sources promptly," it added.
Race to spot smaller leaks

McGill University Professor Mary Kang agreed that satellites can help reduce large leaks from the oil and gas industry infrastructure.

"However, I would say that it misses smaller leaks that can amount to a lot as well because there are many of them," she said.

Kayrros and its competitors are working to improve the sensitivity of their technology to detect smaller leaks.

The Canadian firm GHGSat is in the process of deploying a constellation of its own satellites that it says will be able to detect emissions 100 times smaller than some current satellites.

It already has three satellites in orbit and is deploying more.

The company is working with TotalEnergies to monitor the French firm's offshore oil and gas facilities, which have until now escaped monitoring as the sun reflecting off the sea disrupted readings.

The US pressure group Environmental Defense Fund plans to launch its own satellite, called MethaneSAT, in order to get even more detailed readings to find small leaks.

The satellite is scheduled to be placed into orbit by SpaceX in the autumn of 2022.

© 2021 AFP