It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, October 23, 2021
German lawmaker demands sanctioning Turkey, confronting Erdogan’s ‘authoritarianism’
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a press conference with German Chancellor in Istanbul on October 16, 2021. (AFP)
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English Published: 24 October ,2021:
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “authoritarianism” must be confronted, and Ankara should be sanctioned, German lawmaker Claudia Roth said on Saturday in response to the Turkish leader ordering the expulsion of 10 Western ambassadors over human rights comments.
Erdogan instructed the foreign ministry to expel the ambassadors of the US, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and New Zealand.
Erdogan is infuriated over the 10 countries’ statement calling for the “urgent release” of philanthropist Osman Kavala, who has been imprisoned for four years, charged with financing protests in 2013 and involvement in the failed coup in 2016.
“Erdogan's unscrupulous actions against his critics are becoming increasingly uninhibited,” Bundestag vice president Roth told German news agency DPA.
Roth said Erdogan's “authoritarian course must be confronted internationally,” and demanded sanctions and a halt to weapons exports to Turkey.
"I gave the necessary order to our foreign minister and said what must be done: These 10 ambassadors must be declared persona non grata at once. You will sort it out immediately," Erdogan said in a speech in the northwestern city of Eskisehir.
"They will know and understand Turkey. The day they do not know and understand Turkey, they will leave," he added.
Erdogan’s authoritarian rule has long garnered the West’s condemnation and his aggressive foreign policy hasn’t won him any battles on the international stage, as the US and the EU continued to criticize Turkey’s human rights record.
EU President David Sassoli said Turkey’s expulsion of the 10 ambassadors was a sign of an “authoritarian drift.”
“The expulsion of ten ambassadors is a sign of the authoritarian drift of the Turkish government.
Turkish opposition parties join ranks to push out Erdogan: Report
Turkish President and leader of Justice and Development (AK) Party Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during his ruling AK Party's group meeting at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT), in Ankara, on April 21, 2021. (AFP)
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English Published: 23 October ,2021:
Opposition parties in Turkey are joining forces to replace President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and force early elections next year, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
“The leaders of six opposition parties appear to have agreed on turning the next election into a kind of referendum on the presidential system that Erdogan introduced four years ago and considers one of his proudest achievements,” the NYT reported.
Erdogan’s opponents want to challenge his 19-year rule and what they describe as his “authoritarian power”, and work towards a return to a parliamentary system.
The Turkish opposition aims to change the presidential system to battle the rampant corruption, Erdogan’s monetary policy, control over the courts and to free the tens of thousands of political prisoners.
Turkey’s economy has been struggling with a soaring inflation rate and a downward spiral of its currency’s value.
In addition, Erdogan’s aggressive foreign policy hasn’t won him any battles on the international stage. His pursuit of Russian weapons systems has put him at odds with the US which has already voiced its concerns over Turkey’s human rights record.
Erdogan has also pulled Turkey into foreign crises around the world, such as backing a faction in Libya’s civil war, taking Azerbaijan’s side in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and arming opposition fighters in Syria.
“Political analysts suggest that not only is he determined to secure another presidential term in elections that are due before June 2023, but also to secure his legacy as modern Turkey’s longest-serving leader, longer even than the founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,” the NYT said.
Erdogan has been steadily sliding in the opinion polls, as the public struggles with an economic crisis, rampant government corruption and a younger generation yearning for change.
Metropoll, a polling organization, revealed this week that for the first time in several years, more respondents said Erdogan would lose an election rather than win.urkish government. We will not be intimidated,” Sassoli tweeted
Film crew voiced complaints before Alec Baldwin's fatal on-set shooting
THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS
JUST PREVENTABLE INCIDENTS
By CEDAR ATTANASIO, MORGAN LEE and MICHELLE L. PRICE
The Bonanza Creek Film Ranch is seen in Santa Fe, N.M., Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. An assistant director unwittingly handed actor Alec Baldwin a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to use in the moments before the actor fatally shot a cinematographer, court records released Friday show.
(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
The Associated Press Published: 24 October ,2021
Alec Baldwin fatally shot a cinematographer on a New Mexico film set with a gun a crew member had assured the actor was safe, a tragic mistake that came hours after some workers walked off the job to protest conditions and production issues.
An assistant director, Dave Halls, grabbed a prop gun off a cart at a desert movie ranch and handed it to Baldwin during a Thursday rehearsal for the Western film “Rust,” according to court records made public Friday.
“Cold gun,” Halls yelled, declaring the weapon didn’t carry live rounds and was ready to fire.
But it wasn't. When Baldwin pulled the trigger, he unwittingly killed 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza, who was standing behind her inside a wooden, chapel-like building.
A 911 call that alerted authorities to the shooting at the Bonanza Creek Ranch outside Santa Fe hints at the panic on the movie set, as detailed in a recording released by the Santa Fe County Regional Emergency Communications Center.
“We had two people accidentally shot on a move set by a prop gun, we need help immediately,” script supervisor Mamie Mitchell told an emergency dispatcher. “We were rehearsing and it went off, and I ran out, we all ran out.”
The dispatcher asked if the gun was loaded with a real bullet.
“I cannot tell you. We have two injuries,” Mitchell replied. “And this (expletive) AD (assistant director) that yelled at me at lunch, asking about revisions....He’s supposed to check the guns. He's responsible for what happens on the set.”
Halls did not immediately return phone and email messages seeking comment. The Associated Press was unable to contact Hannah Gutierrez, the film's armorer, and several messages sent to production companies affiliated with “Rust” did not receive responses Friday.
The gun Baldwin used was one of three that Gutierrez had set on a cart outside the building where a scene was being rehearsed, according to the court records. Halls grabbed the firearm from the cart and brought it inside to the actor, unaware that it was loaded with live rounds, a detective wrote in a search warrant application.
It was unclear how many rounds were fired. Gutierrez removed a shell casing from the gun after the shooting, and she turned the weapon over to police when they arrived, the court records say.
Guns used in making movies are sometimes real weapons that can fire either bullets or blanks, which are gunpowder charges that produce a flash and a bang but no dangerous projectile.
New Mexico workplace safety investigators are examining if film industry standards for gun safety were followed during production of “Rust.” The Los Angeles Times, citing two crew members it did not name, reported that five days before the shooting, Baldwin’s stunt double accidentally fired two live rounds after being told the gun didn’t have any ammunition.
A crew member who was alarmed by the misfires told a unit production manager in a text message, “We’ve now had 3 accidental discharges. This is super unsafe,” according to a copy of the message reviewed by the newspaper. The New York Times also reported that there were at least two earlier accidental gun discharges; it cited three former crew members.
Mitchell, the script supervisor, told The Associated Press she was standing next to Hutchins when the cinematographer was hit.
“I ran out and called 911 and said ‘Bring everybody, send everybody,’ ” Mitchell said. “This woman is gone at the beginning of her career. She was an extraordinary, rare, very rare woman.”
Filmmaker Souza, who was shot in the shoulder, said in a statement to NBC News that he was grateful for the support he was receiving and gutted by the loss of Hutchins. “She was kind, vibrant, incredibly talented, fought for every inch and always pushed me to be better,” he said.
This photo shows the Bonanza Creek Ranch one day after an incident left one crew member dead and another injured, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021 in Santa Fe, N.M. A prop firearm discharged by veteran actor Alec Baldwin, who is producing and starring in a Western movie, killed his director of photography and injured the director Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021 at the movie set outside Santa Fe, authorities said.
(Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Santa Fe-area District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said prosecutors are reviewing evidence in the shooting and do not know if charges will be filed.
Baldwin, 63, who is known for his roles in “30 Rock” and “The Hunt for Red October” and his impression of former President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” has described the killing as a “tragic accident.” He was a producer of “Rust.”
“There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours. I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation,” Baldwin wrote on Twitter. “My heart is broken for her husband, their son, and all who knew and loved Halyna.”
Production on “Rust” was halted after the shooting. The movie is about a 13-year-old boy who is left to fend for himself and his younger brother following the death of their parents in 1880s Kansas, according to the Internet Movie Database website.
Before the fateful rehearsal, there were reports of some problems on the set. Seven crew members walked off several hours before Hutchins was killed to express their discontent with matters that ranged from safety conditions to their accommodations, according to one of the crew members who left.
The disputes began soon after filming began in early October, said the crew member, who requested anonymity because he feared speaking up would hurt his prospects for future jobs.
The crew was initially housed at the Courtyard by Marriot in Santa Fe, according to the crew member. Four days in, however, they were told that going forward they would be housed at the budget Coyote South hotel. Some crew members balked at staying there.
The Los Angeles Times and Variety also reported on the walkout. Rust Movie Productions did not answer emails Friday and Saturday seeking comment.
There were other concerns.
Only minimal COVID-19 precautions were taken even though crew and cast members often worked in small enclosed spaces on the ranch, the crew member who spoke to the AP said. He said he never witnessed any formal orientation about weapons used on set, which normally would take place before filming begins.
A combination of those concerns prompted the seven to walk off the job.
“We packed our gear and left that morning,” the crew member said of the Thursday walkout.
Gutierrez, the film’s armorer, is the daughter of a longtime Hollywood firearms expert. She gave an interview in September to the Voices of the West podcast in which she said she had learned how to handle guns from her father since she was a teenager.
During the podcast interview. Gutierrez shared that she just finished her first movie in the role of head armorer, a project in Montana starring Nicholas Cage titled “The Old Way.”
“I was really nervous about it at first and I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready but doing it, like, it went really smoothly," she said.
In another on-set gun death from 1993, Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, was killed by a bullet left in a prop gun after a previous scene. Similar shootings have occurred involving stage weapons that were loaded with live rounds during historical re-enactments.
Gun-safety protocol on sets in the United States has improved since then, said Steven Hall, a veteran director of photography in Britain. But he said one of the riskiest positions to be in is behind the camera because that person is in the line of fire in scenes where an actor appears to point a gun at the audience.
States mostly defer to union guidance for on-set gun safety
By GEOFF MULVIHILL, SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN and JONATHAN LANDRUM Jr 1 of 8
A "No Trespassing sign" hangs at the entrance to the Bonanza Creek Film Ranch in Santa Fe, N.M., Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. An assistant director unwittingly handed actor Alec Baldwin a loaded weapon and told him it was safe to use in the moments before the actor fatally shot a cinematographer, court records released Friday show.
(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Safety standards developed by film studios and labor unions are the primary protection for actors and film crews when a scene calls for using prop guns. The industry-wide guidance is clear: “Blanks can kill. Treat all firearms as if they are loaded.”
Shootings nevertheless have killed and injured people while cameras rolled, including the cinematographer who died and the director who was wounded this week when no one realized a prop gun fired by actor Alec Baldwin during the filming of “Rust” carried live rounds that are far more dangerous than blanks.
Despite some industry reforms following previous tragedies, the federal workplace safety agency in the U.S. is silent on the issue of on-set gun safety. And most of the preferred states for film and TV productions take a largely hands-off approach.
New York prohibits guns from being fired overnight on movie sets but does not otherwise regulate their use. Georgia and Louisiana, where the film industry has expanded rapidly, regulate pyrotechnics on movie sets but have no specific rules around gun use.
“We don’t have anything to do with firearms. We only regulate the special effects explosion-type stuff,” said Capt. Nick Manale, a state police spokesperson in Louisiana, where the film industry was credited with creating more than 9.600 jobs last year and generating nearly $800 million for local businesses. “I’m not sure who does that, or if anybody does.”
New Mexico, where court records show an assistant director handed Baldwin a loaded weapon and told him it was “cold,” or safe to use, during the Thursday filming of “Rust,” has no specific safety laws for the film industry. Much of the legislative debate over the industry, as in other states, has focused on tax credits and incentives to lure the lucrative entertainment business, not what happens on sets.
That approach has worked well for New Mexico. In addition to attracting some large film productions, the state is home to major production hubs for Netflix and NBCUniversal. It had a record $623 million in direct spending on productions between July 2020 through June of this year.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat and an ardent film industry supporter, touted the industry’s pandemic precautions over the summer, saying it had put safety first and cleared the way for work to resume.
Workplace safety is paramount in every industry in New Mexico, including film and television, the governor’s spokeswoman, Nora Meyers Sackett, said Friday.
“State and federal workplace safety regulations apply to the industry just as they do to all other workplaces, and the state Occupational Health and Safety Bureau is investigating,” Sackett said of the tragedy that unfolded on a movie ranch near Santa Fe. “This is an ongoing investigation, and we’re awaiting additional facts in order to understand how something so terrible and heartbreaking could have happened.”
A search warrant made public Friday said an assistant director on the set handed Baldwin a loaded weapon and indicated it was safe to use, unaware it was loaded with live rounds. The shot killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was struck in the chest, and wounded director Joel Souza, who was standing behind Hutchins.
New Mexico workplace safety officials confirmed they would be looking at whether the crew followed industry standards. The agency does not routinely conduct safety inspections of sets and studios unless they receive complaints.
Instead of regulating firearm use on film and TV sets, many states leave it to the industry to follow its own guidelines. Those recommendations, issued by the Industry-Wide Labor-Management Safety Committee, call for limited use of live ammunition and detailed requirements for the handling and use of firearms of all types. Safety meetings are to be held, actors are to keep their fingers off the triggers until they’re ready to shoot, and guns should never be unattended, the guidelines state.
Without specific state or federal regulations, it’s primarily up to the people working in productions to ensure guns are used safely. Brook Yeaton, vice president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees union that represents workers in Louisiana and parts of Mississippi and Alabama, said his approach is to act like all weapons are real and to never allow live rounds on a set.
“They shouldn’t be in the truck. They shouldn’t be in the same car,” said Yeaton, a prop master for more than 30 years. “You really have to make sure your inventory is totally separate from the real world and everything you bring on set is safe.”
In one of the world’s premier film centers, New York City, productions are required to adhere to a code of conduct that spells out rules for parking, notifying neighbors and other details. The safety rules feature a sections on covering cables and getting permits for exotic animals. But the only mention of gunshots is under the “community relations” heading: The sound of shots should not ring outdoors between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m.
The website of the Texas Film Commission states that productions using prop weapons — which can be replicas or real guns that fire blanks rather than live ammunition — must have safety policies, expert weapon handlers and proof of insurance. The Texas governor’s office, which oversees the commission, did not return calls from The Associated Press asking about how those rules are enforced.
In this Aug. 13, 1958, file photo, Rodd Redwing, left, checks the final adjustment which Bob Lane is making on a six-gun in Los Angeles Redwing, a specialist in six-gun drawing, is an actor and a teacher of western gun handling. Lane is one of the men who repair and service the many guns in the studio arsenal, which supplies weapons on call for movies. Guns used in making movies are sometimes real weapons that can fire either bullets or blanks, which are gunpowder charges that produce a flash and a bang but no deadly projectile. Even blanks can eject hot gases and paper or plastic wadding from the barrel that can be lethal at close range. (AP Photo/David Smith, File)
California, still the capital of the film industry, requires an entertainment firearms permit, though it’s not clear how permit requirements are enforced.
Hutchins’ fatal shooting near Santa Fe followed previous gun-related deaths and injuries on movie sets.
Actor Brandon Lee died in March 1993 after he was shot in the abdomen while filming a scene of “The Crow.” Lee was killed by a makeshift bullet that remained in a gun from a previous scene. The U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration fined the production $84,000 for violations after the actor’s death, but the fine was later reduced to $55,000.
In 2005, OSHA fined Greystone Television and Films $650 after a crewmember was shot in the thigh, elbow and hand. It turned out that balloon-breaking birdshot rounds were in the same box as the blanks that were supposed to be used in rifles.
New Mexico state lawmaker Antonio “Moe” Maestas, an Albuquerque lawyer and champion of his state’s film incentives, questioned whether any safety legislation could have prevented the fatal shooting on the set of “Rust.”
“How can you disincentivize an involuntary act?” he asked.
Maestas said production companies might think about using post-production effects to mimic the sights and sounds they now rely on prop guns to create.
“That’s the only way to really ensure this never happens again,” he said.
___
Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Montoya Bryan from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Landrum from Los Angeles. Also contributing to this article were Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Anthony McCartney in Los Angeles; and Amy Taxin in Orange County, California.
UK
Green Party conference votes to support £15 minimum wage
The Greens have backed the BFAWU's 'Fight for 15' campaign
The Green Party has backed the campaign for a £15 an hour minimum wage at their autumn conference in Birmingham. This comes after members overwhelmingly voted for an emergency motion which expressed support for the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union’s (BFAWU) ‘Fight for 15’ campaign, and for “an end to age-based pay discrimination and for better working conditions for all workers”.
Speaking on the passing of the motion, proposer Alexander Sallons said, “Working as a hospitality worker in one of the most expensive cities to live in outside of London, you’re lucky if you can take 50% of your pay after rent and bills.
“We desperately need a £15 minimum wage and we need strong trade unions that are fighting for that like BFAWU, especially in some of the jobs most at risk of climate change like mine – coffee – and I’m glad that the Green Party has supported my motion.
The motion backed by party members also expressed solidarity with the BFAWU following their recent disaffiliation from the Labour Party, and requested that the Greens’ leadership inform the union of this.
Chair of the Green Party Trade Union Group Matthew Hull said he was “delighted” that the motion passed. He said, “I’m delighted that Green Party Conference has extended solidarity to the BFAWU following their disaffiliation from the Labour Party, and backed their campaign for a £15 minimum wage workers can truly live on.”
“With the Liberal Democrats nowhere to be seen, and the Labour Party failing workers at every turn, the Green Party must step up and truly represent working people in the face of this Tory government’s brutal attacks on our living standards. This motion is a statement of intent that workers and their unions have home in the Green Party.”
Earlier at the party’s conference, members voted to support publicly funded care for disabled adults, free at the point of use.
This article was jointly published with Bright Green.
Green Party members vote to support free social care
The Green Party now supports publicly funded care, free at the point of use
The Green Party has been meeting in Birmingham for their autumn conference. After a flurry of speeches from the party’s leadership, members have now begun debating and voting on policy motions.
On Saturday 23 October, members voted to back a policy of free social care for disabled adults. The motion stated that, “personal care and support for disabled adults should be provided free, so that they can operate from a financial foundation equal to their peers. This includes any expenses incurred from having a disability, such as communication aids, interpretation and accommodation adaptations, mental health support, personal mobility aids, learning support, counselling, psychotherapy, art and music therapy or other therapies as appropriate.”
The policy passed by members commits the party to supporting a system of care which is fully publicly funded, free at the point of use and “underpinned by a workforce with good pay, conditions, training and career structure”. According to the Green Party, this would end of a system in which many people have to pay for private social care, which has been estimated to cost £11 billion per year, and even those who receive publicly-funded social care end up paying a total of more than £3 billion towards their support.
Speaking on the motion, Larry Sanders – the party’s former health and care spokesperson, and the brother of the once US Democratic Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders – said, “The NHS is based on the principle that need, not wealth, should determine the health care we get. Today, the Green Party backed the same principle for Social Care.
“The hundreds of thousands of people who need help to eat and wash, get residential care when they need it and to lead a full life under their own control, can do so with their support paid for in the same way as the NHS. The Tory government said that charges should be capped at £86,000. We say they should be capped at zero.
“We also committed ourselves to good pay and conditions for care workers and to giving family carers the support they need.”
This article was jointly published with Bright Green.
Cop26 climate deal will be harder than Paris, summit president says
The summit is due to get underway on 31 October.
8 hours ago Alok Sharma. Image: Alamy Stock Photo
SUCCESS AT THE upcoming COP26 climate summit is “definitely harder” than the 2015 Paris talks which resulted in a landmark accord, the British minister presiding over the gathering warned today.
The 31 October – 12 November gathering in Glasgow is the biggest climate conference since the Paris summit and is seen as crucial in setting worldwide emission targets to slow global warming.
Alok Sharma, the British minister in charge of the talks, told the Guardian newspaper that getting nearly 200 countries to commit to the emission targets to limit global temperature rises to less than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels was a daunting task.
“What we’re trying to do here in Glasgow is actually really tough,” he said.
“It was brilliant what they did in Paris” but “a lot of the detailed rules were left for the future,” he added.
“It’s like, we’ve got to the end of the exam paper and the most difficult questions are left and you’re running out of time
“This is definitely harder than Paris on lots of levels.”
The task will be made all the more difficult as Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are not attending but sending delegations.
More than 120 world leaders and around 25,000 delegates are expected in Glasgow.
The Paris accord saw 197 nations agree to limit global heating to below 2 degrees but their “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) – national plans drawn up to implement the deal – have been deemed inadequate.
Strengthening those plans will be a key part of negotiations.
“What we’re potentially saying to countries is that if your NDC isn’t good enough, you’re going to have to come back to the table,” said Sharma.
He called on the world’s biggest emitter China, whose fractious relationship with the West is another obstacle to agreement, to present its NDC.
“They signed up to the communique in July that we negotiated in Naples, that all the G20 would come up with enhanced NDCs before COP – I reminded them they needed to deliver on that,” he said.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said Thursday that the current climate situation was “a one-way ticket for disaster” as he stressed the need to “avoid a failure” at COP26.
US nears deal to use Pakistan’s airspace to conduct operations in Afghanistan: Report
A F-15 jet from the Florida Air National Guard's 125th Fighter Wing practices maneuvers before the Hyundai Air and Sea Show on May 28, 2021 in Miami Beach, Florida. (AFP)
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English Published: 23 October ,2021:
The US is nearing a formal agreement with Pakistan to use its airspace to conduct military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan, CNN reported on Saturday.
Pakistan reportedly expressed a desire to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the US in exchange for assistance with its own counterterrorism efforts and help in managing its relationship with India, sources told CNN.
The report comes as the US scrambles to ensure it can conduct counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan against ISIS and other terrorist groups, after the US withdrew its forces from Afghanistan in August, ending more than 20 years of American presence in the country.
The Taliban have threatened the US last month with “negative consequence” if Washington did not stop flying drones over Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan on August 15, ISIS has ramped up its attacks in the country, targeting Taliban members and Afghan citizens with several bombings.
The Taliban has tried to downplay the threat of ISIS, claiming it wasn’t a major danger. The group also refused to cooperate with the US to contain extremist groups in Afghanistan.
The US believes that terrorist groups can easily reconstitute in Afghanistan under Taliban rules and is concerned the country will become a terrorism haven and a launching pad for international attacks.
The US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley said in September there is a “real possibility” that al-Qaeda or ISIS could reconstitute in Afghanistan under Taliban rule within the next six to 36 months.
A Florida Anarchist Will Spend Years in Prison for Online Posts Prompted by Jan. 6 Riot
Daniel Baker’s calls for armed defense against possible far-right attacks led to a much harsher sentence than that facing most insurrectionists.
October 16 2021, With the U.S. Capitol building seen in the background, a sign on a bus shelter asks the public for information about people involved in the Capitol insurrection, January 19, 2021. Photo: Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
ON TUESDAY, a Florida judge sentenced Daniel Baker, an anti-fascist activist, to 44 months in federal prison for social media posts that called for armed defense against possible far-right attacks on the state’s Capitol in the wake of the January 6 riots. Baker, a 34-year-old yoga teacher and emergency medical technician trainee, had no previous criminal convictions and has already been held for 10 months of harsh pretrial detention, including seven months in solitary confinement. He never brought a weapon near a government building; he amassed no armed anti-fascist forces; he made no threats on a single individual.
Baker will, nonetheless, face considerably more prison time than most January 6 defendants, including those who crossed state lines, small arsenals in tow, with the aim of overturning a presidential election.
It goes without saying that a United States federal court is no place to appeal to ethical grounds for militant anti-fascist resistance. Yet Baker, while prone to hyperbolic and sometimes paranoid rhetoric, was certainly not alone in fearing that there could be January 6-style events in statehouses nationwide ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration and that local police could hardly be trusted as a bulwark. The Federal Bureau of Investigations warned of the potential for armed protests at state capitols. Florida is home to over 60 far-right, white supremacist, and neo-Nazi groups recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and there are well-reported links between Florida police departments and far-right militiae.
If there are moral arguments for physically confronting fascists — and I believe there are — they would have been of scant relevance in Baker’s case: zero such confrontations took place or appeared on the horizon, and no far-right mobs amassed at the Florida Capitol around Biden’s inauguration. This should have been a straightforward First Amendment case, with Baker’s online speech, albeit bellicose, judged as constitutionally protected. Instead, the formerly unhoused veteran has been made a victim of government efforts to draw false equivalences between fascistic far-right forces and the anti-fascists who would see them opposed.
“The overall message people will get from this is that online speech calling for militant antifascist action will send you to prison for much longer than actually taking militant action with fascists.”
“The American government has chosen to side with white supremacists, except when their own bureaucracy forces them to prosecute the most blatant offenders, albeit gently,” Baker told me in an email from prison. “They criticized me for supporting Black Lives Matter, Feminist Liberation ideologies, Global Revolutionary movements and direct democracy. … The government has made its stance clear throughout my hearings.”
During his sentencing hearing on Tuesday, Baker’s attorney highlighted the case of a Georgia man who drove to Washington, D.C., with guns and ammunition and sent private texts threatening to shoot Rep. Nancy Pelosi in the head. The Trump acolyte had missed the storming of the Capitol by one day due to car trouble. Like Baker, he was charged with the interstate communication of threats. Unlike Baker, he had a history of hideous, racist online speech, and direct threats. And unlike Baker, he could leave prison soon: He will be sentenced in December and faces between six months to two years in prison; his eight months of pretrial detention will count as time served. Taking into account time served, meanwhile, Baker will spend another 34 months — almost three years — in prison.
“Dan’s case speaks volumes about how the state represses the left much differently than it treats the far right,” Brad Thomson, civil rights attorney at the People’s Law Office, who did not represent Baker, told me. “Here, Dan was sentenced to three and a half years for online posts opposing another January 6 incident. But for actual participants from January 6, we’re seeing charges and sentences far below that.” Thomson added that “every case is unique, but the overall message people will get from this is that online speech calling for militant antifascist action will send you to prison for much longer than actually taking militant action with fascists.”
Daniel Baker in 2020. Photo: Courtesy of Eric Champagne
BAKER WAS CONVICTED at trial earlier this year on two counts of “transmitting a communication in interstate commerce containing a threat to kidnap or injure another person.” The threat of kidnapping charge stemmed from a feverish public Facebook post in which Baker put out a general call for anti-racists and anti-fascists to encircle the state Capitol, should far-right groups attack it “on or around inauguration day,” and “trap” right-wingers inside with cops. In the very next sentence, though, he wrote, “we will drive them out of Tallahassee with every caliber available!” The right wing militiae were thus to be trapped in and driven out at once, on an unspecified day, by an unnamed collaboration of counterprotesters.
The “call to arms” posts — of which Baker posted a number — were reflective of his genuine and rightful rage against white supremacist violence, but were disorganized and inchoate. Other social media posts that prosecutors pointed to as evidence at trial included memes featuring Homer Simpson, Baby Yoda, and a picture of a kangaroo. “It was truly a surreal experience being in a literal kangaroo court,” Baker told me. His prosecution, conviction, and sentencing exemplify the government’s commitment to conjuring a left-wing extremist threat when none is there.
Baker, slight and sinewy at 5 foot 8, lived in Tallahassee at the time of his arrest — just over one week after January 6. Federal agents raided his apartment with guns drawn and a flashbang grenade. “I thought we were going to die when the FBI broke down our door, the whole experience has been excruciating and traumatizing,” said his best friend and roommate Eric Champagne, an artist and former Hindu monk who had traveled with Baker to support Black Lives Matter protests around the country last year — a fact that was cited by the prosecution as proof of Baker’s extremist bent.
With his knowledge as an EMT trainee, Baker would, Champagne told me, run to the aid of injured protesters. In their hometown, the friends regularly brought food and necessities to the unhoused community, Baker having previously experienced homelessness himself. “My heart is about helping people who are homeless. I know how bad it can be,” he told me on a phone call from prison.
Rioters interact with Capitol Police inside the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
THERE CAN BE little doubt that Baker’s online posts were reckless at a time when federal law enforcement had made clear its desire to demonize radical left-wing politics — to conjure extremist forces equal, if not greater, to those very real and deadly threats from the far right. Following Baker’s arrest on January 15, U.S. Attorney Larry Keefe, who led the prosecution, pronounced, “Extremists intent on violence from either end of the political and social spectrums must be stopped, and they will be stopped.”
It would be naive and ahistorical to hope that the U.S. government would draw a moral distinction between militant acts carried out in the service of genocidal white supremacy on the one hand and militant resistance to such acts on the other. Even a week after January 6, when it seemed that racist Trumpians had made undeniable their singular role as an extremist threat to this country’s already diminished democracy, the government once again doubled down on its baseless two-sidesism.
This came as no real surprise. The far right has for two decades been responsible for the vast majority of deadly extremist attacks, while both Republicans and Democrats have endorsed the targeting of leftists on the flimsiest of grounds — all the more so when righteous, Black-led uprisings swept the nation last summer. It was among the defining qualities of Donald Trump’s presidency, to condone neo-Nazis and condemn with theatrical fervor the dangerousness of anarchists and antifa. The Biden administration, while making greater overtures to the dangers of the far right, has been no less keen to make fallacious “both sides” claims about the threat of far-left extremism.
After January 6, national security experts and liberals urged Biden to take on right-wing extremism through a strategy of counterterrorist law enforcement. I noted at the time that it would be misguided to treat the state’s law enforcement apparatus as an ally in the struggle against white supremacist violence.
Cases like this exemplify how the invocation of domestic counterterrorism efforts against the right will inevitably harm the left, given the state’s reactionary ideological tendencies.
As Branko Marcetic argued in Jacobin after Baker’s arrest, cases like this exemplify how the invocation of domestic counterterrorism efforts against the right will inevitably harm the left, given the state’s reactionary ideological tendencies. The government made much of Baker’s “dangerousness,” citing his ownership of two firearms and the fact that he had placed an order for one more — hardly proof of a planned attack: Gun sales jumped 80 percent nationwide in January following the Capitol riot.
The prosecution focused, too, on Baker’s brief military training. He had joined the U.S. military in his late teens but refused to be deployed overseas. “His conscience prevented him from deploying with people he didn’t trust to uphold human rights in a far off corner of the world,” his friend, Champagne, told me. Baker then received an “other than honorable” discharge, receiving no benefits.
Baker would later choose to use his military and medical training for a cause he believed in. Like dozens of other anarchists, communists, and socialists from around the world, Baker spent his savings to fly to Syria to join the feminist-led, environmentalist, and directly democratic political project in Rojava. There, he fought with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units against ISIS. From his Kurdish comrades, he told me he learned the concept of “welatparazi,” which, he said, “denotes a sentimental feeling of loyalty and obligation of service towards one’s community which shelters and nourishes us.”
The internationalist involvement in Rojava has been compared to the communist International Brigades who fought against Francisco Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War. Despite the fact that the U.S. had backed the very same Kurdish units in their fight against ISIS, Baker’s participation was consistently cited by the government as proof that he poses a terror threat.
At his sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor, a Trump nominee whose appointment was vehemently opposed by a coalition of over 200 civil and human rights groups, said that Baker had intended to commit acts of violence, “like he went to Rojava to do.”
“The government’s case relied heavily on the fact that Dan is anarchist,” Thomson, the civil rights attorney, noted. “There is a long history in this country of police, prosecutors, and courts targeting anarchists for trumped up charges and excessive sentences. This legacy goes back to Haymarket and continues to today, with Dan’s case being the most recent example.”
BAKER DESCRIBED HIS first months held at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee as harrowing. “I was placed in a cell covered in feces and rotated to other tainted cells every three weeks,” he wrote via email. Another man held next to him in the Special Housing Unit — solitary confinement — was severely mentally ill, traumatized, and autistic. “He was soiling himself and throwing his waste all over the cells and out under the door several times a day,” Baker told me, noting that the “crueler guards” would consistently taunt and abuse the man. “I eventually contacted his family with the help of a sympathetic guard,” Baker said.
The quotidian cruelties of prison life abounded. Baker had to plead for weeks to get vegan meals; as a Hare Krishna, he does not eat meat as a point of respect for human and nonhuman life and is lactose intolerant. “It took nine months to get them to stop sending me dairy products,” he said. He’s had equal trouble accessing prayer beads and says his legal mail was opened by prison staff, which is illegal. He has filed a civil suit against the prison and a number of named guards in relation to the alleged violations. The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on Baker’s lawsuit or the conditions of his confinement.
“When you remove one person from that sort of support network, it creates a great burden on the people who are left.”
Baker’s friends in Tallahassee are concerned for his emotional and psychological well-being. Music teacher Desiree Gattis described herself as playing “sisterly/motherly role” to Baker. She met him while he was unhoused and helped him get back on his feet. Gattis, who has helped organize Baker’s legal and financial support, is less interested in his lionization as a political prisoner and would rather he be primarily recognized as a vulnerable person, who has suffered serious trauma from seven months in solitary confinement. She called the government’s treatment of her friend “cruel and absurd.” “This is not a threatening person,” she said.
Gattis said that prior to his imprisonment, Baker helped her “a great deal” with her regular work with the city’s unhoused community. ”When you remove one person from that sort of support network, it creates a great burden on the people who are left,” she said. In a separate conversation, Champagne echoed the same message: “For each person in jail, a community suffers.”
Baker worries that, because of his felony conviction, he “won’t be able to find work or continue to rescue injured people” and that he will face far-right violence after his release and possibly while in prison too. He will be appealing his conviction, but the likely venue — the conservative 11th Circuit Court of Appeals — will not be a welcoming one. In the meantime, he told me that he plans to read and learn more about liberation movements and abolitionist histories.
At the end of our phone call on the day following his sentencing, he hurriedly read off a quote from the philosopher Bertrand Russell, which he had recently come across. “‘Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind,’” he said. “That’s how I feel.”
Opinion: Navalny's struggle goes beyond an anti-corruption crusade
Honored with the top European human rights award, Russia's most famous political prisoner, Alexei Navalny, is fighting to return to Russians their basic political freedoms, writes Konstantin Eggert.
Giving Navalny the Sakharov Prize is a thorn in Putin' side
It is an unpleasant surprise for Russian President Vladimir Putin: his arch-nemesis Alexei Navalny has been awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Many consider it the European equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize.
According to my sources in the European Parliament, the decision to award the €50,000 ($58,000) prize to Navalny did not come about lightly. The main question about Navalny's nomination was whether one can consider what he does to be a struggle for human rights.
Navalny is primarily known as an anti-corruption activist and politician. He ran for the mayor's office in Moscow in 2013, winning 27% of the vote. His attempt to participate in the presidential elections in 2018 was blocked by the Kremlin.
Ultimately, he was selected for the "great courage in his attempts to restore the freedom of choice to the Russian people," the European Parliament's vice-president, Heidi Hautala, said in a statement. It cost him his freedom and nearly his life, she added. On behalf of the parliamentarians, Hautala called for Navalny's immediate and unconditional release from prison. The citation makes it clear: the award aims not only to honor what Navalny did but also to pressure the Kremlin to set him free. Navalny's fight and Russia's fate
DW's Konstantin Eggert
MEPs got it right: Today Russians are devoid of a fundamental right — to freely choose a government that is responsible to the people, transparent in its actions and leaves power when voted out by the citizens. In a sense, it is little use debating whether Russia should be a presidential or parliamentary republic; whether it should have an EU-style hate speech legislation or the US-style bill of rights; whether it should define marriage as a union of one man and one woman or in broader terms, before Russians have the chance to freely elect their own representatives to debate these issues in the legislature.
Navalny's disclosure of massive abuses of power by the Putin regime that went unpunished as well as his history of government-concocted court cases and imprisoning dissidents remind us of another basic right that is lacking in today's Russia — a right to a fair trial, and broadly speaking, to an independent justice system based on laws that do not serve as an instrument of perpetuating authoritarian rule. A constant irritant for Putin
Finally, Navalny's failed poisoning is a stark reminder that even the most basic right — the right to life — can be easily disposed of by the authorities. Thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet system, Russians in some sense are even worse off politically than they were in the last years of existence of the USSR. Navanly's struggle against high-level corruption and his personal life story contradict and subvert Putin's core message of unquestioning obedience and fear of reprisals.
Moreover, EU leaders are obliged to demand Navalny's release even more vigorously than before — something that is going to irritate Putin immensely.
Giving the award to Navalny will effectively put paid to attempts by some extreme left-wing activists in the West to paint him as a steadfast nationalist unworthy of support. The European Parliament has sent a clear message: Navalny's fight is to let Russians decide their fate themselves.
How SpaceX ignited a new Raptor engine on Starship without an explosion
So why don't all rocket engines have giant nozzles?
ERIC BERGER - 10/22/2021, 9:28 AM Enlarge / SpaceX ignites a vacuum-optimized Raptor engine attached to Starship on Thursday, October 21.
SpaceX took another step on Thursday evening toward validating the rocket engine technology that will power its Starship rocket. For the first time, engineers at the company ignited a vacuum version of a Raptor rocket engine that had been attached to the Starship upper stage.
The test-firing at sunset in South Texas lasted only a few seconds. But it appears to have been successful, and it checks another box in a series of technical tests SpaceX must complete before launching Starship on a Super Heavy rocket for an orbital test flight. This may happen sometime in early 2022.
SpaceX has test-fired its Starship vehicle with Raptor engines before, of course. In some prototype test flights, the vehicle has ascended up to about 10 km under the power of up to three Raptor "sea level" engines. But it is quite another thing to test a rocket with a version of Raptor optimized to operate in the vacuum of space.
Expanding nozzles
Rocket engines have many parts, of course, but the largest and most prominent is the nozzle, which channels the flow of exhaust gas. This exhaust originates in the combustion chamber, where oxidizer and propellant combust. This exhaust gas is then pushed through a narrow opening—called a throat—to accelerate it. Now traveling supersonic, the exhaust expands as it enters the nozzle, where, the longer and wider the nozzle is, the faster the exhaust moves.
Faster gas coming out of a rocket engine is good because it delivers more thrust. More thrust means your rocket can lift more mass. An expanded nozzle, therefore, means better performance.
So why don't all rocket engines have giant nozzles? Because of a phenomenon known as "flow separation," which happens when the flow of gas inside an engine separates from the nozzle walls. This can induce turbulence and vibrations. In a worst-case scenario, it could result in the engine blowing itself up. There is no absolute value for when this occurs, but the risk of flow separation increases when the pressure of exhaust exiting the nozzle falls below 50 percent of the ambient pressure.
This isn't a problem in space, where the atmospheric pressure is essentially zero. But at sea level, the larger the nozzle, the greater the risk of flow separation.
The most common way to address this issue is to design a rocket's first stage with engines optimized for performance at sea level and an upper stage with vacuum-optimized engines. The Falcon 9 rocket, for example, has a first stage with nine Merlin engines with smaller nozzles that do all the work in the lower atmosphere and a Merlin-vacuum engine with a much larger nozzle for outer space. Alternative approaches
NASA's space shuttle took a more hybrid approach. Its main engines, which fired throughout its flight profile from launch into orbit, sacrificed performance on both ends. The shuttle ended up with a nozzle as large as possible at sea level—it really pushed the limits on flow separation without going over the edge—but considerably smaller than would be optimal in a vacuum.
SpaceX's Starship upper stage is designed to fly in both thick atmospheres and space. It aims to solve the nozzle-size conundrum by flying with three "sea level" Raptor engines and three "vacuum" Raptor engines. Thursday's test marked the first time one of the vacuum engines was attached to a Starship vehicle and test fired.
The most experienced US upper-stage engine, the RL-10 manufactured by Aerojet Rocketdyne, has a massive expansion ratio, in that its nozzle size is much larger than its throat. So this engine can only be tested on the ground in a large vacuum chamber. SpaceX's test on Thursday took place outside, in South Texas, a few feet above sea level.
So how did SpaceX complete the test firing of the vacuum-optimized engine without destroying it?
In response to this question, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said on Twitter that the company solved the problem by building the Raptor engine to produce a very high chamber pressure. The engine is also not yet fully optimized for a vacuum, so there was enough margin to prevent flow separation from destabilizing it.
This allowed SpaceX to complete its test on Thursday without anything blowing up.
COP26: UK oil and gas facilities found to be 'super emitters' of methane
British oil and gas facilities are responsible for “significant” levels of methane emissions, an investigation by a climate campaign organisation has found.
Climate advocacy group Clean Air Task Force (CATF) said it found some of the largest methane emission events the group has ever witnessed in Europe after visiting more than 200 sites in 12 countries.
The campaign organisation used a methane gas analyser to confirm the presence of high concentrations of methane at some locations and warned some UK sites could be “super emitters”. Methane is the main component of fossil gas and accounts for a quarter of today’s warming.
The report comes as the UK prepares play a critical role in advancing commitments to methane emissions reduction as president and host nation of COP26, which is due to be held in Glasgow in just over a week.
Larkwhistle Farm.
CATF visited a total of seven National Grid gas compressor stations out of a total of 25 nationwide, finding methane emissions at six of the seven stations.
The group also found significant emissions of methane and other toxic gases from 13 of 17 onshore oil wells it visited, with at least ten of these often using highly polluting cold venting techniques.
The organisation said it had recorded “significant plumes” at iGas Energy Larkwhistle Farm oil well, iGas Energy Glentworth 1 oil well, iGas Energy Horndean X and iGas Energy Beckingham 1, as well as “significant venting” from the Perenco Kimmeridge Oil Well on the Jurassic Coast. The Kimmeridge site is the oldest continuously producing oil well in the UK.
Jonathan Banks, international director of super pollutants at CATF, said: “The UK has an opportunity to become a world leader in cutting methane pollution. They have helped spearhead the Global Methane Pledge at COP26 and are making the right noises on tackling the biggest low-hanging fruit in climate policy.
"But these images show that promises must be turned into action as soon as possible. True climate leadership is achieved by actions, not words.”
James Turitto – super pollutants campaign manager at CATF, said: “Considering that cutting methane pollution is our best bet to avoid significant warming in the next 20 years, it's spectacular how much natural gas is being released into the atmosphere. In the middle of a gas crisis, it shows these companies have little regard for either the cost to the climate or costs to British citizens."
A spokeswoman for the UK Government’s Environment Agency said: “We take the environmental risks associated with onshore oil and gas sites very seriously. Oil and gas operators must meet the highest environmental standards which are set out in law.
“Our regulatory controls are in place to protect people and the environment. If the activity poses an unacceptable risk to the environment, the activity will not be permitted.”
Environmental permits require oil and gas operators to minimise emissions to the environment. It is understood that audits of the sites have not identified any major permit non compliance.
The Environment Agency on Friday published a study on approaches to quantifying whole site methane emissions on onshore oil and gas sites.
Discovery of ancient Peruvian burial tombs sheds new light on Wari culture Agence France-Presse October 22, 2021 Undated handout picture released by the Royal Tombs of Sipan Museum of one of the 29 human remains discovered at an ancient ceremonial site in Lambayeque -
MUSEO TUMBAS REALES DE SIPAN/AFP
The skeletons were buried more than 1,000 years ago in Huaca Santa Rosa de Pucala, an ancient ceremonial center in the coastal region of Lambayeque, 750 kilometers to the north of Lima.
The burials of the three children and a teenager at the front of the temple indicated they were human sacrifices from the Wari culture, Edgar Bracamonte, the lead researcher, told AFP.
It is the first time a discovery linked to the Wari civilization has been made this far from their area of influence, said Bracamonte.
"These discoveries allow us to rethink the history of the Lambayeque region, especially the links to Wari and Mochica occupations in the area," said Bracamonte.
The Wari culture flourished in the central Peruvian Andes from the seventh to 13th centuries.
The Huaca Santa Rosa de Pucala enclosure, in the form of the letter 'D', was built between 800 and 900 AD.
"We found a ceremonial temple with 29 human remains, 25 belonging to the Mohica era and four to the Wari culture," said Bracamonte.
The Mochica, or Moche, culture developed from 100 to 700 AD on the northern Peruvian coast.
The 25 Mochica remains were found in clay tombs and burial chambers in a temple. Researchers also found pieces of pottery and the remains of camelids -- such as llamas and alpacas -- and guinea pigs.
One of the most significant discoveries related to the Mochica culture was in 2006 with the unearthing of the fifth century Lady of Cao mummy, that showed the civilization included female leaders.
The 1987 discovery of another mummy, the third century Lord of Sipan, is considered by experts one of the most significant archeological discoveries in the last few decades, as the main tomb was found intact and untouched by thieves.
