THE CANADA AFFAIR UPDATE
The Saudi Crown Prince Allegedly Kidnapped These Siblings And Tried To Kill Their Dad

Two weeks after the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi crown prince allegedly sent a death squad to Canada, targeting a former Saudi intelligence official, according to a new lawsuit.

Emerson Malone BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on August 7, 2020,


Courtesy of the Aljabri family
Omar and Sarah Aljabri.

A team of 50 armed men, dressed in plainclothes and driving unmarked cars, arrived early in the morning on March 16 at the home in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where Omar and Sarah Aljabri lived.

They were looking for the two siblings, now 22 and 20, respectively. The men "roused [Omar and Sarah] from their beds in the early morning hours and ‘disappeared’ them," according to a lawsuit.

“It’s now almost five months from their disappearance and there’s not a single sign,” their brother Khalid Aljabri told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview Friday from Canada. “You really come down to the basic question at this point: Are they alive or dead?”
The siblings’ father, Saad Aljabri, filed a lawsuit in DC federal court on Thursday against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and other top Saudi officials, alleging that the powerful royal is trying to kill him because of his knowledge about the Saudi regime. Other family members have been kidnapped and tortured to leverage Aljabri’s return to the country, the lawsuit says, including his brother and nephew.

Saad, an ex-official who was ousted from the Saudi government in September 2015, hasn’t seen them since, and the pain is taking a physical toll on his health. "Dr. Saad was and remains tormented by what is happening to his young son and daughter,” reads the lawsuit.

Officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.


Courtesy of the Aljabri family

Aljabri had worked in the Saudi government since 1976 and was a longtime adviser to the crown prince's predecessor, Mohammad bin Nayef, until his ouster in June 2017, when MBS assumed the role. Aljabri served as a state minister for King Salman and was integral to the country’s counterterrorism intelligence.

In July 2015, Aljabri met with former CIA director John Brennan and reportedly told him that Crown Prince Mohammed was encouraging Russia’s involvement in the Syrian civil war. The crown prince removed Aljabri from his post that September.

Decades of experience in the Saudi government provided Aljabri with knowledge of the crown prince's "covert political scheming," "corrupt business dealings," and the formation of the hit squad that killed Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the legal complaint states. (Western intelligence agencies have said MBS ordered Khasoggi's death, but the crown prince has insisted he had no knowledge).

"Few places hold more sensitive, humiliating, and damning information about [the crown prince] than the mind and memory of Dr. Saad—except perhaps the recordings Dr. Saad made in anticipation of his killing," the lawsuit states.


Andrew Caballero-reynolds / Getty Images
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shakes hands with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Feb. 20.

Saad Aljabri alleges that in 2018, just two weeks after Khashoggi’s death, MBS sent a hit squad, or “tiger squad,” to Canada, where he has been living in exile, to kill him. But they were blocked from entering the country by Canada border agents.
This wasn’t the first time the crown prince had allegedly targeted his children; on the first day Mohammed bin Salman was appointed, on June 21, 2017, he enacted a travel ban that prevented Sarah and Omar (then 17 and 18) from flying from Saudi Arabia to Boston. Border security stopped the siblings. The crown prince ignored Aljabri's WhatsApp messages in which he pleaded to let his children go, the lawsuit says.

“This is how we found out: a FaceTime call from Sarah in the airport, crying,” recalled Khalid. “This is a young girl who’s 17 who was ecstatic when she got her student visa, looking forward to life in Boston, and then security officers at the airport tell them, ‘You can’t travel.’ She was crying, she couldn’t understand.”


Courtesy of the Aljabri family
Khalid and Omar Aljabri

According to the #SaveJabris website, which was established to publicize their disappearance, Sarah is an architectural engineering student who was kidnapped a few days after her 20th birthday. Omar is a 22-year-old computer science student at Prince Sultan University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, who regularly helped organize events at the school.

Sarah and Omar had been accepted and were paying tuition at the International Baccalaureate Program at the British International School and the Suffolk University, respectively, both in Boston, the complaint says, and both schools had contacted US immigration authorities about their absences.

Three months later, in September, Saad Aljabri asked the crown prince to let his children go. The crown prince allegedly responded that if he didn’t return to the Saudi kingdom, he would be targeted and killed.

Omar’s and Sarah’s whereabouts are still unknown. A tracker on the #SaveJabris site notes that it’s been more than 140 days since the alleged abduction.

“At the center of this story, there’s a couple of innocent people, like, sweethearts — they have nothing to do with any political intrigue or any state secrets or whatever the Saudis are trying to spin,” said Khalid. “They are a couple of children. Sarah should be back in my mother’s arms and Omar should be back with my dad, teasing and arguing with him.”

Emerson Malone is a copy editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles.

THE POST MODERN OLD WEST

Thousands of bikers heading to South Dakota rally to be blocked at tribal land checkpoints

Clampdown comes as fears mount that mask-free bikers headed to large gathering could spread coronavirus to tribal groups

Motorcyclists drive down Main Street during the 80th Sturgis Motorcycle Rally on Friday in Sturgis, South Dakota. Photograph: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

Thousands of bikers heading to South Dakota’s 10-day Sturgis Motorcycle Rally will not be allowed through Cheyenne River Sioux checkpoints, a spokesman for the Native American group said on Saturday.

The decision to prevent access across tribal lands to the annual rally, which could attract as many as 250,000 bikers amid fears it could lead to a massive, regional coronavirus outbreak, comes as part of larger Covid-19 prevention policy. The policy has pitted seven tribes that make up the Great Sioux Nation against federal and state authorities, which both claim the checkpoints are illegal.


'It's just madness': bikers throng South Dakota town despite Covid threat
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A duty officer for the Cheyenne River Sioux told the Guardian on Saturday that only commercial and emergency vehicles will be let through the checkpoints onto reservation land.

A number of bikers had tried to enter but had been turned back, they said. Other reservations in the region, including the Oglala Sioux, were also turning away bikers that had attempted routes to Sturgis that pass through sovereign land.

Under Cheyenne River tribal guidelines non-residents driving non-commercial out-of-state vehicles are never allowed through the reservation. During the rally, non-commercial vehicles with South Dakota plates are also not allowed through.

The clampdown comes as fears mount that mask-free bikers visiting Sturgis for the largest gathering of people since the start of the Covid-19 epidemic could spread the virus to tribal groups that are already experiencing a rise in cases.

Oglala Sioux recorded 163 cases last week, while the Cheyenne River Sioux has seen cases rise to 79, according to the tribe’s website.

The restrictions come as local law enforcement reported a convergence of bikers from all directions. According to reports, many bikers heading for Sturgis expressed defiance at rules and restrictions that have marked life during the coronavirus pandemic.

While South Dakota has fared better than most states – it ranks 38th in Covid deaths per capita, according to a Reuters tally – cases have risen in recent weeks as hotspots move into the midwest.

During the rally, people are expected to cram bars and pack concerts with at least 34 acts playing. “Screw COVID,” read the design on one T-shirt on sale. “I went to Sturgis.”

I trusted my people, they trusted me, and South Dakota is in a good spot in our fight against COVID-19.

The #Sturgis motorcycle rally starts this weekend, and we're excited for visitors to see what our great state has to offer! https://t.co/UiHvaYviqa— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) August 6, 2020

Stephen Sample, who rode his Harley-Davidson from Arizona, told the Associated Press that the event was a break from the routine of the last several months.

“I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to be cooped up all my life either,” Sample, 66, said, adding that he had weighed the risks of navigating the crowds, but the same thrill-seeking that attracted him to riding motorcycles seemed to win out.

“I think we’re all willing to take a chance,” he said, but acknowledged the trip “could be a major mistake.”

South Dakota’s Republican governor, Kristi Noem, has supported holding the Sturgis rally, pointing out that no virus outbreak was documented from the several thousand people who turned out to see Donald Trump at Mount Rushmore last month.

The rally is marking its 80th anniversary and typically injects $800m into South Dakota’s economy. Meade county sheriff, Rob Merwin, said: “It’s going to be a lot of people and a lot of motorcycles all over the place. People are tired of being penned up by this pandemic.”


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On Friday, a worker at the event told the Guardian crowds seemed larger than in previous years and warned that Sturgis attendees were paying little heed to medical advice.

“I’ve not seen one single person wearing a mask,” said bartender Jessica Christian, 29. “It’s just pretty much the mentality that, ‘If I get it, I get it.’”

“In downtown Sturgis it’s just madness,” Christian added. “People not socially distancing, everybody touching each other. It’ll be interesting to see how that turns out.”

Over 60% of Sturgis 6,900 residents who responded to a city council survey in May said they wanted the rally canceled.

A month later, the council voted to move ahead, although it canceled all city-sponsored events associated with the rally and included measures such as hand-sanitizing stations. Sturgis mayor Mark Carstensen said throughout the pandemic, “the state of South Dakota has been the freedom state and the city of Sturgis has stayed true to that”.

Rogue cops surveilled her. Now this  FORMER NDP ENVIRONMENT MINISTER (Alberta) politician wants them fired

By Alex Boyd Calgary Bureau
Fri., Aug. 7, 202

A former Alberta environment minister who was photographed and surveilled by Lethbridge police officers who didn’t like her politics is appealing the disciplinary decision that saw them demoted but not fired.Sgt. Jason Carrier and Const. Keon Woronuk were demoted last month after a hearing found each of them guilty of multiple counts of misconduct following a 2017 incident that New Democrat MLA Shannon Phillips later called the “stuff of police states.”

It was revealed that when Carrier and Woronuk spotted Phillips, then the environment minister, at the Chef Stella Diner in the southern Alberta city, the on-duty officers took photos of her —some of which they later posted to Facebook.


Carrier then watched Phillips leave the cafe, while Woronuk set up to surveil the group she was with, and even followed one of the diners and ran the car’s plates before losing it at a red light.

The notice of appeal, sent by Phillips’ lawyer, Michael Bates, to the Law Enforcement Review Board this week, argues the decision, which saw Carrier demoted for one year, and Woronuk for two, “fail(ed) to recognize the severity” of the two officers’ actions.


It also argues that targeting a cabinet minister for “personal political reasons,” should be enough to prove that neither is fit to continue as a police officer.

“I think public confidence in law enforcement was severely shaken in Lethbridge, and in fact across the province with the revelations of what happened,” Phillips told the Star on Friday.


“I also think the public had a lot of questions about whether justice was seen to be done in this instance.”

The disciplinary decision paints both officers as outdoors enthusiasts who disagreed with Phillips’ plans for the nearby Castle wilderness area, and feared new protections would restrict their use of the land, including use of ATVs, or all-terrain vehicles.

The decision also says Carrier claims he overheard the group discussing the plan, though Phillips has maintained that they were at the cafe talking about bison reintroduction in a different part of the province.

While the Lethbridge police department declined to comment on the appeal, when the officers’ actions were made public in mid-July Lethbridge Police Chief Scott Woods released a statement in which he said the two officers had been held accountable.

“The actions for which these officers — Sgt. Jason Carrier and Cst. Keon Woronuk — were disciplined cannot be excused. The fact that they admitted to the charges of misconduct indicates that they acknowledge this reality,” he wrote.

An investigation first began when Phillips was made aware of the photos on Facebook and made a complaint under the Police Act, prompting a probe by the Calgary Police Service.

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While Woronouk initially “omitted” to mention that he’d run a licence plate without reason, when that was discovered it sparked a second, separate investigation by police in Medicine Hat.

The appeal notes that appeals usually have to be submitted 30 days after a decision, but Phillips and her lawyer argue that because Phillips wasn’t even aware the second investigation was happening, she should still be able to appeal.

Phillips added she’s heard from many people, both in Lethbridge and across the country, who have questioned whether the punishment matched the offence, and said it only makes sense for the Law Enforcement Review Board to have another look.

“I’ve been living with this for three years,” she said. “This is the type of thing that had has been tolerated in this city for a long time. And as sad as it is, I’m used to it.”

Alex Boyd is a Calgary-based reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @alex.n.boyd

UPDATES
Canada's last fully intact ice shelf has suddenly collapsed, forming a Manhattan-sized iceberg

The Milne ice shelf. Jérémie Bonneau/Carleton University

Almost half of Canada's last remaining intact ice shelf has suddenly collapsed into the ocean.

Satellite images show that it formed two icebergs, one of which is almost the size of Manhattan.

The collapse comes amid a summer that's seen hotter-than-average temperatures, which scientists say is a result of climate change.

A research camp was lost in the collapse.

A massive chunk of Canada's last fully intact ice shelf, some 4,000 years old, has broken off, reducing the shelf by more than half, scientists reported last Sunday. After separating from the shelf, the piece split in two, forming an iceberg almost the size of Manhattan.

Climate change likely fueled the collapse of the shelf, researchers said. This summer, the region's temperature was 9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 1980 to 2010 average, Luke Copland, a glaciology professor at the University of Ottawa, told the Associated Press.

"Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds, and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up," the Canadian Ice Service said on Twitter.

A research camp was lost when the shelf broke apart, as was the northern hemisphere's last known epishelf, a kind of freshwater lake, flanked by ice, that sits on top of ocean water.

Ice researcher Adrienne White takes a photo of fractures in the shelf. Luke Copland

'Entire cities are that size'

Located on the northwestern edge of Ellesmere Island, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, the Milne ice shelf likely collapsed on July 30 or 31, according to ice analyst Adrienne White of the Canadian Ice Service. Satellite imagery shows that about 43% of the shelf broke off, forming pieces that were up to 260 feet thick.

"Entire cities are that size," Copland told Reuters. "This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it's disintegrated, basically."

Unlike glaciers, which sit atop land, ice shelves float in the ocean. They're typically hundreds to thousands of years old and thicker than sea ice. Before the Milne ice shelf broke apart, it was larger than DC.

Temperatures rise faster in the Arctic

The Arctic is warming much faster than the rest of the world, a phenomenon known as polar amplification, and those hot temperatures are causing ice to melt. Today, for example, polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s.

In Canada, there used to be a continuous ice shelf spanning the northern coast of Ellesmere, but human-made warming has caused it to break apart, White said. By 2005, Milne was "really the last complete ice shelf," she told the Associated Press.

While scientists considered Milne to be less vulnerable to collapse, as it's protected in the Milne Fiord, the shelf has sustained cracks over the years.

As Record Arctic Heat Continues, Canada’s Last Intact Ice Shelf Collapses

The Milne Ice Shelf in Canada lost nearly 40 percent of its ice over a two-day period in late July. ECCC CANADIAN ICE SERVICE

Canada’s last fully intact ice shelf in the Arctic has collapsed, shrinking by about 80 square kilometers, or 40 percent of its area, over just two days at the end of July, according to scientists at the Canadian Ice Service. The breakup of the ice was driven by record-setting temperatures in the region, which have measured 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 30-year average this summer.

“Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf, located on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, told Reuters. “This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it’s disintegrated, basically.”

A research camp was lost in the collapse of the ice shelf. So was the northern hemisphere’s last known epishelf lake, a freshwater lake damned by ice that floats atop salty ocean water. In addition, two of Canada’s ice caps, located on the Hazen Plateau in St. Patrick Bay, disappeared completely this summer, two years earlier than scientists predicted, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

“When I first visited those ice caps, they seemed like such a permanent fixture of the landscape,” Mark Serreze, director of NSIDC and a geographer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said in a statement. “To watch them die in less than 40 years just blows me away.”

The Arctic has warmed at a rate twice the global average in recent decades, but scientists say this summer has been even more extreme. In July, Arctic sea ice hit its lowest recorded extent. And the Russian Arctic has experienced record heat and wildfires, with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees F in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk in late June.

Satellite animation, from July 30 to August 4, shows the collapse of the last fully intact #iceshelf in #Canada. 
The Milne Ice Shelf, located on #EllesmereIsland in #Nunavut, has now reduced in area by ~43%. #MilneIceIsland #seaice #Arctic #earthrightnow #glacier pic.twitter.com/jjs1gawoxA— ECCC Canadian Ice Service (@ECCC_CIS) August 4, 2020


Canadian ice shelf area bigger than Manhattan collapses due to rising temperatures

Last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic lost more than 40% of its areas in two days at the end of July

Glaciers on Canada’s Ellesmere Island on 1 April 2014. Photograph: Handout/Nasa
Reuters

Fri 7 Aug 2020

The last fully intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed, losing more than 40% of its area in just two days at the end of July.

The Milne Ice Shelf is at the fringe of Ellesmere Island, in the sparsely populated northern Canadian territory of Nunavut.

“Above normal air temperatures, offshore winds and open water in front of the ice shelf are all part of the recipe for ice shelf break up,” the Canadian Ice Service said in a tweet earlier this week.


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“Entire cities are that size. These are big pieces of ice,” said Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf.

The shelf’s area shrank by about 80 sq km. By comparison, the island of Manhattan in New York covers roughly 60 sq km.

“This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it’s disintegrated, basically,” Copland said.

The Arctic has been warming at twice the global rate for the last 30 years, due to a process known as Arctic amplification. But this year, temperatures in the polar region have been intense. The polar sea ice hit its lowest extent for July in 40 years. Record heat and wildfires have scorched Siberian Russia.

Summer in the Canadian Arctic this year in particular has been 5C above the 30-year average, Copland said.

That has threatened smaller ice caps, which can melt quickly because they do not have the bulk that larger glaciers have to stay cold. As a glacier disappears, more bedrock is exposed, which then heats up and accelerates the melting process.

“The very small ones, we’re losing them dramatically,” he said, citing researchers’ reviews of satellite imagery. “You feel like you’re on a sinking island chasing these features, and these are large features. It’s not as if it’s a little tiny patch of ice you find in your garden.“

The ice shelf collapse on Ellesmere Island also meant the loss of the northern hemisphere’s last known epishelf lake, a geographic feature in which a body of freshwater is dammed by the ice shelf and floats atop ocean water.

A research camp, including instruments for measuring water flow through the ice shelf, was lost when the shelf collapsed. “It is lucky we were not on the ice shelf when this happened,” said researcher Derek Mueller of Carleton University in Ottawa, in a 2 August blogpost.

Ellesmere also lost its two St Patrick Bay ice caps this summer.

“We saw them going, like someone with terminal cancer. It was only a matter of time,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

The vanishing was confirmed last month, when Nasa satellite shots of the region revealed a complete lack of snow and ice, said Serreze, who studied the caps as a graduate student on his first trip to the Arctic years ago. At the time, he said, the caps had seemed like immovable parts of the geography.

“When I was there in the 1980s I knew every square inch of those ice caps,” he said. “You have the memories. It’s like your first girlfriend.“

Meanwhile, another two ice caps on Ellesmere – called Murray and Simmons – are also diminishing and are likely to disappear within 10 years, Serreze said.

Collapse of Nunavut ice shelf ‘like losing a good friend,’ glaciologist says

LK By Lauren Krugel The Canadian Press Fri., Aug. 7, 2020

A team of scientists placed research instruments into the Milne Ice Shelf in Nunavut last July, with plans to return to collect them this summer and study how the stability of the structure had changed.

The COVID-19 pandemic put that trip on hold. Then a week ago, the last remaining intact ice shelf in the Canadian arctic broke apart.

“And so we’ve lost not only the equipment, which is now drifting away in the Arctic Ocean, but also the information that it recorded over the time that it was out,” Carleton University glaciologist Derek Mueller said Friday.

The Canadian Ice Service said the ice shelf on the northwestern edge of Ellesmere Island has shrunk 43 per cent to 106 square kilometres from 187 square kilometres.

The calving event, captured by satellite, was not a surprise, Mueller said.

The ice shelf sits in a fjord sheltered by tall cliffs, so it had not melted as quickly as others.

While it managed to stay together until last week, Mueller said he had observed worsening cracks and rifts since he first started studying the area in 2004.

“It certainly has been changing — there’s no doubt. And, to me, it wasn’t really a question of if this breakup would happen. It was a question of when it would happen,” Mueller said.

“But still it hits home. It’s sort of like losing a good friend in a way.”

The ice shelf collapse also set adrift research into marine organisms, such as sponges and sea anemones, discovered in water pockets within the ice.

“We’re not sure what these consequences are for these animals. And certainly they won’t be where we were studying them, because that piece has drifted away from the shore,” Mueller said.

“If we find these kinds of animals again, I think it will be a stroke of luck.”

At the turn of the 20th century, 8,600 square kilometres of ice stretched along the northern coast of Ellesmere Island. By 2000, it was reduced to 1,000 and now it’s half that, Mueller said.

University of Ottawa glaciologist Luke Copland said in a news release that the temperature has been up to 5 C warmer this summer than the average between 1981 and 2010.

The region has been warming at two to three times the global rate, he added.

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“This drastic decline in ice shelves is clearly related to climate change,” Copland said.

“The Milne and other ice shelves in Canada are simply not viable any longer and will disappear in the coming decades.”


Mueller said the ice shelf collapse should be a wake-up call.

“These ice shelves are well out of balance with the climate and I think their demise is inevitable,” he said.

“But, having said that, it’s not too late to make changes to the way we live and our carbon footprint.”

Collapsed Arctic ice shelf adds 'exclamation point' to dire climate trends, say scientists

There are signs that Arctic ice may become unstable earlier than predicted

Hannah Paulson · CBC News · Posted: Aug 07, 2020

The last intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has collapsed. The Milne ice shelf, which is situated in the Tuvaijuittuq marine protected area, is now adrift. (Adrienne White)

In 2017, scientist Mark Serreze predicted the St. Patrick's Bay ice caps, located on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut, would vanish within five years.

But their "official death" came two years earlier than expected and was set in stone this August, said Serreze.

The culprit is climate change.

The loss of the two Canadian ice caps is a warning that "everything is changing up there," said Serreze.

The Arctic is experiencing the effects of a warming climate faster than any other part of Canada and these findings add an "exclamation point" to current trends, he said.

The High Arctic island is partially surrounded by the Tuvaijuittuq marine protected area, which translates to "the place where the ice never melts" in Inuktitut.

The area is projected to be the last portion of the Arctic Ocean to maintain year-round ice — until 2050, that is, by which time the oldest and strongest ice in the Arctic is expected to melt.

But there are signs that the ice may become unstable earlier than predicted.

Recent reports have shown that the last intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic has also collapsed.

The Milne ice shelf, which is situated in Tuvaijuittuq is now adrift.

These findings suggest that "the Milne and other ice shelves in Canada are simply not viable any longer and will disappear in the coming decades," said Luke Copland, glaciology research chair at the University of Ottawa, in a press release.

This may also mark a "devastating" loss of unique, biodiverse ecosystems.

A map showing the location of the Milne ice shelf on Ellesmere Island in Canada's High Arctic. (CBC)
'I knew them as friends'

Serreze co-authored the report that predicted the final days of the two ice caps on Hazen Plateau a few years ago.

"I knew every square inch of these ice caps," he said. "I knew them as friends too, you know, and now they're gone.... It's like losing an old friend."

Ice caps will often shrink during the summer then recover as winter approaches.

However, Serreze said that recovery is not possible in this case, "because we're not cooling down again."

"We're in control of the climate now. Basically, we've taken on the reins.... So unless we as a people and as a society get a handle on this ... there's no way these things are ever going to come back," Serreze said.

The Arctic is "locked in" for a temperature rise twice to three times the global average, according to a 2019 United Nations report.

As temperatures continue to rise, more ice will be lost.

"In many ways, [residents of the Arctic] have the least to do with what brought us to right now," yet they are bearing the greatest burden of these changes, said Serreze.

A Milne ice shelf research camp as seen in 2018. (Jeremie Bonneau)
A 'devastating' loss of ecosystems

Recently, scientists uncovered a channel on the Milne ice sheet that was home to "a truly unique ecosystem of bottom-dwelling animals — scallops, sea anemones and so forth," said Derek Mueller, a professor at Carleton University.

The discovery was "phenomenal," but is now threatened.

"Our team was on the cusp of further documenting this unique environment, which may well have disappeared as a result of this collapse," Mueller said.

The habitat adapted in a "remarkable" environment that relies on a careful balance of ice and water.

But unfortunately, it's a "one way trip" with climate change, says Andrew Hamilton, a research fellow at the University of Alberta.

"These ice shelves are not going to regenerate anytime soon. So, these are ecosystems that are lost basically for good now," Hamilton said.

Two researchers walking along the Milne Ice Shelf. (Jeremie Bonneau)
Adapting to the new Arctic

Hamilton described a journey he took in 2018 to the Milne ice sheet as challenging, but surreal.

"It's very smooth undulating hills on this ice shelf ... and you're riding a snowmobile, so it's kind of like a very smooth slow going roller coaster over the hills and valleys on the ice shelf," he said.

The experience motivated him to conduct research in the area and spurred a passion to reduce the impact of climate change so the ice features he admired would remain.

The rapid pace of climate change in the Arctic causes concern about how communities are able to adapt. Inuit in particular have an interconnected relationship with the environment and rely on ice cover.

In the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) climate change strategy, president Natan Obed said "for us, ice is a fundamental source of learning, memories, knowledge and wisdom."

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Being able to better understand and foresee some of the changes occurring is key to adapting, said Hamilton.

However, the pandemic demonstrated "the dire need for more community-led research in the North," Hamilton says.

Hamilton's work is also trying to support training and skill development so community members can take the lead on research questions that are most important to them and their communities.

"There's no one more motivated to understand what's happening in the Arctic than communities that are right at the forefront of these changes," Hamilton said.

UH OH

Canada's last intact ice shelf collapses due to warming

Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer  Friday, August 7, 2020

Much of Canada's remaining intact ice shelf has broken apart into hulking iceberg islands thanks to a hot summer and global warming, scientists said.

Canada's 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf on the northwestern edge of Ellesmere Island had been the country's last intact ice shelf until the end of July when ice analyst Adrienne White of the Canadian Ice Service noticed that satellite photos showed that about 43% of it had broken off. She said it happened around July 30 or 31.

Two giant icebergs formed along with lots of smaller ones, and they have already started drifting away, White said. The biggest is nearly the size of Manhattan — 21 square miles (55 square kilometers) and 7 miles long (11.5 kilometers). They are 230 to 260 feet (70 to 80 meters) thick.“This is a huge, huge block of ice,” White said. “If one of these is moving toward an oil rig, there's nothing you can really do aside from move your oil rig.”

The 72-square mile (187 square kilometer) undulating white ice shelf of ridges and troughs dotted with blue meltwater had been larger than the District of Columbia but now is down to 41 square miles (106 square kilometers).

Temperatures from May to early August in the region have been 9 degrees (5 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 1980 to 2010 average, University of Ottawa glaciology professor Luke Copland said. This is on top of an Arctic that already had been warming much faster than the rest of globe, with this region warming even faster.

“Without a doubt, it's climate change,” Copland said, noting the ice shelf is melting from both hotter air above and warmer water below.

“The Milne was very special,” he added. “It's an amazingly pretty location.”

Ice shelves are hundreds to thousands of years old, thicker than long-term sea ice, but not as big and old as glaciers, Copland said.

Canada used to have a large continuous ice shelf across the northern coast of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, but it has been breaking apart over the last decades because of man-made global warming, White said. By 2005 it was down to six remaining ice shelves but “the Milne was really the last complete ice shelf,” she said.

“There aren't very many ice shelves around the Arctic anymore,” Copland said. “It seems we've lost pretty much all of them from northern Greenland and the Russian Arctic. There may be a few in a few protected fjords.”
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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/Climate

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears .

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TikTok Is “Shocked” By Trump’s Order Threatening To Ban It And Will Fight Back

“We will pursue all remedies available to us in order to ensure that the rule of law is not discarded.”

Pranav Dixit BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on August 7, 2020


TikTok has slammed President Donald Trump’s executive order — which bans the app in the US unless it is bought by an American company — as “undermining the rule of law.”

“We are shocked by the recent Executive Order, which was issued without any due process,” the company wrote in a statement early Friday morning. “For nearly a year, we have sought to engage with the US government in good faith to provide a constructive solution to the concerns that have been expressed. What we encountered instead was that the Administration paid no attention to facts, dictated terms of an agreement without going through standard legal processes, and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses.”


Trump’s order, issued on Thursday night, bars anyone “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” from carrying out transactions with ByteDance, TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company. The order says TikTok “automatically” captures “vast swathes of information from its users,” and could be used by China’s authoritarian government to influence Americans and compromise their privacy.

The order also says TikTok “reportedly censors” content about the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighur Muslims, as well as “sensitive” videos showing protests. “[TikTok] may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus,” the order says.

TikTok disputed these claims in its statement, saying that they rely on “unnamed ‘reports’ with no citations” or “substantiation.” The company also said that it does not share data with the Chinese government.

“This Executive Order risks undermining global businesses' trust in the United States' commitment to the rule of law, which has served as a magnet for investment and spurred decades of American economic growth,” TikTok said. “And it sets a dangerous precedent for the concept of free expression and open markets. We will pursue all remedies available to us in order to ensure that the rule of law is not discarded and that our company and our users are treated fairly – if not by the Administration, then by the US courts.”

TikTok has been under global scrutiny for its links to China. Last week, Trump said the United States would ban the app citing national security concerns around ByteDance.

Since then, the president has changed his mind and said TikTok would be allowed to function in the US as long as an American company bought its operations in the country, and as long as the United States received a “substantial portion” of the sale price.

Earlier this week, tech giant Microsoft confirmed in a blog post that it was in talks to buy TikTok and would close negotiations by Sept. 15.


MORE ON THIS
Trump Just Declared TikTok A "National Emergency" And Has Threatened To Ban It

Jason Wells · Aug. 7, 2020

Trump Said He Plans To Ban TikTok From The US

Jason Wells · Aug. 1, 2020

Mike Pompeo Said The US Is Considering Banning TikTok

Pranav Dixit · July 7, 2020

Mark Zuckerberg Says A Ban On TikTok Would Set “A Really Bad Long-Term Precedent”

Ryan Mac · Aug. 6, 2020

India Just Banned TikTok

Scott Lucas · June 29, 2020


Pranav Dixit is a tech reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Delhi.

Enigma ORIGINAL ENIGMA VOICES performing "Return To Innocence" live in Israel. Throughout 2019 and into 2020, three former vocalists for Enigma (Andru Donalds, Angel X, and Fox Lima) embarked on a world tour under the name Original Enigma Voices. This marks the first time Enigma's music has ever been performed live. https://www.originalenigmavoices.com/

1:12 / 29:52

Original ENIGMA Voices, Budapest 2019. Ap

Enigma - Krakow 2019 03 29 cd...

29,252 views

•Mar 31, 2019

'I'm too old to find a new career': More than half of Americans fear job losses

Jessica Menton, USA TODAY•August 8, 2020

Denise Tindall has spent nearly three decades driving children to school. But this fall will be different.

Tindall, 58, was a school bus driver with a private contractor in the Shelby County School District in Memphis, Tennessee, where fall classes are set to begin online. When schools shuttered in April, she filed for unemployment . But she hasn’t received a dime yet, she says.

“I’m barely making it,” says Tindall, whose brother and daughter have been giving her money to cover more than $1,000 in monthly bills including rent, utilities and phone costs. “If it weren't for my family, I’d be homeless.”

Tindall is concerned about her future since she won’t be able to return to work for the foreseeable future.

“I’m too old to find a new career. I’m about to give up,” Tindall says. “I don’t have anything saved for retirement. My bank account is negative for the first time.”

'Insulin or groceries': How reduced unemployment affects struggling Americans from California to Mississippi

COVID: Millennials, Gen Zers say pandemic has derailed their financial independence

The stock market has done an about-face and is back near record highs after a coronavirus-fueled sell-off in March. But millions of Americans are still reeling following a wave of layoffs and financial losses stemming from the pandemic.

Through the end of July, more than 25 million out-of-work Americans could count on receiving a weekly federal $600 emergency income boost. But that expired. Now, about 82% of Americans believe the expiration of the $600 unemployment bonus will have an adverse effect on the U.S. economy, and more than two-thirds think economic growth will be much worse in the months to come, according to a Harris Poll survey conducted July 31 to Aug. 2. The data was given exclusively to USA TODAY.

“It’s clear that the unemployment benefits are a lifeline for Americans and the economy,” says John Gerzema, CEO of The Harris Poll. “If they don't get relief, Americans see this as a tipping point that could spell more trouble for their personal finances.”

The pessimism comes even as the U.S. added 1.8 million jobs in July. Payroll growth slowed amid a split-screen economy that saw employers stepping up hiring in parts of the country that continued to let businesses reopen, even as COVID-19 spikes forced Sunbelt firms to pull back and lay off workers.

The unemployment rate fell to 10.2% from 11.1% in June, the Labor Department said Friday.

In July, permanent job losses were little changed at 2.9 million, a positive sign following four consecutive months of increases. But total U.S. payrolls are still 13 million below the pre-pandemic level.

“Does today’s number imply economic conditions are significantly improved? No," Seema Shah, chief strategist at investment advisory firm Principal Global Investors, said in a note Friday. "It simply suggests the labor market was static in July, showing no signs of renewed weakness that the increase in COVID-19 cases had threatened,”

To be sure, about 1.2 million people in the final week of July filed initial applications for unemployment insurance – a rough measure of layoffs – the Labor Department said Thursday, down substantially from 1.4 million the previous week and the lowest level since March. But the week's total is still historically large.
Trump threatens to take executive action

Angst among unemployed Americans has grown as Republicans and Democrats continue to spar over what would be a fifth round of emergency stimulus funding to help counter the effects of the pandemic. Policymakers are seeking a compromise between Democrats' $3 trillion proposal and a $1 trillion Republican recommendation.

Republicans and Democrats remain far apart on many issues at the heart of the next package, one of the biggest being the $600 boost to unemployment, which Democrats want to extend until at least January. But Republicans argue it's too high and disincentivizes Americans to go back to work.

Republicans offered to cut the benefit to $200. The bonus bolsters state benefits that average about $370 a week nationally.

President Donald Trump has split with some of his GOP allies and softened his opposition to an extension of the $600 boost, threatening to take executive action if a deal isn't reached with Democrats on a new relief package.

“We're negotiating right now … and we'll see how that works out,” Trump said Wednesday during a press conference. “My administration is exploring executive actions to provide protections against eviction. Eviction's a big problem, very unfair to a lot of people … as well as additional relief to those who are unemployed as a result of the virus.”
Job insecurity remains

About 54% of Americans fear they may lose their job due to the coronavirus outbreak, Harris Poll data shows. Overall, nearly half expect their personal finances to be generally worse off in the coming months.

“There are two economies in the pandemic,”Gerzema says. “In general, older, wealthy Americans who are white are typically more confident that they’ll prosper. But the ones really feeling the pain are younger, lower income Americans and minorities.”

There’s been a shift in priorities and personal finances for Americans, who are twice as likely to prefer cleaning and sanitizing their home (50%) than to review personal finances and investments, such as a 401(k) retirement savings account (25%), according to a recent report from Voya Financial, a retirement and insurance plan provider.

The labor-market recovery has reached a critical juncture, economists say, with millions of workers at risk of prolonged unemployment just as the emergency unemployment benefits expire.

“Further labor market progress will require a forceful and immediate policy response across the country to contain the health crisis and avoid looming fiscal cliffs,” Lydia Boussour, senior U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, said in a note.

Contributing: Paul Davidson

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Unemployment benefits: More than half of Americans fear job losses