Study links air pollution to nearly 6 million preterm births around the world

Data on indoor and outdoor pollution comes from all inhabited continents

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO

Air pollution likely contributed to almost 6 million premature births and almost 3 million underweight babies in 2019, according to a UC San Francisco and University of Washington global burden of disease study and meta-analysis that quantifies the effects of indoor and outdoor pollution around the world.  

The analysis, published September 28, 2021, in PLOS Medicine, is the most in-depth look yet at how air pollution affects several key indicators of pregnancy, including gestational age at birth, reduction in birth weight, low birth weight, and preterm birth. And it is the first global burden of disease study of these indicators to include the effects of indoor air pollution, mostly from cook stoves, which accounted for two-thirds of the measured effects.

A growing body of evidence points to air pollution as a major cause of preterm birth and low birthweight. Preterm birth is the leading cause of neonatal mortality worldwide, affecting more than 15 million infants every year. Children with low birthweight or who are born premature have higher rates of major illness throughout their lives.  

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 90 percent of the world’s population lives with polluted outdoor air, and half the global population is also exposed to indoor air pollution from burning coal, dung and wood inside the home.  

“The air pollution-attributable burden is enormous, yet with sufficient effort, it could be largely mitigated,” said lead author Rakesh Ghosh, PhD, a prevention and public health specialist at the Institute for Global Health Sciences at UCSF.

The analysis, which was conducted with researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, quantified preterm birth and low birthweight risks based on total indoor and outdoor pollution exposure, while also accounting for the likelihood that the negative effects taper off at higher levels.

The study concluded that the global incidence of preterm birth and low birthweight could be reduced by almost 78 percent if air pollution were minimized in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where indoor pollution is common and preterm birth rates are the highest in the world.  

But it also found significant risks from ambient air pollution in more developed parts of the world. In the United States, for example, outdoor air pollution is estimated to have contributed to almost 12,000 preterm births in 2019.

Previously, the same research team quantified the effects of air pollution on early life mortality, concluding that it contributed to the deaths of 500,000 newborns in 2019.

“With this new, global and more rigorously generated evidence, air pollution should now be considered a major driver of infant morbidity and mortality, not just of chronic adult diseases,” Ghosh said. “Our study suggests that taking measures to mitigate climate change and reduce air pollution levels will have significant health co-benefit for newborns.”   

###

Authors of the study include Kate Causey, Katrin Burkart, Sara Wozniak, Aaron Cohen and Michael Brauer, of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle.

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals, as well as affiliations throughout the Bay Area. Learn more at https://www.ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

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JOURNAL

PLoS Medicine

Quebec’s Caisse to sell remaining oil production investments, retain pipelines

 THE CANADIAN PRESS ON SEPTEMBER 28, 2021.

The Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec logo is pictured in Montreal on Thursday, February 20, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

MONTREAL – Canada’s second-largest pension fund manager has announced a plan to divest its oil-producing assets in order to achieve a zero-emissions portfolio by 2050.

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec says it will sell its remaining oil production investments by the end of next year as part of its climate strategy but won’t part with its stake in pipelines.

The Quebec investment manager says its remaining energy production assets make up one per cent of its portfolio, or about $4 billion in “a dozen” companies.

CDPQ made the announcement as it released its new plan to fight climate change.

As part of the plan, the investment fund says it will create a $10-billion transition envelope that will help support companies in the heaviest emitting sectors such as mining, transport and agriculture to reduce their carbon intensity.

The Caisse has bumped up its carbon intensity target after surpassing its 2017 goal of reducing intensityby 25 per cent per dollar invested. It wants that to fall 60 per cent by 2030 compared with 2017.

It also wants to increase its portfolio of low-carbon assets to $54 billion by 2025, triple the total in 2017 and up from $36 billion currently.

Since the first draft of the strategy in 2017, “the world has changed profoundly and rapidly,” said Charles Emond, president and CEO of the Caisse, who is worried about the climate situation which “is deteriorating more quickly than anticipated.”

“There is more than ever an urgency to act,” he said at a news conference on Tuesday. “We must therefore accelerate our commitment against climate change, go further and above all, immediately tackle the source of the problem.”

The pension fund manager’s move would position it as a climate leader among Canada’s major financial institutions, said Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, a charitable initiative that encourages pension funds to engage on the climate crisis.

“It is amazing that it took until 2021 for a Canadian pension fund to finally recognize that protecting our retirement savings from the worsening climate crisis inevitably requires abandoning market exposure to high-risk fossil fuels,” it said in a news release.

Shift said investments in natural gas are also too risky for the climate and Quebec pensions, and should also be phased out. To limit global warming, it said natural gas must also be kept in the ground and oil and gas production must be reduced by an average of three per cent per year starting immediately.

“The CDPQ’s massive fossil gas infrastructure investments mean that it has not yet reckoned with this reality.”

Shift said the Caisse’s commitment to cut its carbon emissions intensity are eclipsed in Canada only by a pledge from the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board.

Earlier this month, Teachers’ pension fund manager said it aimed to slash the carbon emissions intensity of its investments by 45 per cent by 2025 and by two-thirds by 2030, compared against its 2019 baseline.

However, Shift said Teachers’ has not yet explained how its 2030 goal is possible without excluding fossil fuels from its portfolio.

“The CDPQ’s progress stands in stark contrast to the Canada Pension Plan, whose CEO said earlier this year that the Canada Pension Plan has no plans to institute a blanket screen on oil and gas during his tenure.”

Besides the climate aspect, investing in oil has been a costly decision, says an environmental group.

The value of the Caisse’s 50 main investments in this sector depreciated by 57.6 per cent between 2011 and 2020, according to an analysis unveiled by the Sortons la Caisse du carbon coalition in February.

It estimates that the Caisse would have generated $16.2 billion more for its depositors If it had invested in an index portfolio excluding oil.

Emond said the rise in oil prices opens a favourable window to sell assets. Crude prices surged to US$75.45 per barrel on Monday, up from US$18.84 in April 2020.

He said it would have been irresponsible to adhere to public demands that it abandon fossil fuels last year.

And Emond said he’s not worried that the Caisse will get a lower price, now that potential buyers know they want to sell within 15 months. The news would not be surprising for investors who read its 2017 climate strategy.

“Don’t worry. We will be responsible in our role as trustee.”

Despite selling oil production assets, the Caisse plans to retain, but not increase, its investments in the pipeline sector which represents two per cent of the value of its portfolio or about $8 billion.

Emond defended the decision, noting that the vast majority of pipelines transport natural gas rather than oil and the Caisse will not finance the construction of new pipelines.

“The economy needs them [the pipelines carrying oil]. You can’t shut them down overnight and throw the economy down,” he said.

“We cannot go from renewable energy which is only five per cent of the world’s supply and replace 80 per cent of fossil energy overnight. “

The group representing Canada’s oil industry criticized decisions like the one made by the Caisse, noting that global energy demand is escalating and the consequences are being felt in Europe.

“(They) will do nothing to impact global demand and only serve to drive investment away from responsible energy developing countries like Canada,” said Tim McMillan, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

“This reduces jobs and opportunities for Canadians while enriching other countries that do not share Canada’s environmental or human rights standards. Canadian energy is better for Canadians and better for the world. We would encourage organizations to view Canadian natural gas and oil as a responsible and sustainable investment option.”

China — willing to pay any price for coal — threatens world's fuel supply

The dirtiest fossil fuel, which was struggling against cleaner energy sources, is now seeing its biggest comeback ever

Author of the article:
Bloomberg News
Stephen Stapczynski, Ann Koh and Isis Almeida
Publishing date:Sep 28, 2021 • 

While China mines half of the world's coal, its supply hasn't been able to keep up with its breakneck demand. 

PHOTO BY SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS FILES


China, the world’s top coal consumer, is in dire need of more supply and is willing to pay any price — a move that threatens to leave less fuel for energy-starved rivals.

With winter on the way for much of the world and natural gas prices at record levels, economies across the globe are competing for a finite supply of coal. At the center of the scramble is China, where stockpiles are low and demand is at an all-time high. The dirtiest fossil fuel, which was struggling against cleaner energy sources, is now seeing its biggest comeback ever, complicating international climate talks set to begin in just a few weeks.

China will expand coal procurement at “any price to ensure heating and power generation in winter,” the China Electricity Council said in a statement on Monday. While more than 90 per cent of the fuel the country uses is mined locally, it’s difficult to raise local output at short notice.

European coal has risen to a 13-year high, and Australian Newcastle coal has surged by 250 per cent from last September to within range of the record set in 2008.

A few months ago, Chinese buyers were on the sidelines of the spot market, complaining about prices being too high and noting that they could weather the storm with domestic inventories, according to traders with knowledge of the matter. Now those buyers are singing a different tune, as power plant operators have turned frantic, asking traders and importers to source overseas cargoes, they said.

Meanwhile, coal use in Europe is expect to increase through winter amid lower renewable power output, record-high natural gas prices and planned closures of nuclear reactors. India’s massive fleet of coal plants is running dangerously low on stockpiles, with more than half of the nation’s plants with less than a week of inventories. It will need more overseas supplies to make up for weak domestic production, further tightening the already thin spot market.

“Asia doesn’t have enough coal,” said Saad Rahim, chief economist at major commodity trading house Trafigura Group.

Australia dispute

China has traditionally purchased nearly all of its coal supplies from producers within Asia, but that changed last year when it stopped buying from Australia amid a political dispute between the once-close trading partners, leading to sporadic shortages.

As an alternative, China began steadily boosting coal imports from some of South Asia and Europe’s mainstay suppliers. The country has imported 4.4 million tons of thermal and coking coal from South Africa so far this year, compared to zero from 2015 to 2020, according to customs data. Imports from Russia, a key supplier to Europe, have doubled so far this year, while deliveries from the U.S. are up seven-fold.

At the same time, Europe has been trying to snag shipments away from Asia. Importers in Eastern Europe have been buying supplies from Australia — a rare move that illustrates how desperate they are for coal, according to traders, who requested anonymity to discuss private details.

Inventories at six major Chinese power groups are down 31.5 per cent from last year and at the lowest seasonal level since 2017, Morgan Stanley analysts including Sara Chan said in a Sept. 27 research note. “Independent power producers’ low inventory has quickly driven up stocking demand for coal, leading to coal price spikes in seasonally weak period,” they said.
Breakneck demand

While China mines half of the world’s coal, its supply hasn’t been able to keep up with its breakneck demand. Thermal power generation in the year through August is 14 per cent higher than last year, while coal production is up 4.4 per cent, in large part because of safety crackdowns after a spate of high-profile deadly accidents. Imports have risen more than 20 per cent since the start of June, but the country still needs more to fill that gap

“Given the coal shortage in the country, we can expect China to ramp up its buying activity,” said Abhinav Gupta, a dry cargo research analyst at Braemar ACM Shipbroking.

To make matters worse, global coal supplies have fallen as major producers Colombia and Indonesia have struggled with heavy rain, while some mines elsewhere have closed because of the pandemic. Investment in new mining projects has almost come to a halt in recent years, with banks cutting lending to coal companies as the world seeks to avert the worst effects of climate change.

“We’re seeing a shortage of coal in some markets” following Europe’s energy crunch, Colombia Energy and Mining Minister Diego Mesa Puyo said in an interview. The Dominican Republic has been facing issues contracting for coal because of the crises abroad, and Colombia is working to secure some supply for the nation from its own mines, he said.

Labor shortages are making it hard to hire additional miners to add shifts, according to Ernie Thrasher, chief executive officer of Xcoal Energy & Resources LLC. Some of Xcoal’s current deliveries are running two to four weeks late amid surging demand, though Thrasher described the disruptions as “nothing out of the ordinary.”

For China, the options to deal with the global supply crunch are limited. Beijing could decide to ease the ban on Australian coal imports, although that may not be politically palatable. Or the government could decide to curb supply to factories at the expense of economic growth.

“If you look at China, they have not been able to restock in the period they should be restocking,” Jan Dieleman, head of Cargill International’s ocean transportation business, said earlier this month. “You have a very strong energy market, which is probably going to be moving a lot of coal around in the next winter period at least.”

Bloomberg.com

Chile moves towards decriminalizing elective abortion

Issued on: 28/09/2021 - 

Women in Chile, which took a step towards decriminalizing elective abortion, demonstrate in Santiago in favor of reproductive rights on International Safe Abortion Day in Latin America Pablo VERA AFP

Santiago (AFP)

Chile's lower house of Congress on Tuesday approved a bill to decriminalize abortion within 14 weeks of pregnancy, a major step towards legalization of a procedure still only allowed in a handful of Latin American countries.

The proposal has yet to be approved by ultra-conservative Chile's upper house, or Senate.

On Tuesday -- International Safe Abortion Day -- lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies gave the green light with 75 votes in favor, 68 against, and two abstentions, according to the parliamentary Twitter account.

The bill, submitted in 2018 by opposition MPs, seeks to change the existing law which allows elective abortion only in three scenarios: when there is a threat to the life of the pregnant woman, if the fetus is unviable, or if the pregnancy was the result of rape.

These legal abortions represent only about three percent of the thousands of clandestine terminations taking place in the country, according to activists.

Until 2017, Chile maintained an outright ban on the procedure still denied most women in Latin America.

"This is for all the women... who have been persecuted and criminalized," tweeted Communist MP Camila Vallejo, one of the authors of the bill.

"Down with the patriarchy which will fall, will fall!" she added. "Up with feminism, which will win, will win!"

Among other Latin American countries, abortion is legal only in Uruguay, Cuba, Argentina -- since January -- and Guyana, as well as Mexico City and three Mexican states.

It is banned in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and most other countries allow it only for medical reasons or in case of rape.

© 2021 AFP

Panel finds 80 alleged abuse cases tied to WHO’s Congo work

By MARIA CHENG and AL-HADJI KUDRA MALIRO

 In this Thursday, March 18, 2021 file photo, Shekinah stands near her home in Beni, eastern Congo. A panel commissioned by the World Health Organization on Tuesday Sept, 28, 2021 identified more than 80 alleged cases of sex abuse during the U.N. health agency's response to an Ebola outbreak in Congo, including allegations implicating 20 WHO staff members. (AP Photo/Kudra Maliro, File)


BENI, Congo (AP) — Twenty-one workers for the World Health Organization in Congo have been accused of sexually abusing people during a Ebola outbreak, a WHO-commissioned panel said Tuesday in a report that identified 83 alleged perpetrators connected to the 2018-2020 mission.

The panel released its findings months after an Associated Press investigation found senior WHO management was informed of multiple abuse claims in 2019 but failed to stop the harassment and even promoted one of the managers involved.

“This is the biggest finding of sexual abuse perpetrated during a single U.N. initiative in one area or one country during the time-bound period of a U.N. response effort,” said Paula Donovan, co-director of the Code Blue Campaign, which is campaigning to end sexual exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers.

Panel member Malick Coulibaly said investigators uncovered a total of nine rape allegations. The women interviewed said their attackers used no birth control, resulting in some pregnancies. Some women said their rapists had forced them to have abortions, Coulibaly said

The youngest of the alleged victims, identified in the report only as “Jolianne” and believed to be 13, recounted that a WHO driver stopped on a roadside in the town of Mangina where she was selling phone cards in April 2019 and offered to give her a ride home.

“Instead, he took her to a hotel where she says she was raped by this person,” according to the report.

The panel recommended WHO provide reparations to victims and set up DNA testing to establish paternity and enable women to assert their rights and those of their children.

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appointed the panel’s co-chairs to investigate last October after media reports claimed unnamed humanitarian officials sexually abused women during the Ebola outbreak that began in Congo in 2018.

He called the report “harrowing” reading and a “dark day” for the UN. health agency. Tedros said four people have been fired and two placed on administrative leave as a result of the scandal, but he did not name them.

The WHO chief also declined to say if he would consider resigning; Germany, France and several other European countries nominated Tedros for a second term last week.

Lawrence Gostin, chair of global health law at Georgetown University, said he wouldn’t call for Tedros to resign unless he knew of, or could have reasonably known of such abuse.

Tedros traveled to Congo 14 times during the outbreak, repeatedly said he was personally responsible for the response and publicly commended one of the alleged rapists for his heroic work.

“It is unconscionable that this should ever have happened, and the sheer scale of the sexual assaults is shocking,” Gostin said.

The panel’s investigators said they identified 83 alleged perpetrators of sexual abuse and exploitation, both Congolese nationals and foreigners. In 21 cases, the review team established with certainty that the alleged abusers were WHO employees during the Ebola response.

The AP published evidence in May showing that Dr. Michel Yao, a senior WHO official overseeing the Congo outbreak response was informed in writing of multiple sex abuse allegations. Yao was later promoted and recently headed WHO’s response to the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, which ended in June.

WHO doctor Jean-Paul Ngandu and two other agency officials also signed a contract promising to buy land for a young woman Ngandu allegedly impregnated; Ngandu told the AP he was pressured to do so to protect WHO’s reputation.

The panel said that during its interview with Tedros, he said he was made aware of the sex abuse allegations when they were revealed in the press and had not heard of the incident involving Ngandu until the AP published its story.

The panel’s report also faulted WHO’s Andreas Mlitzke, head of the agency’s compliance, risk management and ethics divisions, and David Webb, who directs the office of internal oversight.

When informed of Ngandu’s alleged misconduct, Mlitzke and Webb attempted to determine if the woman accusing the doctor of impregnating her should be designated as a “beneficiary,” given her legal contract with Ngandu. Webb said no investigation was needed since the issue had been settled with an “amicable agreement.”

Shekinah, a young Congolese woman who accepted an offer to have sex with WHO’s Boubacar Diallo in exchange for a job, said she hoped he would be sanctioned by the U.N. health agency and barred from working for WHO again.

“I would like him and other doctors who will be charged to be punished severely so that it will serve as a lesson to other untouchable doctors of the WHO,” said Shekinah, who declined to give her last name for fear of retribution.

Julie Londo, a member of the Congolese Union of Media Women, a women’s organization that works to counter rape and sexual abuse of women in Congo, applauded WHO for punishing staffers involved in the abuse allegations but said more was needed.

“WHO must also think about reparation for the women who were traumatized by the rapes and the dozens of children who were born with unwanted pregnancies as a result of the rapes,” she said.

Sophie Harman, a professor of international politics at Queen Mary University London, said she was concerned the allegations involving more than 80 suspects were only the beginning.

“More cases are bound to come forward across the world,” Harman said, calling for the focus to shift to helping abuse survivors. “This requires both prosecution of perpetrators, but full accountability on the part of WHO leadership who knew about the rumors and reports, and yet took years to act on this issue.”

___

Cheng reported from London. Jamey Keaten contributed reporting from Geneva.

In R. Kelly verdict, Black women see long-overdue justice

By DEEPTI HAJELA today

FILE - #MuteRKelly supporters protest outside R. Kelly's studio, Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2019, in Chicago. Accusers and others demanding accountability for the R&B superstar over allegations that he was abusing young women and girls for decades say it took so long to get to a guilty verdict in part because his targets were Black. Kelly was convicted Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, in his sex trafficking trial. Those who work against sexual violence say Black women and girls who want to speak out face a society that hypersexualizes them from a young age. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP, File)


NEW YORK (AP) — For years, decades even, allegations swirled that R&B superstar R. Kelly was abusing young women and girls, with seeming impunity.

They were mostly young Black women. And Black girls.

And that, say accusers and others who have called for him to face accountability, is part of what took the wheels of the criminal justice system so long to turn, finally leading to his conviction Monday in his sex trafficking trial. That it did at all, they say, is also due to the efforts of Black women, unwilling to be forgotten.

Speaking out against sexual assault and violence is fraught for anyone who attempts it. Those who work in the field say the hurdles facing Black women and girls are raised even higher by a society that hypersexualizes them from a young age, stereotyping them as promiscuous and judging their physiques, and in a country with a history of racism and sexism that has long denied their autonomy over their own bodies.

“Black women have been in this country for a long time and ... our bodies were never ours to begin with,” said Kalimah Johnson, executive director of the SASHA Center in Detroit, which provides services to sexual assault survivors.

“No one allows us to be something worthy of protection,” she said. “A human that needs love, and sacredness.” It’s as if, she said, “there’s nothing sacred about a Black woman’s body.”

In a 2017 study from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, adults were asked about their perceptions of Black girls in comparison with white girls of the same age in terms of their needs for nurturing and protection, as well as their knowledge of adult topics like sex.

At all ages, Black girls were perceived as more adult than white girls, needing less protection and knowing more about sex. The gap was widest between Black and white for girls between the ages of 10 and 14, followed by girls between the ages of 5 and 9.

“We don’t value Black girls, and they are dehumanized, and they are also blamed for the sexual violence that they experienced to a greater extent than white girls are,” said Rebecca Epstein, executive director of the center and one of the study’s authors.

MORE ON R. KELLY VERDICT
– R&B superstar R. Kelly convicted in sex trafficking trial

For years, girls suffering at R. Kelly’s hands were treated as more of a punchline than a travesty, even during a trial on child pornography charges where a video, allegedly of him abusing a girl, was shown. He was acquitted in 2008.

Lisa Van Allen, who testified against Kelly in 2008, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in an interview broadcast Tuesday that she “almost cried” when she learned of Monday’s verdict. “You know, this is what I was looking for back in 2008,” Van Allen said. “So I would say that the difference this time around is that there’s power in numbers. A lot of people came forward.

Asked if she believed the accusers were initially not believed because they were Black women, Van Allen said, “Yes I do believe that that’s the main reason why.”

Music writer Jim DeRogatis couldn’t understand it. He and a colleague were the first to report on R. Kelly’s interactions with girls, in December 2000, and DeRogatis continued writing about it for years after.

Every time something came out, like the video, DeRogatis thought, that had to be it — that had to be the thing that would finally make a difference. And every time, it wasn’t.

It brought a realization home to DeRogatis, a middle-aged white man: the injustice that “nobody matters less in our society than young Black girls.”

And the girls and women he interviewed knew it, he said. The first thing he heard from the dozens he has interviewed, he said, was, “Who’s going to believe us? We’re Black girls.”

And so, R. Kelly continued on for years, making hit songs, performing with other artists, even at times calling himself the “Pied Piper” but professing he didn’t know the story about the musician who kidnapped a town’s children.

Those who welcomed Monday’s conviction, which came after several weeks of disturbing testimony and now carries the possibility that Kelly will spend decades in prison, said it’s a testament to the strength and perseverance of Black women, who have been the driving force, especially in recent years, of speaking out against him and demanding attention remain on him.

Tarana Burke, founder of the Me Too movement against sexual abuse, pointed to the #MuteRKelly campaign, a protest started by two Black women in Atlanta in 2017 to put pressure on radio stations to stop playing his music and venues to stop allowing him to perform.

And the most widespread public condemnation followed in the wake of the 2019 docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,” executive produced by dream hampton, a Black woman.

Asked about the guilty verdict Tuesday on “CBS This Morning,” hampton said, “You know, I want to believe that this means that Black women survivors will be heard, but I don’t want it to be dependent on a piece of media going viral or being successful.” She said she thinks about “all of the stories of everyday Black girls in neighborhoods like the ones that I grew up in Detroit who don’t have a predator, who don’t have an abuser that was famous or rich.”

Burke, who was interviewed for “Surviving R. Kelly,” said, “I think it says that you have to believe in the power of your own community, because this would not have happened if not for Black women staying the course. It was Black women who decided, ‘We are not going to let this fall on deaf ears.’ It was Black women who decided, ‘If nobody else is going to care, we’re going to care for Black women and girls in our community.’”

___

Associated Press journalist Gary Hamilton contributed to this report. Hajela is a member of the AP’s team covering race and ethnicity. She’s on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dhajela.

WHEN WILL CANADA DO THIS?
Los Angeles County to dismiss nearly 60,000 marijuana convictions


District Attorney George Gascon announced Monday that Los Angeles County will dismiss nearly 60,000 marijuana convictions for cases dating back as far as three decades.

 File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 27 (UPI) -- Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon on Monday announced his office would move to dismiss nearly 60,000 marijuana convictions.

The move comes after tens of thousands of marijuana convictions were dismissed last year under a measure that tasked prosecutors with reviewing convictions. Gascon's office said further examination showed approximately 58,000 felony and misdemeanor cases dating back more than three decades that were also eligible for dismissal.

"Dismissing these convictions means the possibility of a better future to thousands of disenfranchised people who are receiving this long need relief," Gascon said. "It clears the path for them to find jobs, housing and other services that previously were denied to them because of unjust cannabis laws."

Approximately 20,000 of the convictions expected to be dismissed under the order Monday were for felony possession or cultivation of marijuana, Los Angeles County district attorney's office spokeswoman Jean Guccione told The Los Angeles Times.

RELATED Study: Pot abuse hasn't increased in states with legal recreational marijuana

The remainder were misdemeanors filed in jurisdictions that do not have their own city attorney's offices.

Former District Attorney Jackie Lacey dismissed 66,000 marijuana convictions that took place before California voters passed Proposition 64 in 2016, legalizing the recreational use of marijuana.

Felicia Carabal, executive director of Los Angeles-based non-profit community center the Social Impact Center, said the organization helped the county identify the discrepancy in how it handled the case expungements as it initially relied solely on California Department of Justice records to identify cases that would qualify for relief.

"I have made it my life mission to help and support people who have been impacted by the 'war on drugs,'" Carbajal said. "Giving people with cannabis convictions a new lease on life by expunging the records is something I have worked on for years and I am grateful that we can now make it happen."

Gascon has also announced plans for prosecutors to work with the public defender's office to seek a "blanket" court order to seal records of the convictions for thousands of defendants affected by the cases being dismissed.

Amazon faces NLRB charges of firing whistleblowers on climate, COVID-19

The case centers on Amazon's firing of two workers who voiced concerns about the company's climate and COVID-19 policies.

A coalition of labor and environmental activists rally at the gate of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Los Angeles-area mansion to protest the company's working conditions during the COVID-19 crisis on October 4. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 28 (UPI) -- An independent branch of the federal government that enforces U.S. labor laws will review charges on Tuesday that online retail behemoth Amazon illegally retaliated against employees who'd spoken out against company policies by firing them.

The hearing before the National Labor Relations Board will examine claims by former workers Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa -- who were user experience designers at Amazon's Seattle headquarters -- who said they were fired last year because they were also outspoken critics of the company's climate policies and labor practices.

In April, a year after the workers were fired, the board determined that Amazon did illegally retaliate against them. It informed Cunningham and Costa that it would formally accuse the company of unfair labor practices on their behalf if Amazon did not settle the case.

The NLRB's regional office in May issued the complaint that will be heard on Tuesday.

Cunningham and Costa were leaders of the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice advocacy group, which pushed the company to limit its environmental impact. They also organized for 400 employees to intentionally violate Amazon's corporate communications policy after the company threatened to fire them for criticizing its climate policies

After the COVID-19 pandemic began, Cunningham and Costa also shared petitions from warehouse workers that called for greater workplace protections.

"[We] were fired on Good Friday by Amazon for fighting for our colleagues' safety in the time of COVID," Costa tweeted in April after the board's initial decision.

In their initial complaint to the NLRB, Cunningham and Costa said Amazon had violated federal labor laws by terminating them, "based on discriminatory enforcement" of the company's non-solicitation and communication policies.

A coalition of labor and environmental activists rally at the gate of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' Los Angeles-area mansion to protest the company's working conditions during the COVID-19 crisis on October 4, 2020. File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI

The communication policy bars Amazon employees from speaking about company business without manager approval. Cunningham and Costa argued that both policies created a chilling effect that prevented employees from engaging in activities protected by federal labor laws.

Then-Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., later wrote a letter to Amazon expressing concern over Cunningham's and Costa's dismissals -- as well as the resignation of Tim Bray, who was a former vice president of Amazon's cloud computing group, who quit in protest.

Upon his resignation, Bray said that "firing whistleblowers" is proof of "a vein of toxicity running through the company culture."

"I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison," he added in a statement.

Amazon recently settled with a pair of warehouse workers over labor disputes, but not Cunningham and Costa.

The company agreed to a settlement with Johnathan Bailey, who was interrogated after leading a walkout at a warehouse in New York -- and reached a separate deal with Courtney Bowden, who said she was wrongfully terminated after advocating for sick pay for part-time workers.

Amazon has said that both Cunningham and Costa were fired for "repeatedly violating internal policies."

"We support every employee's rights to criticize their employer's working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies," Amazon spokesman Jose Negrete told CNBC earlier this month.

"We terminated these employees not for speaking about working conditions or safety, but for repeatedly violating internal policies."

Cunningham, Costa and the AECJ, however, argue otherwise.

"The NLRB case against Amazon is significant because it is the first case of corporate tech workers challenging Amazon for retaliating against organizing in the workplace," the AECJ said in a statement.

"After the firings, hundreds of tech workers at AECJ have spoken out repeatedly about how Amazon's warehouse pollution is disproportionately concentrated in communities of color, resulting in elevated rates of respiratory and cardiovascular disease in those communities."

Ethereum researcher Virgil Griffith pleads guilty to helping North Korea dodge US sanctions

Ethan Wu Sep. 27, 2021

Virgil Griffith

Virgil Griffith an Ethereum Foundation researcher, pleaded guilty to aiding North Korea in sidestepping US sanctions.

US authorities alleged that he helped the North Koreans deploy blockchain tech to let the country sidestep sanctions.

"I don't think what Virgil did gave DRPK any kind of real help in doing anything bad," ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said in 2019.

Virgil Griffith, an Ethereum Foundation researcher, pleaded guilty to aiding North Korea in sidestepping US sanctions using blockchain technology, according to a Bloomberg report.

Griffith was arrested in 2019 after he attended a Pyongyang blockchain conference. US authorities alleged that he helped the North Koreans deploy blockchain tech to let the country sidestep strict international sanctions. Prosecutors say his presentation was tantamount to giving services to North Korea and his trip was not approved by America, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Griffith's lawyers countered that he gave out simple information available easily online.

The trial was set to begin on Monday, but instead Griffith admitted to conspiring to violate sanctions law, according to Bloomberg. He could get up to 20 years in prison.

After he was arrested in 2019, ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin circulated a petition on Twitter calling for Griffith's release, though he said the Ethereum Foundation was not involved in the Pyongyang trip.

"I don't think what Virgil did gave DRPK any kind of real help in doing anything bad," Buterin wrote. "There was no weird hackery 'advanced tutoring.'"

"Geopolitical open-mindedness is a virtue. It's admirable to go to a group of people that one has been trained since childhood to believe is a Maximum Evil Enemy, and hear out what they have to say," he added.

North Korea is subject to so-called secondary sanctions, meaning that anyone who does business with the country can find themselves under fire.

In the pre-crypto days, Griffith made his name as an iconoclastic hacker who reveled in creating "minor public-relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike," as he said in a 2008 interview with the New York Times.

Far-right cryptocurrency follows ideology across borders

By ERIKA KINETZ and LORI HINNANT  September 28, 2021

FILE - In this Oct. 19, 2017, file photo, Richard Spencer, a white supremacist, speaks at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla. Spencer has dubbed Bitcoin the “currency of the alt-right.”

 (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

BRUSSELS (AP) — The Daily Stormer website advocates for the purity of the white race, posts hate-filled, conspiratorial screeds against Blacks, Jews and women and has helped inspire at least three racially motivated murders. It has also made its founder, Andrew Anglin, a millionaire.

Anglin has tapped a worldwide network of supporters to take in at least 112 Bitcoin since January 2017 — worth $4.8 million at today’s exchange rate — according to data shared with The Associated Press. He’s likely raised even more.

Anglin is just one very public example of how radical right provocateurs are raising significant amounts of money from around the world through cryptocurrencies. Banned by traditional financial institutions, they have taken refuge in digital currencies, which they are using in ever more secretive ways to avoid the oversight of banks, regulators and courts, finds an AP analysis of legal documents, Telegram channels and blockchain data from Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency analytics firm.

Anglin owes more than $18 million in legal judgments in the United States to people whom he and his followers harassed and threatened. And while online, he remains visible — most days, dozens of stories on the Daily Stormer homepage carry his name — in the real world, Anglin’s a ghost.

His victims have tried — and failed — to find him, searching at one Ohio address after another. Voting records place him in Russia in 2016 and his passport shows he was in Cambodia in 2017. After that, the public trail goes cold. He has no obvious bank accounts or real estate holdings in the U.S. For now, his Bitcoin fortune remains out of reach.

___


EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of a collaboration between The Associated Press and the PBS series FRONTLINE that examines challenges to the ideas and institutions of traditional U.S. and European democracy.

___

Beth Littrell, a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center who is helping represent one of Anglin’s victims, says it’s grown harder to use the legal system to stamp out hate groups because now they operate with online networks and virtual money. “We were able to sue the Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist organization, in essence out of existence,” she said. Doing the same today is much harder, she said. “The law is evolving but lagging behind the harm.”

CURRENCY OF THE RADICAL RIGHT

In August 2017, a week after the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Anglin received 14.88 Bitcoins, an amount chosen for its oblique references to a 14-word white supremacist slogan and the phrase “Heil Hitler” because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. Worth around $60,000 at the time, it was his biggest Bitcoin donation ever and would be valued at over $641,000 at today’s exchange rate. The source of the funds remains a mystery. Anglin now faces charges in U.S. court for conspiring to plan and promote the deadly march.

By the time of Charlottesville, Anglin had been cut off by credit card processors and banned by PayPal so Bitcoin was his main source of funding. In his “Retard’s Guide to Using Bitcoin,” published in April 2020, he claimed to have funded the Daily Stormer exclusively through Bitcoin for four years.

“I’ve got money now. I’ve got money to pay for the site for the foreseeable future,” he wrote in December 2020, as Bitcoin’s price surged.

Anglin’s former lawyer, Marc Randazza, argued that political censorship by financial authorities drove Anglin to cryptocurrency by shutting him out of traditional banking, which he said is “more Nazi-like than Andrew Anglin could ever hope to be.”

“Don’t create a black market and then be surprised there’s a black market,” Randazza added.

While Anglin likely turned to Bitcoin for practical reasons, part of the appeal of cryptocurrency to the radical right is ideological.

Bitcoin was developed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis when distrust of the global financial system was running high. It offers an alternative that doesn’t depend on banks. Instead, transactions are validated and recorded on a decentralized digital ledger called the blockchain, which derives its authority from crowdsourcing rather than a class of elite bankers.

As one white nationalist cryptocurrency guide circulating on Telegram puts it: “We all know the Jews and their minions control the global financial system. When you are caught having the wrong opinion, they will take it upon themselves to shut you out of this system making your life very difficult. One alternative to this system is cryptocurrency.”

Richard Spencer, an American white supremacist, has dubbed Bitcoin the “currency of the alt-right.”

It’s hard to tell how large a role cryptocurrency plays in overall financing for the far right. Merchandise sales, membership fees, donations in fiat currencies, concerts, fight clubs and other events, as well as criminal activity, are also common sources of revenue, government and academic research has shown.

This May 12, 2021, file photo shows an advertisement for Bitcoin displayed on a tram in Hong Kong. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

What is clear is that early adopters of Bitcoin, like Anglin, have profited handsomely from its increase in value over the years. Bitcoin prices are notoriously volatile. Since April, the currency has shed a third of its value against the U.S. dollar, then took a further drubbing last week when China declared cryptocurrency transactions illegal.

Chainalysis collected data for a sample of 12 far-right entities in the U.S. and Europe that publicly called for Bitcoin donations and showed significant activity. Together, they took in 213 Bitcoin — worth more than $9 million at today’s value — between January 2017 and April 2021.

These groups embrace a range of ideologies and include white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and self-described free-speech advocates. They are united by a shared desire to fight the perceived progressive takeover of culture and the state.

“These people have real assets. People with access to hundreds of thousands of dollars can start doing real damage,” said John Bambenek, a cybersecurity expert who has been tracking the use of cryptocurrency by far-right actors since 2017.

Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, Anglin’s webmaster for the Daily Stormer, has raked in Bitcoin worth $2.2 million at today’s values. The Nordic Resistance Movement, a Scandinavian neo-Nazi movement that’s been banned in Finland, Counter-Currents, a U.S.-based white nationalist publishing house, and the recently banned French group Génération Identitaire have each received Bitcoin that’s now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Chainalysis data shows.

Two social media platforms that have been embraced by the far right, Gab and Bitchute, received a surge in Bitcoin funding in the lead up to the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection. Since 2017, Bitchute has gotten Bitcoin worth nearly $500,000 at today’s values, about a fifth of which rolled in during the month of December 2020. Gab has gotten more than $173,000; nearly 40% came in during December 2020 and January 2021, Chainalysis data shows. On Aug. 1, Gab announced it was stepping up its fight against “financial censorship” and creating its own alternative to PayPal to “fight against the tyranny of the global elites.”

PRIVACY COIN

While cryptocurrencies have a reputation for secrecy, Bitcoin was built for transparency. Every transaction is indelibly — and publicly — recorded on the blockchain, which enables companies like Chainalysis to monitor activity. Individuals can obscure their identities by not publicly linking them to their cryptocurrency accounts, but with Bitcoin they cannot hide the transactions themselves.

Because of that public footprint, Anglin in November 2020 — just as Donald Trump lost the U.S. presidential election — abandoned Bitcoin and asked his supporters to send him money only in Monero, a “privacy coin” designed to enhance anonymity by hiding data about users and transactions. He published a new guide in February 2021 on how to use Monero, which included instructions for non-U.S. donors.

“Every Bitcoin transfer is visible publicly. Generally, your name is not attached to the address in a direct way, but spies from the various ‘woke’ anti-freedom organizations have unlimited resources to try to link these transactions to real names. With Monero, the transactions are all hidden.” Anglin wrote.

Monero, Anglin advised, “is really easy. Most importantly, it is safe.”

Others have reached the same conclusion.

Thomas Sewell, an Australian neo-Nazi currently facing charges, is soliciting donations in Monero for his legal defense fund. Jaz Searby, a martial arts instructor who headed an Australian chapter of the Proud Boys, is seeking donations — Monero only — to help “spread our message to a generation of young Aryan men that may feel alone or fail to understand the forces that are working against us.” The Nordic Resistance Movement and Counter-Currents also solicit donations in other cryptocurrencies, including Monero, and NRM has experimented with letting supporters mine Monero directly on their behalf.

“Do you really think how we operate our economy is any of your business?” Martin Saxlind, the editor of NRM’s magazine, Nordfront, asked AP in an email. “Swedish banks have abused their control of the economy to deny us and others regular banking accounts for political reasons. That’s why we use cryptocurrency ... you should investigate the corrupt banks instead of doing what I assume is some retarded hit piece on white dissidents.”

The Global Minority Initiative, which describes itself as a “prison relief charity” for American white nationalists also takes donations only in Monero or by postal money order. And France’s Democratie Participative, a racist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBTQ website that was banned by French courts in 2018, also solicits donations in Monero only, warning supporters not to contribute via a mainstream cryptocurrency exchange.

“Money is the sinew of war,” the site says on its fundraising page. “Thanks to your support we can continue to prevent Jews and their allies from sleeping soundly.”

The AP reached out to all the groups and individuals named in this article. Most did not reply to requests for comment. A few were unreachable. Others replied anonymously, sending anti-Semitic and pornographic content. One email, for example, read: “Stay the f--- out of our crypto you demonic k--- ... DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

GOING GLOBAL

Shortly before his suicide, in December 2020, a French computer programmer named Laurent Bachelier sent 28.15 Bitcoins — then worth over $520,000 — to 22 far-right entities. The bulk went to Nick Fuentes, an American white nationalist influencer who would spend the coming weeks encouraging his tens of thousands of followers to lay siege to the U.S. Capitol. One bitcoin went to a Daily Stormer account.

“I care about what happens after my death,” Bachelier wrote in his suicide note. “That’s why I decided to leave my modest wealth to certain causes and people. I think and hope that they will make a better use of it.”

Since getting Bachelier’s money, Fuentes has ramped up recruiting for his America First livestream and expanded the reach of his political nonprofit, the America First Foundation, which says in corporate registration documents it advocates for “conservative values based on principles of American Nationalism, Christianity, and Traditionalism.”

The transactions only became public because of a tip to a journalist at Yahoo News and the fact that Bachelier happened to leave digital traces that linked his Bitcoin address with his email. The money trail offered clear evidence that domestic extremism isn’t purely domestic and showed how wealthy donors can use cryptocurrency to fund extremists around the world with little scrutiny.

Bachelier’s money slipped quietly into the U.S., not triggering alerts it might have had it landed via traditional banking channels. That’s because much of it — notably the Bitcoin donation to Fuentes, then worth $250,000 — passed through accounts that were not hosted by regulated cryptocurrency exchanges, according to Chainalysis.

Those exchanges, which can convert Bitcoin into U.S. dollars and other currencies, are generally regulated like banks, allowing authorities to get access to information or funds.

But cryptocurrency wallets can also be “unhosted,” which means that users themselves control access. Unhosted wallets — like Fuentes’ — are akin to cash. They don’t have to go through banks or exchanges that could flag suspicious transactions, verify a user’s identity or hand over money to satisfy a court judgment.

Financial regulators around the world are waking up to the threat. The Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based multilateral organization that sets global guidelines to protect against money laundering and terrorism financing, in June released its first report on far-right fundraising, which highlighted the groups’ use of cryptocurrencies and warned that transnational links among such actors are growing. The FATF also said there is a dearth of information about both cross-border fundraising and the scale of cryptocurrency use.

“Similar to their jihadist counterparts, many of these groups have used the internet and social media to share propaganda and recruit ideologically-aligned supporters from around the world. They also may be looking to forge financial links,” the report said. “This trend has posed a challenge for law enforcement or security services which are used to combating ERWT (extreme right-wing terrorism) as a domestic threat with few transnational links.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic sealed borders, white nationalists continued to gather in virtual communities that allowed them to connect with people from around the world.

On Telegram, posts tagged with different flags stream together: There’s a burly “White Boys Club” in Kyiv, a group of “nationalists” in Minnesota and a cluster of men with pixelated faces in Greece, each posing around “White Lives Matter” banners. Images of people stomping on or burning colorful LGBTQ buttons and flags roll in from Poland, Slovakia, Russia, Croatia. Men with skull masks and rifles pose after tactical training in the woods in Poland. A person with a fascist flag stands in the rain in France, and a man draped with a swastika banner looks out from a high hill somewhere in the woods of America.

“The transnational links make people feel they are part of a much larger community, they can inspire each other and network,” said Marilyn Mayo, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

They can also raise money.

Estimated regional source of funds by organization 

Blockchain data shows that Andrew Anglin’s donors are part of a global community of believers who sent money to entities in multiple countries. Donors to Anglin since 2017 have also given Bitcoin to 32 other far-right groups and people in at least five different countries, according to Chainalysis data.

The data also shows that money flowed into the sample of 12 far-right groups from cryptocurrency exchanges that serve customers all over the world, with Western and Eastern European-focused exchanges playing a growing role. Chainalysis uses web traffic data and economic activity patterns to estimate where the customers that use a given exchange are located.

Estimated regional source of funds for 12 far-right groups in Europe and North America 

European groups like the Nordic Resistance Movement and Génération Identitaire also received donations from North America-focused exchanges. Similarly, U.S. entities like American Renaissance, Daily Stormer and WeAreChange got money via exchanges that serve customers in Western and Eastern Europe.

Kimberly Grauer, Director of Research at Chainalysis, said the shift to using global exchanges “certainly could be in order to obfuscate detection, but it could also be a sign that increasingly donations are coming in from all over the world.”

VIRTUAL JUSTICE

While Andrew Anglin remains physically hidden and his money remains virtually untouchable, his debt grows. Each day that ticks by, he owes Tanya Gersh, a Jewish real estate agent in Montana, another $760.88, interest on a $14 million court judgment he has failed to pay.

After Gersh got in a dispute with the mother of white supremacist Richard Spencer in 2016, Anglin published her contact information and used his website to whip up an army of trolls against her.

She received death threats, threats against her as a Jew and threats against her child. Sometimes she’d pick up the phone and hear a gunshot. Gersh’s hair started falling out. She had panic attacks, sought trauma counseling and seriously considered fleeing.

The balm for all that came in 2019, when a federal court made clear that targeted anti-Semitic hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment. But since that fleeting moment of victory, nothing has happened. Gersh has yet to see a penny of her $14 million.

She is not the only one.

Anglin also owes Muslim comedian Dean Obeidallah $4 million, and he’s supposed to pay Taylor Dumpson, the first Black student body president of American University, $725,000 — all the results of civil litigation in U.S. courts over libel, invasion of privacy, inflicting emotional distress and intimidation on the Daily Stormer.

Last September, Gersh’s legal team sent requests to six Ohio addresses and four emails demanding that he disclose his assets. Four were returned as undeliverable, one was refused. He didn’t respond to the rest. The court then ordered Anglin to hand over information about his finances, but the April 1 deadline for that came and went. Her lawyers moved to hold him in contempt of court, which could lead to his arrest.

Anglin’s Bitcoin is his most visible asset. Gersh’s lawyers can see Anglin’s virtual fortune but so far they haven’t been able to touch it. He also keeps his cryptocurrency in unhosted wallets, according to Chainalysis, complicating collection efforts.

Meanwhile, Gersh is running up legal bills at a rate of $980 an hour.

“The problem with an unhosted wallet is what is your pain point?” said Amanda Wick, who served as a senior policy adviser for the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and as a federal prosecutor before joining Chainalysis as chief of legal affairs. “The only thing we have is civil contempt or criminal conviction. If someone is willing to sit in jail and the money is theirs on the other side because no one can access it, that’s a problem.”

The hunt for Anglin — and his pain point — continues. He may not be in the United States, but he is out there somewhere, Littrell said, and he’s not untouchable.

“He will be held accountable,” she said. “We will get his cryptocurrency.”

___

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.

Far-right cryptocurrency follows ideology across borders


Mon., September 27, 2021



BRUSSELS (AP) — The Daily Stormer website advocates for the white race, posts hate-filled, conspiratorial screeds against Blacks, Jews and women and has helped inspire at least three racially motivated murders. It has also made its founder, Andrew Anglin, a millionaire.

Anglin has tapped a worldwide network of supporters to take in at least 112 Bitcoin since January 2017 — worth $4.8 million at today’s exchange rate — according to data shared with The Associated Press. He’s likely raised even more.

Anglin and other radical right provocateurs have raised millions from around the world through cryptocurrencies. Banned by traditional financial institutions, they sought refuge in digital currencies, which they are using in increasingly sophisticated ways to skirt the oversight of banks, regulators and courts, finds an AP analysis of legal documents, Telegram channels and blockchain data from Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency analytics firm.

Anglin owes more than $18 million in legal judgments in the United States to people whom he and his followers harassed and threatened. His victims can’t find him, and for now his Bitcoin fortune remains out of reach.

Beth Littrell, a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center who is helping represent one of Anglin’s victims, says it’s grown harder to use the legal system to stamp out hate groups whose networks and money are virtual. “The law is evolving but lagging behind the harm.”

___

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of a collaboration between The Associated Press and the PBS series FRONTLINE that examines challenges to the ideas and institutions of traditional U.S. and European democracy.

___

Chainalysis collected data for a sample of 12 far-right entities in the U.S. and Europe that publicly called for Bitcoin donations and showed significant activity. Together, they took in 213 Bitcoin — worth more than $9 million today — between January 2017 and April 2021.

Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, Anglin’s webmaster for the Daily Stormer, has raked in Bitcoin worth $2.2 million at today’s values. The Nordic Resistance Movement, a Scandinavian neo-Nazi movement banned in Finland, Counter-Currents, a U.S.-based white nationalist publishing house, and the recently banned French group Génération Identitaire have each received Bitcoin that’s now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Chainalysis data shows.

“Do you really think how we operate our economy is any of your business?” Martin Saxlind, the editor of NRM’s magazine, Nordfront, asked AP in an email. “Swedish banks have abused their control of the economy to deny us and others regular banking accounts for political reasons. That’s why we use cryptocurrency.”

Anglin’s former lawyer, Marc Randazza, argued that political censorship by financial authorities is driving people underground. “It’s more Nazi-like than Andrew Anglin could ever hope to be,” he said. “Don’t create a black market and then be surprised there’s a black market.”

Despite cryptocurrency’s reputation for secrecy, Bitcoin was built for transparency. Every transaction is indelibly — and publicly — recorded on the blockchain, which enables companies like Chainalysis to monitor activity. Individuals can obscure their identities by not publicly linking them to their cryptocurrency accounts, but with Bitcoin they cannot hide the transactions themselves.

Because of that public footprint, in November 2020 Anglin asked his supporters to send him money only in Monero, a “privacy coin,” designed to enhance anonymity by hiding data about users and transactions.

Monero, Anglin advised supporters in February 2021, “is really easy. Most importantly, it is safe.”

Others have reached the same conclusion. The list of people now seeking donations in Monero rather than Bitcoin includes Thomas Sewell, an Australian neo-Nazi; Jaz Searby, who headed an Australian chapter of the Proud Boys; the Global Minority Initiative, a “prison relief charity” for American white nationalists; and France’s Democratie Participative, a racist website banned by French courts in 2018.

Just as the ideologies of the radical right — whether white nationalists, neo-Nazis or self-described “free speech” advocates — are globalizing, so is the financing. Blockchain data shows that Anglin’s donors are part of a global community of believers. Since 2017 his donors have also given Bitcoin to 32 other far-right groups and people in at least five different countries, according to Chainalysis data.

Chainalysis also found that money donated to the sample of 12 far-right entities came from global cryptocurrency exchanges, with a growing role for Western and Eastern European-focused exchanges.

Kimberly Grauer, Director of Research at Chainalysis, said the shift to global exchanges “certainly could be in order to obfuscate detection, but it could also be a sign that increasingly donations are coming in from all over the world.”

In December 2020, shortly before his suicide, a French computer programmer named Laurent Bachelier sent 28.15 Bitcoins — then worth over $520,000 — to 22 far-right entities. The bulk went to Nick Fuentes, an American white nationalist influencer who would spend the coming weeks encouraging tens of thousands of followers to lay siege to the U.S. Capitol. One bitcoin went to a Daily Stormer account.

The money trail shows domestic extremism isn’t purely domestic and highlights the ease with which cryptocurrency can fund extremists around the world.

Bachelier’s money passed through accounts that were not hosted by regulated cryptocurrency exchanges, according to Chainalysis. The transactions only became public because of a tip to a Yahoo news journalist and the fact that Bachelier left digital traces that led to his email.

Cryptocurrency exchanges, which can convert Bitcoin into U.S. dollars and other currencies, are generally regulated like banks, allowing authorities access to information or funds.

But cryptocurrency wallets can also be “unhosted,” which means that users themselves control access. Unhosted wallets — like Fuentes’ — are akin to cash. They don’t have to go through banks or exchanges that could flag suspicious transactions, verify a user’s identity or hand over money to satisfy a court judgment.

Anglin’s wallets are also unhosted, according to Chainalysis.

“The problem with an unhosted wallet is what is your pain point?” said Amanda Wick, who served as a senior policy adviser for the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and as a federal prosecutor before joining Chainalysis as chief of legal affairs. “The only thing we have is civil contempt or criminal conviction. If someone is willing to sit in jail and the money is theirs on the other side because no one can access it, that’s a problem.”

___

Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.

Erika Kinetz And Lori Hinnant, The Associated Press