68 Percent Of Earthquakes In West Texas Linked To Oil And Gas Production, Study Finds

Smashing rocks below the surface to bits can have a detrimental effect on their stability – who knew?

JACK DUNHILL
Social Media Coordinator and Staff Writer
Jun 28, 2022 10:30 AM

A recent rise in the number of earthquakes experienced in Texas over the last decade are likely due to oil and gas production, including the highly contentious fracking, suggests a new study. Tracking all of the earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 and above from 2017 to 2020, the study found almost 70 percent of them were directly linked to activity in oil and gas, whether it be direct hydraulic fracturing, or dumping the wastewater into geological formations. 

The research, which was published in Seismological Research Letters, should act help production companies to reduce their impact on the environment and seismological activity, according to the researchers. 

“This paper shows that we now know a lot about how oil and gas activities and seismic activity are connected,” said co-author Alexandros Savvaidis in a statement. 

“The modeling techniques could help oil and gas producers and regulators identify potential risks and adjust production and disposal activity to decrease them.” 

Hydraulic fracturing is the process of extracting natural gas and oil from often deep pockets under the Earth’s surface by pumping fluids down wells, which causes fractures in the rock formations adjacent to them. The pressure then forces the fluid – now called formation water – back up and sand or another incompressible material is pushed into the cracks to keep them open. Doing so increases the yield of resources the company can get out of wells. 

Hydraulic fracturing is a sore subject across the US and the rest of the world, for relatively good reason. Fracking, as it’s known by many, uses vast amounts of energy and leaks gas into the environment, alongside producing toxic chemicals in the formation water, which is tough to get rid of. 

In this study, researchers scanned around 5,000 earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 or above in the Delaware Basin, West Texas, looking for correlations between fracking, formation water disposal, or other factors. 

Of these earthquakes, 43 percent were linked to injection of formation water into shallow sedimentary formations; 12 percent were linked to injection into formations below fracking depth; and a further 13 percent were directly linked to fracturing rock using hydraulic fluids. Combined, the overall process accounts for 68 percent of all earthquakes in the region. 

One particular earthquake in Mentone, Texas in 2020 (magnitude 5.0) occurred in a region known for injection of formation water into deep rock pockets. 

Now, the researchers hope it can inform companies on best practice, to reduce seismological activity. 

“Although there is still much to learn and more work to be done, especially when it comes to mitigating and forecasting, our knowledge of the linkage between water disposal, hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes continues to improve,” said Scott Tinker, the director of the UT Bureau of Economic Geology and a governor-appointed member of the TexNet Advisory Committee, in a statement.  

“This knowledge helps academics, regulators and industry work together to mitigate and minimize risk. It is the type of coordination needed when it comes to many types of industrial operations. I am pleased to see Texas leading.” 

Understanding earthquakes triggered by wastewater injection

by Sarah Stanley, American Geophysical Union

Researchers investigated the characteristics of an earthquake that shook Guthrie, Okla., in 2015. Credit: Nicolas Henderson, CC BY 2.0

Since 2009, many central U.S. residents have faced increasing earthquake activity. Research has suggested that these tremors are linked to wastewater injection into deep wells by oil and gas companies. However, the precise dynamics of these earthquakes are still being revealed.

To shed new light, Pennington et al. investigate the characteristics of a Mw 4.0 earthquake that shook Guthrie, Okla., in 2015. This quake was the largest in a series of earthquakes near Guthrie that were triggered by wastewater injection in the region.

The researchers used seismic data to computationally invert for the precise locations of slip along the fault during the earthquake. In addition, they compared slip dynamics of the Guthrie quake with those of several other earthquakes of similar size that occurred along active or reactivated faults in North America and East Asia.

They found that the Mw 4.0 Guthrie earthquake had a complex rupture pattern featuring four distinct patches along the fault where slip took place, similar to patterns seen for earthquakes along other reactivated faults. In contrast, earthquakes along active faults showed more diffuse slip patterns.

The findings suggest that the slip dynamics of the Mw 4.0 Guthrie earthquake resulted from nonuniform stress and strength conditions that were present prior to the quake. Changes in pore pressure caused by wastewater injection likely enhanced these initial conditions. However, the fault's structure likely drove the distinctive slip pattern, with pore pressure playing a secondary role.

These results could help guide further research into the dynamics of reactivated faults, and they could help inform earthquake hazard modeling.

The research was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.

New type of earthquake discovered

More information: Colin N. Pennington et al, Slip Characteristics of Induced Earthquakes: Insights From the 2015 M w 4.0 Guthrie, Oklahoma Earthquake, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (2022). DOI: 10.1029/2021JB023564

Journal information: Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth 

Provided by American Geophysical Union

Highly antibiotic-resistant strain of MRSA that arose in pigs can jump to humans

Date: June 28, 2022

Source: University of Cambridge  

Summary:

A new study has found that a highly antibiotic-resistant strain of the superbug MRSA -- methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- has emerged in livestock in the last 50 years, probably due to widespread antibiotic use in pig farming.

A new study has found that a highly antibiotic-resistant strain of the superbug MRSA -- methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus -- has emerged in livestock in the last 50 years, probably due to widespread antibiotic use in pig farming.

The strain, called CC398, has become the dominant type of MRSA in European livestock in the past fifty years. It is also a growing cause of human MRSA infections.

The study found that CC398 has maintained its antibiotic resistance over decades in pigs and other livestock. And it is capable of rapidly adapting to human hosts while maintaining this antibiotic resistance.

The results highlight the potential threat that this strain of MRSA poses to public health. It has been associated with increasing numbers of human infections, in people who have and have not had direct contact with livestock.

"Historically high levels of antibiotic use may have led to the evolution of this highly antibiotic resistant strain of MRSA on pig farms," said Dr Gemma Murray, a lead author of the study, previously in the University of Cambridge's Department of Veterinary Medicine and now at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

She added: "We found that the antibiotic resistance in this livestock-associated MRSA is extremely stable -- it has persisted over several decades, and also as the bacteria has spread across different livestock species."

Antibiotic use in European livestock is much lower than it has been in the past. But the researchers say that ongoing reductions in antibiotic use on pig farms -- due to recent policy changes -- are likely to have a limited impact on the presence of this strain of MRSA in pigs because it is so stable.

While livestock-associated CC398 is found across a broad range of livestock species, it is most commonly associated with pigs. Its rise has been particularly evident in Danish pig farms where the proportion of MRSA-positive herds has increased from less than 5% in 2008 to 90% in 2018. MRSA doesn't cause disease in pigs.

"Understanding the emergence and success of CC398 in European livestock -- and its capacity to infect humans -- is vitally important in managing the risk it poses to public health," said Dr Lucy Weinert in the University of Cambridge's Department of Veterinary Medicine, senior author of the paper.

The success of CC398 in livestock and its ability to infect humans is linked to three mobile genetic elements in the MRSA genome. These are chunks of genetic material that give the MRSA certain characteristics, including its resistance to antibiotics and its ability to evade the human immune system.

The researchers reconstructed the evolutionary history of two particular mobile genetic elements called Tn916 and SCCmec that confer antibiotic resistancein MRSA, and found they have persisted in a stable way in CC398 in pigs over decades. They also persist when CC398 jumps to humans -- carrying with them high levels of resistance to antibiotics commonly used in farming.

In contrast, a third mobile genetic element called ?Sa3 -- which enables the CC398 strain of MRSA to evade the human immune system -- was found to have frequently disappeared and reappeared over time, in both human-associated and livestock-associated CC398. This suggests that CC398 can rapidly adapt to human hosts.

"Cases of livestock-associated MRSA in humans are still only a small fraction of all MRSA cases in human populations, but the fact that they're increasing is a worrying sign," said Weinert.

Intensification of farming, combined with high levels of antibiotic use in livestock, has led to particular concerns about livestock as reservoirs of antibiotic-resistant human infections.

Zinc oxide has been used for many years on pig farms to prevent diarrhea in piglets. Due to concerns about its environmental impact and its potential promotion of antibiotic resistance in livestock, the European Union will ban its use from this month. But the authors say this ban may not help reduce the prevalence of CC398 because the genes conferring antibiotic resistance are not always linked to the genes that confer resistance to zinc treatment.

MRSA was first identified in human patients in 1960. Due to its resistance to antibiotics it is much harder to treat than other bacterial infections. The World Health Organisation now considers MRSA one of the world's greatest threats to human health.


Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Cambridge. The original text of this story is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:Matuszewska, M, Murray, GGR. et al. Stable antibiotic resistance and rapid human adaptation in livestock-associated MRSA. ELife, 2022 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.74819

NXIVM, Religion and “Cults”: Resemblances and Parallels in the Hall of Mirrors

Carole Cusack

The European Association for the Study of Religion Conference, University College Cork, 27 June - 1 July.

8 Pages

1 File ▾

Keith Raniere, founder and focal point of NXIVM, was arrested by FBI agents in Mexico in 2018 and sentenced to 120 years in prison in 2020. The charges included racketeering, sex trafficking, child pornography possession, and other crimes. The question of whether NXIVM is a religion or a group that may be classified as “religious” arises because of the stereotype of new religious movements that emerged in the 1960s, which posited a charismatic leader (almost always male) who often predated sexually upon members. The archetypes of this type of leader include Jim Jones, who had sexual relationships with both male and female members of Peoples Temple, and David Berg (Moses David), the found of the Children of God/ The Family, whose group was accused of sexualising young children, and abusing them in the context of an allegedly “sex positive” religion, as well as using female member as “hookers for Jesus”. Memoirs authored by members of the Children of God and other 1960s fringe religions have proliferated since the 1990s, and in the 2020s documentaries and memoirs abound about NXIVM. This paper examines NXIVM and asks whether there is a case for classifying it as a cult or a religion.

https://www.academia.edu/82294392/NXIVM_Religion_and_Cults_Resemblances_and_Parallels_in_the_Hall_of_Mirrors

UPDATED

Jordan says 10 dead, over 200 hurt in Aqaba toxic gas leak


AMMAN: Ten people were killed and more than 200 injured Monday in a toxic gas leak in Jordan’s Aqaba port, the government spokesman said. Footage on state TV showed a large cylinder plunging from a crane on a moored vessel, causing a violent explosion of yellow gas.

The death toll rose to 10, Faisal al-Shaboul told AFP, revising an initial toll of five killed. Prime Minister Bishr Khasawneh and Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya headed to the site of the accident, state media reported. Civil defence spokesman Amer al-Sartawy had earlier reported that 234 people were injured after the tank filled with toxic gas fell.

“Specialists and the hazardous substances team in the civil defence are dealing” with the incident, Sartawy added. According to Jordanian official sources, Aqaba’s southern beach was evacuated following the incident. Jordan’s Aqaba port is the country’s only marine terminal and a key transit point for a vast portion of its imports and exports

HUGE CLOUD OF TOXIC YELLOW GAS KILLS 13

'HORRIFYING.'  JORDAN TV

Deadly Cloud

A massive cloud of yellow gas took the lives of at least 13 people after a crane accidentally dropped a chlorine gas tank onto a ship at a south Jordanian port on Monday.

A video shared by state-owned media shows a massive, yellow plume subsuming an entire cargo ship, a horrifying incident that shows the extraordinary danger of common chemicals.

Chemical Warfare

Chlorine is used in a number of different ways, from swimming pools to sanitizing household water. But in high concentrations, as seen in the video, the gas can be deadly, causing fluids to build up in the lungs.

In fact, German troops released chlorine as chemical warfare along the western front during World War I against the French.

Alongside the 13 casualties, around 200 people were hospitalized after breathing in some of the toxic gas. Fortunately, according to authorities, the effects of the spill appear to be limited to the immediate area.

Residents of the city of Aqaba, which is ten miles away from the port, were advised to stay at home with the windows and doors closed, The Washington Post reports.

Prime minister Bisher al-Khasawneh visited a nearby hospital, guaranteeing "all resources to ensure the total security of workers at the ports and all necessary precautions in relation to hazardous materials," as quoted by the BBC.

READ MORE: Chlorine gas leak at port in Jordan kills at least 13, injures hundreds [The Washington Post]

UK Doctors Demand 30% Pay Rise as Some Medics Say They May Have to Go on Strike


TEHRAN (FNA)- Doctors called for a 30% pay rise over the next five years with some medics saying they might have to take industrial action if their demands aren't met.

Delegates at the British Medical Association's (BMA) annual conference in Brighton voted to press ministers to agree to the increase, which they say makes up for real-term cuts to salaries since 2008, Sky News reported.

Some doctors who supported the motion pointed to the rail worker's strike as inspiration for how public sector workers should pursue pay demands with the current government.

Presenting the motion to the conference, Dr Emma Runswick said, "Pay restoration is the right, just and moral thing to do, but it is a significant demand and it won't be easy to win."

"Every part of the BMA needs to plan for how to achieve this. But I'm not foolish, I know that it's likely that industrial action will be required to move the governments on this issue," she added.

She said that it is "outrageous" that doctors' pay has been cut by 30%, a sum that represents earnings losses amounting to "millions of pounds".

Dr Runswick added, "All around us, workers are coming together in trade unions and winning big - last month bin men in Manchester 22%; Gatwick airport workers won a 21% pay increase two weeks ago, and in March cleaners and porters at Croydon hospital won a 24% pay rise."

"Those workers got together and used a key tool that trade unions have - the ability to collectively organise, collectively negotiate and collectively withdraw our labour... vote for this motion and I'll see you on the picket lines," she added.

Doctors also called on MPs to address staff shortages to help the NHS deal with record waiting lists, with one medic saying that "there's no rescue plan beyond 'work harder'".

Dr Jacqueline Davies told delegates, "There is an answer to the backlog and the unmanageable workloads facing exhausted NHS staff."

"The NHS is facing record demand with no additional capacity. Staff are leaving in droves and there's no rescue plan beyond 'work harder'," she added.

"We know that staff shortages lead to critical incidents and who gets the blame? We do, the burden falls on us," she said.

The deputy chair of the BMA Council noted that even before the pandemic waiting times were "too high" and have gone up to a "perilous level" due to the added pressure of COVID.

"We have a record 6.5 million people waiting for treatment in England, as well as the significant 'hidden backlog' of people who have still to come forward for care after the worst of the pandemic, or whose referrals were cancelled," Dr David Wrigley said.

"What is most unnerving for doctors - who have spent the last two years working at a pace and under a level of pressure they've never experienced before - is that plans to tackle this backlog in care lack any meaningful strategy to boost and support the workforce who will be responsible for it," he said.

UK

Criminal barristers begin strike in row over legal aid fees

The CBA says the offer of a 15% uplift in fees is insufficient and is calling for a 25% rise to make up for years of funding cuts

Criminal barristers say they can end up being paid less than the 

minimum wage for court hearings. 

Photograph: Jim Holden/Alamy


Haroon Siddique 

Legal affairs correspondent

THE GUARDIAN
Mon 27 Jun 2022

Criminal barristers in England and Wales are to begin a strike over legal aid fees on Monday, as they warn the profession is facing an “existential crisis” because of inadequate funding.

The Criminal Bar Association (CBA) said the offer of a 15% uplift in fees, which was the minimum increase recommended by the criminal legal aid review (Clar), is insufficient after swingeing cuts – and will not apply to the backlog of 58,000 cases in crown courts.

It says incomes have fallen nearly 30% over the last two decades and specialist criminal barristers make an average annual income after expenses of £12,200 in the first three years of practice, driving 22% of junior criminal barristers to leave since 2016.
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Barristers participating in the strike on Monday spoke of being paid less than the minimum wage for court hearings when travel and hours spent preparing are factored in – and not at all when hearings are cancelled.

Mira Hammad, who is based in Liverpool, and was called to the bar in 2019, said: “The criminal justice system is falling apart. Cases aren’t going ahead because there aren’t enough barristers, there aren’t enough judges, there’s not enough court resources.

“As a criminal barrister you can’t earn enough, so I do inquest work as well as crime. If I was doing solely crime I would not be able to earn a living. It’s unsustainable for anyone involved in the system.

“The fact that there’s no funding in the system means that it’s also an incredibly stressful and frustrating job to do. You don’t get paid well and you’re constantly having to work within a system that is just completely dysfunctional.”

The walkout is the first by criminal barristers since 2014, until now the only time they have gone on strike. That too was over legal aid fees. CBA members supported action to secure fair fees in 2019, but it was suspended pending the outcome of Clar, which contained the 15% fee increase recommendation when it was finally published last December.

The CBA is angry that after the review took so long the government did not implement the pay rise immediately, but launched a consultation on the recommendations in March which only closed earlier this month. It wants a 25% rise to make up for years of real terms reductions.

Andrew Fitch-Holland, a criminal barrister based in Nottingham, who was called to the bar in 1990, said practitioners’ goodwill had been exploited.

“People are at breaking point, I’ve seen colleagues in tears,” he said. “I know of the level of personal debt people are taking on. We are all struggling to make ends meet and frankly sick and tired of not being paid for the work we do.”

He added: “We’re not being greedy, we’re not fat cats. There have been a series of brutal cuts to our funding at a time when also, over the years, the demands of the job have increased. So we’re not only getting paid less, but we’re being asked to do more for less. We have reached an existential crisis and the criminal bar is haemorrhaging members.”

Barristers will walk out on Monday and Tuesday initially, increasing the number of strike days by one each week, culminating with a five-day walkout in the week beginning 18 July. There will be picket lines at crown courts in London (at the Old Bailey), Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds and Manchester.

They will also not accept instructions for new cases and, continuing industrial action that they began on 11 April, will refuse to accept returns, where they step in to replace the original barrister at a court hearing that the latter can no longer attend. The action will lead to cases being delayed, exacerbating the backlog crisis.

The government has called the CBA’s decision “disappointing” and said the “unnecessary” strikes would only harm victims. It has questioned the CBA’s mandate for the action and claims a 15% increase would mean a typical criminal barrister earning about £7,000 extra a year.

The hidden scale of cybercrime

Along with the development of technological innovation, cybercrime is growing, and companies are increasingly falling prey to it. According to the calculations of Chuck Robbins – CEO of Cisco, if you compare the amount of losses generated globally by online criminals with global economies, cybercriminals could successfully create the third largest economy in the world.TweetShare

SOURCE:PIXABAY

It is estimated that in 2021, the cumulative losses resulting from criminal activity on the Internet amounted to approximately USD 6 trillion [1]. World Bank data presenting the world’s largest economies currently rank the US (USD 20.9 trillion), China (USD 14.7 trillion) and Japan (USD 5 trillion) on the podium. A fictional cybercriminal country would push Japan to 4th place, while outclassing Poland, which would be ranked 22nd (0.6 trillion) in such a ranking.

The statistics quoted are to a large extent estimates. It is impossible to calculate the exact values of the losses. This is due to the fact that, to a large extent, these are intangible losses and it is very difficult to convert them directly into money. Another major challenge to accurately calculating the impact of cyber attacks remains the widespread failure to report cybercrime violations by businesses. This is a phenomenon that both the services in the USA and Poland are struggling with. The number of court proceedings regarding cybercrimes is incomparably lower than the number of cybersecurity incidents reported by security organizations. Statistical sources [2] show that these two measures are separated by several orders of magnitude. In the USA, the requirement to report ICT security incidents has been known for a long time, and in Poland it is also not new. Operators of key services, companies and local governments are required to report such incidents to CERT Polska, operating in NASK. Unfortunately, quite often incidents are not reported at all or their scale is underestimated. Research conducted by Karpersky showed that a few years ago, 40% of companies around the world consciously concealed security incidents. The same report emphasizes that concealing a situation often leads to dramatic consequences, increasing the damage. Even one unreported event can result in huge data leakage or damage to the entire infrastructure of the organization. Statistics show that disregarding and deliberately concealing incidents has a significant impact on the security of corporate data. According to the previously mentioned report [3], 46% of companies confirmed that incidents resulting from inappropriate actions of employees resulted in data leakage or compromised their security. More than a quarter of companies (28%) have lost customer information classified as confidential or very sensitive as a result of these employee negligence. 25% of the companies on the list have lost financial information, including payment information. These types of leaks can carry immediate financial losses and have a long-term impact on a company’s reputation. That is why it is so important to react quickly when a security incident occurs in the company. It is important to train employees so that they are able not only to see threats, but also to mitigate the risk with their behavior.

A separate problem related to the phenomenon of concealing cyber incidents and related losses is the fact that enterprises monitor incidents selectively. Companies, and especially large corporations, may be reluctant to report all incidents for fear of the potentially negative effects of disclosing this type of information. Admitting an incident could have an impact on the stock price, brand reputation or the imposition of financial penalties. Therefore, burglaries or leaks are not disclosed more than once, after the company has made an informed decision resulting from the analysis of the thresholds for the severity of the breach, as well as the legal and regulatory requirements.

In the aftermath of last year’s Solarwinds [4] attack, the United States stepped up its efforts to foster a broader public-private partnership with a strong emphasis on developing legislation that paves the way for more common mandatory incident reporting requirements. The new regulations are also implemented by Poland on the basis of EU regulations such as NIS2 and DORA [5]. However, the regulations alone may not be enough to improve the statistics of cybercrime reports. Solving this problem requires companies to better train their employees, support and encourage internal reporting of incidents, and above all, sharing this information with authorities, organizations operating in the cybersecurity industry and the public. Disclosure of this type of information and implementation of mechanisms for their exchange will contribute to increasing the effectiveness of deterrence and defense against the growing problem of cybercrime.

 

[1] https://www.varonis.com/blog/cybersecurity-statistics

[2] https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/reports/2020-data-breach-investigations-report.pdf

[3] https://plblog.kaspersky.com/the-human-factor-in-it-security/7079/

[4] https://www.cm-alliance.com/cybersecurity-blog/what-really-happened-in-the-solarwinds-cyber-attack

[5] https://cyberpolicy.nask.pl/wstepne-porozumienie-rady-i-parlamentu-europejskiego-na-temat-nis2/

WIKTOR SĘDKOWSKI

Wiktor Sędkowski graduated in Teleinformatics at the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, specialized in cybersecurity field. He is an expert on cyber threats. CISSP, OSCP and MCTS certificates holder. Worked as an engineer and solution architect for leading IT companies.

‘Rationality Is Not Permitted’: Chomsky On Russia, Ukraine And The Price Of Media Censorship – OpEd

 June 27, 2022 

Noam Chomsky. Photo Credit: Tasnim News Agency

By Ramzy Baroud

One of the reasons that Russian media has been completely blocked in the West, along with the unprecedented control and censorship over the Ukraine war narrative, is the fact that western governments simply do not want their public to know that the world is vastly changing.

Ignorance might be bliss, arguably in some situations, but not in this case. Here, ignorance can be catastrophic as western audiences are denied access to information about a critical situation that is affecting them in profound ways and will most certainly impact the world’s geopolitics for generations to come.

The growing inflation, an imminent global recession, a festering refugee crisis, a deepening food shortage crisis and much more are the kinds of challenges that require open and transparent discussions regarding the situation in Ukraine, the NATO-Russia rivalry and the responsibility of the West in the ongoing war.

To discuss these issues, along with the missing context of the Russia-Ukraine war, we spoke with Professor Noam Chomsky, believed to be the greatest living intellectual of our time.

Chomsky told us that it “should be clear that the (Russian) invasion of Ukraine has no (moral) justification.” He compared it to the US invasion of Iraq, seeing it as an example of “supreme international crime.” With this moral question settled, Chomsky believes that the main ‘background’ of this war, a factor that is missing in mainstream media coverage, is “NATO expansion”.

“This is not just my opinion,” said Chomsky, “it is the opinion of every high-level US official in the diplomatic services who has any familiarity with Russia and Eastern Europe. This goes back to George Kennan and, in the 1990s, Reagan’s ambassador Jack Matlock, including the current director of the CIA; in fact, just everybody who knows anything has been warning Washington that it is reckless and provocative to ignore Russia’s very clear and explicit red lines. That goes way before (Vladimir) Putin, it has nothing to do with him; (Mikhail) Gorbachev, all said the same thing. Ukraine and Georgia cannot join NATO, this is the geostrategic heartland of Russia.”

Though various US administrations acknowledged and, to some extent, respected the Russian red lines, the Bill Clinton Administration did not. According to Chomsky, “George H. W. Bush … made an explicit promise to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand beyond East Germany, perfectly explicit. You can look up the documents. It’s very clear. Bush lived up to it. But when Clinton came along, he started violating it. And he gave reasons. He explained that he had to do it for domestic political reasons. He had to get the Polish vote, the ethnic vote. So, he would let the so-called Visegrad countries into NATO. Russia accepted it, didn’t like it but accepted it.”

“The second George Bush,” Chomsky argued, “just threw the door wide open. In fact, even invited Ukraine to join over, despite the objections of everyone in the top diplomatic service, apart from his own little clique, Cheney, Rumsfeld (among others). But France and Germany vetoed it.”

However, that was hardly the end of the discussion. Ukraine’s NATO membership remained on the agenda because of intense pressures from Washington.

“Starting in 2014, after the Maidan uprising, the United States began openly, not secretly, moving to integrate Ukraine into the NATO military command, sending heavy armaments and joining military exercises, military training and it was not a secret. They boasted about it,” Chomsky said.

What is interesting is that current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “was elected on a peace platform, to implement what was called Minsk Two, some kind of autonomy for the eastern region. He tried to implement it. He was warned by right-wing militias that if he persisted, they’d kill him. Well, he didn’t get any support from the United States. If the United States had supported him, he could have continued, we might have avoided all of this. The United States was committed to the integration of Ukraine within NATO.”

The Joe Biden Administration carried on with the policy of NATO expansion. “Just before the invasion,” said Chomsky, “Biden … produced a joint statement … calling for expanding these efforts of integration. That’s part of what was called an ‘enhanced program’ leading to the mission of NATO. In November, it was moved forward to a charter, signed by the Secretary of State.”

Soon after the war, “the United States Department acknowledged that they had not taken Russian security concerns into consideration in any discussions with Russia. The question of NATO, they would not discuss. Well, all of that is provocation. Not a justification but a provocation and it’s quite interesting that in American discourse, it is almost obligatory to refer to the invasion as the ‘unprovoked invasion of Ukraine’. Look it up on Google, you will find hundreds of thousands of hits.”

Chomsky continued, “Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise, they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion. By now, censorship in the United States has reached such a level beyond anything in my lifetime. Such a level that you are not permitted to read the Russian position. Literally. Americans are not allowed to know what the Russians are saying. Except, selected things. So, if Putin makes a speech to Russians with all kinds of outlandish claims about Peter the Great and so on, then, you see it on the front pages. If the Russians make an offer for a negotiation, you can’t find it. That’s suppressed. You’re not allowed to know what they are saying. I have never seen a level of censorship like this.”

Regarding his views of the possible future scenarios, Chomsky said that “the war will end, either through diplomacy or not. That’s just logic. Well, if diplomacy has a meaning, it means both sides can tolerate it. They don’t like it, but they can tolerate it. They don’t get anything they want, they get something. That’s diplomacy. If you reject diplomacy, you are saying: ‘Let the war go on with all of its horrors, with all the destruction of Ukraine, and let’s let it go on until we get what we want.’”

By ‘we’, Chomsky was referring to Washington, which simply wants to “harm Russia so severely that it will never be able to undertake actions like this again. Well, what does that mean? It’s impossible to achieve. So, it means, let’s continue the war until Ukraine is devastated. That’s US policy.”

Most of this is not obvious to western audiences simply because rational voices are “not allowed to talk” and because “rationality is not permitted. This is a level of hysteria that I have never seen, even during the Second World War, which I am old enough to remember very well.”

While an alternative understanding of the devastating war in Ukraine is disallowed, the West continues to offer no serious answers or achievable goals, leaving Ukraine devastated and the root causes of the problem in place. “That’s US policy”, indeed.

(The interview with Noam Chomsky was conducted jointly with Italian journalist, Romana Rubeo)

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com
His book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London),
now available on Amazon.com

'We know we'll die of cancer': Life in one of Chile's industrialised 'sacrifice' zones

The Campiche thermal power plant, one of the industrial facilities in the area of Puchuncaví and Quintero.

Photos:  © Gladys González.
Text by: Chloé Lauvergnier

FRANCE24/OBSERVER
 20/06/2022 - 

Hundreds of people, many of them children, have fallen ill after being exposed to toxic pollution since the beginning of June in the Chilean cities of Quintero and Puchuncaví. With widespread pollution from heavy industry and harmful cases of contamination in the past, the region is considered a "sacrifice zone" of the country. The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to a local teacher who condemned the growth of industry "at the expense of the health" of residents


At least 105 people, many of them children, sought treatment for poisoning between June 6 and 8 in Quintero and Puchuncaví, two towns located around a hundred kilometres from the Chilean capital, Santiago. The victims presented symptoms such as dizziness, headaches, respiratory problems, tingling in the eyes, nausea and more – due to peak levels of sulfur dioxide in the area on the morning of June 6.

Those impacted by the pollution were treated in medical centres while local schools were closed for several days. "For children, it was a double punishment: they were poisoned and deprived of their education," said Manuel Pizarro Pérez, Quintero resident and director of the NGO Red Infancia Chile ("Childhood Network Chile").

Gas was visible at a factory operating in the Puchuncaví and Quintero area.

 

"Quintero. Students from Santa Filomena High School were transferred to health centers with symptoms that can be attributed to respiratory poisoning. [...]"

A week later, more cases of poisoning were reported in Quintero. On June 15, the mayor reported that around 265 children had been admitted to the hospital. One day later, the press reported around 20 new cases.

Past cases of poisoning from pollution

Problems like these have been recurrent in the area, inhabited by around 50,000 people. In 2018, more than 1,700 people experienced symptoms of poisoning. In 2011, around 30 children fell ill.

Residents point to pollution from a local industrial park that was developed by the state in the 1950s. The park now contains coal-fired power plants, copper and oil refineries and chemical plants. Greenpeace even nicknamed the site the "Chilean Chernobyl".

The area is one of Chile's five "sacrifice zones", due to heavy industrialisation and pollution.

Still, Chile's superintendent for the environment said on June 8 that it was "not yet possible to determine" the precise origin of the pollution peak on June 6. However, authorities ordered eight local companies to take temporary measures to reduce pollution. None of these companies gave an explanation for the spike.

View of the industrial park in the Puchuncaví and Quintero area (2022). 

Puerto Ventanas and Codelco, two industries in the Puchuncaví and Quintero area (2022).

'The students here have a lot of headaches but they're used to it'

Gladys González, 56 years old, is a teacher at La Greda school in Puchuncaví, where she has lived for the past 24 years.

Monday, June 6, a dozen of my students started to feel sick in class. They had headaches, stomach aches and dizziness. I myself had a headache. I told the principal, but the students weren't taken to the emergency room, because it could only handle the most serious cases. In the end, the school was closed for three days.

In 2011, there had already been cases of poisoning at the school. Children had felt ill and a colleague of mine fainted. As for me, my heart was beating so fast that I thought it was going to stop and that I wouldn't be able to breathe. The pollution problem in our area was publicised for the first time. The school was closed for two or three months, then we had to have classes in shipping containers. After two or three years, the school reopened a few kilometres away. At that time, blood tests showed traces of pollution in the children's bodies.

Since the school was moved, we don't get as much coal dust, but it's still there. Plus, the ground in the year is dirt, so when the students play, the dirt rises up. That's problematic because it contains heavy metals and coal.

Students playing in the fields at La Greda school in Puchuncaví (2022). 

The students here have a lot of headaches but they're used to it. They only talk about it if they feel really bad, for example, if they vomit. On the other hand, some of them have cognitive problems such as intellectual deficiencies or learning disabilities. This is related to the pollution.

As for adults, many suffer from high blood pressure. I do, and plus I have kidney problems, chronic rhinitis, allergies, and I had to have an ovary and a tube removed because I had a lump. One of my colleagues died of cancer at age 54 in December. In 2011, when we did the analyses, she had less heavy metal in her blood than I did. We are resigned, we know we'll die of cancer. Here, the industries make money at the expense of our health.

The view from the community of Chocota, in Puchuncaví, where Gladys González lives (2022).

The Campiche thermal power plant, one of the industrial facilities in the area of Puchuncaví and Quintero (2022). 

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'I am determined to make my students aware that they have the right to health and education, and to be able to live in an unpolluted environment'

Moving is complicated because I have lived here for a long time. It took me years to get a house, and anyway the heavy metals are already in my body. Plus, I am determined to make my students aware that they have the right to health and education, and to be able to live in an unpolluted environment. I actually have a former student who is studying law, to advocate for that.

I feel like the industries will never close. On the other hand, at the school level, we should at least change the ground in our field. And we should organise medical monitoring for the children.

"This is not a natural cloud," explains Gladys González, who took this photo in Puchuncaví (June 16, 2022)

For years, residents and local authorities have been denouncing the pollution in the area, and the lack of government action to reduce it.

"Workers in the municipality of Quintero [are protesting] because of the latest pollution incidents."

Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced on the evening of June 17 that the Ventanas factory, belonging to public company Codelco, would be gradually closed due to recurrent pollution problems. The factory is one of those operating in the area of Quintero and Puchuncaví.