NO NUKES EITHER

Germany's energy U-turn: Coal instead of gas

Berlin has realized it will never again import as much energy from Russia as before the Ukraine war. So the challenge is to wean Germany off its dependence on Russian energy sources, and quickly. The question is how.

On August 1, the coal power station in Mehrum became the first to be reactivated

Starting this week, German hard coal-fired power stations are restarting operations, which were being phased out because of the hugely detrimental climate impact on a world already ravaged by global warming. Germany's goal had been to phase out all coal-generated electricity by 2038.

But now, the government is swallowing the bitter pill of allowing coal-fired power back onto the grid. It is hoped that this will replace the gas-fired electricity that currently makes up some 10% of Germany's overall energy mix.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke of temporary emergency measures "imposed for a very short period of time that don't take anything away from our climate targets." 

"What must not happen is that we slide into a global renaissance of fossil energy, and coal in particular," the chancellor warned.

But at first glance, last year's global data seems to suggest that is precisely what is happening: Never before has the world used so much coal to generate so much electricity. And the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that the same pattern of high demand and high production will be repeated this year.

Import ban on Russian coal

Alexander Bethe, chairman of the Board of the Berlin-based Association of Coal Importers, is sure of that: "This winter, we will certainly import over 30 million tonnes (33 million US tons) of hard coal to keep our power stations in operation. That would be 11% up on 2021."

Before the war in Ukraine, 50% of the coal for Germany's power stations was imported from Russia. But on April 9, the EU hit Russia with a sales and import ban on coal and oil — yet not with immediate effect. Oil will be delivered until the end of the year, while coal shipments may only be delivered and offloaded through August 10.

Finding other suppliers is not the problem, say German coal importers. These include sources in South Africa, Australia, the US, Colombia and Indonesia, says Bethe. But these various kinds of coal each have different characteristics and qualities, he explains. It's important to see which mix is the best for the German power stations. And tests are underway.

More difficult perhaps, according to Bethe, are the transport routes for coal. The big sea ports like Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Antwerp are all booked out. Inland shipping routes taking coal by ship or train from the big ports to the power stations are at their limit. This is also in part due to Germany's shortage of skilled labor.

The workforce had already been cut back in line with German's goal of phasing out coal by 2038. Inland waterways were frantically reducing their capacities in line with expectations.

One-third of Germany's coal imports come up the River Rhine. But at the time of summer drought, the water levels there are so low that ships can only sail at 30% to 40% of their loading capacity.

Coal transport infrastructure is maxed out in Germany

Coal price hikes

At the beginning of 2021, a tonne of hard coal would go for $64 (€63) on the world market. Now, the price has risen close to $400. Some 7.4 billion tonnes of hard coal were mined last year, half of it in China. But coal-mining countries meet their own needs first, and only 1 billion tonnes end up being traded on the global market.

Given the fact that electricity prices are rising dramatically, there are huge incentives for operators of decommissioned plants to make every effort to get them back on the grid. The first operator to do so was the Mehrum plant in central Germany, which belongs to Czech energy concern EPH and had been closed down at the end of 2021. Others say they intend to follow suit.

German energy supplier EnBW only wants to keep one plant in operation longer than previously planned. Five other plants that had been turned off for good are too old and out-of-date to be reactivated.

Brown coal comeback as well?

But it is not only hard or black coal-fired power plants that are to be brought back online: The German government is also preparing a regulation for the beginning of October to restart lignite-fired power plants that have been shut down.

This also affects the Jänschwalde power plant in Brandenburg, where two units had been switched off to so-called "safety standby." If they were to be restarted, they could supply as much electricity as a regular nuclear power plant.

Bad news for climate activists: Lignite power stations are likely to see a renaissance, too

But if they were to be restarted now, 13 million cubic meters of water would be needed to drive the steam turbines, says environmental network Green League. According to the network, this would further exacerbate the water shortage in the Spree River.

Another problem is that the old units do not comply with emissions regulations, as the operator did not consider it necessary to upgrade them in view of the complete shutdown.

Moreover, there is a lack of skilled personnel; the workers have long since been deployed elsewhere.

This article was originally written in German.

Germany braces for social unrest over energy prices

German officials have expressed fears that a worst-case winter of energy problems could prompt an extremist backlash. How bad things get may depend on how well they manage the crisis — in policy and perception.

    

Lawmakers are worried inflation and high energy prices may lead to social unrest,

 like with the COVID restrictions protests

State and federal lawmakers in Germany are exploring a sweeping set of measures to save energy, from turning off street lights to lowering building temperatures; and they are pleading with the public to cut consumption at home.

Whether those efforts spur a call to solidarity or a call to arms won't become clear until the cold sets in and bills come due. Yet Chancellor Olaf Scholz is not in a wait-and-see mood, telling public broadcaster, ARD, last month that spiraling heating costs are a "powder keg for society."

In explicitly naming the elephant in the room, the chancellor and his government are on the hook for nipping social unrest in the bud.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz has warned of social unrest in the fall

"In using this 'powder keg' narrative, the chancellor is trying to make way for key decisions," Ricardo Kaufer, a professor of political sociology at the University of Greifswald, told DW. "So all actors who could potentially stand in the way of measures are cajoled into compromise."

In other words, Scholz is signaling to his governing partners, political opposition, business leaders, and civil society that they bicker over policy responses at the country's peril.

This is a "lesson learned" from the pandemic, Kaufer said, when lawmakers often seemed unprepared to contain it, despite scientific predictions on how and when the virus would spread. Their communication was more often reactive than proactive.

Measures and messaging

The Bundestag, the German parliament, has already passed legislation that hopes to insulate society's most vulnerable from price shocks. At the same time, German utilities will be allowed to pass some of their increased costs onto consumers.

In crafting policy, officials are walking a fine line. They want to help secure household finances, especially for low-wage earners, but not so much that they undermine the incentive to save energy.

More relief may follow the summer recess, however agreement on what that looks like, how much it will cost, and how it will get paid for is likely weeks away, at least.

The smallest of the parties in the governing coalition, the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP), control the finance ministry, which gives them significant power of the purse. Its minister, Christian Lindner, has made clear he intends to use that power sparingly, as he stands up for his party's values of low tax, low spending, and low regulation.

The FDP's bigger partners, Scholz's center-left Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens, are pushing for a more generous helping hand. 

Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck strikes a nerve with the population,

 who appreciate his honesty

Even if the government gets the measures right, they could still get the messaging wrong, which political scientists say can be just as important in steering public sentiment. As the pandemic showed, money and resources are only half the battle; clear and consistent communication is the other half. 

"Perceptions are decisive," Evelyn Bytzek, a professor of political communication at the University of Koblenz-Landau, told DW. "Ultimately, we all act based more on what we perceive to be true than what is true."

Symbolism is a powerful tool in maintaining public support, Bytzek said. She pointed to Gerhard Schröder's visit to flood-stricken parts of eastern Germany in 2002, which gave him a boost in his reelection campaign for chancellor. He went onto win a few weeks later.

Scholz won last year's election in part due to his Merkel-like passive leadership style. Now that could become a liability — and stoke unrest — if the public feels their ship of state is without a captain at the helm with an iceberg ahead.

"Crisis is not just a danger, but also an opportunity to generate more trust when crisis management is well perceived," Bytzek said.

Scholz's deputy, the Greens' Robert Habeck, seems to understand that. As economy minister, Habeck has the lead on energy policy and has been forced to make hard choices that often contradict his own environmentalist credentials. Polls show he has won points for regularly explaining the rationale behind those decisions.

Though there are limits to what communication can do. Habeck was booed at townhall events last week. However, those protests were more anti-war than anti-democratic.

Protesters took to the streets to voice opposition against regulations

 to contain the COVID-19 pandemic

Evaluating the risk

The Federal Interior Ministry told DW that protests of similar magnitude to those against pandemic restrictions are foreseeable, depending on how much the cost and supply of energy burden society.

"We can assume that populists and extremists will again try to influence protests to their liking," Britta Beylage-Haarmann, a ministry spokesperson, told DW in a statement. "Extremist actors and groups in Germany can lead to a growth in dangers if corresponding social crisis conditions allow for it."

The Federal Police, which fall under the ministry, told DW they have "no insights" into specific threats arising from the crisis.

Perception also plays a role in how much unrest can shake a country. Querdenker and others who have taken to the streets to challenge state authority during the pandemic are loud, but they have never represented more than a small minority of public opinion. Still, they have received an outsized share of media and political attention.

Political sociologists like Greifswald University's Kaufer say protest movements stand out more in a country like Germany, where consensus-based political culture and federal power-sharing dissuade the instrumentalization of social discontent than elsewhere in Europe. France, for example, has a reputation for confrontation.

Instability in Germany often has a negative connotation, he said, linked to events like bloody street battles amid hyperinflation in Weimar-era Germany, which gave rise to the Nazis.

"There has been a failure of discourse among progressive forces to recognize positive examples in German history," Kaufer added. "There is a fear of protest, that people will take action without the legitimacy of processes like voting."

He cited East German street protests in 1953 and the peaceful revolution of 1989, and the West German anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s and 80s, as examples that deserve a stronger anchor in Germany's collective memory.

In 1989 one million protesters took to the streets in East Berlin

 bringing down the GDR regime

Inequality means instability

Longer-term risks to social cohesion, however, don't end with the coming of spring.

Germany was once one of Europe's most egalitarian countries, in which class and social status had less influence in determining one's success in life. That is changing, as Germany follows a general trend towards growing income inequality.

"We're seeing that social mobility can no longer address social inequality," Susanne Pickel, a comparative politics professor at the University of Duisberg-Essen, told DW.

Inflation and energy prices will disproportionately impact the country's most vulnerable, according to economic models, as low earners have less disposable income to absorb increased costs. That also makes them more susceptible to anti-government rhetoric than other income groups.

"Pandemic, war, and inflation endanger the lower middle class. If we can't manage to stabilize them, then their fears of being permanently pushed down grow," Pickel said, "then we may see more people take to the streets in Germany. And even more virulent, agreement with the [far-right populist] AfD and the appearance of solutions from far-right populists can change voting behavior."

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

After 'historic' US climate bill, scientists urge global action

Issued on: 08/08/2022 - 

With a little over 1.1C of warming so far, Earth is already being buffeted by extreme weather DAVID MCNEW AFP/File

Paris (AFP) – Scientists on Monday welcomed the passing of US President Joe Biden's "historic" climate bill while calling for other major emitters -- namely the European Union -- to follow suit and implement ambitious plans to slash emissions.

The bill, which would see an unprecedented $370 billion invested in cutting US emissions 40 percent by 2030, should provide a launchpad for green investment and kickstart a transition towards renewable energy in the world's largest emitter.

It passed the Senate on Sunday night after months of arduous negotiations and only after a number of tax and energy provisions were tacked on to Biden's original proposal.

Michael Pahle, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the bill was particularly relevant to EU lawmakers, who he said were on the verge of adopting "the world's most ambitious climate policy" in the form of the bloc's "Fit for 55" plan.

"The EU's policy can only succeed -- economically and politically -- when major emitters and trade partners take similar action," he told AFP.

"Especially in face of the changing geopolitical landscape, US-EU cooperation is key and the bill an important enabling factor."

The EU initiative -- which envisages a 55-percent emissions fall by 2030 -- has no set budget as yet.

But a recent assessment found member states would need to spend an 350 billion euros more each year than they did between 2011-2020 in order to hit the climate and energy targets.

Simon Lewis, professor of global chance science at University College London, said the US bill showed how lawmakers can advance climate legislation while responding to voters' short-term concern over fuel price inflation.

"It's really important that the world's largest economy is investing in climate and doing it as part of a package to generate jobs and a new, cleaner, greener economy," Lewis told AFP.

"Part of that is a package tackling inflation. I think that shows the world how to get climate policy passed, by hitching it to things that really matter to ordinary people, to make sure it's part of an overarching package to make life better for people."
'Massive increase'

The independent Rhodium Group think tank said the "historic and important" bill -- officially the Inflation Reduction Act -- would reduce US emissions by at least 31 percent by 2040, compared with 2005 levels.

However it said that with favourable macroeconomic conditions including increasingly high fossil fuel prices and cheap renewables, a 44-percent emissions drop was possible.

"The cost of living is here partly because we didn't get out of fossil fuels early enough," said Lewis.

"This bill means is that the transition away from fossil fuels is about to speed up."

Eric Beinhocker, director of the Institute of New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, said the bill would lead to a "massive increase" in clean technology and would drive the cost of renewables down even further.

"This is particularly important when the world is suffering not just from the climate effects of fossil fuels but also from their skyrocketing costs," he told AFP.

The legislation provides millions to help conserve forests and billions in tax credits to some of the country's worst-polluting industries to accelerate their transition to greener tech.

It almost didn't happen, however, with the bill delayed for months after Democrat Joe Manchin blocked Biden's more expensive Build Back Better infrastructure plan.

Pahle said that a failure by the US to agree an ambitious emissions cutting plan would have been a "major drawback on the viability of the Paris Agreement".

The 2015 accord enjoins nations to work to limit global temperature rises to "well below" two degrees celsius above pre-industrial levels and envisages a safer 1.5C heating cap.

With a little over 1.1C of warming so far, Earth is already being buffeted by extreme weather such as drought and storms supercharged by rising temperatures.
Just the start

Although acknowledging that the bill represented progress, scientists were quick to stress that it was far from perfect.

Michael Mann, director of Penn State's Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, said the bill's commitment to build new gas pipelines was "a step backwards".

"It's difficult to reconcile a promise to decarbonise our economy with a commitment to new fossil fuel infrastructure," he said.

Radhika Khosla, from the University of Oxford's Smith School, said that only action on a global scale could achieve the emissions cuts necessary to stave off the worst impacts of global heating.

"The effects of climate change are being felt by all of us," she said.

"This summer alone parts of the globe as disparate as China, the UK and Tunisia all saw record-breaking, deadly heatwaves.

"Lasting change will require ambitious action from all of us as well," she told AFP.

© 2022 AFP

'Little hope' of saving beluga whale stranded in France's Seine river

Hopes of saving a malnourished beluga whale that has swum up the Seine river were receding on Sunday, as rescuers said they were in a race against time to find a solution.

Beluga whale stranded in Seine still alive but now stationary, NGO says

Issued on: 08/08/2022 -

In this image taken from video footage by the French fire services of the Eure department (SDIS27), a beluga whale is seen in the River Seine in Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne, west of Paris, on August 4, 2022. © SDIS27 via AP

A malnourished beluga whale that has swum up France's River Seine is no longer progressing but is still alive, environmental group Sea Shepherd said Monday.

Hopes are fading to save the animal, which was first spotted on Tuesday in the river that runs through Paris to the English Channel.

"It is alert but not eating," Sea Shepherd France president Lamya Essemlali told AFP in a text message.

There was, however, "no worsening of its condition", she said.

Since Friday the whale has been between two locks some 70 kilometres (44 miles) north of the French capital.

Rescuers are considering last-ditch efforts to extract the animal from the Seine as the river's warm water is harming its health.

One alternative would be to open the locks in the hope that the beluga will swim towards the English Channel, authorities said.

Opening the locks would harbour the risk of the whale moving further upriver towards Paris, which would be even more disastrous.

Several attempts to feed the whale have failed in the past days.

On Saturday, veterinarians administered "vitamins and products to stimulate its appetite", said a statement on Sunday by the police in Normandy's Eure department, which is overseeing the rescue effort.



Belugas are normally found only in cold Arctic waters, and while they migrate south in the autumn to feed as ice forms, they rarely venture so far.

An adult can reach up to four metres (13 feet) in length.

According to France's Pelagis Observatory, specialised in sea mammals, the nearest beluga population is off the Svalbard archipelago, north of Norway, 3,000 kilometres from the Seine.

(AFP)

• 
  

Axios sold to Cox Enterprises for $525 million

BY DOMINICK MASTRANGELO - 08/08/22 1



Axios, the digital media company founded by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz, has sold to Cox Enterprises for more than a half billion dollars.

Cox Enterprises is a publicly traded media conglomerate that was founded on ownership of local newspapers. Today its subsidies include cable provider Cox Communications, Cox Automotive and Cox Media Group.

Sources familiar with the deal said the agreement to purchase Axios totals $525 million.

“With so much happening in the world, Axios plays a critical role in delivering balanced, trusted news that people need,” said Cox Enterprises Chairman and CEO Alex Taylor. “Our company started in the media business, and we have always had a passion for journalism. Bringing a forward-thinking organization like Axios into Cox Enterprises is exciting for us on many levels, and we look forward to helping them continue to scale and grow.”

The outlet reported part of the deal includes new investment of $25 million in Axios’s media arm, which has recently branched out into a number of local news markets including Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

The companies’ three founders — VandeHei, Allen and Schwartz — will all keep a minority shareholder status at Axios and remain on its board while continuing to make day-to-day newsroom and business decisions.

“Not a chance,” VandeHei told The New York Times when asked if he planned to step aside in the near future. “This is my life’s work, it’s my passion. I would do it for free.”Watch live: Biden briefed on Kentucky floodingBiden says he’s ‘not worried’ about China’s response to Pelosi visit to Taiwan

The Axios communications software business, Axios HQ, will become an independent company majority-owned by the founders and will include Cox as sole minority investor. VandeHei will be chairman of the board of Axios HQ and Schwartz will be its CEO.

Axios is the latest in a slew of D.C.-based media companies to sell to large media conglomerates in recent months. Last summer, Politico was acquired by German publisher Axel Springer and the Times purchased The Athletic in January.

The Hill was sold to Nexstar Media Group last August.

Monkeypox: Déjà VU All Over Again
We’ve been through this before and have come out stronger. We will do it again.

August 7, 2022 

by James W. Gaynor

Covid and its variants have yet to disappear, and now Monkeypox – a new outbreak of a virus that can be transmitted during sex – makes its dramatic entrance. And if that wasn’t bad enough, its first concentration is in the M2M demographic. Sound familiar?

According to a recent article in The Guardian, New York City is fast becoming a global epicentre of the disease. And, once again, public health here is unequipped to handle an outbreak in a population this city would prefer to ignore once the Pride Parades are over.

However, as someone in the HIV trenches during the worst of HIV, I have some sense of optimism — despite the similarities, this isn’t going to be as bad.

Why not? First, this strain of Monkeypox is not generally fatal, although it can be incredibly painful and debilitating.

More importantly, my optimism is based on what we learned in the AIDS wars— our community can and will take care of our own.

So, while yet again we wait for a vaccine, we need to look at what we can do right now — publicise the facts about transmission, identify the symptoms, and, most importantly, use common sense around safer sex practices.

We’ve been through this before and have come out stronger. We will do it again. And, if there’s one thing this poet has learned from his third-in-a-lifetime pandemic: Versifiers and epidemiologists have something in common – love and viruses never disappear completely — and they share the disquieting habit of showing up again when least expected.

Stay healthy!

READ MORE:

Factsheet for Reporters on Monkeypox (MPV) and the LGBTQ Community

CDC Estimates 1.7 Million Gay and Bisexual Men Face Highest Risk From Monkeypox

As Monkeypox Strikes Gay Men, Officials Debate Warnings to Limit Partners

Gottlieb: White House ‘can still catch up’ after monkeypox emergency declaration

BY JULIA MUELLER - 08/07/22


Former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Sunday said that the Biden administration “can still catch up” and control the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. with ramped-up testing.

“I think they can still catch up. I think there’s a potential to get this back in the box. But it’s going to be very difficult at this point,” Gottlieb told CBS “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports 7,510 monkeypox cases in the U.S. as of Friday — as well as 28,220 global cases.

Gottlieb on Sunday said officials are focusing on the community of men who have sex with men, the group within which most cases have been identified so far, but added that “there’s no question” monkeypox has spread outside that community.

“We’re looking for cases in that community, so we’re finding them there. But we need to start looking for cases in the broader community.”

Gottlieb also said that doctors should be allowed to test people with what appear to be atypical cases of shingles or herpes for monkeypox.

He noted that the CDC “has been reluctant” to expand testing, and has been administering just 8,000 of a possible 80,000 tests a week.

“If we’re going to contain this and make sure that it doesn’t spread more broadly in the population, we need to start testing more broadly.”

Cases in the broader community are likely still low, the former FDA administrator said, adding that “if we want to contain this, if we want to prevent this from becoming an endemic virus, we need to be looking more widely for it.”

World Health Organization (WHO) officials have also warned that outbreaks commonly start in one group before spreading to others, and that monkeypox should not be expected to stay confined to the community of men who have sex with men. Several U.S. monkeypox cases have already been reported among women and children.

WHO declared monkeypox a public health emergency last month, and the White House followed suit last week.

Why is Ron DeSantis’s surgeon general trying to lower public trust in the monkeypox vaccine?

The surgeon general once appeared in a COVID-19 disinformation video alongside a woman who says that "demon sperm" causes ovarian cysts.

By Daniel Villarreal

Friday, August 5, 2022

Ron DeSantisPhoto: Shutterstock

Joseph Ladapo — Florida’s surgeon general appointed by the state’s anti-LGBTQ Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — is trying to make people distrust the monkeypox vaccine, stating that there is “little data” on it, which is misleading.

Ladapo’s position is hardly surprising considering that he spent years spreading COVID-19 disinformation and echoing DeSantis’ distrust in vaccines.

On Tuesday, DeSantis criticized the Democratic governors of California, Illinois, and New York for declaring states of emergency over monkeypox. The declarations give their governments greater ability to mobilize resources against the virus. (U.S. President Joe Biden declared a national state of emergency for monkeypox on Thursday.)

DeSantis said the governors were using the emergency declarations to stoke fear, control people, and “restrict your freedom.”

Ladapo backed up DeSantis’ words, stating, “It’s just kind of remarkable to see some of the headlines — the headlines that very clearly are trying to make you afraid of monkeypox or fill-in-the-blank. You know, because if you’re not afraid of this there will be something else after that and something else after that.”

“These people are determined to make you afraid and do whatever it is they want you to do. And, um, you know, I hope that more and more people choose not to do that,” he added.

Then after revealing that Florida had distributed 8,500 monkeypox vaccines, Lapado said, “You should know that there’s actually very little data on this vaccine.”

To understand why Lapado’s claim is misleading, a little background is necessary.

As of Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported 6,326 monkeypox cases within the United States. The Florida Department of Health shows 525 monkeypox cases statewide, The Florida Phoenix reported.

The U.S. has purchased seven million doses of Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine to prevent a worse monkeypox outbreak. The vaccine, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in September 2019, is based on the smallpox vaccine, which has been around since 1796.

The Jynneos vaccine is made from a virus that is closely related to, but less harmful than, monkeypox viruses. It does not cause disease in humans and cannot reproduce in human cells.

A study of 400 individuals found that the Jynneos vaccine was as effective against monkeypox as the ACAM2000 smallpox vaccine, which the FDA approved in 2007. The safety of Jynneos was assessed in more than 7,800 individuals who received at least one dose of the vaccine, the FDA said. Previous studies have shown that smallpox vaccines are 85% likely to provide a high level of immunity against monkeypox for up to two years, according to the MIT Technology Review.

Ladapo’s authority on vaccines is highly questionable at best.

In July 2020, near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he appeared in a 43-minute viral video as part of a group called America’s Frontline Doctors. The group, which had no epidemiologists or immunologists qualified to speak on infectious diseases, promoted the anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for COVID-19, even though no studies substantiated that claim. The video also said that face masks do not slow the virus’s spread and that COVID-19 is less deadly than the flu. Both claims are untrue.

The video also featured Dr. Stella Immanuel, a pediatrician and religious minister who gained notoriety in 2020 for her bizarre theories, including that “demonic seed” causes endometriosis and ovarian cysts. Immanuel explained on her church’s website that demons insert sperm into sleeping individuals when they have sex in their dreams.

The doctors’ recorded speech was organized by the Tea Party Patriots, a right-wing group backed by wealthy Republican donors. Lapado has written numerous op-eds repeating the video’s false claims.

The video received millions of views when then-President Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and other right-wing media figures shared it on social media. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter all removed the video for violating their policies on sharing COVID-19 misinformation.

In October 2020, Ladapo signed the Great Barrington Declaration, a statement that called for developing societal herd immunity to COVID-19 through natural infection. In response, 80 medical researchers signed an open letter published in The Lancet, a leading medical journal, calling the declaration’s theory “a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.”

Florida ranks third among U.S. states with the highest numbers of COVID-19 infections and related deaths. DeSantis has signed orders expanding exemptions for people who don’t want to get vaccinated against COVID-19 vaccines and to prevent schools and local governments from instating face mask mandates in Florida.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/10/more-trump-quackery-his-so-called.html

BACKGROUNDER

Who Could Be Part Of A U.S.-Russia Prisoner Exchange?

August 06, 2022 
By Todd Prince

U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner (right) is escorted from a court hearing in Khimki outside Moscow after a trial that saw her sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison.

As the United States and Russia prepare to discuss a prisoner swap just days after Moscow sentenced a U.S. women’s basketball star to nine years in prison on drug smuggling charges, much remains unclear about who could be freed.

Speaking separately at an Asia conference in Cambodia on August 5, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, confirmed that they were ready to pursue swap talks though they gave no further details.

Late last month, Blinken said the United States had made a "substantial offer" to Russia for the release of basketball player Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who is serving a 16-year prison sentence in Russia on espionage charges that he denies.

The United States claims that the two jailed Americans are political pawns being used by Moscow amid a deteriorating bilateral relationship.

U.S. media reported last week that the White House had offered to swap Russian arms trader Viktor Bout, who is serving a 25-year sentence, for the two Americans. Moscow has been seeking Bout’s release for years.

However, Russia holds at least two other U.S. individuals on controversial grounds and experts do not exclude a swap involving more prisoners.

SEE ALSO:
Russia, U.S. Say They're Ready For Talks On Prisoner Swap After Griner Sentenced

The problem for the Kremlin may lie in deciding whom to choose among the dozens of Russian individuals serving time in U.S. jails in connection with serious crimes.

Over the past decade, the United States has sentenced dozens of Russian individuals to prison terms on money-laundering, hacking, and ransomware charges.

Some of the hackers are high profile individuals of interest to the Kremlin and could be part of a swap, said Arkady Bukh, a U.S.-based defense lawyer who represents Russian-speaking clients.

Many of them had been arrested in third countries on U.S. warrants and later extradited to the United States, prompting Moscow to accuse Washington of “hunting” its citizens around the world.

The United States has claimed that Russia does not take action against its own citizens committing cybercrimes against foreign countries.

Russia has filed competing extradition requests to block their citizens from falling into the hands of the United States though it has lost in most cases.

The harsh sentences handed down by Russian courts to U.S. citizens for minor crimes, such as possession of marijuana, may be retribution by Moscow for those arrests.

Russia’s courts are not independent with the state calling the shots on high-profile cases, experts say.

Moscow and Washington have carried out swaps involving diplomats and spies over the decades, but exchanges of individuals convicted of criminal activity is unusual, Bukh said.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration agreed to swap Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot from Russia who was sentenced in 2011 to 20 years in prison for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States, for Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine who was imprisoned in Russia for nearly three years on charges of assaulting two police officers.

Below is a list of Russian and U.S. individuals who could be involved in another potential prisoner swap.

Victor Bout

Russian arms trader Viktor Bout (file photo)

Viktor Bout, 55, is serving a 25-year sentence in the United States for conspiring to sell weapons to a Colombian terrorist group. The U.S. accused Bout, a pilot, of running an international arms-trafficking network that supplied a wide-range of clients from the Taliban to Liberian warlord Charles Taylor.

He was arrested in Thailand in 2008 at the behest of the United States and convicted by a U.S. court in 2011. Russian authorities complained that he was arrested illegally by U.S. agents in Thailand and fought to have him extradited back home. A former Soviet military officer, Bout had served in Angola, where he is alleged to have worked for the KGB.

Roman Seleznyov

An undated photo of Roman Seleznyov (center) with his family.

Roman Seleznyov, the son of Valery Seleznyov -- a member of Russia's lower house of parliament and an outspoken critic of U.S. policies -- is serving a 27-year sentence for various cybercrimes, including selling stolen U.S. credit card data. Seleznyov, 38, was arrested by U.S. authorities in 2014 at an airport in the Maldives and quickly taken to the U.S. territory of Guam, sparking accusations by Moscow that he was kidnapped.

U.S. investigators uncovered Seleznyov’s online activities in the late 2000s and asked Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) for help. Seleznyov’s online footprint soon disappeared, leading U.S. investigators to believe Russia was protecting him. Seleznyov (listed as Roman V. Seleznev in U.S. court papers) received one of the harshest sentences ever handed down to a Russian hacker because he chose to fight his case despite a preponderance of evidence rather than cooperate.

Vladislav Klyushin

Vladislav Klyushin, 41, was arrested in Switzerland on March 21, 2021, on charges of stealing insider information and using it to make a fortune. He was extradited to the United States on December 18. Klyushin is accused of being part of a group that hacked into networks to steal sensitive corporate data and use the information to trade stocks.

The group is thought to have made a total of $82 million over a two-year period from 2018 to 2020. The other members of the group remain at large. One of them is a former officer in the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate, known as the GRU, who was previously charged in July 2018 for his alleged role in a Russian effort to meddle in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Klyushin owned M-13, a Russian company that offers media-monitoring and cybersecurity services, and is believed to have Kremlin ties. His company provided IT solutions that were used by the Russian president, federal ministries and departments as well as regional state executive bodies.

Aleksandr Vinnik

Aleksandr Vinnik (file photo)

Aleksandr Vinnik, 43, who is also known as Mr. Bitcoin, was extradited to the United States on August 5 to face money-laundering charges. Vinnik allegedly owned and operated BTC-e, one of the world’s largest digital-currency exchanges. The United States claims that BTC-e was used extensively by cybercriminals worldwide to launder money because it did not require users to validate their identity, obscured and anonymized transactions and sources of funds, and lacked any due diligence processes.

Vinnik was arrested on a U.S. warrant in 2017 on a Greek beach while vacationing with his family. However, he was initially extradited to France to face separate money-laundering charges and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released from a French prison on August 4 but immediately sent back to Greece, which had requested his return so it could execute the original U.S. warrant. If convicted by a U.S. court, Vinnik faces up to 20 years in prison.

The timing of Vinnik's transfer to the United States coincided with the sentencing of Griner, giving rise to speculation he may be used in a possible prisoner swap.

Denis Dubnikov

Denis Dubnikov, 29, was detained last year in the Netherlands at the request of the United States for allegedly laundering cryptocurrency tied to a notorious ransomware gang and could soon be extradited. Dubnikov flew to Mexico in November for a vacation and was denied entry. Instead of being put on a plane back to Russia, he was sent to the Netherlands, where he was detained upon arrival. The Netherlands has historically approved extraditions to the United States.

Dubnikov, who co-owns small crypto-exchanges, allegedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of digital currency from Ryuk, a ransomware gang believed to have extracted tens of millions in ransoms, including from U.S. victims. Dubnikov denied the charges, saying at the time through his lawyer that he did not know the source of the money that the United States alleges came from ransomware payments.

Dubnikov's arrest has been called one of U.S. law enforcement's first potential blows to the Ryuk gang, which is suspected of being behind a rash of cyberattacks on U.S. health-care organizations. The Wall Street Journal said that Ryuk took in more than $100 million in ransom payments last year.

Brittney Griner

U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner sits inside a defendants' while her sentence is read out in court on August 4.

Brittney Griner, 31, was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport in in February for possessing vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is illegal in Russia. Griner, a star for the Phoenix Mercury in the United States, plays for a basketball team in Russia during the off-season of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She pleaded guilty to possessing the cartridges but claimed she did not intend to violate Russian law. Her nine-year sentence was not extreme by Russian standards, experts have said.

Paul Whelan

Paul Whelan (file photo)

Paul Whelan, 52, a Michigan-based corporate security executive, was arrested in December 2018 on espionage charges while visiting Moscow for a friend's wedding. Russia claimed Whelan was caught with a computer flash drive containing classified information. Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian, and Irish citizenship, said he was set up in a sting operation and had thought the drive, given to him by a Russian acquaintance, contained vacation photos. In June 2020, he was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years of "hard labor" in a Russian prison. The U.S. government said Russia produced no evidence to prove Whelan’s guilt during a trial that it called a mockery of justice.

David Barnes

David Barnes, 65, a Texas resident, was arrested by Russian authorities in Moscow in January 2022 on charges of abusing his children in the United States. Barnes traveled to Moscow in December 2021 to win the right to either see his children or bring them back home. Barnes ex-wife, Svetlana Koptyaeva, fled to Russia with the children in 2019 amid divorce and custody proceedings.

A Texas court in 2020 awarded Barnes custody of the children and Koptyaeva is now wanted by the United States on charges of interfering with child custody. Koptyaeva had accused Barnes of child abuse but a 2018 investigation by the Department of Family and Protective Services did not find sufficient evidence to support such a conclusion and closed the case without filing any charges.

Marc Fogel

Marc Fogel, a 60-year-old English teacher, was arrested in an airport in Moscow in 2021 for carrying about half an ounce of medical marijuana. He was sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony after prosecutors claimed he intended to sell the drugs to his students.

Fogel had been teaching for nearly a decade at the Anglo-American School in Moscow, a prestigious fee-paying primary school that had been established by the U.S., Canadian and British embassies. Fogel, who had surgeries on his back, shoulder, and knee, said he began to use medical marijuana while in the United States on summer break to cope with pain and tried to bring some of it back to Russia, where it is illegal.

Todd Prince is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL based in Washington, D.C. He lived in Russia from 1999 to 2016, working as a reporter for Bloomberg News and an investment adviser for Merrill Lynch. He has traveled extensively around Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asia.

A former Marine details the chaotic exit from Afghanistan — and how we should mark it

By Rachel Martin

NPR
Published August 6, 2022

U.S. Central Command Public AffairsThis handout image shows a Marine passing out water to evacuees during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 22.


It's been almost a year since the Taliban took over Afghanistan again and the U.S. military pulled out of the country.

As the withdrawal unfolded, Marine Corps veteran Elliot Ackerman was watching the chaos from a distance. He was on a family vacation in Italy but couldn't tear himself away from what was happening.

Ackerman had deployed to Afghanistan multiple times. He felt bound to America's Afghan allies, so when the U.S. announced it was leaving and those same Afghans were desperate to get out, he lay awake at night, glued to his phone.

"My entire network was lighting up and it had become quickly a crowdsourced evacuation, with each person playing their part," Ackerman told Morning Edition.

''Some people were trying to raise money for charter flights, other people were arranging the buses that would transport evacuees from various pickup points in Kabul into the airport."

Ackerman was key because he knew Marines who were inside the airport, manning those gates and deciding who could come in and who could not. He writes about this experience in his new book, The Fifth Act: America's End in Afghanistan.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Alyssa Schukar Photography LLC
Elliot Ackerman, 41, deployed as a Marine to Afghanistan from 2008 to 2011 and trained Afghan Commando soldiers.

Interview highlights

On mobilizing to help Afghans evacuate

Everyone was very much focused on the task at hand, because the stakes are obviously very high. You know, you've got the photographs of the people who are trying to get out and their families, [because] these aren't people any of us knew — the only family that I got out who I had a direct personal connection to was my interpreter. He has since moved to the U.S. but his family was still there and we were able to get his family out. But everyone else, these were strangers and they were strangers for most of us. So in that moment, you can't really step away.

But there were certainly little interludes. And my wife, in the book, she almost comes off like a Greek chorus conscience of the book, saying, you know, "Why are you all having to do this? Why are the people who left the wars 10 years ago now being sucked in to try to finish them?"

/ Omar Haidari/AFP
This image made available to AFP on August 20, 2021 by Human Rights Activist Omar Haidari, shows a U.S. Marine grabbing an infant over a fence of barbed wire during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Aug. 19, 2021.

On how he views America's exit from Afghanistan

I think it was a collapse of American morals that we made these promises and we fell short. It was a collapse of American competence. I mean, listen, despite the heroic efforts of those who were at the airport — and our efforts were truly heroic, so I'm not questioning their competence — but I would question the competence of decision-making that put us into this position where our back was up against a wall with this Aug. 31st withdrawal date that we couldn't seem to move.

It was a collapse of hierarchy, because as the war was ending in those days, I found myself on text chains and phone calls with retired four star generals and admirals, some of whom had commanded the entire war, because no one could get anyone out because of the craziness. And because, for a brief window, the team that I was working with was having some success, we found ourselves serving in this collapsed hierarchy all working together. And that was surreal for me at times.

On how it's impossible to really separate yourself from the experience of war

People have sometimes asked me, "Elliot, how do you think the war's changed you?" and I've never known how to answer that question. Because the war in so many ways made me. I don't know how to unbraid it out of the knots that are me. But the friendships that I have there, the memories that I have from that time, of course I think about and it's the time when I was growing up. I mean, I grew up there in the war.

I entered the service and started that training pipeline at 17 years old. And as you see in the book, those friendships have projected out because as Kabul was falling, so many of the people I'm working with, these are folks who've also transitioned. They've ended the wars themselves and we're all still friends.

On what an appropriate memorial would look like to these particular American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

I started thinking about it with regards to the recent passage of the Global War on Terrorism Memorial Location Act, which has gone through Congress to authorize a memorial to these wars. But the global war on terrorism isn't over yet, so it's actually interesting.

For the first time as a country, we will be trying to make a memorial to a war that we are still technically fighting. But it got me thinking, how would you make a memorial to a forever war? And that got me thinking, well maybe what would be more appropriate instead of erecting all these memorials upward, maybe we should dig downward, kind of like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

And I imagined a war memorial that would look almost like the sloping granite rock, sort of descending downward conically like something from Dante, and we would get rid of all the memorials to each specific war and we would just have one American War Memorial.

/ Penguin Random House
Ackerman's book, The Fifth Act: America's End in Afghanistan.

It would begin with the names, the first being Crispus Attucks, who was killed at the Boston Massacre. And we would just list them all chronologically digging ourselves deeper and deeper and deeper. So we have more than a million war dead at this point in our country's history. And every time we fund a new war, we just add the names going down and down into the earth. And then, in my imagination of this war memorial, when you got to the very last name, there would be a desk and a pen. And Congress would pass a law that before any troop deployment, the president — he or she — would have to come down to the war memorial and that pen would be the only pen that could be used to sign that troop deployments.

They would have to walk by all of the war dead before they would need to do that. And then we wouldn't have to have any more debates about war memorials — we would just know what we did every time we fought a war, we'd just add the names.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org

Rachel Martin is a host of Morning Edition, as well as NPR's morning news podcast Up First.
See stories by Rachel Martin

California and Maine Are Implementing Universal Meal Programs for All Children

An incoming fourth-grade student at Compton Avenue Elementary School samples and tastes new breakfast and lunch menu items at Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts on July 29, 2022, in Los Angeles, California.

GARY CORONADO / LOS ANGELES TIMES 

BY Lily Levine, 

Prism August 6, 2022

When Erin Primer first heard the news that California was implementing a Universal Meal Program, she didn’t think it was true. For Primer, the director of food and nutrition services at San Luis Coastal Unified School District (SLCUSD) and a long-time advocate of universal meals, the announcement came as a colossal victory.

“It’s been something that we never thought was actually possible, especially at the beginning of the pandemic,” Primer said. “It’s allowed me to be incredibly hopeful about school food.”

On July 9, 2021, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the Free School Meals for All Act, which pledges $650 million in ongoing funding to give about 6 million public school children in grades K-12 the option of receiving both a free breakfast and lunch every school day starting at the beginning of SY 2022-23. The bill was originally proposed by state Sen. Nancy Skinner and backed by a coalition of over 200 organizations.

The decision to implement universal free school meals is historic. Under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), students must qualify for free or reduced-price lunch based on household income level. The new bill, however, allows all children — regardless of eligibility — to receive food.

While talks regarding universal meals had been ongoing before the pandemic, it wasn’t until March 2020 that school educators and administration realized the categories surrounding income weren’t sufficient — suddenly, everyone was in need.

“It started very much out of this need to feed people during a time of scarcity and uncertainty, and it’s really allowed us to lean into our food values and express that in our entire program,” Primer said.

California’s decision has already inspired Maine to follow suit, indicating a more significant shift toward greater national food equity.

A More Inclusive System

For the upcoming school year, a family of four in the contiguous states, territories, and Washington, D.C., qualifies for a free meal if they make an annual income of $36,075 and a reduced-price meal if they earn $51,338. Consequently, families that just miss the cut-off may still be struggling financially but would not be eligible for federal assistance; NSLP guidelines also do not take into account the cost of living, which varies from state to state.

In southern California, the new policy will ensure no children fall through the cracks. Menu Systems Development Dietitian for the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Melanie Moyer said of the 97,000 students in her district, 40,000 receive government assistance, with about 60% eligible for free or reduced price meals. Furthermore, there are about 7,000 unhoused students in her district, all of whom will now be able to receive meals without question.

Destigmatizing Free Food

Social stigma is another barrier that prevents many students from taking advantage of school meals.

Zack Castorina, a special education math resource provider at Equitas Academy 4 in the Los Angeles Unified School District, knows hungry students don’t learn as well as fed students do.

“Students continuously compare themselves to their peers in all forms and are aware of where they fall financially within their class,” he said. “By universalizing [meals], students and families feel no judgment in taking food they need.”

Destigmatizatizing school food also means prioritizing the dignity of those consuming it. To do this, Primer believes school districts should have food that is so good that everybody wants to eat it. And that’s what they’ve done.

During the pandemic, SLCUSD kept up with demand by distributing nearly 2,000 pantry-style boxes per week containing loaves of bread, blocks of local cheese, and various local produce. Similarly, SDUSD sources their dairy and bread locally and hosts “Harvest of the Month” to expose their students to foods they may otherwise not taste outside of school.

Narrowing Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities

Food is a racial equity issue, demonstrated by the numbers revealing Black- and Latinx-headed households are nearly three times as likely to experience food insecurity as their white counterparts. This is significant since in California, 5.2% of enrolled students in 2020-21 identified as African American and 55.3% as Latinx.

At the school where Castorina teaches in Los Angeles, 95% of the student population is Latinx, and 92% qualified for free or reduced meals.

“[When I learned about the initiative], I was excited about how it can impact low-income families by taking [off] some of the financial burdens [of] feeding their children,” he said.

Whittier, California, resident and recent California High School graduate Jonathan Pilares ate free school meals along with his 9-year-old sister. He said that having a school lunch was financially helpful for his family in the long run. It also meant his mother would only have to cook once a day.

To Pilares, the bill will reduce barriers to access, ensuring more families are reached.

“Being from a Latino family and a heavily Latino populated area, I know many parents would struggle understanding the forms required by schools, even if they were in Spanish,” Pilares said. “This makes it easier for them to get food for their children without having to worry about the forms and hassle.”

Though by no means perfect in taste or quality, Pilares said he hopes this policy will benefit underprivileged students of all ethnicities in a similar way.
Toward a Fuller Future

Perusing the daily school newsletter, Moyer has already seen chatter about other states potentially adopting similar policies.

“I think that’s great, because California is not the only state with food insecure children,” she said.

One way to bring further awareness to the issue is through partnerships with state and nationwide legislators. Last fall, SLCUSD hosted state Sen. John Laird and U.S. House Rep. Salud Carbajal to eat a real school lunch and sit in their garden to see where the food is grown; First Partner of California Jennifer Siebel Newsom is also expected to visit in July. In Primer’s opinion, experiencing the food program firsthand will allow politicians to share these stories and find ways for states to jump on board.

“California’s leading the pack. It’s exciting,” she said.

Prism is an independent and nonprofit newsroom led by journalists of color. We report from the ground up and at the intersections of injustice.