Conspiracies complicate voting machine debate in Louisiana

By SARA CLINE AND CHRISTINA A. CASSIDY

August 13, 2022

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People vote on Election Day at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, Nov. 8, 2016. The need for Louisiana to replace its voting machines is not in dispute. They were deployed in 2006, the year after Hurricane Katrina struck, and don’t produce paper ballots that are critical to ensuring election results are accurate. What to do about them is another story. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The need for Louisiana to replace its voting machines is not in dispute.

They are badly outdated — deployed in 2006, the year after Hurricane Katrina struck -- and do not produce paper ballots that are critical to ensuring election results are accurate.

What to do about them is another story.

The long-running drama includes previous allegations of bid-rigging, voting machine companies claiming favoritism and a secretary of state who is noncommittal about having a new system in place for the 2024 presidential election.

Local election clerks also worry about the influence of conspiracy theorists who have peddled unfounded claims about voting equipment and have been welcomed into the debate over new machines.

“It would be a travesty to let a minority of people who have little to no experience in election administration tear down an exceptional process that was painstakingly built over many, many years,” Calcasieu Parish Clerk of Court Lynn Jones told state officials in a meeting this summer. “And for us to throw it out of the window because of unfounded theories is mind-boggling.”

The uncertainty is playing out against a backdrop of attacks on the integrity of elections, fueled by former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him and promoted by a web of his allies and supporters. Some of those same supporters have been trying to convince election officials across the country that they should ditch machines in favor of paper ballots and hand-counts.

Whatever success they have had so far has been limited primarily to GOP-dominated rural counties. But in Louisiana, a heavily Republican state that Trump won by nearly 20 percentage points, they have managed to insert themselves into an already long-delayed process of choosing a new statewide voting system.

Louisiana officials have been trying for at least four years to replace their outdated touchscreen voting machines. Although some counties in four other states still use the machines, Louisiana is the only one where they are in place statewide — some 10,000 in all.

The machines’ main problem, aside from their age and the challenge of finding replacement parts, is that votes are recorded electronically without a paper record of each voter’s selections. That means if a result is in dispute, there are no individual paper ballots to review to ensure the outcome was accurate. Under a new state law, Louisiana’s next voting system must have a paper trail of ballots cast so election results can be properly audited.

“The problem in Louisiana is that if someone were to allege the voting machines had been hacked, there would be no conclusive evidence to rebut that,” said Mark Lindeman, director of Verified Voting, which tracks the use of voting equipment in the United States. “It leaves election officials to prove a negative.”

While election clerks agree the machines are antiquated and there is a need for a paper record, the equipment does not appear to have caused any major problems in recent years.

In 2018, the nation’s top homeland security and cybersecurity officials urged states to replace any remaining voting systems without a paper trail to improve security and increase public confidence. Congress allocated $805 million before the 2020 election to help states pay for security upgrades, including new equipment.

Louisiana officials, in a 2018 report to the federal agency disbursing the money, said they planned to use the state’s share to cover the costs of “a new electronic voting system” and noted the state had already begun the procurement process.

But that same year, the contract was voided amid allegations of bid-rigging. In 2021, Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin shelved another replacement attempt after the process was challenged by voting machine companies that claimed favoritism for the state’s current vendor, Dominion Voting Systems.

Following the 2020 presidential election, Dominion was ensnared in a web of conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and his allies, claiming their voting machines were rigged to steal the election. The company has pushed back, filing defamation lawsuits against conservative media outlets and Trump allies, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

The false claims have taken root in conservative communities, where local officials have been pressured to stop using computer equipment for casting and counting ballots. Nearly two years after the last presidential election, no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines has surfaced, and courts have rejected dozens of court cases filed by Trump and his allies.

Last December, Phil Waldron — a retired Army colonel who circulated a PowerPoint presentation offering suggestions for how to overturn the 2020 election — was invited to speak to the commission tasked with recommending the new voting system for Louisiana. Waldron gave a 90-minute presentation focusing on counting paper ballots by hand, according to The Washington Post.

More recently, Lindell, one of the most prominent supporters of ditching election machines and counting every ballot by hand, traveled to Baton Rouge to testify before the same commission.

At a June meeting at the Capitol, Ardoin set aside rules limiting public testimony to three minutes per person so Lindell could address the commission at length. During his 17-minute address, Lindell detailed his national quest against “corrupted” voting systems and “stolen” elections.

“We lose everything if we keep even one machine moving forward,” Lindell told the commission. He went on to describe Louisiana as “the tip of the spear” in his efforts to end the use of voting machines across the country.

At the meeting, multiple clerks said they were opposed to what Lindell was advocating -- having every voter fill out a paper ballot and having every ballot counted by hand, a process that would involve tens of thousands of ballots in the most populous counties.

“Don’t mistake not wanting to go back to a pen-and-paper as not wanting to have an auditable vote trail,” said David Ditch, the clerk of court for Iberia Parish. “Everybody -- every political persuasion and everybody that comes into my office -- says the same thing, ‘We love the way we vote now. We just wish we had something to prove it in the end.’”

The commission ultimately voted to recommend the use of either hand-marked or machine-marked ballots or a combination of the two, and for the state to keep electronic tabulators for counting ballots. Commissioners, including Adroin, voted in favor of machine-scanned vote tallies — not hand-counts.

The next move is Ardoin’s.

A Republican first elected in 2018, he has defended the state’s elections as secure even as he has handed a megaphone to some of the most prominent election conspiracy theorists.

In response to written questions, his office said Ardoin was “currently reviewing the commission’s recommendations and will work with his staff as those recommendations relate to the next steps in acquisition of a new voting system.”

When asked whether the goal was to have a new voting system in place before the 2024 presidential election, Ardoin’s office said it was “difficult at this time to say what the timetable will be” but that two years is “probably the closest estimate.”

At a gathering in July of the nation’s top state election officials, Ardoin raised the issue of hand-marked paper ballots while dismissing hand-counting as something that would “extend elections over years.”

His remarks prompted a fellow Republican, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, to tell the group that he had once served as an international observer in Russia and had seen hand-counting up close.

“If you’d like to have an orientation about how that goes, that is the easiest way to cheat that you can introduce to anybody,” Merrill told attendees. “I can assure you that’s not a direction that you want to go. The people that are promoting that are ignorant or ill-informed, period.”

FREE MARKET CAPITALI$M

Some Capitol rioters try to profit from their Jan. 6 crimes

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

August 14, 2022

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 Insurrectionists loyal to President Donald Trump try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. Facing prison time and dire personal consequences for storming the U.S. Capitol, some Jan. 6 defendants are trying to profit from their participation in the deadly riot, using it as a platform to drum up cash, promote business endeavors and boost social media profiles. 

(AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)


Facing prison time and dire personal consequences for storming the U.S. Capitol, some Jan. 6 defendants are trying to profit from their participation in the deadly riot, using it as a platform to drum up cash, promote business endeavors and boost social media profiles.

A Nevada man jailed on riot charges asked his mother to contact publishers for a book he was writing about “the Capitol incident.” A rioter from Washington state helped his father hawk clothes and other merchandise bearing slogans such as “Our House” and images of the Capitol building. A Virginia man released a rap album with riot-themed songs and a cover photograph of him sitting on a police vehicle outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Those actions are sometimes complicating matters for defendants when they face judges at sentencing as prosecutors point to the profit-chasing activities in seeking tougher punishments. The Justice Department, in some instances, is trying to claw back money that rioters have made off the insurrection.

In one case, federal authorities have seized tens of thousands of dollars from a defendant who sold his footage from Jan. 6. In another case, a Florida man’s plea deal allows the U.S. government to collect profits from any book he gets published over the next five years. And prosecutors want a Maine man who raised more than $20,000 from supporters to surrender some of the money because a taxpayer-funded public defender is representing him.

Many rioters have paid a steep personal price for their actions on Jan. 6. At sentencing, rioters often ask for leniency on the grounds that they already have experienced severe consequences for their crimes.

They lost jobs or entire careers. Marriages fell apart. Friends and relatives shunned them or even reported them to the FBI. Strangers have sent them hate mail and online threats. And they have racked up expensive legal bills to defend themselves against federal charges ranging from misdemeanors to serious felonies.

Websites and crowdfunding platforms set up to collect donations for Capitol riot defendants try to portray them as mistreated patriots or even political prisoners.

An anti-vaccine medical doctor who pleaded guilty to illegally entering the Capitol founded a nonprofit that raised more than $430,000 for her legal expenses. The fundraising appeal by Dr. Simone Gold’s group, America’s Frontline Doctors, didn’t mention her guilty plea, prosecutors noted.

Before sentencing Gold to two months behind bars, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper called it “unseemly” that her nonprofit invoked the Capitol riot to raise money that also paid for her salary. Prosecutors said in court papers that it “beggars belief” that she incurred anywhere close to $430,000 in legal costs for her misdemeanor case.

Another rioter, a New Jersey gym owner who punched a police officer during the siege, raised more than $30,000 in online donations for a “Patriot Relief Fund” to cover his mortgage payments and other monthly bills. Prosecutors cited the fund in recommending a fine for Scott Fairlamb, who is serving a prison sentence of more than three years.

“Fairlamb should not be able to ‘capitalize’ on his participation in the Capitol breach in this way,” Justice Department lawyers wrote.

Robert Palmer, a Florida man who attacked police officers at the Capitol, asked a friend to create a crowdfunding campaign for him online after he pleaded guilty. After seeing the campaign to “Help Patriot Rob,” a probation officer calculating a sentencing recommendation for Palmer didn’t give him credit for accepting responsibility for his conduct. Palmer conceded that a post for the campaign falsely portrayed his conduct on Jan. 6. Acceptance of responsibility can help shave months or even years off a sentence.

“When you threw the fire extinguisher and the plank at the police officers, were you acting in self-defense?” asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

“No, ma’am, I was not,” Palmer said before the judge sentenced him to more than five years in prison.

A group calling itself the Patriot Freedom Project says it has raised more than $1 million in contributions and paid more than $665,000 in grants and legal fees for families of Capitol riot defendants.

In April, a New Jersey-based foundation associated with the group filed an IRS application for tax-exempt status. As of early August, an IRS database doesn’t list the foundation as a tax-exempt organization. The Hughes Foundation’s IRS application says its funds “principally” will benefit families of Jan. 6 defendants, with about 60% of the donated money going to foundation activities. The rest will cover management and fundraising expenses, including salaries, it adds.

Rioters have found other ways to enrich or promote themselves.

Jeremy Grace, who was sentenced to three weeks in jail for entering the Capitol, tried to profit off his participation by helping his dad sell T-shirts, baseball caps, water bottles, decals and other gear with phrases such as “Our House” and “Back the Blue” and images of the Capitol, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Grace’s “audacity” to sell “Back the Blue” paraphernalia is “especially disturbing” because he watched other rioters confront police officers on Jan. 6. A defense lawyer, however, said Grace didn’t break any laws or earn any profits by helping his father sell the merchandise.

Federal authorities seized more than $62,000 from a bank account belonging to riot defendant John Earle Sullivan, a Utah man who earned more than $90,000 from selling his Jan. 6 video footage to at least six companies. Sullivan’s lawyer argued authorities had no right to seize the money.

Richard “Bigo” Barnett, an Arkansas man photographed propping his feet up on a desk in the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has charged donors $100 for photos of him with his feet on a desk while under house arrest. Defense lawyer Joseph McBride said prosecutors have “zero grounds” to prevent Barnett from raising money for his defense before a December trial date.

“Unlike the government, Mr. Barnett does not have the American Taxpayer footing the bill for his legal case,” McBride wrote in a court filing.

Texas real estate agent Jennifer Leigh Ryan promoted her business on social media during and after the riot, boasting that she was “becoming famous.” In messages sent after Jan. 6, Ryan “contemplated the business she needed to prepare for as a result of the publicity she received from joining the mob at the Capitol,” prosecutors said in court documents.

Prosecutors cited the social media activity of Treniss Evans III in recommending a two-month jail term for the Texas man, who drank a shot of whiskey in a congressional conference room on Jan. 6. Evans has “aggressively exploited” his presence at the Capitol to expand his social media following on Gettr, a social media site founded by a former Trump adviser, prosecutors wrote before Evans’ sentencing, scheduled for this coming Tuesday,

A few rioters are writing books about the mob’s attack or have marketed videos that they shot during the riot.

A unique provision in Adam Johnson’s plea agreement allows the U.S. government to collect profits from any book he gets published over the next five years. Images of Johnson posing for photographs with Pelosi’s podium went viral after the riot. Prosecutors said they insisted on the provision after learning that Johnson intends to write a memoir “of some sort.”

Ronald Sandlin, a Nevada man charged with assaulting officers near doors to the Senate gallery, posted on Facebook that he was “working out a Netflix deal” to sell riot video footage. Later, in a call from jail, Sandlin told his mother that he had met with right-wing author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and was in contact with podcaster Joe Rogan. He also asked his mom to contact publishers for the book he was writing about the “Capitol incident,” prosecutors said.

“I hope to turn it into movie,” Sandlin wrote in a March 2021 text message. “I plan on having Leonardo DiCaprio play me,” he wrote, adding a smiley face emoji.

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For full coverage of the Capitol riot, go to https://www.apnews.com/capitol-siege

Myanmar executions revive pressure for more sanctions

By ELAINE KURTENBACH

yesterday

 Myanmar nationals living in South Korea march to condemn Myanmar's recent executions of activists, at the down town in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, July 30, 2022. Recent executions of four democracy activists in Myanmar have reenergized efforts to get the U.S. and other countries to impose further sanctions against military leaders who ousted its elected government early last year.

 (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

BANGKOK (AP) — Recent executions of four democracy activists in Myanmar have reenergized efforts to get the United States and other countries to impose further sanctions against military leaders who ousted an elected government early last year.

Human rights advocates and comments by U.S. lawmakers suggest the Senate is inching toward passage of the Burma Act, legislation already passed by the House of Representatives. Among other actions, it would pave the way for sanctions on Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, or MOGE, a state-controlled company that is a vital source of hard cash for the impoverished nation.

That makes MOGE a key target in the push to cut off funding for the military’s efforts to quash a widespread public backlash against its February 2021 seizure of power.

Myanmar, also called Burma, has been ruled by the military for most of the past 70 years. The army’s takeover interrupted a gradual transition toward democratic civilian government and a more modern, open economy and resulted in a slew of sanctions against the military, which controls many industries, army family members and cronies.

The hangings in late July of four political activists prompted condemnation and stronger calls from U.S. lawmakers and others f or Myanmar’s neighbors, especially the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to exert more pressure on the country’s military rulers.

“It is time for them to impose meaningful consequences on the junta in Burma that is literally getting away with murder,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a supporter of ousted Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, said in a recent statement. If Myanmar’s neighbors and ASEAN won’t do more, the U.S. should “turn up the heat” on the army and its sources of financial support, he said.

“This should include sanctions on Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise,” McConnell said.

In February, the European Union announced sanctions against MOGE, saying the military’s control means the company is “contributing to its capabilities to carry out activities undermining democracy and the rule of law in Myanmar/Burma.”

Two of the other biggest Myanmar state companies, Myanma Economic Holdings Ltd. and Myanmar Economic Corp., already have been designated for U.S. sanctions.

Advocates of sanctions say they could make a difference if they are well-targeted and enforced. So far, Myanmar’s economy has been insulated somewhat from the penalties imposed by the U.S. and other Western governments after the military takeover. Most of its trade — especially lucrative sales of gems, rare earths and timber — is with nearby countries, especially China, which has been signaling growing support for the military-controlled government. Most big Western energy companies already have pulled out of oil and gas projects in the country.

That leaves only financial levers. Exports of oil and gas to China and Thailand earn about $2 billion a year, according to reports in its state media, and are a key source of the foreign exchange Myanmar needs to pay for imports of all kinds, including weapons used to fight opposition forces who took up arms after the army crushed peaceful protests.

The EU sanctions led the Bank of China to advise operators of the Shwe oil and gas field in northwestern Myanmar that it will not handle payments in euros to MOGE out of concern they might fall afoul of those restrictions, according to activists briefed by two of the companies operating the project, Posco International and Kogas. Two other people familiar with the situation confirmed that euro payments to MOGE were being kept in escrow accounts. The people spoke on condition they not be identified out of concern over risks for themselves, family members and associates.

The billions that other global banks have paid for violating sanctions against other countries are a strong incentive for compliance.

The EU, in announcing its sanctions, said that since MOGE was controlled by and generates revenue for the military, it was “contributing to its capabilities to carry out activities undermining democracy and the rule of law in Myanmar/Burma.”

A 770 kilometer (475 mile) pipeline connects the Shwe field to China’s Yunnan province. It is the only major project whose contracts call for revenue from gas sales to be paid in euros, rather than U.S. dollars.

A spokesman for Posco International, which has a 51% stake in the project, confirmed that those revenues were being paid into an escrow account. Posco is being paid its share as normal, Song Chan, the spokesman, said in an emailed reply to questions. He said he could not comment on the status of payments to the other companies participating in the oil and gas pipeline.

Otherwise, the project was operating as normal, he said, referring further questions to China National United Oil Co., which buys gas from the Shwe project and pays sales revenue. That company, a subsidiary of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp., did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did CNPC nor the Bank of China.

Korea Gas Corp., which has an 8.5% stake in the Shwe fields, did not reply to a request for comment.

The fact that the Shwe project has continued to send gas to China suggests that sanctions can be implemented without disrupting livelihoods or supplies of natural gas in Myanmar, said Keel Dietz, a policy adviser at the environmental non-profit Global Witness.

Critics of sanctions have often contended that they might harm employees of companies involved in the projects or worsen power shortages in the country. The Burma Act itself calls for assessing the potential impact of any sanctions against MOGE on people in Myanmar. The president could impose such sanctions if they would hinder abuses by Myanmar’s military after ensuring they would be in the U.S. national interest, with benefits outweighing any harm.

Even though the EU sanctions, imposed in February, have only affected the Shwe project, “it’s clear that EU sanctions had a meaningful impact on the thinking of at least one bank in a way that at the very least has raised costs for the junta in accessing their money,” Dietz said. “All of this was done with zero negative humanitarian impacts in Myanmar and Thailand.”

A lack of impact on gas supplies to Thailand from other projects would alleviate concerns that U.S. sanctions against MOGE might harm relations with Bangkok.

The executions that Myanmar carried out recently have deepened frustrations for its neighbors. Human rights advocates say dozens of democracy activists remain on Myanmar’s death row.

“If more executions are conducted, then things will have to be reconsidered,” said Prak Sokhonn, Cambodia’s foreign minister and ASEAN’s special envoy for Myanmar.

Outside ASEAN, the countries with closest ties and most sway over Myanmar, China and Russia, have signaled support for the military and are unlikely to do much to apply pressure.

The nine other ASEAN members are waiting to see what happens in coming months ahead of an annual summit meeting in November, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah told reporters in Bangkok last week.

Saifuddin acknowledged that ASEAN countries, which tend to refrain from imposing economic sanctions against other members, are discussing that option as they search for ways to exert leverage on Myanmar’s military leaders.

“We did discuss this measure, but there was no conclusion,” Saifuddin said.

Senior Liberian officials hit with U.S. financial sanctions

By FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. imposed sanctions Monday on three high-ranking Liberian government officials for engaging in alleged public corruption.

President George Weah’s chief of staff, the nation’s chief prosecutor and the current managing director of the national port authority have been designated by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for sanctions.

Liberia was battered by back-to-back civil wars that left 200,000 people dead and displaced half of the country’s population. Public corruption has been a persistent problem, which has prevented economic development in an otherwise resourceful country of more than 5 million people.

A Treasury Department statement reads that the U.S. is “committed to working with the people and Government of Liberia to elevate countering corruption as a priority, including by bolstering public sector anti-corruption capacity.”

Sanctioned individuals are Nathaniel McGill, chief of staff to President Weah; Sayma Syrenius Cephus, Liberia’s chief prosecutor; and Bill Twehway, the current managing director of the National Port Authority.

The sanctions are authorized under an executive order signed during Donald Trump’s presidency, which implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of human rights abuse and corruption around the world.

“Through their corruption these officials have undermined democracy in Liberia for their own personal benefit,” said Brian E. Nelson, Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in a statement.

“Treasury’s designations today demonstrate that the United States remains committed to holding corrupt actors accountable and to the continued support of the Liberian people,” he said.

At the State Department, spokesman Ned Price said, “All three of these individuals have contributed to Liberia’s worsening corruption. These designations reflect our commitment to implementing the United States Strategy on Countering Corruption and to partnering with the Liberian government and people to help the country chart a better course forward.”

The sanctions come after the U.S. government sanctioned Liberia’s ex-warlord and current senator Prince Yormie Johnson for alleged corruption in December also under the Global Magnitsky Act.

U$A

Illegal border crossings fall in July but remain high


This photo provided by the Arizona Governor's Office shows shipping containers that will be used to fill a 1,000 foot gap in the border wall with Mexico near Yuma, Ariz., on Aug. 12, 2022. Two will be stacked atop each other and then topped with razor wire to slow migrants from crossing into Arizona. Authorities say migrants were stopped fewer times at the U.S. border with Mexico in July than in June, a second straight monthly decline. (Arizona Governor's Office via AP)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Migrants were stopped fewer times at the U.S. border with Mexico in July than in June, authorities said Monday, a second straight monthly decline.

Flows were still unusually high, particularly among nationalities less affected by Title 42, a pandemic-era rule that denies migrants legal rights to seek asylum on grounds of preventing spread of COVID-19. In theory, Title 42 applies to all nationalities but costs, diplomatic relations and others considerations usually dictate who is expelled under the public health authority.

U.S. authorities stopped migrants 199,976 times in July, down 3.8% from 207,933 in June and down 6.8% from 213,593% in July 2021, Customs and Border Protection said.

“While the encounter numbers remain high, this is a positive trend and the first two-month drop since October 2021,” said Commissioner Chris Magnus.

Authorities stopped Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans and El Salvadorans less in July than in June. Mexico has agreed to take people from all those countries who are expelled under Title 42, a relatively easy task for Border Patrol agents due to Mexico’s proximity.

People from countries more likely to be released in the U.S. on humanitarian parole or with notices to appear in immigration court were stopped more often. Border Patrol agents stopped Venezuelans 17,603 times in July, up 34% from June and nearly triple from July 2021.

Cubans were stopped 20,080 times by Border Patrol agents, up 25% from June and nearly six times from June 2021. Colombians were also stopped more often.

Del Rio, Texas, was again the busiest corridor for illegal crossings among the Border Patrol’s nine sectors on the Mexico border, with agents stopping migrants 49,563 times in July. Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, which had long been the busiest, was a distant second with 35,180 stops.

Oil barriers to rein in spread of dead fish from Oder River
yesterday

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Dead fish lie on the banks of the German-Polish border river Oder in Lebus, eastern Germanny, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. Poland’s environment minister says laboratory tests following a mass dying off of fish detected high levels of salinity but no mercury in waters of Central Europe’s Oder River.

(Patrick Pleul/dpa via AP)


BERLIN (AP) — German officials expressed mounting anger Monday at the slow flow of information from Poland as experts raced to discover what killed tens of thousands of fish in a shared border river and put up barriers used to contain oil spills in a bid to rein in the spread of fish carcasses.

German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke demanded a transparent and full investigation into the cause for the massive fish die-off in the Oder River after having met her Polish counterpart in the Polish border city of Szczecin on Sunday evening.

“There would be a massive loss of confidence, especially among the Polish population, but probably also among us, if this (investigation) did not succeed,” Lemke said Monday on ARD television.

The Oder runs from Czechia to the border between Poland and Germany before flowing into the Baltic Sea. Ten tons of dead fish were removed from it last week and people have been asked not to swim in it or even touch its waters. Authorities have not yet found the reason for the massive fish die-off.

Authorities on Monday were putting up sea barriers usually used during oil spills on the Szczecin Lagoon, where the river runs into the Baltic Sea, to prevent a possible spread of fish carcasses there, the German news agency dpa reported.

Since last Friday some 80 tons of dead fish have been collected, said Brig. Karol Kierzkowski, spokesman for Poland’s fire service.

Lemke also announced the two European Union countries have created a task force with experts to exchange updates on the investigation into the ecological disaster.

The state governor of Brandenburg, which borders Poland along the Oder River, criticized Polish authorities for their lack of information on the fish die-off.

The information about the environmental disaster has come only “in dribs and drabs” or “not at all,” Dietmar Woidke said, adding that “this must be dealt with urgently in the coming months,” dpa reported.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki countered Monday that Poland was doing everything to cooperate with German to explain the fish die-off, and said the German authorities also could not yet explain the cause.

The German environment ministry said they were expecting results on possible toxins in the river water later this week. Brandenburg state Environment Minister Axel Vogel said “it may take several more days until we have checked through all the substances that we consider possible.”

There is probably more than one cause for the fish die-off, Vogel said, adding that the current drought and low water levels almost certainly shared part of the blame.

The entire ecosystem of the Oder River has been damaged, he said.

“That’s why we don’t think we have a disaster that can be solved within half a year by repopulating with fish,” Vogel said.

___

Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

PAKISTAN

RIP

Nafis Sadik, women’s health and rights champion, dies at 92
By EDITH M. LEDERER


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Nafis Sadik, Pakistani candidate to the post of World Health Organization director general, briefs the media after her presentation at the WHO Executive Board at Geneva, Switzerland, on Jan. 26, 1998. Sadik, a Pakistani doctor who championed women's health and rights and spearheaded the breakthrough action plan adopted by 179 countries at the 1994 U.N. population conference, died four days before her 93rd birthday, her son said late Monday, Aug. 15, 2022. Omar Sadik said his mother died of natural causes at her home in New York on Sunday night. (AP Photo/Donald Stampfli, File)


UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nafis Sadik, a Pakistani doctor who championed women’s health and rights and spearheaded the breakthrough action plan adopted by 179 countries at the 1994 United Nations population conference, died four days before her 93rd birthday, her son said late Monday.

Omar Sadik said his mother died of natural causes at her home in New York on Sunday night.

Nafis Sadik joined the U.N. Population Fund in 1971, became its assistant executive director in 1977, and was appointed executive director in 1987 by then Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar after the sudden death of its chief, Rafael Salas. She was the first woman to head a major United Nations program that is voluntarily funded.

In June 1990, Perez de Cuellar appointed Sadik to be secretary-general of the fifth U.N. International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and she became the architect of its groundbreaking program of action which recognized for the first time that women have the right to control their reproductive and sexual health and to choose whether to become pregnant.

The Cairo conference also reached consensus on a series of goals including universal primary education in all countries by 2015 — a goal that still hasn’t been met — and wider access for women to secondary and higher education. It also set goals to reduce infant and child mortality and maternal mortality and to provide access to reproductive and sexual health services, including family planning.

While the conference broke a taboo on discussing sexuality, it stopped short of recognizing that women have the right to control decisions about when they have sex and when they get married.

Natalia Kanem, current executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, called Sadik a “proud champion of choice and tireless advocate for women’s health, rights and empowerment.”

“Her bold vision and leadership in Cairo set the world on an ambitious path,” a journey that she said continued at the 1995 U.N. women’s conference in Beijing and with adoption of U.N. development goals since 2000 that include achieving gender equality and many issues in the Cairo program of action.

Since Cairo, Kanem said, “millions of girls and young women have grown up knowing that their bodies belong to them, and that their futures are there to shape.”

At the Beijing women’s conference a year after Cairo, Sadik told delegates: “The first mark of respect for women is support for their reproductive rights.”

“Reproductive rights involve more than the right to reproduce,” she said. “They involve support for women in activities other than reproduction, in fact liberating women from a system of values which insists that reproduction is their only function.”

After her retirement from the Population Fund in 2000, Sadik served as special adviser to the secretary-general and special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sadik will be remembered “for her significant contributions to women’s health and rights and population policies and for her tireless efforts to combat HIV/AIDS,” his spokesman said. “She consistently called attention to the importance of addressing the needs of women, and of involving women directly in making and carrying out development policy, which she believed was particularly important for population policies and programs.”

Born in Jaunpur in British-ruled India, Nafis Sadik was the daughter of Iffat Ara and Muhammad Shoaib, a former Pakistani finance minister. After receiving her medical degree from Dow Medical College in Karachi, she began her career working in women’s and children’s wards in Pakistani armed forces hospitals from 1954 to 1963. The following year she was appointed head of the health section of the government Planning Commission.

In 1966, Sadik joined the Pakistan Central Family Planning Council, the government agency responsible for carrying out the national family planning program. She rose to be its director-general in 1970.

She also served an internship in gynecology and obstetrics at City Hospital in Baltimore and continued her medical education at Johns Hopkins University.

Sadik is survived by her five children, 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

“Mummy loved how she lived: wide open, welcoming, wonderful, generous beyond belief, gracious, and giving — always and all ways giving,” Omar Sadik said. “Our home was not huge, but mummy always found a way to make it seem limitless and she somehow managed to accommodate absolutely anyone that needed a bed, a couch, a meal, or a family.”

“She transcended age and time and was as equally beloved by people much older than her, as she was by tiny little children — because they recognized her heart,” he said. “She fit more into one day, than most of us do probably in one year — she was incomparable and she was unmatched.”

Israel rejects appeal to release Palestinian hunger striker
By EMILY ROSE

yesterday


Protesters gather with a Palestinian flag outside the hospital where Palestinian Khalil Awawdeh, pictured in the placards, a prisoner in Israel on hunger strike, is now clinging to life in Be'er Yaakov, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022. Arabic on the placard reads, "Freedom for Khalil Awawdeh." His family says Awawdeh has refused food to draw attention to his detention by Israel without trial or charge. 

(AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli military court on Monday rejected an appeal for release by a Palestinian prisoner whose health is deteriorating as he continues a 165-day hunger strike to protest being held without charge or trial, his lawyer said.

Khalil Awawdeh is one of several Palestinian detainees who have gone on prolonged hunger strikes over the years in protest of what is known as administrative detention. Israel says the 40-year-old father of four is a militant, an allegation Awawdeh denies through his lawyer.

The Islamic Jihad militant group demanded his release as part of an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire ending three days of heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip earlier this month but did not identify him as a member.

Israel says administrative detention is needed to keep dangerous militants off the streets and to hold suspects without divulging sensitive intelligence. Critics say the form of detention, which is almost exclusively used for Palestinians, denies them due process. Administrative detainees can be held for months or years without charge or trial.

Ahlam Haddad, a lawyer for Awawdeh, confirmed that the military court had rejected his appeal for release. He has not eaten during the strike, except for a 10-day period in which he received vitamin injections, according to his family.

Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service has not commented on his case.

Dr. Lina Qasem-Hassan, of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, visited him on Thursday at the hospital where he was transferred after his condition worsened. She said he weighed 42 kilograms (around 90 pounds), was handcuffed to a bed and surrounded by guards.

“He suffers from severe neurological symptoms and cognitive impairment, which might be irreversible,” the rights group said in a statement. “His life is in immediate danger.”

Israel is currently holding some 4,400 Palestinian prisoners, including militants who have carried out deadly attacks, as well as people arrested at protests or for throwing stones. Around 670 Palestinians are currently being held in administrative detention, a number that jumped in March as Israel began near-nightly arrest raids in the occupied West Bank following a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis.

Israel says it provides due process and largely imprisons those who threaten its security, though a small number are held for petty crimes.

Palestinians and human rights groups say the system is designed to quash opposition to Israel’s 55-year military occupation of lands the Palestinians want for a future state, which shows no sign of ending.

EXPLAINER: Tension between Nicaragua and the Catholic Church

By GABRIELA SELSER and MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ

August 14, 2022

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 A banner emblazoned with an image of Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega is waved by an Ortega supporter in Managua, Nicaragua, April 30, 2018. Ortega’s opponents regularly compare him to dictator Anastasio Somoza for his authoritarian tendencies, and also accuse him of dynastic ambitions. (AP Photo/Alfredo Zuniga, File)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Earlier this month Nicaragua shuttered seven radio stations belonging to the Catholic Church and launched an investigation into the bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, accusing him of inciting violent actors “to carry out acts of hate against the population.”

This is not the first time President Daniel Ortega has moved aggressively to silence critics of his administration. In 2018 the government raided the headquarters of the newspaper Confidencial, led by journalist Carlos Fernando Chamorro, who is considered one of the most prominent critics of Ortega. Then, throughout 2021, authorities arrested seven potential presidential candidates for that year’s November elections.

Here’s a look at the fraught relationship between the church and the government amid a political standoff that’s now in its fifth year, with no end in sight.

WHO IS DANIEL ORTEGA?

Ortega, 76, is a former guerrilla with the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front who helped overthrow dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979 and first served as president from 1985 until he left office in 1990 after being voted out.

He lost three more elections after that before returning to power in 2007. He won a fourth consecutive term in the 2021 ballot, which is widely discredited since he faced no real opposition.

Ortega’s opponents regularly compare him to Somoza for his authoritarian tendencies, and also accuse him of dynastic ambitions. His wife, Rosario Murillo, is his powerful vice president.

Under Ortega, Nicaragua has cultivated strong ties to allies Cuba and Venezuela, two staunch foes of the U.S. government.

HOW DID THE UNREST BEGIN?

A social security reform in 2018 triggered massive protests backed by businesspeople, Catholic leaders and other sectors. The government’s response was a crackdown by security forces and allied civilian militias in which at least 355 people were killed, about 2,000 hurt and 1,600 jailed, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Political stability has never fully returned.

Months before last year’s vote, a poll found that support for five opposition candidates put Ortega’s re-election in real doubt. Within weeks all five were arrested, along with two other potential candidates. Authorities accused them of responsibility for the 2018 unrest, saying it was tantamount to a “terrorist coup” attempt purportedly backed by Washington

“Ortega decided to suppress any possibility of losing. ... And that meant arresting everyone,” political analyst Oscar Rene Vargas told The Associated Press back then.

WHAT ROLE HAS THE CHURCH PLAYED?

Nicaragua is predominantly Catholic, and the church was close to the Somozas from the 1930s until the 1970s, when it distanced itself from politics after many abuses were attributed to the dictatorship. The church initially supported the Sandinistas after Somoza’s ouster, but that relationship frayed over time due to ideological differences. Under Ortega, Catholic leaders have often backed the country’s conservative elite.

When the protests first erupted, Ortega asked the church to serve as mediator in peace talks, though they ultimately failed.

The Nicaraguan church has been notably sympathetic toward the protesters and their cause. In April 2018, Managua’s cathedral sheltered student demonstrators and was a place for collecting food and money to support them.

Figures such as Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes and Managua Auxiliary Bishop Silvio Báez have been outspoken in rejecting violence. Brenes called the demonstrations justified, and Báez rejected any political decision that would harm the people. Báez left the country in 2019 at the Vatican’s request, a transfer that was lamented by the opposition and celebrated by the ruling Sandinistas.

Ortega has responded by accusing some bishops of being part of a plot to overthrow him and calling them “terrorists.”

In March the papal nuncio in Managua, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, who participated as a mediator and lobbied for the release of jailed government opponents, was forced by Ortega’s administration to leave the country in what the Vatican called an “unjustified decision.”

WHAT ABOUT THE LATEST CHURCH-STATE CONFLICT?

The church radio stations were shuttered by the government Aug. 1, and police investigating Álvarez, the Matagalpa bishop, accused him of “organizing violent groups.”

Álvarez has called for profound electoral reform to “effectively achieve the democratization of the country” and also demanded the release of some 190 people he considers political prisoners. Last month he staged a fast in protest of what he called persecution against him.

Since Aug. 3, authorities have confined Álvarez to the episcopal complex where he lives. After six days without making public statements, he reappeared Thursday in a live social media broadcast at a Mass, accompanied by six priests and four lay people who are also unable to leave the complex.

The Archdiocese of Managua has expressed support for Álvarez. The conference of Latin American Catholic bishops decried what it called a “siege” of priests and bishops, the expulsion of members of religious communities and “constant harassment” targeting the Nicaraguan people and church.

On Saturday, hundreds of Nicaraguans attended a Mass under a heavy police presence after the government prohibited a religious procession in Managua.

Church leaders announced a day earlier that the National Police had banned the planned procession for Our Lady of Fatima for reasons of “internal security.” Instead, the church called the faithful to come peacefully to the cathedral.

HAS THERE BEEN ANY RESPONSE FROM THE VATICAN?

For almost two weeks, the Vatican was publicly silent about the investigation of Álvarez. The silence drew criticism from some Latin American human rights activists and intellectuals.

On Friday, Monsignor Juan Antonio Cruz, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the Organization of American States, expressed concern about the situation and asked both parties to “seek ways of understanding.”

Cruz’s remarks came during a special session of OAS in which its Permanent Council approved a resolution condemning Ortega’s government for the “harassment” and “arbitrary restrictions imposed on religious organizations and those that criticize the government.”

Cruz said the Holy See wishes to “collaborate with those who are committed to dialogue as an indispensable instrument of democracy and guarantor of a more humane and fraternal civilization.”

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Associated Press writers Nicole Winfield at the Vatican and Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M OLD SCHOOL
7 accused in $1.2M extortion scheme at Puerto Rico docks

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Federal authorities on Monday arrested seven people including a union leader and various dock workers accused in a $1.2 million extortion scheme that targeted shipping companies.

U.S. Attorney Stephen Muldrow said the scheme began in 2005 and affected local and foreign commerce, including shipping between Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands.

He said suspects at three docks in the capital of San Juan are accused of illegally extorting small shipping companies and threatened to stop loading and unloading goods if a monthly fee wasn’t paid. The fee demanded varied by weight and sometimes ranged from $10,000 to $20,000 a month, Muldrow said.

The indictment states that the shipping companies were charged a monthly fee in exchange for supposedly being allowed to use longshore workers who were not unionized. However, there were no labor unions representing employees of shipping companies operating at the piers where the alleged extortions occurred, officials said.

The suspects face charges including conspiracy to violate the RICO Act, commit extortion and money laundering.

“Breaking the law cannot be the way to do business in Puerto Rico,” said Joseph González, FBI special agent in charge of the San Juan office.

Local and federal authorities were part of the five-year investigation, with some wearing shirts at a press conference that read “Pier Pressure” in reference to the operation.