It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, December 16, 2022
Iran's Water Crisis Will Make It Harder for the Regime to Regain Control
Ciara Nugent December 8, 2022 IRAN-DAILY LIFE-HERITAGE The Si-o-Se Pol bridge ("33 Arches bridge") over the Zayandeh Rud river in Isfahan, Iran, shown on April 11, 2018. Thanks to water extraction, the river runs dry by the time it reaches the city.
Credit - ATTA KENARE/AFP— Getty Images
Iran’s government has spent this week trying to quell the protests that have rocked the country for the last three months. Officials put out several statements about unconfirmed plans to “review” the country’s hijab requirement for women and “disband” the morality police—two key factors in the Sept. 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, which initially sparked the unrest.
So far, it hasn’t worked. On Monday, protesters launched a three-day general strike, designed to show that their uprising was never only about the restrictions placed on women. Iranians are also angry about poverty, economic dysfunction, corruption, a lack of freedom—a litany of government failings that mean many of the young people leading the rallies say they have “no future” as long as the Islamic regime remains in power.
Those failings also include the environment. The regime has disastrously mismanaged Iran’s water resources in the decades since the 1979 revolution. In a push for food self-sufficiency to shield the country from Western sanctions, authorities have championed a shift to unsustainable agricultural practices: they oversaw an expansion of water-intensive crops like sugar beet and a frenzy of poorly planned dam-building, and later well-digging, to collect water for irrigation. They also diverted rivers to provide water for heavy industries like steel manufacturing. These measures have overwhelmed the natural water cycle, drying up aquifers, rivers, and wetlands. The mismanagement, combined with climate change, caused the worst drought in half a century in 2021.
The water crisis is not the focus of the current demonstrations, which have mostly been led by city dwellers whose livelihoods are unlikely to be directly affected. But it is part of the accumulated anger now being unleashed. On the streets and on social media, protesters have referenced the dried up Urmia salt lake and Zayandeh Rud river, which have emerged as symbols of the regime’s incompetence. Other environmental problems, like air pollution, are cited as motivations for rebellion in viral protest anthem Baraye (“Because of”).
Environmental challenges can be a “uniting” factor for Iranians, says Kaveh Madani, a scientist who served as deputy head of the Iranian government’s environment department under former President Hassan Rouhani, before fleeing to the U.S. in 2018 amid a crackdown on environmentalists. “Everyone is unhappy when a big wetland dries up. It brings everyone together,” Madani says. “This is why the environmental activists have been targeted by Iran’s security agencies so much.”
Water’s growing threat to Iran’s regime
Even if the regime manages to stymie the current urban-led unrest, it won’t be long before the next June-August dry season carries the risk of new water shortages in rural areas, which for the last two years have triggered protests among farmers—potentially mobilizing a demographic that has not been as drawn to the women’s rights cause. In late November, hacking group Black Reward published what they claim is a leaked document from a news agency linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in which officials express concern that water shortages could spark demonstrations in several provinces.
A picture obtained by AFP outside Iran, shows a motorcycle burning in the capital Tehran, during the current protests on October 8, 2022.AFP/Getty Images
Discontent over water is only likely to grow. Climate change is making Iran hotter and drier, exacerbating the human-made problems. A 2019 study on Iran’s climate outlook for 2025-2049, published in Nature, found “a grim picture” of increasingly severe droughts and floods, with the driest regions potentially becoming uninhabitable.
Climate campaigners say the government’s efforts to avert that situation, including a restoration program for Urmia, have largely relied on unsustainable solutions like diverting water from under-used basins. Truly ensuring water security for Iran would require radical reforms to diversify the economy from agriculture and other water-intensive industries—something today’s political system makes all but impossible, according to Madani. “No president within the current structure can address the environmental problems.”
All of that will make it harder and harder for the government to prevent unrest from boiling over in Iran in the future, Madani adds. “Water is affecting the resilience of the system. They’re close to their tipping point.”
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY
Mike DiMauro: Why does Brittney Griner's freedom offend you?
Mike DiMauro,
The Day, New London, Conn. Sat, December 10, 2022
Dec. 10—Imagine this outlandishly utopian sentiment: a U.S. Olympian jailed in a Russian penal colony finally returns to American soil ... and for one shining moment there is the mere hint of unity across the political spectrum.
Ha. Good one.
Instead, we're left with the amusing irony that the plight of Brittney Griner, whose skin color, sexual orientation and politics repels so many Americans, completely captures the new American fancy of being ill-informed, mean and happy to trade basic human decency for political posturing.
Seriously. Reading the abject hatred tethered to Griner's rescue — the saving of a human life — made me think of Sen. Howard Baker's classic question to bagman Tony Ulasewicz during Watergate: "Who thought you up?"
Who thought these people up? Where do they come from? Have they always been here? All I know is they're helping us lose our humanity one keystroke at a time.
I've always found Socrates useful in such situations. (And not because he gulped hemlock.) His main memo, "know thyself," is open to many interpretations. Here's mine: Be smart enough to know what you don't know. And I must confess to knowing very little about international prisoner exchanges. I suspect I'm not alone, save perhaps those who have studied at the University of Facebook.
Still, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't work like baseball. I doubt Biden could call Putin and say, "give us Griner and we'll give you two assassins to be named later."
Ah, but the dreaded HCS (Human Comments Section) has taken talking out of one's tailpipe to Olympic levels.
It is hardly ideal that the U.S. had to fork over Viktor Bout, a Russian arms merchant serving time, in part, for endangering American lives. But two things: 1) Rescuing an American from a Russian prison should never, ever be considered bad news; and 2) Nobody in this country knew Paul Whelan from Waylon Jennings a week ago. Except that now Whelan's plight is The Greatest Injustice In The History Of America ... until next week when all the moralists will start growling about The Next Greatest Injustice In The History Of America.
How about we just be happy that one of ours is home? Is that, like, against the rules now or something? It amazes me how Griner's freedom and her pursuit of life, liberty and happiness is an affront. Can any of you spewers of moral outrage get morally outrageous and explain why Griner's freedom offends you?
Meanwhile, I wonder what Griner must have thought when she arrived home to the hatred. Her "drug" offense, tantamount here to the firing squad for a parking ticket, was patently absurd. And yet the number of commenters happy to see her rot in Russia underscores how toxicity is all the rage.
I maintain that if Sue Bird, not Griner, were imprisoned in Mordovia, Russia, the same zealots hating on Griner would go on a hunger strike to bring Suzy Q back home. But Griner? A Black, married Lesbian with tattoos who wouldn't stand for the national anthem? Why, she's not a real American.
"Racism, sexism and homophobia have become the new patriotism," wrote Dave Zirin, sports editor of The Nation, a longstanding biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news.
Zirin wrote a column on the Griner issue last week and then another column on the hate-filled responses he received.
"I was repeatedly told that because Griner used to take a knee during the national anthem, she is somehow not worthy of our support and our care, that she hates 'America' so she shouldn't count on 'America' to fight for her freedom," Zirin wrote. "And then the barrage of racism, sexism, and homophobia was more than I have received for any article in years of doing this work. It's been staggering. But this is their patriotism: the freedom to hate others and mock others' agony."
Indeed, "patriotism" is slowly becoming a pejorative. Maybe wrapping yourself too tight in the flag can cause brain injury. I mean, didn't they pay attention in history class about how protest is a tenet on which the good ol' U.S. of A was founded?
I'm happy Griner is home. I'm also happy that Griner's rescue illustrates that the WNBA Players' Association and the league in general has developed a voice. Their consistency of protest and message was heard. They should accept that as progress.
And the rest of you? Take (significantly) more time to know thyself.
This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro
Marjorie Taylor Greene Says Biden Should Be Impeached for Bringing Brittney Griner Home
“Another reason to impeach Biden,” the Georgia congresswoman tweeted. “The President of the United States traded Russian terrorist arms dealer, Viktor Bout, left a U.S. Marine in Russian jail, and brought home a professional basketball player.”
Bout, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death,” is a former Soviet officer who was convicted in 2011 on several charges including conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to kill Americans, money launding, and wire fraud. Bout was ultimately sentenced to 26 years in prison.
Greene’s reaction mirrors criticism from other Republican lawmakers and prominent GOP commentators, who have condemned Griner’s release given that Russia has detained multiple U.S. nationals, most notably former Marine Paul Whelan, as well as teacher Marc Fogel.
Whelan, an ex-Marine working in corporate security, was arrested by Russian authorities in 2018 and accused of espionage. Whelan and U.S. intelligence agencies deny the accusation.
President Biden and administration officials have indicated that the Russian government treated the release of additional prisoners in the exchange as a non-starter. “This was not a choice about which American to bring home,” Biden said at a press conference announcing Griner’s release. “For totally illegitimate reasons Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittany’s […] We will keep negotiating in good faith for Paul’s release.”
“We have been in active discussions with the Russians on Mr. Whelan’s case for a very, very long time,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told CNN. “Certainly those conversations accelerated in recent months and I can assure you that we are going to stay at those active discussions going forward.”
Former President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that the prisoner swap was “a ‘stupid’ and unpatriotic embarrassment for the USA.”
House speaker hopeful Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Caifl.) called the exchange of Bout for Giner a “gift to Vladimir Putin,” that “endangers American lives.”
Several other GOP lawmakers have accused Biden of demonstrating “weakness” in allowing Russia to regain custody of Bout while Whelan remained detained. Tennessee Rep. Mark Green told Fox News that the exchange is a signal to U.S. military service members that the president does not prioritize their well being and safety. Florida Sen. Rick Scott called the terms of the exchange “weak & disgusting.”
Other lawmakers have focused on their concerns for Whelan. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham wrote that while he appreciated the release of Griner, “we must not lose focus on the fact that Paul Whelan remains unjustly held in Russia.” Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger tweeted that “surely an arms dealer is worth two innocent people?”
Griner and her wife Cherelle Griner have advocated for the continued negotiation for other detained Americans, and requested no “special treatment” in her own case. Whelan’s family indicated that the Biden administration “made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, and to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for one that wasn’t going to [happen].”
Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Whelan expressed his disappointment at the collapse of negotiations for his release. “They’ve put me at a level higher than what they did with Trevor [Reed] and Brittney,” he said regarding Russia’s treatment of his case. “I was arrested for a crime that never occurred … I don’t understand why I’m still sitting here.”
'Forgotten' American Sarah Krivanek Tells Her Story as She and Brittney Griner Are Freed from Russian Prison
Juliet Butler
·
LONG READ
Shortly before boarding a plane to leave Russia, American citizen Sarah Krivanek gets on a video call to unpack her harrowing year as a foreign detainee.
There in her deportation cell, she explains the "Sodom and Gomorrah" living conditions in a Russian penal colony — she's finally in an environment where she feels comfortable being candid, under the condition that her story remains unpublished until she's officially off Russian soil.
Living in a remote labor camp "was the equivalent of going to hell with the devil himself," Krivanek says. Being transferred to a temporary holding cell after completing her prison sentence last month shouldn't have felt like freedom, but it did — barred windows and all.
Sarah Krivanek, the American schoolteacher imprisoned in Russia
Sarah Krivanek In the Russian deportation cell where Krivanek spoke with PEOPLE
"Even though I'm like a bird in a cage and I can't get out I feel somehow protected here," she says. "I feel safe." Not to mention she's warm, a sensation she'd forgotten while exposed to brutal Russian weather in the colony, and knows that on Thursday she will be on her way home.
Krivanek finds it draining to recall the brutal regime in the colony and says she will likely "seek help and support" upon her return home. She speaks calmly, occasionally struggling to recall her English and frequently lapsing into Russian. But in the end, PEOPLE hears for the first time what really happened after the well-respected accountant from Fresno, California, ventured to Russia for a fresh start.
Sarah Krivanek
Sarah Krivanek Facebook
A Rough Entry into Russian Life
Krivanek, who has four adult children and three grandchildren, first moved to Moscow in 2017 to be with a Russian man she'd met on a Russian culture Facebook page. The relationship turned sour, but she decided to stay and continue her "meaningful work" teaching English to schoolchildren.
Some years later she formed another relationship with a neighbor, Mikhail "Misha" Karavaev. (Even then, she insists, the true love of her life was her Maine Coon cat Drago whom she had brought with her from the U.S. "He was my heart and soul," she says. "I'm having to leave him behind which breaks my heart, but I hope one day to come back for him.")
In August 2021, while Krivanek was working at a prestigious school in Moscow, she slipped on ice at the playground and broke her wrist. She was fired and, with no income, was forced to move out of her apartment into Karavaev's rented room in a communal apartment in the Odinstovo region of Moscow. The day she moved in, her father, who had been helping her financially, died.
"Then one night, Misha had been drinking with neighbors and he started to beat me up. I tried to call the police, but they hung up on me. The next morning, I look in the mirror and I'm covered in bruises and my hand's broken," she says.
Sarah Krivanek
Sarah Krivanek Facebook
"A couple of days later he started in on me again — and he's two meters tall — so I grabbed a knife in defense and nicked his nose with it," she explains. "He saw the blood and freaked out."
This time, when their communal apartment neighbors called the police, two officers turned up and took them both to the station. Krivanek was booked in jail on two charges: intent to kill and causing slight bodily harm. Karavaev was allowed to go home.
"The next day Misha had sobered up and he came in and told them it was all his fault because he was drunk, and he'd hit me first and that I was just trying to defend myself and had never threatened to kill him," she says.
After he withdrew all the charges in a signed affidavit, Krivanek was released but told not to leave Moscow until they closed the case.
"They promised I wouldn't even 'see' a courtroom," she says. "They lied."
A Desperate Attempt to Flee
Following her release in November 2021, Krivanek had no other recourse but to move back in with Karavaev, where she claims the beatings continued. Her family and friends in America persuaded her to go to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow to ask them for help getting home. She insists that she had no qualms about leaving the country, because a month before the police investigator allegedly told her the case would be closed "in a couple of weeks."
"I believed I was free to go, so I contacted the vice-consul Luke Davis by email to say I was in an abusive situation which had ended up with me in a police cell, and had no money. He told me to come on in on a few days later with my suitcase."
Krivanek went to the embassy and filled out all the documentation for a government loan for her flight. She was taken to the airport in a taxi with the vice-consul who dropped her off at the airport hotel. "I wasn't nervous at all. I figured I could go home, get another Russian visa as mine had expired and then come back for Drago who was with a friend. The embassy wouldn't let me take him."
The next morning, she checked in her luggage, picked up her boarding passes and walked to passport control, chatting happily to her friend, Anita Martinez. "I had no thought I was in danger," she says.
The passport control officer took her passport away and returned with a superior officer who grabbed the phone from her hand mid-conversation.
"I was yelling, saying, 'What are you doing? Give it back!' but he turned it off and told me to sit down because the police were coming to pick me up. I still didn't understand what was happening." Martinez has previously corroborated this part of the story, saying it was the last time she heard from Krivanek.
'A Lamb Led to the Slaughter'
Krivanek was escorted back to Odinstovo in a police car and placed in a detention cell to await a court hearing. "It was a really small concrete room with no light and one tiny window in the roof with a hole in the ground for a toilet. There were four of us in there. I was petrified."
She asked her lawyer to call the embassy and update them on her arrest so that they would visit her, but nobody came. She says there were also no embassy personnel present at her hearing nine days later, nor at her trial. It's February of 2022 now.
"I didn't understand the legal jargon and I was having an anxiety attack and didn't want to cry," she says of her trial. "I felt as if I was left alone and abandoned." She refused to speak without an interpreter — when one was provided, Krivanek managed to slip her a crumpled note begging her to call the embassy and ask them to contact her family.
Karavaev was called as a witness in the trial and again withdrew his accusations, insisting he was the perpetrator, not Krivanek. When she was sentenced to one year and three months in a penal colony anyway, she was numb with shock: "That whole time I was under the impression they were going to release me and close the case. I couldn't speak a single word, I was sobbing, mumbling words that made no sense."
Krivanek's lawyer, Svetlana Gorbacheva, immediately appealed the verdict, and she was sent back to the holding cell to await a decision. There, she got wind that another American — who we now know to be WNBA player Brittney Griner — was going through something similar.
"I heard from the other girls there was another American woman being held in a nearby detention cell awaiting trial," she recalls, "but I didn't know that was Brittney Griner and our paths never crossed." The two would go down parallel paths — unjust sentences, failed appeals and labor camp sentences — over the next several months, even getting released back to the States on the same day: Thursday, Dec. 8.
When Krivanek's appeal was denied, she says, "Even my lawyer cried. I'm grateful that even though I didn't have the embassy, I had her.
Krivanek now believes that in Russia "there is no fair trial. Even with the most expensive lawyers you're guilty anyway," she says. "I was a lamb led to to the slaughter. Three people in cells next to me hung themselves while I was there. This is very sad."
Gorbacheva confirms to PEOPLE that the harsh court decisions came as a shock. "It was not an imprisonable offense — it was an extremely unjust and cruel sentence," she says. "I feel so sorry for her on a human level."
Banished to 'Sodom and Gomorrah'
"We're taken to the KP-4 colony on May 22 in the back of a police van handcuffed to the metal doorway with no windows. When we're led in, I'm terrified. All I have is a sliver of hope that somebody will find me."
Walking through the prison gates she now realizes "was the equivalent of going to hell with the devil himself."
But she learned to live with the punishing work regime in the sewing "slave" factory, and the food that was little more than slop, causing severe malnutrition. She even adjusted to the freezing temperatures in winter with no heating in the factory, and the suffocating heat in summer with no ventilation.
It was the psychological torment imposed by other inmates — and encouraged by the prison staff — that made it "what the girls called a Hell Camp."
Sarah Krivanek
Ryazan Novaya Gazeta The penal colony where Sarah Krivanek was held
The colony housed both male and female inmates in separate sections, and Krivanek says that the men were used to rape women inmates as punishment. "Sex trafficking happened there, prostitution happened, rapes too. As a punishment for something they were personally offended by, they arrange for you to be raped by other inmates, male or female in the bath house. It's planned. They lock you in with them and guard the door."
"It's like Sodom and Gomorrah in the camp. What is sinful to a normal person in the outside world is the opposite for them. I was stupefied when I first got there. I couldn't wrap my mind around what was happening. They just want to humiliate and crush you," she says.
She adds "the administration didn't touch me. They used the inmates."
Krivanek has a strong Catholic faith and says she will not be able to describe one particular punishment until she has talked to a priest upon her return to the U.S. The punishment was so traumatizing that Krivanek fasted for the following three weeks and covered her head with a cloth.
The incident occurred after Russian human rights activists asked for a federal penal colony inspector to visit her. She told him that she had not been permitted to make a call to the embassy or her lawyer and also told him of the "unthinkable, mortifying punishments" she had been subjected to.
Following the interview, which was attended by a prison guard, she was then punished for telling tales by a female inmate dubbed Darth Vader.
"She was the evil queen of the camp with her court of cronies. I was naïve to complain. I've never seen such abuse. How could those things come out of someone's mind?" Krivanek adds, "Everyone is scared of her. Her job was to humiliate and destroy you. She ruled us with fear and abuse. She built a prison inside of a prison."
Worse, she claims, the woman was allowed to do it. "The administration used her to punish, control and discipline her subjects."
Worked to the Bone
Krivanek lived in a barracks of 40 women in a cell with eight other inmates in single bunks. She survived on virtually nothing but cabbage and bread. When she wasn't working in the factory from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (she earned less than a dollar for her first month's work), she was on cleaning duty.
"Our tasks were assigned by Darth Vader, who hated me, so my job was to scrub the toilets every day, scrubbing everyone else's s---, so I had my head down a toilet the whole time and it's bad on the kidneys if you constantly have your hands and feet in cold water." There was no hot running water in the cells.
Krivanek says her health deteriorated, telling PEOPLE that she's suffered severe back pain from scoliosis and a fused spine after getting in a serious car accident, and also suffers from a chronic kidney stone condition. "When it comes to medical care, forget it. All you get is a mild painkiller tablet."
Sarah Krivanek
Prisoner Monitoring Service Sarah Krivanek in a meeting room at the Russian penal colony
Punishment from the administration was being put in the isolation cell for up to two weeks. It's a small box with no mattress, and you're not allowed to sit or lie down in the daytime. Krivanek managed to avoid the isolation cell by staying "meek" and always fulfilling her work quota.
"In summer we worked outside weeding with our hands. You get cuts and sores and you're bleeding." Krivanek was concerned, she claims, because many of the inmates "were HIV positive or had full blown AIDS. If they didn't have money to buy medication, they died."
"What you do as protection there, is don't show any emotions. Don't cry over the family who seem to have forgotten you because that gives them ammunition that you're all alone and defenseless," she explains. "So, I cried over Drago my cat. I let them think 'this is one crazy lady' and leave me alone."
She had befriended the stray cats and kittens in the grounds of the prison, but before a routine prison inspection, she claims they were all rounded up, put in bags and thrown onto a bonfire. "It was genuinely evil."
Cut Off from the Outside World
Most inmates have friends and family on the outside who send money to use in the prison shop to buy luxuries such as soap and fresh food, but Krivanek had nobody. She also had no money on her prison account to make phone calls within Russia.
"I had no contact with the outside world at all. No news, no TV, no nothing. There's a caste system in there and if you have no family or friends on the outside, then you're the lowest of the low," she says.
She repeatedly filed requests with the administration to make a call to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow but was not permitted to do so. Eventually, on July 21, seven months after her abortive attempt to leave with the help of the vice-consul, a male inmate smuggled his unauthorized phone to her so she could make a secret call from sick bay. She was only able to speak long enough to tell them which prison she was in before the signal was lost.
Following her complaint to the prison's inspector, she was eventually permitted to make another call to the embassy in August through official channels. "The diplomat told me they'd heard my last call and knew where I was and promised that someone was coming. They also promised to contact my family." The embassy did not return PEOPLE's request for comment about Krivanek's reported exchange.
After the call she waited with bated breath but heard no more. With no contact from outside the camp her despair deepened: "I waited and waited but still no one came. I also felt my friends and family had abandoned me. I thought the embassy must have contacted them and didn't know that they hadn't. Or how hard it was to contact me from abroad."
She visited the little church in the prison grounds whenever she could to pray for wisdom and strength. "Being a Catholic I couldn't commit suicide, but when I went to be bed at night, I would pray to the Lord that he would take me."
She was not permitted to attend the Eucharist for a second time in the church as punishment for having kissed the cross during the first service. She hid the cross she wore under her clothes at all times for fear of persecution.
'They Found Me!'
Then came the turning point which she says "saved my life." It was when PEOPLE, which found out where she was staying through a relative, asked a contact in Russia to send her an email letter through the prison system. It said that her family and friends knew where she was and loved her.
She received it on Sept. 1. "I was in the factory when they brought it to me. I read it and ran out and round the corner and cried and cried with happiness. One of the girls followed me and said: 'What's wrong?' and I said, 'Oh my God, they found me! They found me!'"
"I was so overwhelmed because deep deep down in my heart where no one else could see except God himself was that small sliver of hope that they were looking for me and that they wouldn't give up," she says.
Sarah Krivanek, an American woman jailed in Russia letter
After that, everything changed for her. She wrote back and received more letters from human rights activist Natalia Filimonova, of Russia Behind Bars, whom PEOPLE had reached out to. Filimonova also arranged for packages of supplies to be sent to her, which were paid for by her friend Martinez.
"It was like being given a loaded gun. I had power," recalls Krivanek. "I was treated differently. Before that you are victimized for having no one who cares about you. Now I could stand up to them."
"Now Sarah has a posse," she explains. "Someone's got her back. They didn't succeed in destroying me."
Martinez was able to transfer money for more supplies and pay for money on her prison phone card so that she could keep in touch with Filimonova and loved ones until her release on Nov. 7.
Sarah Krivanek, the American schoolteacher imprisoned in Russia
When she made it to the detention cell, Russian human rights activists were able to return her own cell phone from the police files in Moscow. Martinez was the first person she called.
"We had such a long conversation, for hours," says Martinez. "We laughed, we joked around. I mean Sarah's there. The same Sarah but she's a lot stronger that's for sure. I knew if anyone could get through this, it's her."
The U.S. Embassy arranged a repatriation loan to buy her flight home to California, which Krivanek will have to pay back with the help of a fundraiser organized by Martinez. Two officials also attended her deportation court case. She managed to talk briefly to them and asked about Davis, who had accompanied them to the airport. "They told me he'd been kicked out of the country," she says. (PEOPLE could not independently verify whether he had been expelled from Russia by the time of publishing.)
Krivanek remains bitter about the perceived lack of support from the embassy throughout her ordeal. "They abandoned me," she says shortly.
Asked what she misses most about America, she replies: "I only miss my family and my friends. That's all I know for now. I can't say I'm looking forward to anything else except being with them."
NASA's Latest Artemis 1 Moon Images Are Truly Jaw-Dropping
A photo taken from NASA's Orion spacecraft shows the cratered gray surface of the Moon, with Earth visible as a small crescent of light in the distance.
George Dvorsky December 7, 2022
Orion’s view of the Moon and crescent Earth moments after completing its second close lunar flyby on December 5.
Orion’s most recent accomplishments include a new distance record, a close flyby of the Moon, and a trajectory correction maneuver that sent the uncrewed capsule on its journey back to Earth. Not surprisingly, these milestone events made for some excellent photo opportunities.
Artemis 1 is nearly over, with the historic 25.5-day mission concluding just four days from now. It’s been a big success, with Orion entering and then exiting its target distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. Many memorable photos have been captured throughout the mission, but a newly released set contains some of the best taken so far.
Orion, Earth, Moon
Photo: NASA
This image, captured on November 28, is unlike any other taken by a crew-rated spacecraft. It was on this day, the 13th of the mission, that Orion reached its maximum distance from Earth: 268,563 miles (432,210 kilometers). No spacecraft built for humans has ever ventured so far from our home planet. For this mission, Orion has no passengers, save for some manikins that are gathering valuable data.
A closer look Photo: NASA
A zoomed-in view of the same image, showing the Earth and Moon in more detail. It’s not often that you see an image showing our natural satellite in the foreground and our home planet lurking in the background.
Hello, Moon Photo: NASA
Orion captured this black-and-white view of the Moon on November 30, the 15th day of the mission. The capsule is equipped with 16 cameras, a number of which are located on the tips of its solar arrays. In thrust we trust Photo: NASA
On November 30, an Orion camera mounted to the tip of a solar array captured this photo of a neighboring solar array, along with a view of Earth in the background. The detail in this photo is exquisite, showing the solar array and European Service Module. The European Service Module, which powers the capsule and moves it through space, is fitted with 33 engines of three different types, a number of which are visible in this photo.
Four wings for power Photo: NASA
Each wing measures approximately 6.5 feet (2 meters) wide and 23 feet (7 meters) long, with each wing consisting of three perfectly squared panels. Combined, the four solar array wings provide around 11 kW of electricity, which is enough to power two three-bedroom homes. 220,000 miles from home
Orion captured this video (sped up to 8-times normal speed) on December 2. Artemis 1 is a stage-setting mission for the planned Artemis 2 mission, in which a crew of four astronauts will repeat this journey.
Small toots, big gains
Orion performed its a return trajectory correction burn on December 2, the 17th day of the mission. The video above shows some of Orion’s thrusters at work during the burn. The correction maneuver changed the spacecraft’s velocity by 0.48 feet per second (0.3 miles per hour), moving it toward a trajectory that’s currently taking the capsule back to Earth. Orion broke free from distant retrograde orbit one day earlier.
Crescent Earth Photo: NASA
A sweet slice of Earth, as seen by Orion on December 4, the 19th day of the Artemis 1 mission.
Lunar approach Photo: NASA
A portion of the Moon’s far side is visible, in this image taken just prior to Orion’s second close lunar flyby on the 20th day of the Artemis 1 mission.
Up close and personal Photo: NASA
This photo was taken just moments before Orion flew behind the far side of the Moon. NASA temporarily lost contact with the capsule for 31 minutes, as expected. The flyby burn itself took 3 minutes and 27 seconds, placing Orion on a trajectory that will take it back to Earth. Orion completed its first lunar flyby on November 28, during which time it captured some spectacular views of the Moon’s cratered surface.
After the flyby Photo: NASA
Orion performed its second close lunar flyby on December 5, coming to within 80 miles (130 km) of the lunar surface. The spacecraft then emerged from the far side of the Moon, providing this remarkable view of the Moon and crescent Earth.
Intimate selfie Photo: NASA
Orion captured this view of itself on December 5, and it shows Commander Moonikin Campos—a manikin that’s currently gathering data about radiation, acceleration, and vibrations—in the window. The capsule, upon its return to Earth and prior to reentry, will separate from the European Service Module.
Orion is now moving away from the Moon and is expected to return home on Sunday, December 11 at 12:40 p.m. ET. This image was captured on flight day 20, after the flyby burn.
U$A Interracial marriages to get added protection under new law
A highway marker stands for Richard and Mildred Loving on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022, in Milford, Va. The interracial couple's legal challenge led to a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down state laws banning marriages between people of different races. The Respect for Marriage Act enshrines interracial and same-sex marriages in federal law. (AP Photo/Denise Lavoie)
DENISE LAVOIE December 7, 2022
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — One day in the 1970s, Paul Fleisher and his wife were walking through a department store parking lot when they noticed a group of people looking at them. Fleisher, who is white, and his wife, who is Black, were used to “the look.” But this time it was more intense.
“There was this white family who was just staring at us, just staring holes in us,” Fleisher recalled.
That fraught moment occurred even though any legal uncertainty about the validity of interracial marriage had ended a decade earlier — in 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws banning marriages between people of different races.
In the more than half-century since, interracial marriage has become more common and far more accepted. So Fleisher was surprised that Congress felt the need to include an additional protection in the Respect for Marriage Act, which was given final approval in a House vote Thursday. It ensures that not only same-sex marriages, but also interracial marriages, are enshrined in federal law.
The 74-year-old Fleisher, a retired teacher and children's book author, attended segregated public schools in the 1950s in the then-Jim Crow South, and later saw what he called “token desegregation” in high school, when four Black students were in his senior class of about 400 students.
He and his wife, Debra Sims Fleisher, 73, live outside Richmond, about 50 miles from Caroline County, where Mildred Jeter, a Black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were arrested and charged in 1958 with marrying out of state and returning to Virginia, where interracial marriage was illegal. Their challenge to the law led to Loving v. Virginia, the landmark ruling that ended bans against interracial marriages.
The Respect for Marriage Act, which passed the Senate l ast week, had been picking up steam since June, when the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion. That ruling included a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested the high court should review other precedent-setting rulings, including the 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
While much of the attention has been focused on protections for same-sex marriages, interracial couples say they are glad Congress also included protections for their marriages, even though their right to marry was well-established decades ago.
“It's a little unnerving that these things where we made such obvious progress are now being challenged or that we feel we have to really beef up the bulwark to keep them in place,” said Ana Edwards, a historian who lives in Richmond.
Edwards, 62, who is Black, and her husband, Phil Wilayto, 73, who is white, have been married since 2006. Both have been community activists for years and said they didn't consider interracial marriage a potentially vulnerable institution until the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion.
“That reminds all of us that whatever rights we have in this society are conditional — they can be taken away," said Wilayto. ”The fact that Congress had to take up this issue in 2022 should be a stark reminder of that fact for us."
For younger interracial couples, the thought that their right to marry could ever be threatened is a foreign concept.
“We never in our wildest dreams thought we would need to be protected as an interracial couple,” said Derek Mize, a 42-year-old white attorney who lives in an Atlanta suburb with his husband, Jonathan Gregg, 41, who is Black, and their two children.
As a same-sex couple, they were at the forefront of the long struggle for acceptance and felt the elation that followed the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage across the country.
Still, they see the need for new protections for interracial marriages as well.
“We're really relieved that there is this law," Mize said. "Protections through the courts and protections through the legislation certainly helps us sleep better at night.”
Mize said he remembers studying Loving v. Virginia in law school and thought then that it was “ridiculous” that there had to be litigation over marriages between people of different races. But after he read the Supreme Court's ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, he said: “Who knows where it will stop?”
Gregg, a management consultant, said he sees the Respect for Marriage Act as “an added level of safety” for same-sex and interracial marriages — a federal law and Supreme Court rulings supporting their right to marry.
“You've got two ways to be OK,” he said. “They have to take down both of them in order for your marriage to fall apart.”
Angelo Villagomez, a 44-year-old senior fellow at the think tank Center for American Progress, said it was “unthinkable” that his marriage could become illegal. Villagomez, who is of mixed white and Indigenous Mariana Islands descent, and his wife, Eden Villagomez, 38, who is Filipina, live in Washington, D.C.
But after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, “it feels like some of those things that have just been taken for granted ... are under threat,” said Villagomez, whose parents, also a mixed-race couple, were married in the 1970s, not long after the Loving decision.
Villagomez worries about what could come next. “If we don’t put a stop to some of this backsliding, this country is gonna go to a very dark place,” he said.
“I’m worried about what else is on the chopping block.”
___
Associated Press reporter Claire Savage contributed to this report from Chicago.
___
Savage is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
'Burn everything': Poland chokes on the smog of war
By Marek Strzelecki and Kuba Stezycki
OLPINY, Poland (Reuters) - The Tkaczuk family moved from the Polish city of Krakow to the village of Olpiny in the Carpathian foothills in 2018 in search of cleaner country air.
Four years on, as the fallout from the Ukraine war halted Russian gas supplies to Poland, the local authorities postponed a ban on the dirtiest stoves for heating, and air pollution in Olpiny exceeded the norms by four-fold last month.
"I feel completely helpless and abandoned by the state," said Julia Tkaczuk, 38, whose five-year-old son has asthma. "Every sneeze is a warning sign for me."
It's even worse in Krakow, Poland's second-biggest city.
On the night of Nov. 20, as temperatures slipped below zero for the first time this year, the only city in the world with a higher concentration of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) in the air was New Delhi, according to Airly, an organisation based in California that monitors pollution.
While a number of European countries besides Poland, such as Germany and Hungary, are burning more polluting brown coal, or lignite, to keep the lights on, experts say it's the use of the fuel at home that will have the biggest impact on health.
In the municipality where the Tkaczuk's live, coal is the main heating source and 40% of households use outdated furnaces known as "smokers" because of the poisonous fumes they emit.
Piotr Kleczkowski, a professor at Krakow's AGH University specialising in environmental protection, estimates that the suspension of the ban in the Tkaczuk's province will result in up to 1,500 premature deaths this winter.
Lignite contains several times more sulphur and ash, and five times more mercury, than black coal, and provides three times less energy. Burning it at home spews out a deadly combination of sulphur and mercury, raising the risk of asthma, lung cancer, cardiac arrest and strokes.
"It gets worse: with more sulphur in the air, mercury finds it easier to get into our lungs," said Kleczkowski, referring to the way the two elements combine in polluted air.
BURN EVERYTHING
To be sure, Poland has been one of the most polluted countries in Europe for years and governments have tried to clamp down on the burning of dirty fuels in homes.
But after Russian gas was cut off over a payment dispute in April, the Law and Justice (PiS) government dropped a two-year-old ban on residents burning lignite and poor-quality hard coal, which cannot be filtered effectively in home stoves.
It also loosened restrictions on selling coal waste, which can be highly polluting, taking Poland back to the days before 2018, when the rules for coal were tightened to fight smog.
In September, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski even told residents of Nowy Targ, the town with the lowest air quality in Poland in 2020, to burn pretty much whatever they wanted.
"We should be burning everything, other than tires, or similar things, because this is unfortunately what happens here," he said. "Simply, Poland needs to be heated."
In November, the Lodz region in central Poland also postponed for two years a ban on the dirtiest home furnaces that was due to take effect in 2023.
The government says the lifting of the ban on lignite and the lowest quality coal is linked to the Ukraine war and should be temporary - and its impact on air quality will be evaluated after the winter.
"The central government has no influence on the scope and timelines of the regional anti-smog rules," Poland's climate ministry said in response to Reuters questions.
'ABOVE THE NORM IS OUR NORM'
The policy U-turn, however, is already triggering respiratory problems in the most polluted areas, doctors say.
In Rybnik near the Czech border, child admissions to the Provincial Specialised Hospital soared in November as temperatures fell, according to the paediatric ward's chief Katarzyna Musiol.
On the night of Nov. 20, when the temperature in Rybnik fell to minus 3 Celsius, the average concentration of PM 2.5 particles was six times above the norm, data from Airly, which has five monitoring points in the town, showed.
Particulate matter is considered to be the most dangerous air pollutant and at only 2.5 microns wide or less, PM 2.5 particles can get deep into the lungs and even the bloodstream.
Although it was first the really cold night of the year in Rybnik, the air quality was already the worst since Dec. 13, 2021 when the temperature was minus 6 C.
"As a result, the ward is full of children, of which 90% have conditions triggered by smog: shortness of breath, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), aggravated asthma, bronchitis and pneumonia. Some are babies a few weeks old with breathing problems and RSV," Musiol told Reuters.
"Above the norm is our norm. Smog has been intense over the past days and we have a lot of children in need of intensive treatment," she said.
The town of 130,000 people in Silesia province has kept its anti-smog rules in place so stoves more than 10 years old are banned, but coal is widely used.
Magdalena Kolarczyk Guz from Rybnik's municipal police patrols the town during the day, searching for homes spewing smoke into the air to find people breaking the rules.
"The words of the politicians, even the most important ones, don't change the law," she told Reuters as she patrolled a district with detached houses.
She finds one belching dirty smoke into the sky. But when she rings the door bell, nobody answers, and she doesn't have the power to force entry.
COAL RUSH
About 80% of the coal used by European Union citizens to heat homes is burned in Poland. It started running out soon after Warsaw became the first EU member to stop buying Russian coal in April, imports typically used by residential customers.
Prices jumped four-fold and state-owned sellers started rationing. Desperate for supplies for the winter, Poles started driving to the Czech Republic during the summer to buy lignite from wholesalers there.
"The interest from Polish customers is enormous," said Dan Bernat, a Czech coal merchant in Libun, 35 km (22 miles) from the Polish border. "Sometimes they demand absurd volumes, full truckloads, or 10, 15 tonnes, which we cannot handle."
In Poland, three tonnes of black coal, the amount usually needed to heat a home through winter, can cost as much as 10,000-12,000 zloty ($2,240-$2,690), compared with an average monthly wage of just under 5,000 after tax.
But lignite costs about a 10th of price of hard coal and 21,000 tonnes were sold in the first four weeks after it became available to residential users in October, Polish power and mining company PGE said.
"I can't afford hard coal," said Kazimierz Kujawski, a farmer, outside the vast Belchatow lignite mine in central Poland as he came to collect six tonnes, the maximum an individual customer can buy.
With coal out of reach for some, residents are also resorting to burning garbage, which produces more carcinogenic toxins than lignite according to professor Kleczkowski, and local authorities are struggling to stop it.
In October, a homeowner in Wejherowo in northern Poland, refused to accept a fine from local police for burning furniture waste, arguing that PiS leader Kaczynski had said he could burn anything. The court case is pending.
"We are pumping substances into the atmosphere which are much more harmful than what we have seen in the last 12 months," Kleczkowski said.
"If sub-zero temperatures return, we will see very high levels of pollution: the levels at which acute effects may occur, including strokes."
($1 = 4.4664 zlotys)
(Reporting by Marek Strzelecki and Kuba Stezycki; Additional reporting by Krisztina Than in Budapest, Robert Muller in Prague, Vera Eckert in Frankfurt and Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; Editing by David Clarke)
1,000 salaried Ford workers retire after pension warning from automaker
Phoebe Wall Howard and Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press Mon, December 12, 2022
DETROIT – Retirement-eligible salaried employees at Ford were warned and advised about retiring this year to maximize a lump sum pension payment.
The company confirmed Wednesday that approximately 1,000 employees elected to retire by the Dec. 1 deadline.
"If you are considering retiring and choosing the lump sum option, it is important to understand the impact of higher interest rates on your individual lump sum amount, should you retire after Dec. 1, 2022," read the Ford memo, which also included a brief survey to help the company plan for employee retirements.
The warning – sent to employees in an email in September with the subject line "Important Information Regarding Your Pension" – specifically pointed out that anyone who is considering retiring and opting for a lump sum payment needs to look at the numbers.
The lump sum for 2023, according to the Ford memo, would decrease by an estimated 20% to 25% relative to the lump sum values that Ford employees would get if they took it in 2022.
For example, if someone is looking at a $500,000 lump sum payout in 2022, the loss in 2023 could be in the range of $100,000 to $125,000.
Retirees who opt for the traditional monthly pension wouldn't see a change based on higher interest rates or inflation. Many pensions don't include cost of living adjustments that would boost a monthly pension check based on inflation, like Social Security does.
Choosing a lump sum payout is an option, not a requirement.
Will Ford cut jobs next year?
These retirements are independent of recent actions by the company, which have included job reductions in parts of the company that focus on traditional internal combustion engine vehicles. While CEO Jim Farley divided the company into Ford Model e (electric) and Ford Blue (non-electric) units, it is Ford Blue trucks that generate the revenue needed to transform the Dearborn automaker.
Ford employs about 176,000 employees globally. The latest retirements will take down the total of salaried workers to 28,000 in the U.S., Ford spokeswoman Marisa Bradley told the Detroit Free Press, part of USA Today Network.
There is no one department affected by the retirements, she said. The company does not disclose specific details related to retirees, including how many take lump sum buyouts. Financial analyst weighs in
Sam Huszczo, a chartered financial analyst in Southfield, Mich., said Wednesday that his firm had a lot of discussions with Ford clients about retiring in 2022 and taking the lump sum option.
"The main group of people who decided to take the lump sum offer were planning to retire in 2023 or 2024 anyway," he said. "And this was enough to push them over the edge to pull the trigger on retiring."
In some cases, he said, people felt anxious that they were making a major life decision that would impact the next 30 years of their lives but had just two months to decide what to do – all while having to work at the same time.
Many times, he said, Ford clients who were within three to five years of retiring decided not to retire after all, knowing that they'd be giving up their paychecks much sooner than expected. Often, Huszczo said, those clients who decided to stay expressed more faith in Ford's direction in the long run.
