Fight over Canadian oil rages on after pipeline’s demise


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FILE - In this Jun 12, 2019, file photo, walking up Main Street the procession protesting against the Keystone XL pipeline makes its way to Andrew W. Bogue Federal Courthouse in Rapid City, S.D. The sponsor of the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline says it's pulling the plug on the contentious project, Wednesday, June 9, 2021, after Canadian officials failed to persuade the Biden administration to reverse its cancellation of the company's permit.(Adam Fondren/Rapid City Journal via AP)

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Keystone XL is dead after a 12-year attempt to build the oil pipeline, yet the fight over Canadian crude rages on as emboldened environmentalists target other projects and pressure President Joe Biden to intervene — all while oil imports from the north keep rising.

Biden dealt the fatal blow to the partially built $9 billion Keystone XL in January when he revoked its border-crossing permit issued by former President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, sponsors TC Energy and the province of Alberta gave up and declared the line “terminated.”

Activists and many scientists had warned that the pipeline would open a new spigot on Canada’s oil sands crude — and that burning the heavily polluting fuel would lock in climate change. As the fight escalated into a national debate over fossil fuels, Canadian crude exports to the U.S. steadily increased, driven largely by production from Alberta’s oil sands region.

Even before the cancellation, environmentalists had turned their attention to other projects, including Enbridge Energy’s proposal to expand and rebuild its Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota, the target of protests this week that led to the arrest of some 250 activists.

“Don’t expect these fights to go away anytime soon,” said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at Resources for the Future, an energy and environmental think tank in Washington. “This is going to encourage environmental advocates to do more of the same.”

Bill McKibben, an author who was arrested outside the White House while protesting the Keystone XL in 2011, said its defeat provides a template to kill other pipelines, including Line 3 and the Dakota Access Pipeline from North Dakota’s Bakken oil field.

Describing Keystone XL as “a carbon bomb,” McKibben said Line 3 is the same size and “carries the same stuff. How on earth could anyone with a straight face say Line 3 passes the climate test?”

Enbridge said the cancellation of Keystone XL will not affect its projects, describing them as “designed to meet current energy demand safely and in ways that better protect the environment.”

A second TC Energy pipeline network, known simply as Keystone, has been delivering crude from Canada’s oil sands region since 2010. The company says the line that runs from Alberta to Illinois, Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast has moved more than 3 billion barrels of oil

Canada is by far the biggest foreign crude supplier to the U.S., which imported about 3.5 million barrels a day from its neighbor in 2020 — 61% of all U.S. oil imports.

The flow dropped slightly during the coronavirus pandemic but has largely rebounded. Import volumes have almost doubled since the Keystone XL was first proposed in 2008, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said Thursday that it expects no immediate effect on production from Keystone XL’s cancellation, but the group predicted more oil would be moved to the U.S. by rail.

A series of fiery accidents occurred in the U.S. and Canada after rail shipments of crude increased during an oil boom on the Northern Plains, including a 2013 incident in which 47 people were killed after a runaway train derailed in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic.

The dispute over Keystone XL and other lines raised diplomatic tensions between the two countries, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau adopted a conciliatory tone with Biden, who canceled the pipeline on his first day in the White House.

Canada uses much less oil than it produces, making it a huge exporter, and 98% of those exports go to the U.S., according to the Natural Resources Canada.

Trudeau raised Keystone XL as a top priority with Biden while acknowledging that the president had promised in his campaign to cancel the line.

Both leaders have taken heat at home over Keystone, with Republicans slamming Biden for shutting it down while construction was underway, costing hundreds of jobs. The project was meant to expand oil exports for Canada, which has the third-largest oil reserves in the world, and provincial officials in Alberta wanted Trudeau to do more to save it.

The White House declined to comment on the cancellation. Spokesman Vedant Patel declined to say if Biden plans to address increased crude exports from Canada or intervene in other pipeline disputes.

His action on Keystone “signals at least some appetite to get involved,” but pipelines that have operated for years would be tougher targets, Raimi said.

Winona LaDuke, executive director of the Indigenous-based environmental group Honor the Earth, called on Biden to withdraw an Army Corps of Engineers permit for Line 3 and to order a new study.

“He could stop the project,” she said. “Don’t ask us to be nice to Enbridge. They’re all over our land. They’re hurting us.”

The Biden administration has been “disturbingly quiet” on Line 3 and the Dakota Access line, said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. He urged the administration to declare both unacceptable.

Fiercely opposed by Native Americans, the Dakota Access pipeline was the impetus for protests that were quashed by law enforcement. The Biden administration has not sought to stop the line, and it’s still in court after a judge revoked its permit but allowed oil to keep flowing.

Alberta sank more than $1 billion into Keystone XL last year to kick-start construction. Officials in the province are considering a trade action against the U.S. to seek compensation.

Keystone XL’s price tag ballooned as the project languished, increasing from $5.4 billion to $9 billion.

Another question: What to do with pipe already in place at the U.S.-Canada border and other infrastructure along its route.

Jane Kleeb, a pipeline opponent in Nebraska, said state regulators should revoke the permit they approved for a route through the state. Otherwise, she said, TC Energy might try to sell the easements to another company.

Until the state acts, farmers and ranchers will continue to face TC Energy attorneys in court, “protecting their property from an eminent domain land grab by a foreign corporation,” she said.

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Daly reported from Washington and Flesher from Traverse City, Michigan. Rob Gillies contributed from Toronto and Grant Schulte from Omaha, Nebraska.

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Follow Brown on Twitter: @MatthewBrownAP

AMERICA'S HOME GROWN RELIGION

Secret recordings show Southern Baptist dispute on sex abuse

By PETER SMITH and TRAVIS LOLLER 

today


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FILE - In this Tuesday, June 14, 2016, file photo, Pastor Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, addresses members during the organization's annual meeting in St. Louis. In a Thursday, June 10, 2021, open letter to Floyd, president of the Executive Committee, and Mike Stone, then-chairman of the committee and now a candidate for convention president, critics sought to show top leaders were slow to address sexual abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, more worried about the convention’s reputation and donations than about victims of abuse. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Releases of leaked letters and secret recordings from within the Southern Baptist Convention intensified Thursday as critics sought to show top leaders were slow to address sexual abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and worried more about its reputation and donations than about victims.

A former executive of the denomination’s ethics agency posted audio clips he clandestinely recorded in internal meetings to bolster claims that leaders of the SBC’s Executive Committee sought to slow or block policies responding to abuse by ministers and other church leaders, and that they tried to intimidate those seeking a more robust response.

The committee members defended their actions, saying the recordings reflect the normal give-and-take of trying to develop the best policies.

The timing comes less than a week before the SBC’s annual meeting, which is expected to draw its highest attendance in more than 25 years, amid tensions over abuse, race and other issues and growing calls for an independent investigation of the Executive Committee’s response.

Phillip Bethancourt, a Texas pastor and former executive vice president of the denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, posted the audio online in an open letter to Ronnie Floyd, president of the Executive Committee, and Mike Stone, then-chairman of the committee and now a candidate for convention president.

“Southern Baptists deserve to hear you in your own words,” Bethancourt wrote.

One set of clips came from a meeting following a Caring Well conference on sexual abuse sponsored in 2019 by the ethics commission.

In the recording, Floyd questions Russell Moore — who was president of the commission until his resignation last month — about one of the speakers, Rachael Denhollander, an attorney and prominent advocate for fellow abuse survivors.

Denhollander had publicly criticized the Executive Committee for its handling of an abuse case. The denominational news agency, overseen by the Executive Committee, had reported on the case in a way that implied consent by the victim, who was then publicly vilified in social media. The agency later apologized.

Floyd asks Moore in the recording: “What do I say ... to the Executive Committee when Rachael’s come after them?”

Moore replies, “We didn’t script anybody in terms of what they could say,” and says the best response is to “not do stupid stuff again.”

In another recording, Floyd tells Moore he “wanted to preserve the base,” which Bethancourt interprets as putting a priority on maintaining funding from churches.

Bethancourt also released audio from an earlier meeting showing resistance to the proposed creation of a credentials committee to investigate churches’ handling of abuse cases.

In a statement Thursday, Floyd said he put his staff to work immediately after that meeting in laying the groundwork for the credentials committee before its approval by the full convention.

“The convention was — and still is — divided over methods of response to sexual abuse,” he said. “However, the SBC is not divided on the priority of caring for abuse survivors and protecting the vulnerable in our churches.”

He said his questioning about the Caring Well conference was to get answers he could provide to churches. “However, I apologize for any offense that may have resulted from my remarks,” he said.

Jennifer Lyell, whose case was cited in Denhollander’s criticism of the Executive Committee, disputed Floyd’s characterization, tweeting that he “was not a poor middleman” trying to get answers to others’ questions but rather “one of THEM” on the Executive Committee.

“They weren’t attacked,” Lyell said. “They were exposed.”

Stone told The Associated Press that as a survivor of sexual abuse himself, it’s “outrageous” to say he would block efforts to respond to such misconduct.

He said his debates with Moore were over process and that he “felt that we did not have enough time to do this credentials committee properly” in 2019.

Stone added that the SBC can’t dictate policies to its self-governing churches the way a hierarchical denomination can, and said a “heavy-handed” approach could prompt churches to leave the convention, with no improvement in children’s safety. He said he favored equipping and training churches to respond to abuse.

The release of the recordings followed a series of leaks that have stoked debate in recent weeks among Southern Baptists, including lengthy letters Moore penned in 2020 and last month to denominational colleagues.

In them he said he received “undiluted rage” from Executive Committee leaders as they debated how to respond to abuse, which Moore called a “crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention.”

A 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News revealed that about 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers had faced allegations of sexual misconduct, involving several hundred victims. These and subsequent reports told of cases of offenders returning to ministry and even as victims were blamed.

Those revelations galvanized efforts to do more. At its 2019 annual meeting, the SBC stated that congregations could be expelled for mishandling abuse cases and created the credentials committee to review such cases.

Floyd said the Executive Committee is now talking with a “highly credible outside firm” to investigate its handling of the controversy.

But two Southern Baptist pastors are preparing a competing proposal for next week’s annual meeting that would have the next SBC president create a task force to pick the investigator.

Denhollander said the newly public recordings corroborate her own experiences in advocating for victims of abuse within the SBC, and that she has offered to help many times but her offers have been rejected.

“Hopefully over the last two weeks, Southern Baptist messengers (voting representatives) have begun to ask very important questions,” she said. Among them is how church officials could “misreport a case of violent abuse as an affair and nobody would care? ... Because they had done it in the past.”

Denhollander said there will be two resolutions addressing abuse at the upcoming meeting and they are being carefully worded to take into account Southern Baptist theology and polity. And she disputed Stone’s contention that the SBC’s structure makes it difficult to take certain actions against sexual abuse.

“It’s actually very easy to do in a way that is legally sound and respects Southern Baptist autonomy,” Denhollander said.

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Smith reported from Pittsburgh

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through The Conversation U.S. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

IT'S THE DUTY OF EVERY PRISONER TO ESCAPE***
Prison break: 29 inmates escape federal lockups in 18 months

By MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL R. SISAK

today

FILE - In this Aug. 28, 2020, file photo, a no trespassing sign is displayed outside the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Ind. Over the past 18 months, 29 prisoners have escaped from federal lockups across the U.S. - and nearly half still have not been caught. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the past 18 months, 29 prisoners have escaped from federal lockups across the U.S. — and nearly half still have not been caught. At some of the institutions, doors are left unlocked, security cameras are broken and officials sometimes don’t notice an inmate is missing for hours.

At one Texas lockup, security is so lax that local law enforcement officials privately joke about its seemingly “open-door policy.”

Prisoners have broken out at lockups in nearly every region of the country. Twelve of the inmates who escaped in 2020 — from prisons in Florida, California, Louisiana, Texas and Colorado — remain at large. Two others who escaped since January this year have also not yet been caught. Their crimes include racketeering, wire fraud, bank robbery, possession of methamphetamine and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and other drugs.

All of the escapes happened at minimum-security federal prison camps, some of which don’t even have fences, and house inmates the Bureau of Prisons considers to be the lowest security risk.

“Anybody can escape from any camp any minute of any day,” said Jack Donson, a prison consultant and former case manager at a federal prison in Otisville, New York. “They’re not secure facilities. They have no fence, no metal detectors.”

The numbers raise serious concerns that the agency long besieged by chronic mismanagement, misconduct and a severe staffing crisis is failing at performing its most basic function: keeping prisoners in prison. While a Justice Department budget report submitted to Congress said the Bureau of Prisons had no escapes from secure facilities, it does not count those who escape from minimum-security prisons or camps.

Federal officials often refer to them as “walk-aways,” though it is still an escape from federal prison under the law and law enforcement officials say there is still a risk to the community when an inmate absconds.

Federal prison camps were originally designed with low security to make operations easier and to allow inmates tasked with performing work at the prison, like landscaping and maintenance, to avoid repeatedly checking in and out of a main prison facility. But the lax security has now not only opened a gateway for contraband but is also the source of most of the prison system’s escapes.

Aside from Texas escapees, law enforcement officials have also routinely learned of inmates at the prison just walking off the grounds to retrieve drugs and other contraband that is dropped off in the woods and then bringing the illegal items back inside with them.

It has become routine at FCI Beaumont for cars to drop drugs, cellphones and other contraband in the woods, leaving them for inmates to break out of the prison at night and pick up the items before sneaking back inside, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the matter. The official could not discuss the investigations publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The Texas escapes, at least, have attracted the attention of the Justice Department’s inspector general. The office issued a memorandum this week highlighting glaring security gaps at Beaumont and other federal prison camps.

In one case, four inmates sneaked out and went undetected for more than 12 hours even though prison officials conducted three inmate counts overnight during the 12-hour period, according to an inspector general’s report. The inmates put dummies in their beds to trick the officers, the report said.

“These are very small, unsecure facilities,” said Cameron Lindsay, a retired Bureau of Prisons warden who now testifies as an expert witness on prison matters. Because of their size and the generally low risk the inmates pose, federal prison camps often have the lowest levels of staffing in the Bureau of Prisons’ system, sometimes with just one officer working to supervise inmates during a shift, he said.

In a statement, the Bureau of Prisons said that it strives to ensure safety and security at every one of its prisons and that when an inmate “walks away” from a prison, officials will notify other law enforcement agencies and the media. The agency stressed that the inmates who are placed at the minimum-security camps are the lowest risk offenders who “pose minimal risk to the community” and generally are allowed to participate in outdoor work programs and other initiatives.

“The BOP remains vigilant in its efforts to maintain safe and secure institutions at all times,” the agency said. Officials said a review is conducted following every escape to determine “if any security weakness exists and if warranted, corrective actions are taken.”

In Beaumont, officials said they were building a fence around the prison, repairing the broken door alarms, adding and upgrading video cameras and putting up additional lights. The agency said it was also considering adding additional staff members at some of the prison camps.

“We take seriously our duty to protect the individuals entrusted in our custody, as well as maintaining the safety of correctional staff and the community,” agency officials said in the statement.

The Bureau of Prisons has been plagued by chronic violence, significant security issues and persistent staffing shortages for years. The AP reported last month that nearly one-third of federal correctional officer jobs in the United States are vacant, forcing prisons to use cooks, teachers, nurses and other workers to guard inmates.

The expanded use of that practice, known as augmentation, has been raising questions about whether the agency can carry out its required duties to ensure the safety of prisoners and staff members while putting in place programs and classes required under the law.

The Bureau of Prisons insists its latest hiring initiative is bringing on additional personnel to close the gaps.

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Sisak reported from New York.

***

COACHING IS ABUSE
Schembechler son, players say Michigan coach knew of abuse

By COREY WILLIAMS and MIKE HOUSEHOLDER

today


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Matt Schembechler, son of former University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler, participates in a news conference, Thursday, June 10, 2021, in Novi, Mich. Schembechler described Thursday how he was molested and sexually assaulted by the team's longtime doctor and how his father turned a blind eye when he was told about the abuse. (AP Photo/Jose Juarez)

NOVI, Mich. (AP) — One of late University of Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler’s sons and two of his former players described in detail Thursday how they were molested by the team’s longtime doctor and how Schembechler turned a blind eye when they told him about the abuse, telling one to “toughen up” and punching his son in anger.

Matt Schembechler, 62, and former Wolverines players Daniel Kwiatkowski and Gilvanni Johnson told similar stories about how Dr. Robert E. Anderson, who died in 2008, molested and digitally penetrated them during physical exams decades ago. They also talked about how Bo Schembechler, a Michigan icon whose statue stands outside a university building that bears his name, refused to protect them and allowed Anderson to continue abusing players and other patients for years.

Anderson “was supported by a culture that placed the reputation of the university above the health and safety of the students,” Matt Schembechler said during a news conference in the Detroit suburb of Novi. “That is the culture that made my father a legend and placed his statue in front of Schembechler Hall.”

“Dr. Anderson was part of the University of Michigan team,” he continued. “He was part of Bo’s team, therefore, he was more important than any man. It’s very clear that Bo and the university always put themselves before any student-athlete or son, just to support the brand.”

The three are among hundreds of men who were allegedly abused by Anderson during his nearly four decades working for the university — a period in which he also treated staffers, their families and other patients. And their assertion that Bo Schembechler, who died in 2006, knew about the abuse and allowed it to continue calls into question his legacy at the university.

Kwiatkowski and Johnson said it was common knowledge among their teammates that Anderson abused players during the physicals they had to get from him, which Johnson said players jokingly referred to as “seeing Dr. Anal.” Both players said Bo Schembechler broke a promise to protect them that he made while recruiting them to the school.

“Bo promised them that if I attended the University of Michigan and played football that Bo would be a father to me and look after me like I was family,” Kwiatkowski said, referring to his parents. “We were a poor, working-class family and my parents were very worried about my future and being able to pay for medical bills. Bo promised my family that he would keep me safe, make sure I got the best medical treatment. We were sold.”

Kwiatkowski, an offensive lineman from 1977-79, said Anderson abused him on four occasions. He said that during his first mandatory physical his freshman year, Anderson groped his genitals and inserted fingers in his rectum. The former player said he approached Schembechler after one practice and told him about the physical.

“Bo looked at me and said ‘Toughen up,’” Kwiatkowski said.

Matt Schembechler said Anderson abused him during a 1969 physical that he needed to get in order to play youth football. He said when he told his father, who was then in his first year of his iconic run with the Wolverines, his father punched him in the chest.

“This was the beginning of the end of the relationship with him,” Matt Schembechler said Thursday about his father. “I hoped my father would protect me, but he didn’t.”

He said his mother Millie, a registered nurse, “didn’t give up,” inviting the athletic director at the time, Don Canham, to their home so he could describe the abuse.

“It was my understanding Mr. Canham terminated Dr. Anderson, but shortly thereafter, Bo had him reinstated,” Matt Schembechler said. Canham died in 2005, one year before Bo Schembechler.

A report commissioned by the university and released last month found that Bo Schembechler and other officials were aware of complaints about Anderson but he was allowed to remain at the school for decades.

Asked why they decided to come forward about the abuse, Johnson said it was important to put faces to the allegations and to make sure there could be no doubt that Bo Schembechler was aware of the sexual abuse. He also talked about how the abuse has affected his life.

“Because of my experience at Michigan, I did not trust doctors,” Johnson said, adding that he “had trust issues, relationship issues and intimacy issues” and that he “lost two marriages” because of the abuse.

Johnson, who broke down at one point, said he has “always been too promiscuous in an effort to prove to myself and to others that I was a man.”

The university said in a statement Thursday that it is committed to resolving claims made by Anderson’s victims and is continuing confidential mediation ordered by a judge.

“Our sympathy for all of Anderson’s victims is deep and unwavering, and we thank them for their bravery in coming forward. We condemn and apologize for the tragic misconduct of the late Dr. Robert Anderson, who left the University 17 years ago and died 13 years ago,” the school said in its statement, which didn’t mention Bo Schembechler once.

Michigan’s current football coach, Jim Harbaugh, who played quarterback for Schembechler in the 1980s after growing up in Ann Arbor as the son of an assistant coach, was asked last week how the university should treat Schembechler’s legacy in light of recent reports related to Anderson.

“There was nothing that I saw in the times that I was a kid here, my dad was on the staff or when I played here,” Harbaugh told reporters. “He never sat on anything. He never procrastinated on anything. He took care of it before the sun went down. That’s the Bo Schembechler that I know.”

Harbaugh wasn’t available to speak Thursday about the latest revelations.

Bo Schembechler led the Wolverines from 1969-89 and had 194 wins at college football’s winningest school. His career record was 234-65-8, including six seasons at Miami of Ohio.

Another of his sons, Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler, told ESPN he did not believe what his brother, Matt, said to reporters. While Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler could not refute the stories shared by former players, he does not think his father was aware that Anderson was doing anything unacceptable in a physical exam.

“None of us were in that room when those players were talking to Bo,” Glenn Schembechler said to ESPN. “The Bo I knew would have taken care of it and found another doctor. It would be that easy.”

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Williams reported from Southfield. AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in Ann Arbor contributed to this report.

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This story was corrected to delete a reference to Bo Schembechler dying in 2004 — he died in 2006 — and to note that Don Canham died a year before, not after, Schembechler did.

TRUMP TOO
Israel's Netanyahu lashes out as end of his era draws near

AP NEWS
By JOSEF FEDERMAN

today


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FILE - In this June 6, 2021 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a ceremony showing appreciation to the health care system for their contribution to the fight against the coronavirus, in Jerusalem. In what appear to be the final days of his historic 12-year rule, Netanyahu is not leaving the political stage quietly. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)

JERUSALEM (AP) — In what appear to be the final days of his historic 12-year rule, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not leaving the political stage quietly.

The longtime leader is accusing his opponents of betraying their voters, and some have needed special security protection.

Netanyahu says he is the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy. He speaks in apocalyptic terms when talking about the country without his leadership.

“They are uprooting the good and replacing it with the bad and dangerous,” Netanyahu told the conservative Channel 20 TV station this week. “I fear for the destiny of the nation.”

Such language has made for tense days as Netanyahu and his loyalists make a final desperate push to try to prevent a new government from taking office on Sunday. With his options running out, it has also provided a preview of Netanyahu as opposition leader.

For those who have watched Netanyahu dominate Israeli politics for much of the past quarter century, his recent behavior is familiar.

He frequently describes threats both large and small in stark terms. He has belittled his rivals and thrived by using divide-and-conquer tactics. He paints his Jewish opponents as weak, self-hating “leftists,” and Arab politicians as a potential fifth column of terrorist sympathizers. He routinely presents himself in grandiose terms as the only person capable of leading the country through its never-ending security challenges.

“Under his term, identity politics are at an all-time high,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.

It is a formula that has served Netanyahu well. He has led the right-wing Likud party with an iron fist for over 15 years, racking up a string of electoral victories that earned him the nickname, “King Bibi.”

He fended off pressure by President Barack Obama to make concessions to the Palestinians and publicly defied him in 2015 by delivering a speech in Congress against the U.S.-led nuclear agreement with Iran.

Although Netanyahu was unable to block the deal, he was richly rewarded by President Donald Trump, who recognized contested Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, pulled out of the nuclear agreement and helped broker historic diplomatic pacts between Israel and four Arab nations.

Netanyahu has waged what appears to be a highly successful shadow war against Iran while keeping Israel’s longstanding conflict with the Palestinians at a slow boil, with the exception of three brief wars with Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.

The situation with the Palestinians today is “remarkably the same” as when Netanyahu took office, Plesner said. “No major changes in either direction, no annexation and no diplomatic breakthroughs.”
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But some of Netanyahu’s tactics now appear to be coming back to haunt him. The new Biden administration has been cool to the Israeli leader, while Netanyahu’s close relationship with Trump has alienated large segments of the Democratic Party.

At home, Netanyahu’s magic also has dissipated — in large part due to his trial on corruption charges. He has lashed out at an ever-growing list of perceived enemies: the media, the judiciary, police, centrists, leftists and even hard-line nationalists who were once close allies.

In four consecutive elections since 2019, the once-invincible Netanyahu was unable to secure a parliamentary majority. Facing the unappealing possibility of a fifth consecutive election, eight parties managed to assemble a majority coalition that is set to take office on Sunday.

Israeli politics are usually split between dovish, left-wing parties that seek a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians, and religious and nationalist parties — long led by Netanyahu — that oppose Palestinian independence. If any of the recent elections had centered on the conflict, then right-wing parties alone would have formed a strong, stable majority.

But the Palestinians hardly came up — another legacy of Netanyahu, who has pushed the issue to the sidelines.

Instead, all anyone seemed to talk about was Netanyahu’s personality and his legal troubles, which proved to be deeply polarizing. The incoming government includes three small parties led by former Netanyahu aides who had bitter breakups with him, including the presumed prime minister, Naftali Bennett.

Bennett and his right-wing partners even broke a longstanding taboo on allying with Arab parties. A small Islamist party, which Netanyahu had also courted, is to be the first to join a ruling coalition.

Netanyahu and his followers in Likud have grown increasingly desperate. Initially, Netanyahu tried to lure some “defectors” from his former allies to prevent them from securing a parliamentary majority.

When that failed, he resorted to language similar to that of his friend and benefactor Trump.

“We are witnesses to the greatest election fraud in the history of the country,” Netanyahu claimed at a Likud meeting this week. He has long dismissed the corruption trial as a “witch hunt” fueled by “fake news,” and in the TV interview he said he was being hounded by the “deep state.”

His supporters have held threatening rallies outside the homes of lawmakers joining the new government. Some of the parliamentarians say they and their families have received death threats, and one said she was recently followed by a mysterious car.

Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox partners have meanwhile cast Bennett as a threat to their religion, with one even calling on him to remove his kippa, the skullcap worn by observant Jews.

Online incitement by Netanyahu’s followers has grown so bad that several members of the incoming government were assigned bodyguards or even moved to secret locations.

Some Israelis have drawn comparisons to the tensions that led to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January, while others have pointed to the incitement ahead of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.

In a rare public statement, Nadav Argaman, the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, recently warned of a “serious rise and radicalization in violent and inciting discourse” on social media that he said could lead to violence.

Netanyahu has condemned the incitement while noting that he too has been a target.

Late Thursday, Netanyahu’s Likud Party issued a statement on Twitter in English saying his fraud comments were not directed at the vote counting process and that he has “full confidence” in it. “There is also no question about the peaceful transition of power,” it said.

Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Hebrew University, said she expects the coming months to remain volatile.

“We’re going to see a very assertive and aggressive head of the opposition, meaning Netanyahu, determined to make sure that this coalition of change would be a short-lived one and that we will have another election as soon as possible,” she added.

“We don’t have even a memory of what normal politics looks like,” Talshir said.

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Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

GREETINGS FROM THE RED PLANET
Photos show Chinese rover on dusty, rocky Martian surface

In this image released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) on Friday, June 11, 2021, the Chinese Mars rover Zhurong is seen near its landing platform taken by a remote camera that was dropped into position by the rover. China on Friday released a series of photos taken by its Zhurong rover on the surface of Mars, including one of the rover itself taken by a remote camera. (CNSA via AP)

BEIJING (AP) — The dusty, rocky Martian surface and a Chinese rover and lander bearing small national flags were seen in photos released Friday that the rover took on the red planet.

The four pictures released by the China National Space Administration also show the upper stage of the Zhurong rover and the view from the rover before it rolled off its platform.

Zhurong placed a remote camera about 10 meters (33 feet) from the landing platform, then withdrew to take a group portrait, the CNSA said.

China landed the Tianwen-1 spacecraft carrying the rover on Mars last month after it spent about three months orbiting the red planet. China is the second country to land and operate a spacecraft on Mars, after the United States.

The orbiter and lander both display small Chinese flags and the lander has outlines of the mascots for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics.



The six-wheeled rover is surveying an area known as Utopia Planitia, especially searching for signs of water or ice that could lend clues as to whether Mars ever sustained life.

At 1.85 meters (6 feet) in height, Zhurong is significantly smaller than the U.S.’s Perseverance rover which is exploring the planet with a tiny helicopter. NASA expects its rover to collect its first sample in July for return to Earth as early as 2031.

In addition to the Mars mission, China’s ambitious space program plans to send the first crew to its new space station next week. The three crew members plan to stay for three months on the Tianhe, or Heavenly Harmony, station, far exceeding the length of any previous Chinese mission. They will perform spacewalks, construction and maintenance work and carry out science experiments.

Subsequent launches are planned to expand the station, send up supplies and exchange crews. China has also has brought back lunar samples, the first by any country’s space program since the 1970s, landed a probe and rover on the moon’s less explored far side.

ANARCHO CAPITALI$M
At El Salvador’s Bitcoin Beach, a glimpse of crypto economy
By MARCOS ALEMAN

today

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EL ZONTE, El Salvador (AP) — After El Salvador’s congress made the bitcoin legal tender this week, eyes turned to this rural fishing village on the Pacific coast. Known to surfers for its pounding waves, El Zonte has had the cryptocurrency in its economy for the past year.

Some 500 fishing and farming families use bitcoin to buy groceries and pay utilities, something the government envisions for the country at large. Bitcoin already was legal to use in El Salvador but its acceptance was voluntary, so the legislation passed late Tuesday now requires all businesses — except those without the technology — to accept payment in bitcoin.

El Zonte’s mini bitcoin economy 26 miles (43 kilometers) from the capital came about through an anonymous donor who started working through a local nonprofit group in 2019. Supporters of the financial change point to it as a demonstration case for how digital currency could help in a country where 70% of the people don’t have bank accounts.




President Nayib Bukele, who pushed through the bitcoin law, touts it both as a way to help those many Salvadorans without access to traditional banking services and as a path to attract foreigners with bitcoin holdings to invest in El Salvador, which is the first nation to make the cryptocurrency legal tender.

Experts are trying to figure out why Bukele is pushing bitcoin. They say it is unclear how the highly volatile cryptocurrency will be a good option for the unbanked and only time will tell if the new system translates into real investment in El Salvador.

Bitcoin, intended as an alternative to government-backed money, is based largely on complex math, data-scrambling cryptography — thus the term “cryptocurrency” — lots of processing power and a distributed global ledger called the blockchain, which records all transactions. No central bank or other institution has any say in its value, which is set entirely by people trading bitcoin and its value has moved wildly over time.

In El Zonte this week, construction worker Hilario Gálvez walked into Tienda María to buy a soda and snacks to share with his friends. Instead of reaching for his wallet, he paid through an app on his phone.

The store’s namesake, María del Carmen Avilés, said she is now expert in bitcoin transactions.

“When a customer comes I ask him if he’s going to pay with the application or in cash. The majority pay with the application Bitcoin Beach. I look for it on my cell to charge them.”

It doesn’t take more than two minutes.

“It’s easier than paying with bills,” Gálvez said. “I can buy from my house, do the transaction with the application Bitcoin Beach, and I just come to pick up what I need.”

Avilés notes that the volatility of the bitcoin can be a problem.

“People ask me if I recommend bitcoin, I tell them I’ve won, but I’ve also lost,” Avilés said. “When bitcoin hit $60,000, I won and I bought this refrigerated room for the store, but then it went down and I lost.”

Román Martínez was a pioneer in using bitcoin in El Zonte. He said the anonymous U.S. donor heard about community projects through the nonprofit Hope House where he works and began working through another American who lives in El Zonte. Hope House shares a building with Strike, a Chicago-based start-up that has been working with Bukele’s government on the nationwide bitcoin launch.

A request by The Associated Press to interview Strike CEO Jack Mallers was not granted. In an email, the company said, “Strike’s app is meant to empower people in all countries, broaden the financial system to include those who have been excluded, and increase economic opportunity around the world, and that is at the heart of this effort.”

El Salvador has used the U.S. dollar as its official currency since 2001, and Strike said that adopting bitcoin “as legal tender will help reduce its dependence on the decisions of a foreign central bank.”

Martinez said El Zonte residents did not have bank accounts, had no access to credit and were forced to handle all transactions in cash. “Now they are small investors whose lives have been changed by bitcoin,” he said.

Some question just how much can be learned from the Bitcoin Beach experiment.

David Gerard, author of “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain,” said El Zonte is an artificial demonstration.

At Bitcoin Beach, he said, “the bitcoins are traded inside Strike. They don’t actually move on the bitcoin blockchain or anything.”

Gerard said it appears to work because the bitcoin donor keeps pumping bitcoin into the village’s system. “That’s not a proof of concept that works. That shows that you can trade this stuff if you’re not trading actual bitcoins and someone massively subsidizes it.”

Adoption had been slow in El Zonte, but took off during the coronavirus pandemic when strict lockdown measures kept most people from leaving home.

“Our donor made three deliveries of $40, converted to bitcoin, for each of the community’s 500 families, and they were trained to use the application and now it’s normal to buy with bitcoin,” Martínez said.

El Zonte even has a Bitcoin ATM, which gives dollars in exchange for bitcoin or takes dollars and gives credit in bitcoin.

Edgar Magaña was in town from San Salvador to convert $50 to bitcoin. He inserted the dollars into the machine and was surprised to see only $47 in bitcoin fractions credited to his account on his phone.

“They took three dollars commission,” Magaña said, adding that he had understood there was no commission. “This is like in the banks.”

To spur national adoption, Bukele said the government would create a $150 million fund to allow people receiving payments in bitcoin to immediately convert them to dollars, reducing the risk of holding the fluctuating digital currency.

Jessica Velis, who runs the El Zonte business where the ATM is located, said some people here are already receiving remittances from abroad in bitcoin.

Salvadorans received some $6 billion in remittances last year from relatives living abroad, mostly in the United States. Bukele has said adopting bitcoin could save on the costs of sending that money home.

Not everyone in El Zonte is sold on the idea.

At Olas Permanentes, one of the town’s most popular restaurants, customers have been able to pay using bitcoin. But when the waitstaff was asked if they use it, they all said no. Some said they didn’t have higher-end cellphones needed to download the app, while others said they had doubts about how it worked.

“They pay me in dollars and in cash,” said one waitress, who declined to give her name.

Walking through town, a woman who only gave her name as Teresita, was asked if she used bitcoin. “Not me, I prefer to have the bills,” she said.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman in Mexico City contributed to this report.

A worker at Hope House, an organization that sponsors the use of cryptocurrencies in El Zonte beach, makes a purchase at a small store that accepts Bitcoin, in Tamanique, El Salvador, Wednesday, June 9, 2021. El Salvador's Legislative Assembly has approved legislation making the cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender in the country, the first nation to do so, just days after President Nayib Bukele made the proposal at a Bitcoin conference. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

Eduardo Magaña, right, uses the first ATM designed to withdraw cash through the cryptocurrency App "Bitcoin Beach" on El Zonte Beach in Tamanique, El Salvador, Wednesday, June 9, 2021. In this beach community, a nongovernmental organization with the financial backing of an anonymous Bitcoin donor has been trying to create a small-scale cryptocurrency economy, and could serve as a showcase for the gains and struggles to introduce a phone-based cryptocurrency as the country embarks on a nationwide experiment after making Bitcoin legal tender this week. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

Santos Hilario Galvez, a Salvadoran who works as a builder at the Hope House, an organization that sponsors the use of cryptocurrencies in El Zonte beach, makes a purchase at a small store that accepts Bitcoin, in Tamanique, El Salvador, Wednesday, June 9, 2021. El Salvador's Legislative Assembly has approved legislation making the cryptocurrency Bitcoin legal tender in the country, the first nation to do so, just days after President Nayib Bukele made the proposal at a Bitcoin conference. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez) (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez)

Sunrise special: Solar eclipse thrills world’s northern tier
By MARCIA DUNN

yesterday


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An annular solar eclipse rises over the skyline of Toronto on Thursday, June 10, 2021. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The top of the world got a sunrise special Thursday — a “ring of fire” solar eclipse.

This so-called annular eclipse began at the Canadian province of Ontario, then swept across Greenland, the North Pole and finally Siberia, as the moon passed directly in front of the sun.

An annular eclipse occurs when a new moon is around its farthest point from us and appearing smaller, and so it doesn’t completely blot out the sun when it’s dead center.

The upper portions of North America, Europe and Asia enjoyed a partial eclipse, at least where the skies were clear. At those locations, the moon appeared to take a bite out of the sun.

It was the first eclipse of the sun visible from North America since August 2017, when a dramatic total solar eclipse crisscrossed the U.S. The next one is coming up in 2024.

A total lunar eclipse graced the skies two weeks ago.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

PREVENTABLE INCIDENT

US Military relieves general of duties, cites tank sinking

By JULIE WATSONJune 9, 2021

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In this Sept. 11, 2020 photo provided by the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Robert F. Castellvi is shown during a ceremony at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California. Officials announced Wednesday, June 9, 2021 that Castellvi will be relieved of his duties for failing to properly train Marines and sailors and evaluate the platoon before a training exercise in the summer of 2020 when a seafaring tank sank off the Southern California coast, killing nine troops. (Cpl. Jailine L. AliceaSantiago/U.S. Marine Corps via AP)

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Marine Corps is relieving a general of his duties for failing to properly train Marines and sailors and evaluate the platoon before an exercise last summer when their seafaring tank sank off the Southern California coast, killing nine troops, the military announced Wednesday.

The July 30 training accident was one of the deadliest for the Marines in recent years. Leaders said it could have been prevented.

The crew of the amphibious assault vehicle was left in the dark, using their cellphone lights to desperately try to find an unmarked escape hatch as they took on water, according to the investigation. There also were no safety boats nearby to save them.

The investigation found Maj. Gen. Robert F. Castellvi “bears some responsibility;” it said the accident off San Clemente Island, 70 miles (113 kilometers) from San Diego, was caused by inadequate training, shabby maintenance of the amphibious assault vehicles and poor judgment by commanders.

At the time, Castellvi served as commanding general of the 1st Marine Division of Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, and oversaw the preparation of the troops.

A second probe launched in May to examine preparedness before the exercise found the troops had not received appropriate instruction on escaping the amphibious assault vehicle, and the unit had not completed a required evaluation.

The unit was training during restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic, but investigators found that should not have played a factor in meeting the requirements.

The Marine Corps said its commandant, Gen. David Berger, “personally and formally counseled (Castellvi) for his failure to properly train the Marines and Sailors for whom he was entrusted and for the inadequate evaluation of the AAV Platoon.”

“There are no excuses for not getting the whole unit the required training. None,” Berger said in an earlier interview with reporters.

Castellvi was suspended in April from his new position as Marine Corps inspector general, which he moved into after the accident. The Marine Corps said Wednesday he will not be returning to that position.

The action will go on his permanent record and will be taken into consideration in future decisions regarding his military career. Typically such a measure prevents an officer from being promoted or serving in a role charged with the responsibility of caring for troops, the Marine Corps said.

Castellvi could not be immediately reached for comment.

Wednesday’s announcement comes after some of the families of the eight Marines and one sailor who were killed questioned why more was not being done to hold leadership accountable.

Castellvi is the only general involved who has been relieved of his duties. Three commanders have been dismissed as a result, including the leader of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Administrative or disciplinary actions were taken against seven other military personnel.

The Marines use the vehicles to transport troops and their equipment from Navy ships to land. The armored vehicles outfitted with machine guns and grenade launchers look like tanks as they roll ashore for beach attacks, with Marines pouring out of them to take up positions.

The investigation is ongoing.

Afghan Hazaras being killed at school, play, even at birth

By KATHY GANNON

today


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Afghan Hazaras attend the funeral of Mina Khiari, who was killed in bombing last week, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, June 5, 2021. After the collapse of the Taliban 20 years ago, Afghanistan's ethnic Hazaras began to flourish and soon advanced in various fields, including education and sports, and moved up the ladder of success. They now fear those gains will be lost to chaos and war after the final withdrawal of American and NATO troops from Afghanistan this summer. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Just running errands in the mainly Hazara neighborhoods of west Kabul can be dangerous. One day last week, Adila Khiari and her two daughters went out to buy new curtains. Soon after, her son heard that a minibus had been bombed — the fourth to be blown up in just 48 hours.

When his mother didn’t answer her phone, he frantically searched hospitals in the Afghan capital. He found his sister, Hosnia in critical condition with burns over 50% of her body. Then he found his mother and other sister, Mina, both dead. Three days later, on Sunday, Hosnia died as well.

In all, 18 people were killed in the two-day string of bombings against minivans in Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi district. It was the latest in a vicious campaign of violence targeting Afghanistan’s minority Hazara community — one that Hazaras fear will only get worse after the final withdrawal of American and NATO troops this summer.

Hundreds of Afghans are killed or injured every month in violence connected to the country’s constant war. But Hazaras, who make up around 9% of the population of 36 million people, stand alone in being intentionally targeted because of their ethnicity — distinct from the other ethnic groups, such as Tajik and Uzbek and the Pashtun majority — and their religion. Most Hazaras are Shiite Muslims, despised by Sunni Muslim radicals like the Islamic State group, and discriminated against by many in the Sunni majority country.

After the collapse of the Taliban 20 years ago, the Hazaras embraced hopes for a new democracy in Afghanistan. Long the country’s poorest community, they began to improve their lot, advancing in various fields, including education and sports.

Now many Hazaras are moving to take up arms to protect themselves in what they expect will be a war for control among Afghanistan’s many factions.

Inside the Nabi Rasool Akram Mosque compound, protected by sandbags stacked against its ornate doors and 10-foot high walls, Qatradullah Broman was among the Hazaras attending the funeral of Adila and Mina this week.

The government doesn’t care about Hazaras and has failed to protect them, he said. “Anyone who can afford to leave, they are leaving. Those who can’t are staying here to die,” said Broman. “I see a very dark future for our people.”

There is plenty for Hazaras to fear.

Since it emerged in 2014 and 2015, a vicious Islamic State group affiliate has declared war on Afghanistan’s Shiites and has claimed responsibility for many of the recent attacks on the Hazaras.

But Hazaras are also deeply suspicious of the government for not protecting them. Some worry that government-linked warlords, who also demonize their community, are behind some of the attacks

Former government adviser Torek Farhadi told the Associated Press that within the political leadership, “from the top down,” there is a “sorry culture” of discrimination against Hazaras. “The government, in a cynical calculation, has decided Hazara lives are cheap,” he said.

Since 2015, attacks have killed at least 1,200 Hazaras and injured another 2,300, according to Wadood Pedram, executive director of the Kabul-based Human Rights and Eradication of Violence Organization.

Hazaras have been preyed on at schools, weddings, mosques, sports clubs, even at birth.

Last year, gunmen attacked a maternity hospital in the mainly Hazara districts of west Kabul. When the shooting ended, 24 people were dead, including newborns and their mothers. Last month, a triple bombing at the Syed Al-Shahada school in the same area killed nearly 100 people, mostly Hazara schoolgirls. This week, when militants attacked a compound of de-mining workers, shooting at least 10 to death, witnesses said they tried to pick Hazaras out of the workers to kill.

Some of these attacks, deliberately targeting civilians, hospitals and children, could rise to the level of war crimes, said Patricia Gossman, Associate Director of the Asia Program of Human Rights Watch.

Pedram’s organization has petitioned the U.N. Human Rights Commission to investigate the killing of Hazaras as genocide or a crime against humanity. It and other rights groups also helped the International Criminal Court in 2019 compile suspected war crimes cases in Afghanistan.

“The world doesn’t speak about our deaths. The world is silent. Are we not human?” said Mustafa Waheed, an elderly Hazara weeping at the burial of Mina and her mother.

A black velvet cloth inscribed in gold with Quranic verses was draped over the two bodies. Family and friends carried them on wooden beds, then placed them inside the graves. Mina’s father fell to the ground crying.

“The U.S. can go into space, but they can’t find out who is doing this?” Waheed said. “They can see an ant move from space, but they can’t see who is killing Hazaras?”

In the face of the killings, talk has turned to arming Hazara youth to defend the community, particularly in the districts that the community dominates in western Kabul. Some Hazaras say the May 8 attack on the Syed al-Shahada school was a turning point.

It is a significant reversal for a community that showed such hope in a new Afghanistan. After the fall of the Taliban, many Hazara militias gave up their weapons under a government disarmament program, even as other factions were reluctant.

“We used to think the pen and the book were our greatest weapon, but now we realize it is the gun we need,” said Ghulam Reza Berati, a prominent Hazara religious leader. Fathers of the girls killed in the school attack are being told to invest in weapons, said Berati, who helped bury many of the girls.

Sitting on the carpets of west Kabul’s Wali Asar Mosque, Berati said Hazaras are disappointed in the democracy brought by the U.S.-led coalition. Hazaras have largely been excluded from positions of prominence, he said.

Hazaras worry about continuing Islamic State group attacks and about the potential return of the Taliban to power after the American withdrawal. But they also worry about the many heavily armed warlords who are part of the government. Some of them carried out violence against Hazaras in the past, and Hazaras fear they will do so again if post-withdrawal Afghanistan slides into a repeat of the brutal inter-factional civil war of the early 1990s.

One warlord who is still prominent in Kabul, Abdul Rasool Sayyaf, led a Pashtun militia that massacred Hazara civilians during a ferocious 1993 battle with Hazara militias in Kabul’s mainly Hazara neighborhood of Afshar.

Rajab Ali Urzgani became a sort of folk hero in his community as one of the youngest Hazara commanders during the Battle of Afshar — only 14 at the time.

Now 41 and still known by his nom de guerre, Mangol, he returned to Afshar earlier this month with the AP to visit the site. He stopped to give a prayer for the dead at a mass grave where nearly 80 men, women and children killed in the bloodshed are buried. A black Shiite banner flies at the entrance.

Mangol held out little hope for peace in Afghanistan following the withdrawal.

“When the foreigners withdraw, the war will happen 1000%,” he said. “The war will happen like in the past with the different groups, and we will defend our family and our dignity.”

_____

Associated Press Writer Tameem Akhgar contributed to this report.

THIS ALSO OCCURS IN PAKISTAN WHERE THEY ARE A MINORITY THERE

Ex-Mossad chief signals Israel behind Iran nuclear attacks

By JON GAMBRELL

today

FILE - In this July 3, 2016, file photo, Yossi Cohen, then the director of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, attends the funeral in Jerusalem of a rabbi killed by Palestinian gunmen. Cohen, the outgoing chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence service, offered the closest acknowledgment yet his country was behind a series of recent attacks targeting Iran's nuclear program and a military scientist in a television interview aired Thursday, June 10, 2021. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File)


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The outgoing chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service has offered the closest acknowledgment yet his country was behind recent attacks targeting Iran’s nuclear program and a military scientist.

The comments by Yossi Cohen, speaking to Israel’s Channel 12 investigative program “Uvda” in a segment aired Thursday night, offered an extraordinary debriefing by the head of the typically secretive agency in what appears to be the final days of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule.

It also gave a clear warning to other scientists in Iran’s nuclear program that they too could become targets for assassination even as diplomats in Vienna try to negotiate terms to try to salvage its atomic accord with world powers.

“If the scientist is willing to change career and will not hurt us anymore, than yes, sometimes we offer them” a way out, Cohen said.

Among the major attacks to target Iran, none have struck deeper than two explosions over the last year at its Natanz nuclear facility. There, centrifuges enrich uranium from an underground hall designed to protect them from airstrikes.

In July 2020, a mysterious explosion tore apart Natanz’s advanced centrifuge assembly, which Iran later blamed on Israel. Then in April of this year, another blast tore apart one of its underground enrichment halls.

Discussing Natanz, the interviewer asked Cohen where he’d take them if they could travel there, he said “to the cellar” where “the centrifuges used to spin.”

“It doesn’t look like it used to look,” he added.

Cohen did not directly claim the attacks, but his specificity offered the closest acknowledgement yet of an Israeli hand in the attacks. The interviewer, journalist Ilana Dayan, also seemingly offered a detailed description in a voiceover of how Israel snuck the explosives into Natanz’s underground halls.

“The man who was responsible for these explosions, it becomes clear, made sure to supply to the Iranians the marble foundation on which the centrifuges are placed,” Dayan said. “As they install this foundation within the Natanz facility, they have no idea that it already includes an enormous amount of explosives.”

They also discussed the November killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian scientist who began Tehran’s military nuclear program decades ago. U.S. intelligence agencies and the International Atomic Energy Agency believe Iran abandoned that organized effort at seeking a nuclear weapon in 2003. Iran long has maintained its program is peaceful.

While Cohen on camera doesn’t claim the killing, Dayan in the segment described Cohen as having “personally signed off on the entire campaign.” Dayan also described how a remotely operated machine gun fixed to a pickup truck killed Fakhrizadeh and later self-destructed.

Cohen described an Israeli effort to dissuade Iranian scientists from taking part in the program, which had seen some abandon their work after being warned, even indirectly, by Israel. Asked by the interviewer if the scientists understood the implications if they didn’t stop, Cohen said: “They see their friends.”

They also talked about Israel’s operation seizing archival documents from Iran’s military nuclear program. Dayan said 20 agents, none Israelis, seized material from 32 safes, then scanned and transmitted a large portion of the documents. Cohen confirmed that the Mossad received most of the material before it was physically taken out of Iran.

Cohen defended Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to go public with the results of the operation, going against a long-standing practice of secrecy involving Mossad activities.

“It was important to us that the world will see this, but this thing should also resonate with the Iranian leadership, to tell them, ‘Dear friends: One, you have been infiltrated. Two, we see you.. Three, the era of ... lies is over,’” Cohen said.

Media in Israel operate under a decades-old policy that requires journalists to clear stories involving security matters through military censors. That Cohen’s remarks apparently cleared the censors suggests Israel wanted to issue a new warning to Iran amid the Vienna nuclear negotiations.

Iran has repeatedly complained about Israel’s attacks, with Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Kazem Gharibabadi warning as recently as Thursday that the incidents “not only will be responded to decisively, but also certainly leave no option for Iran but to reconsider its transparency measures and cooperation policy.”

Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment over the comments by Cohen, who was replaced by former operative David Barnea. Cohen in the interview acknowledged he might one day seek the prime minister’s office himself.

___

Associated Press writer Karin Laub in Amman, Jordan, contributed to this report.

Exclusive: Biden mulls giving refiners relief from U.S. biofuel laws - sources
By Jarrett Renshaw and Stephanie Kelly 1 hour ago

© Reuters/Jim Young FILE PHOTO: A gas pump selling E15, a gasoline with 15 percent of ethanol, is seen in Mason City

NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration, under pressure from labor unions and U.S. senators including from his home state of Delaware, is considering ways to provide relief to U.S. oil refiners from biofuel blending mandates, three sources familiar with the matter said.

The issue pits two of the administration's important political constituencies against each other: blue-collar refinery workers and farmers who depend on biofuel mandates to prop up a massive market for corn.

It could prompt an about-face for the administration, which had been rolling back former President Donald Trump's dramatic expansion of waivers for U.S. refiners from the Renewable Fuel Standard.

The law requires them to blend billions of gallons of ethanol and other biofuels into their fuel each year or buy credits from those that do.

The credits, known as RINs, are currently at their highest price in the program's 13-year history, and refiners have said the policy threatens to bankrupt fuel makers already slammed by sinking demand during the pandemic.

Biofuel advocates counter that fuel makers should have invested in biofuel blending facilities years ago and can pass through added costs for buying credits to consumers at the pumps.

Democratic senators Chris Coons and Tom Carper of Delaware have held at least two discussions in recent weeks with Michael Regan, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to discuss providing relief for refiners, according to the three sources.

Coons and Carper were seeking to help the state's lone refinery, a plant in Delaware City with a capacity of about 180,000 barrel-per-day. Their requests added to a chorus of pleas from other states hosting refineries, including Pennsylvania, Texas and Louisiana.

In the meetings, Regan and the senators discussed options like a nationwide general waiver exempting the refining industry from some obligations, lowering the amount of renewable fuel refiners must blend in the future, creating a price cap on compliance credits, and issuing an emergency declaration, two of the sources said.

Nick Conger, an EPA spokesperson, confirmed Regan had met with the senators but did not comment further on the discussions or confirm whether the agency was looking at ways to provide relief to refiners.

Coons did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Carper said the senator has spoken to Regan a number of times about the high costs for RINs.

Seth Harris, deputy assistant to the president on labor and economic issues, has also met with union representatives to hear their grievances about biofuel mandates, the two sources said.

Harris did not respond to a request for comment.

Merchant refiners like PBF Energy, which operates the Delaware City plant, say biofuel laws could shut down plants and kill thousands of union jobs.

The company recently shut most of its refinery in New Jersey, the latest in a series of shutdowns along the U.S. East Coast. The region, which faces higher refining costs because of its distance from U.S. oil fields, has seen fuel production capacity drop about 40% since 2000.

Federal data shows that only eight refineries remain out of the 17 that were operating on the U.S. East Coast in 2000.

At least one company has already bet the administration will end up helping refiners: Reuters previously reported that Delta Air Lines Inc has stopped buying RINs, leaving its refinery in Pennsylvania with a $346 million liability at the end of the first quarter.

(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Stephanie Kelly; Editing by David Gregorio)

SEE  LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ETHANOL 

Archer's flying taxi makes splashy debut in heated market

By Omar Younis and Tracy Rucinski 
JUNE 11,2021

© Reuters/MIKE BLAKE Flying taxi company Archer Aviation unveils all-electric aircraft in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Archer Aviation unveiled its first electric flying taxi "Maker" in a Tesla-style debut on Thursday as an increasing number of investors and aviation companies pile into the hot but yet-to-be-approved urban air mobility space.


Interest in zero-emission aircraft that take off and land like helicopters but fly like planes is growing as aerospace companies look for new markets and face pressure to help decarbonize their industry though the battery-operated vehicles.

Maker's debut, staged at a hangar using XR technology to simulate a ride, followed news on Thursday of two separate deals involving electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft companies based in Britain and Brazil.

Archer's aircraft does not yet fly commercially but it mounted an extravagant show under a new chief creative officer who has decades of experience in experiential design and television production, Kenny Taht, to attract attention.

Archer expects Maker's commercial launch in 2024 in Los Angeles and Miami and is in the process of certifying the piloted four-passenger aircraft with the Federal Aviation Administration, co-founder and co-CEO Brett Adcock told Reuters.

"Our real goal is to make a mass market transportation solution in and around cities," Adcock said.

The taxis can fly at 150 miles per hour (240 km per hour) for distances up to 60 miles (100km) at an entry level price between $3 and $4 per passenger mile.

In New York City for example, the 17-mile trip from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Manhattan would cost $50 to $70 and take around five to seven minutes versus 60 to 90 minutes in a car.

While experts estimate the eVTOL market to be worth billions over the next decade, it is not expected to immediately make money and the timing of regulatory approval remains uncertain.

Asked about the approval process, the FAA said: "The FAA can certify new technologies such as eVTOLs through its existing regulations. We may issue special conditions or additional requirements, depending on the type of project."

As the market heats up, so has competition.

Archer is currently embroiled in a legal battle with Boeing-backed competitor Wisk Aero, which has accused it of stealing trade secrets and infringing on its patents.

Archer last week asked a California court to dismiss the lawsuit and courtersued Wisk for "false statements" regarding a separate criminal probe.

Archer plans to go public through a $3.8 billion merger with blank-check company Atlas Crest and has an investment and $1 billion order from United Airlines.

(Reporting by Omar Younis in Los Angeles and Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

Indigenous kids were taught to feel 'inferior' from young age

Indigenous children were taught from a young age that they were inferior and they should adopt "the white man's way," says a Niagara-on-the-Lake woman who grew up in the Northwest Territories.

Veronica Puskas attended a residential school from 1971 to 1975, but it was government-run, with no religious affiliation and she says she didn't endure the kind of horrific abuse that other children suffered at scores of similar institutions across Canada.

Though while attending Akaitcho Hall for Grades 9 to 12, Puskas said she was wholly cut off from her Inuit culture, the aggressive assimilation experienced by earlier Inuit was worse than what she experienced.

However, the brunt of the government's attempts at assimilation started much earlier in her life, at the Rankin Inlet Federal Day School, she said.

“We were taught that our culture was not good enough. I grew up thinking that, and I’m going to have to say it, that the white man’s way was better.”

On Sunday, June 6, a moment of silence was held at Simcoe Park in NOTL in memory of 215 dead Indigenous children whose bodies were found in a mass grave in Kamloops, B.C.

Puskas was on hand to honour the memory of those children and talk about her own experience as a residential school survivor.

“My parents were given the option of where I should go. And that ended up being the best thing for me because (Akaitcho Hall) was well-run,” Puskas told The Lake Report.

The school was operated by a husband and wife, she said. “We think well of them, still.”

That sentiment was echoed by former Nunavut MP Nancy Karetak-Lindell, who attended Akaitcho Hall from 1972 to 1974.

“It’s not like what you’re hearing about all the residential school issues today,” Karetak-Lindell told the Nunatsiaq News in 2001.

While Puskas felt Akaitcho Hall was better than many of the other residential schools in Canada, the government's goal of cultural genocide by cutting Indigenous youth off from their history was still prevalent.

“We were still transitioning from our culture. We were never taught any of our culture,” Puskas said.

Being taught to look down on her Indigenous culture has left her with trauma she is still resolving, 60 years on.

“I did lose that emotional connection, especially with my mom. I saw it between her and her youngest. Because I didn’t get to, when I was that age, learn how to make parkas or boots,” Puskas said as she began to cry.

Puskas mother was "unilingual. Some of her friends were able to go to school and she was told not to," she said.

Puskas on the other hand was educated nearly her whole childhood in federal day school and at the residential school.

"I think there was a little bit of resentment there," Puskas said, sobbing.

“I’m still working on it. I’m getting there.”

Video: Canadians memorialize indigenous school children (Reuters)

She said she had a realization one day when speaking with an Indigenous friend who needed to see an ear specialist in Toronto for abuse she suffered while in residential school.

“She said to me, ‘You know, these white men, they are good at everything.’ And I said, ‘No, no. We were very good at everything. We were able to survive for thousands of years without them,' ” Puskas said.

“If you tried to live in our climate, in our culture, you wouldn’t survive,” she noted.

She pointed to the ill-fated expedition of Sir John Franklin and a group of British explorers in the 1840s. The whole expedition of 129 men perished where the Inuit have long thrived.

“There are some stories where Inuit met them and tried to give them food. They were offered help, but they didn’t want it.”

She was raised Catholic but saw in the church something that drove her away from the powerful institution and toward the Anglican church.

“We were taught to love one another but that wasn’t being displayed. There was conflict in my mind and it took me a while to process that,” Puskas said.

“Especially in relation to First Nations people. There was so much horrible stuff that was done to them," she said.

Puskas takes issue with the Pope's and the Canadian government's responses to the ongoing suffering caused by residential schools.

Reconciliation is “going to take a long time. You’re seeing it already, the Pope, the government – they’re trying to deflect the blame,” she said.

“But stories need to be told. We need to hear these people tell their stories.”

Puskas moved to NOTL over 10 years ago. Her husband is from the area and she said they had visited the town for more than 40 years.

“We always knew we wanted to retire here, so we bought a house back in 2003,” she said.

Puskas worked most of her life in finance and accounting for the government of the Northwest Territories. She now does work with the Niagara Worship Centre's Celebrate Recovery program.

The program helps people dealing with any number of issues, from addiction to depression.

“I’ll be five years sober now this coming August. And I, in turn, help others,” Puskas said.

She spoke about meeting Indigenous girls who had been to other residential schools and of the trauma they suffered.

“There were two sisters. They were taken away from their homes, four or five years old, and taught to hate their parents,” Puskas said.

“And they didn’t have that emotional connection with their parents any more. Especially with their dad. They were traumatized. So much so that one became agoraphobic (fearing crowds), and the other never married. Never.”

Although residential schools are now closed in Canada, the damage they inflicted on Indigenous people and culture remains.

“It’s intergenerational trauma. Let’s just say what dad went through, he directed that anger at his kids. And that’s just really sad," Puskas said.

“This one guy I know is close to 50. His parents were very harsh. He’s still struggling,” she said.

“There’s a lot of anger.”

Evan Saunders, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Lake Report