World Insights: America's looming national debt crunch could spell disaster for world

DEAR U$A; YOUR BANK IS CALLING YOU

A man walks past the U.S. Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., the United States, March 16, 2022. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

The swelling national debt number, edging closer to the 31.4-trillion-dollar statutory ceiling the U.S. Congress placed on the government's borrowing ability, has raised concerns about U.S. fiscal sustainability and its negative spillover effects on global financial markets.

by Xinhua writer Guo Yage

BEIJING, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- More than 33 years ago, a billboard-sized running total display was installed a block away from Times Square in New York City to remind passersby how much money the U.S. federal government has borrowed from the public and has yet to pay back.

However, this tally, well-known as the National Debt Clock, did not seem to bother successive U.S. governments, including the current administration. It read 31.1 trillion U.S. dollars for the first time on Oct. 3, and is still ticking away madly.

The swelling national debt number, edging closer to the 31.4-trillion-dollar statutory ceiling the U.S. Congress placed on the government's borrowing ability, has raised concerns about U.S. fiscal sustainability and its negative spillover effects on global financial markets.



A woman walks on the street after shopping at a supermarket in Washington, D.C., the United States, on June 14, 2022. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

DISGRACEFUL RECORD

The total public debt outstanding reached 31.1 trillion dollars on Oct. 3, including 24.3 trillion dollars in debt held by the public and 6.8 trillion in intergovernmental holdings, said the U.S. Treasury Department's daily treasury statement released on Oct. 4.

In fact, real-time data released by the official website of the National Debt Clock showed that the debt number, having so far well surpassed 31.1 trillion, amounts to more than 93,400 dollars of debt per American citizen, and nearly 250,000 dollars of debt per taxpayer.

Given the new record, the ratio of the U.S. federal debt to the GDP has risen to roughly 126 percent, the data showed.

An estimate by British financial media outlet Finbold showed that in 2022 alone, the U.S. national debt grows by almost 6 billion dollars every day.

The number is more than the value of the economies of China, Japan, Germany and Britain combined, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF) noted in an article published last week.

If every U.S. household paid 1,000 dollars a month, it would still take 19 years for the debt to be paid off, noted the article.

"This is a new record no one should be proud of," said Maya MacGuineas, president of budget watch group the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

About eight months ago, the total U.S. public debt outstanding exceeded 30 trillion dollars, hitting a fiscal milestone. In an attempt to avert a looming debt default, the U.S. Congress passed legislation in December to raise the debt limit to the current 31.4 trillion dollars. The hike, however, failed to stop the U.S. national debt from reaching nosebleed levels.

"While much of that new borrowing was necessary to combat COVID, we are now past the most severe challenges of the pandemic, and it is time to budget responsibly -- yet we are still borrowing," MacGuineas said.





DEBT ADDICT

"The coronavirus pandemic rapidly accelerated our fiscal challenges, but we were already on an unsustainable path, with structural drivers that existed long before the pandemic," the PGPF said.

As the foundation noted, the United States has enjoyed a borrowing binge over the past decades, with its gross debt increasing from 3.2 trillion dollars in 1990 to 5.62 trillion in 2000, and then to 13.56 trillion in 2010. The country's gross debt hit 27.72 trillion dollars in 2020, and surpassed 30 trillion dollars in late January.

A significant share of the overall federal spending went to the U.S. national defense budget. An article released by the PGPF in early May showed the U.S. defense spending accounted for more than 10 percent of all federal spending, and has remained No. 1 in the world for years.

Up to Us, a U.S. non-profit aimed at creating national debt awareness on college campuses, noted in an article published in 2020 that the country's national debt hit the 1 trillion mark for the first time in history by 1982 after the Vietnam War and the Cold War.

"By the 21st century, the national debt got to 20 trillion dollars after major events such as the War on Terror," it said.

Adding to the federal government's big spending on endless wars are its massive stimulus packages, rounds of tax cuts as well as the U.S. Federal Reserve's sudden reversal of its monetary strategy from a years-long "quantitative easing" policy to a tighter one, which, noted the U.S. Bank National Association in an article in late September, "will likely result in weakening the job market as businesses slow activity in the wake of higher borrowing costs."

In December 2020, then U.S. President Donald Trump signed off a 2.3-trillion-dollar spending package. In 2022 alone, the U.S. Congress and President Joe Biden have approved a combined 1.9 trillion dollars in new borrowing, and Biden has approved 4.9 trillion dollars in new deficits since taking office.

To prevent the government from defaulting on its legal obligations, the U.S. Congress has acted 78 separate times to permanently raise, temporarily extend, or revise the definition of the debt limit ever since 1960, noted the Treasury Department.

"We are addicted to debt," said MacGuineas, adding that for decades, U.S. lawmakers have chosen to "pass politically easy policies" rather than face the challenges of true governing.

"Basically, Washington has engaged in a long-term debt spree," said a New York Times article published on Oct. 4.



Photo taken on Aug. 4, 2022 shows the White House and a stop sign in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

TIME BOMB

"If we don't cut spending, disaster WILL come," American TV reporter John Stossel tweeted two days after the U.S. national debt reached the new record. Just as he wrote, the galloping U.S. borrowing, if not properly managed, would be nightmares for both the United States and the larger world.

As it stands, the United States is set to breach the 50-trillion-dollar mark in debt by 2030, Forbes estimated in September 2020.

In a report released in May, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned that such a debt path would push up borrowing costs for the private sector, which would result in lower business investment and slow the growth of economic output over time.

To make things worse, as the Fed is determined to keep hiking interest rates to tame inflation, the U.S. government will have to pay more for its huge borrowing. The PGPF noted in an article published in September that "interest payments would total around 66 trillion dollars over the next 30 years and would take up nearly 40 percent of all federal revenues by 2052. Interest costs would also become the largest 'program' over the next few decades."

"Interest on the national debt is exploding and heading toward what economists refer to as a 'doom loop' -- the vicious circle in which the government's borrowing to pay interests generates yet more interest and yet more borrowing," a Wall Street Journal opinion noted in late September.

"The risk would rise of investors' losing confidence in the U.S. government's ability to service and repay its debt, causing interest rates to increase abruptly and inflation to spiral upward, or other disruptions," the CBO said in May, warning of the likelihood of a fiscal crisis in the United States.

Meanwhile, if the U.S. government defaults on its bills and shuts down amid bitter partisan wrangles, it would "detonate a bomb in the middle of the global financial system," Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told the Voice of America (VOA) last year.

The VOA article went on to elaborate that a U.S. debt default would echo through the global economy by reducing global trade, make dollarized economies suffer, affect business contracts, erode the dollar's global reserve currency status, among others.

Back in 2011, the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis sparked the most volatile week for financial markets since 2008, with the stock market trending significantly downward. It also resulted in the country's first credit downgrade in history. Last year, when the government risked defaulting on debt again, Moody's Analytics estimated that stock prices would likely plunge 33 percent, setting off a downturn that would rival the Great Recession.

A U.S. default on its financial obligations "would very likely lead to a global financial meltdown," said an editorial published Sunday by Missouri-based newspaper St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "Even talking about that is the height of political irresponsibility." Enditem

(Xinhua reporters Xiong Maoling in Washington, and Su Liang, Deng Qian and Fu Yunwei in Beijing also contributed to the story.)■

Kamala Harris Says Clarence Thomas Said 'Quiet Part Out Loud'

Khaleda Rahman - 

Kamala Harris used her first late-night network TV appearance since becoming vice president to urge people to "speak" with their vote as she called the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade a "travesty of justice."


Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a moderated discussion on reproductive rights at LBJ Presidential Library on October 08, 2022 in Austin, Texas.

© Rick Kern/Getty Images for NARAL Pro-Choice America

In an appearance on NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers on Monday night, Harris said Justice Clarence Thomas had said "the quiet part out loud" when he urged his colleagues to revisit decisions about same-sex marriage, gay sex and contraception in a concurring opinion to the Dobbs decision that eliminated constitutional protections for abortion.

"The highest court in our land just took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America," Harris said.

"The significance of that is profound in terms of what it means for the rights of individuals and in particular, for the right of an individual to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do."

The rollback of abortion rights "affects all genders," Harris said. "If you have a partner, if you have a sister, if you have an aunt, a mother, this affects you."

"Not to mention on the Dobbs decision when Justice Clarence Thomas said the quiet part out loud, which is that when they took the constitutional right from women on reproductive choice, that he said that in line, in terms of what might come next is your right to contraception. That will affect all genders," Harris added.

"Your right to marry the person you love, same point. And so there is so much on the line with these issues that affects everyone and the people you love," Harris said.

"And for that reason, let's take it seriously and let's, you know, speak with our vote and undo what I think is a great travesty of justice."

Harris said that if Democrats can win a further two seats in the Senate in November, President Joe Biden could sign the Women's Health Protection Act, which would prohibit "governmental restrictions on the provision of, and access to, abortion services" into law.

The passage of the act "would put into law the protections of Roe v. Wade," Harris said.

Harris also spoke on the issue of maternal health, noting that women "are still dying in connection with childbirth" in the U.S.

She pointed out the racial disparities in maternal deaths, noting that Black women are three times more likely to die and Native American women are twice as likely to die.

"A lot of it has to do with again, the disparities in the health care system and that we are not putting enough attention and resources and priority into women's needs especially as it relates to their reproductive health," she said.

Newsweek has reached out to the vice president's office for further comment.

Kamala Harris pushes for marijuana reform on 'Late Night with Seth Meyers'

By Matt Bernardini


U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers Monday, and pushed for more marijuana reform. Photo by Bob Daemmrich/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 11 (UPI) -- Vice President Kamala Harris appeared on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" and pushed for governors to pardon people for marijuana possessions.

Seth Meyers had asked Harris what the next move for marijuana policy would be, after President Joe Biden announced last week that he would pardon thousands of people who have been convicted for possessing marijuana.

Harris said that if people wanted progress on marijuana reform, then they should come out and vote during the midterms.

"Ultimately, though, as with so many issues, if Congress acts, then there is a uniform approach to this and so many other issues, but Congress needs to act.," Harris said. "We are 29 days away from the midterms. Ask who you're voting for, where they stand on this, and I encourage you to vote accordingly."

Last week Biden issued pardons for all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession, clearing about 6,500 people convicted between 1992 and 2021 and thousands more who were convicted in the District of Columbia, The New York Times reported.

Harris also talked about the importance of reproductive rights, saying that if Democrats remain in control of Congress then they would work to protect and expand those rights.

"This is an issue that affects all genders," Harris said. "If you have a partner, a sister, an aunt, a mother, this affects you."

Harris also criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has bused migrants to Harris' residence in Washington. She called it political theater.

"You are literally playing games with their lives," Harris said. "There are mothers with sleeping babies getting off those buses."

"I just think it's an absolute dereliction of duty," she added.

OUTLAW THE DEATH PENALTY
U.S. Supreme Court refuses to halt execution of black prisoner who suffered racial bias by grand jury


Daniel Stewart
2022-10-11

Archive – U.S. Supreme Court. – Sue Dorfman/ZUMA Wire/dpa

The U.S. Supreme Court — with a conservative majority — on Thursday rejected an appeal to halt the execution of a black prisoner, who was convicted by an all-white jury, some of whom acknowledged racial bias.

Thus, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of Andre Thomas, who in 2004 killed his wife, a white woman, their son and her daughter. According to the prosecution, Thomas was in a psychotic state at the time he committed these crimes. While awaiting trial, he removed both of his eyes.

Thomas was unanimously sentenced in 2005 to death for the murder of his wife, Leyha Hughes. His defense filed an appeal in 2021 to challenge the death penalty, arguing that as many as three of the jurors had acknowledged in the selection process their opposition to marriages and relationships between people of different races.

According to the appeal, one of these people who opposed interracial relationships stated that their opposition was motivated by «God’s will,» while another appealed to the alleged need to keep blood pure, while the third claimed that such liaisons were harmful to children not knowing to which race they belonged.

Thomas’ current defense contends that he was not entitled to a fair trial under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, as the jury did not act impartially and his former attorney did not object to these appointments to the popular jury, according to NBC.

The U.S. Supreme Court has a conservative majority of six to three. Before the full court dismissed the appeal, one of the three liberal justices on the panel, Sonia Sotomayor, unsuccessfully appealed to her colleagues, reminding them that no jury willing to recommend the death penalty in the interracial crime case «should be tainted by possible racial bias.

Borrell warns of possible breakdown of EU unity in view of Hungary’s consultation on Russia sanctions


Daniel Stewart
2022-10-11

HANDOUT – 10 October 2022, Belgium, Brussels: Josep Borrell – 

Aurore Martignoni/European Commi / DPA

The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, has warned that the unity and solidarity of the European Union (EU) «is not clear» how long it can last in reference to the national consultation announced by Hungary to poll the opinion of the population on EU sanctions against Russia.

«Putin was wrong to believe that we were going to break our unity and, beware, it is still not clear how long it can last because there is a European leader who calls for a referendum in his country to propose to its citizens that in December the sanctions on Russia are not renewed,» Borrell warned during his speech ‘How the war in Ukraine has changed Europe’, which took place at the Carlos de Amberes Foundation in Madrid.

«We would be wrong to ignore this situation,» Borrell continued, after emphasizing that the unity that the EU has maintained during the Covid-19 crisis «must continue to be maintained» to demonstrate that «the EU is not just a regional union, it is not just a club of states but a political institution and political community in which sovereign states remain sovereign,» he added.

In this sense, he reiterated that the brotherhood between Member States must continue to be maintained in order to face «the energy crisis that is coming» caused by the invasion of Ukraine.

Borrell called on Europe to «worry» about the countries of the South and the rest of the world. «We have to make a gigantic effort to integrate into our vision the concerns of others, and we Europeans do not do it enough,» he lamented.

In relation to migratory movements, Borrell assured that the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, expects a «migratory stampede» in Africa due to famine and that this will test the reception capacity of European countries.

«Be aware that Putin expects to provoke a migratory stampede in Africa. When he provokes famine in Africa it is because he knows that the consequence of famine is migration and that those who are going to emigrate are going to do so here,» he explained.

In reference to the energy crisis that Europe is facing due to the war, Borrell described as a «great strategic error» having placed Europe’s energy «dependence» «in the hands of such an unreliable supplier as Putin».

Thus, he urged to look for other reliable gas sources without relying on Russian energy which, he pointed out, until before the war began, part of European prosperity «was built around the cheap and abundant energy that came from Russia and the great trade opportunities represented by China».

In this respect, he indicated that it is necessary to «rethink» relations with China «with this relationship that implies being partners, rivals and competitors at the same time».

HE LIES

Putin assures Grossi that they are ready for dialogue to address the situation at the Zaporiyia plant

Daniel Stewart - TODAY
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday at a meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, in the Russian city of St. Petersburg that they are ready to discuss the situation at the Zaporiyia nuclear power plant.


Russian President Vladimir Putin and IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi - -/Kremlin/dpa© Provided by News 360

The Russian president affirmed to Grossi that Moscow "is open to dialogue" on the future of the plant, located in Zaporiyia, one of the regions annexed after the recent referendums held in the areas occupied by Russian troops, together with Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson.

For his part, Grossi has expressed concern about the situation at the nuclear power plant, as the situation is "increasingly dangerous, precarious and challenging", with "frequent military attacks that can also threaten nuclear safety".

"Now more than ever, during these extremely difficult times, a protection zone must be established around the Zaporiyia nuclear power plant. We cannot afford to waste any more time. The stakes are high," he remarked, according to an IAEA statement.

During the meeting, Putin also stressed that there are "elements of excessively dangerous politicization of everything related to nuclear activity", a "dangerous" rhetoric that we should try to reduce in order to cooperate with each other "in a normal situation", despite "all the turbulence and complex processes taking place on the world stage".

"We have always advocated that all states have equal access to the benefits of peaceful atomic energy and, at the same time, we believe that everything possible should be done to limit the spread of military (use) nuclear energy," he said, according to the TASS news agency.

Thus, Putin recalled that "Russia has not only always supported the IAEA, but has been at the origins" of the UN nuclear agency since 1957. "In many respects, Russia occupies a leading position in the world in the field of nuclear development," he added.

In recent hours, Russia has intensified its attacks on several cities, including Kiev, but also Lviv, Zaporiyia, or Kharkov, in response to what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a "terrorist attack" in connection with Saturday's destruction of the Kerch bridge, which connects Russia to the Crimean peninsula.

NATURAL CAPITALI$M

Should nature have financial value in Canada’s accounting system? YES!

What experts say

Aya Al-Hakim - Sunday


Canada is already feeling the impact of changing climate, much like the rest of the world. When a heat dome settled over British Columbia this summer, 570 people died. Last month, Hurricane Fiona wreaked havoc across the East Coast. While there may be no easy way out of this, some experts believe that adding financial value to natural assets may help in tackling climate change.


A forest is shown in Kingsboro, P.E.I. in this undated handout photo.

 Mike Dembeck, Nature Conservancy of Canada 

Roy Brooke, the executive director of the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative, which aims to make natural asset management a mainstream practice, said the first step in ensuring Canada has healthy biodiverse ecosystems is to recognize the value of nature in its financial and accounting systems because by doing so governments would be able to properly assess the conditions of natural assets like forests and wetlands.

Read more:

Germany wants climate losses to be discussed at United Nations talks

This means that by keeping a financial record of natural assets, if any of the trees in a forest, for example, get a disease, governments would be able to provide maintenance that would increase the quality of its resilience.

"We cannot address climate change without also addressing nature and biodiversity. We cannot reach any climate change targets. We cannot mitigate and we cannot adapt properly without also ensuring that we have healthy, connected, biodiverse ecosystems," said Brooke.

According to Natural Resources Canada, an infographic states that "in 2020, natural resources, directly and indirectly, accounted for 15.5% of Canada’s nominal GDP," with the biggest natural resource being energy.

Climate change linked to extreme drought in new study

About 909 communities were also found to be "economically reliant on at least one natural resource sector."

"Of those communities, 609 are either significantly or highly reliant on at least one of the natural resource sectors," the government website says, with the resources being minerals and metals or forests.

Forests make up a huge portion of Canadian landscape, with Canada having nine per cent of the world's forests, according to the government.

"Forests cover only 40 per cent of Canada’s land base," the website states. "Depending on where you live in Canada, forests may cover over 80% of your region, such as in the Atlantic Maritime ecozone or only 3% of the Prairies."

Read more:

Arctic rainy days are likely to double by 2100. Here’s why

In addition, Canada has "about 1.29 million square km of wetlands, covering 13% of Canada's terrestrial area."

"This is close to one quarter of the world's remaining wetlands," it states.

Brooke explains that if natural assets like rivers, wetlands, and forests were to have a financial value, the economic decisions taken by governments won't end up leading to further degradation of nature.

"Nature provides us with services like flood risk reduction or stormwater management...but (right now) we are ascribing zero value to nature and all of the services that it provides," said Brooke.

For example, Brooke says a local government might build a mall on top of a wetland and not find out for 20 or 50 years that the natural asset was actually providing vital services that helped the environment.

Wetlands have been recognized to absorb large waves or floods and are also found to filter toxic substances, according to the government of Canada website, so losing such a natural asset would harm the environment, says Brooke.

"For the most part, local governments, for example, when they're thinking about nature, they're thinking about it pretty narrowly. They're thinking about it mostly as kind of a social or recreational loan," said Brooke.

"As a result, every hour of every day, we're taking decisions, whether it's the zoning of land, investment decisions, or asset management (we) don't take nature and its services into account," he added.

READ MORE: Under water: Is the real estate industry waking up to ‘climate risk’?

Brooke was part of a study released on Oct. 5 calling for recognition of the financial value of natural assets, conducted by the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation, KPMG, and the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative ahead of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference in November, which Canada will be a part of.

"Canada can be a leader in changing these rules and act now...And over the next number of months, there is a very clear choice," he said.

"Are we going to start counting nature into our accounting frameworks, into our decision making? Or are we going to lean back on the status quo, which is evidently not working for any of us?"

Brooke said in Canada's current accounting handbook there is a specific prohibition against considering natural assets to be tangible capital assets, which is a key barrier.

"We have to lift that prohibition and then provide guidance or direction to the people who do the numbers in local governments and public institutions so that they can start to think about nature more accurately and more practically," said Brooke.

Video: New report highlights growing economic impact of climate change

"From an accounting point of view, we're at a bit of a crossroads here," Brooke said, but added that the Public Sector Accounting Board, which establishes accounting standards, is "absolutely listening."

However, Brooke is worried that the rules won't change fast enough.

"Will they change in the next few years, or will they change in 20 years when it's too darn late?" he said.

The report co-authored by Brooke states that since 2016, over 90 "local governments across Canada have been undertaking asset management-based approaches that recognize natural assets as infrastructure to be protected and managed for the long-term."

The majority of these local governments are based in British Columbia and Ontario, where the making of inventories, modelling, valuing, and managing of natural assets are being overseen.

Like Brooke, Bailey Church, the National Leader of Public Sector Accounting Advisory for KPMG Canada and one of the co-authors of the report, says the problem lies in the pace of the process — it is "really slow."

"It's a time-consuming task...So the 90 municipalities cited, most are working with the Municipal Natural Assets Initiative and building out their inventories of practice. And there are a lot of varying degrees of progress. Some are extremely advanced, and others are in the very early days of it," said Church.

READ MORE: Hurricane Fiona shows how climate change is fuelling severe weather events in Canada, expert says

"You have to involve a lot of stakeholders in that whole process. And there are a lot of pressing issues, demanding resources, demanding attention. But the focus on this has shifted so much in the past 24 months...it's very timely," said Church.

The managing director of the Climate Resilient Infrastructure at the University of Waterloo, Joanna Eyquem, says what concerns her is that Canada doesn't "have time when it comes to tackling climate change and biodiversity loss."

Video: More climate change adaptation needed after storm Fiona: expert

According to the government of Canada website, the feds have "committed to conserving 25 percent of lands and inland waters in Canada by 2025, working toward 30 percent of each by 2030. Canada is also committed to working to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 [in Canada] and to achieve a full recovery for nature by 2050."

Eyquem says that's eight years in the future, so there isn't a lot of time to change the standards.

"We need to be moving forward maybe with interim guidance, but we want this to be mainstream practice," she said.

Climate Changed: Catastrophe experts say retreat from flood risk is 'critical option'

Sunday


VANCOUVER — All climate disasters are not created equal and the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction recommends retreat in the face of only one type of threat.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"In our opinion, retreat is not an option that is important for most climate hazards in Canada. The hazard where retreat is really important and quite viable and a critical option involves flooding," executive director Paul Kovacs said.

There are relatively affordable ways individual property owners can protect themselves against wildfires, hail and extreme wind like tornadoes and hurricanes, he said.

The institute found that residents of Lytton, B.C., which mostly burned down in a 2021 wildfire, would be significantly better shielded from another blaze if they invested an average of $5,000 to rebuild using fire-resistant material for things like roofs and patios and reducing vegetation near structures.

After Calgary's 2020 hailstorm, the first in Canadian history to cause more than $1 billion in damage, the city offered $3,000 to homeowners who installed hail-resistant roofs.

"The program was incredibly successful," Kovacs said.

Floods caused by rising oceans or overflowing rivers are a different beast, he said. If one property owner builds a wall around his property, it just means the water flows to another. Preventing damage in those cases requires a more costly community-level response, he said, whether that means property buyouts or expensive dyking systems.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2022.

Amy Smart, The Canadian Press

FARMER BROWN DONE IT

Six endangered wolves found dead in Washington were poisoned, officials say

Guardian staff and agency - TODAY

Six endangered wolves found dead in north-east Washington this year were poisoned, officials announced Monday, and a reward is being offered for tips leading to a conviction in the case.


Photograph: AP© Provided by The Guardian

Washington state’s department of fish and wildlife said the agency has been investigating wolf deaths within the territory of the Wedge pack in Stevens county since authorities there discovered four dead wolves on 18 February.

The agency found two more dead wolves in the following month and toxicology results revealed all six animals died from ingesting poison.

Officials are now asking anyone who might have relevant information to come forward. Conservation groups are offering a $51,000 reward for tips that lead to convictions in the poisonings.

“Anyone with the good fortune to see a wolf in the wild knows of their beauty, intellect and tight family bond,” said Zoe Hanley, a wolf biologist with Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation organization. “This cowardly act flies in the face of committed efforts from biologists, policymakers and ranchers working to recover and coexist with wolves in Washington.”

“It is deeply disturbing that even with the use of publicly funded deterrents and state intervention in response to depredations, there is still a situation where someone felt compelled to do this,” said Paula Swedeen, the wolf policy lead for Conservation Northwest, another conservation organization. “We need to find solutions that allow wolves to inhabit this wild country without constant death threats hanging over their heads.”

Parts of Washington state are prime wolf habitat. There were a minimum of 206 wolves and 33 packs in Washington state in 2021, according to an annual survey conducted by state and tribal biologists, and the animals are listed as endangered under state law. The unauthorized killing of one of the animals is a gross misdemeanor and punishable by up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

In Oregon last year, wildlife troopers found eight dead wolves in the north-eastern part of the state. The animals were poisoned, but the deaths remain unsolved and rewards also have been offered for tips.

Iran: alarm raised over ‘bloody’ crackdown on protesters in Kurdistan

Weronika Strzyżyńska and Haroon Janjua -TODAY- THE GUARDIAN

Rights groups have sounded the alarm over an intensifying crackdown by Iranian security forces against protesters in the western province of Kurdistan, as Tehran summoned the British ambassador in response to UK sanctions against the morality police.

Security forces in the provincial capital Sanandaj have used firearms and fired teargas “indiscriminately”, including into people’s homes, Amnesty International reported.

A female protester in the city told the Guardian that a “massacre” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was taking place. “They have shut down the city and are slaughtering people inside with guns and bombs just because they are chanting for freedom,” she said.

Related: ‘The fire of our anger is still burning’: protesters in Iran speak out

Despite the authorities’ disruption of internet, videos showing apparent gunfire in Sanandaj have been posted online by the Norway-based human rights group Hengaw.

Hengaw said Iranian war planes had arrived at the city’s airport overnight and buses carrying special forces were on their way to the city from elsewhere in Iran.

On Monday – as protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody entered their fourth week – Britain said it was imposing sanctions against the “morality police in its entirety”, as well as against Iran’s police commander and the head of the Basij militia, linked to the Revolutionary Guards.

The Iranian government responded by summoning the British ambassador to Iran, Simon Shercliff, to Tehran later the same day. Iran described the sanctions as “baseless” and accused the UK of interfering in its internal affairs.


The protests were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. 

Photograph: IRANWIRE/Reuters© Provided by The Guardian

Protests have been especially intense in Sanandaj in Kurdistan, Amini’s home region, where rights groups fear heavy casualties.

Related video: London rally urges UK gov't to back Iranian protests

Duration 0:53

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The New-York based Center for Human Rights in Iran said there was a risk of a similar situation in Sistan and Baluchistan province, in the south-east, where activists say more than 90 people have been killed since 30 September.

“The ruthless killings of civilians by security forces in Kurdistan province, on the heels of the massacre in Sistan and Baluchistan province, are likely preludes to severe state violence to come,” its director, Hadi Ghaemi, told Agence France-Presse.

In a new development on Monday, workers from Iran’s oil industry joined the demonstrations.

Footage posted on Twitter showed workers blocking the road to the Bushehr petrochemical plant in Assaluyeh, on the Gulf, and chanting “death to the dictator”. A regional official said the workers were protesting over wages and not the death of Mahsa Amini.

“The situation in Assaluyeh is really alarming,” the 23-year-old wife of an oil worker told the Guardian. “I am concerned about the safety of my husband. There is no way to communicate and reach him.”

The woman, who said she had previously burned her hijab in protest over Amini’s death, added: “We will throw the regime out through our continued struggle this time.”

Iran has the fourth largest reserves of crude oil in the world and the industry is key to its economy. Strikes of oil workers were a major factor in the success of the 1979 revolution.

“If these unrests continue and expand, especially if the energy sector joins the protests, the regime will irreversibly be in trouble,” Fatemeh Aman, senior fellow at the Washington based Middle East Institute, said from Erbil. “I don’t know if at this point there is a will within the establishment to reconcile, but even if there is, bloody crackdowns on ethnic minorities [like in Sanandaj] will make any reconciliation almost certainly impossible.”

The authorities have pinned the blame for the unrest and violence on a wide array of actors including armed Kurdish dissidents, American and Israeli agents, as well as “traitorous Iranians abroad”. No evidence of foreign involvement has been provided.

France’s foreign affairs minister, Catherine Colonna, said five French citizens had been detained by Iranian authorities, after a video of a French couple confessing to “spying” was aired in Iran.

A week prior, France urged its citizens to leave Iran saying they were at risk of arbitrary detentions.

Prompted by the repressions of protesters, EU is set to join the US, Britain, and Canada in imposing sanctions of Iranian security forces.

“The EU agreed yesterday the technical aspects of a sanctions package that will target those behind the repression,” Colonna said on Tuesday.

Iran’s crackdown on protests intensifies in Kurdish region

By JON GAMBRELL

TODAY

This is a locator map for Iran with its capital, Tehran. (AP Photo)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran intensified its crackdown Tuesday on Kurdish areas in the country’s west amid protests sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by the morality police as oil workers demonstrated at a key refinery, activists said.

Riot police fired into residential neighborhoods in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, as Amnesty International and the White House’s national security adviser criticized the violence targeting demonstrators angered by the death of Mahsa Amini.

Meanwhile, some oil workers Monday joined the protests at two key refinery complexes, for the first time linking an industry key to Iran’s theocracy to the unrest. Workers claimed another protest Tuesday in the crucial oil city of Abadan, with others calling for protests on Wednesday as well.

Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating after she was detained for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Subsequent videos have shown security forces beating and shoving female protesters, including women who have torn off their mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

From the capital, Tehran, videos emerged showing students at two universities demonstrating and chanting. Some women and girls have marched through the streets without headscarves as the protests continue into a fourth week. The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 2009 Green Movement protests.

“There is just so much anger and frustration in the country that it’s hard to imagine that the current generation of protesters in Iran would be cowed just by the system resorting to its traditional iron fist and trying to put down protests,” said Ali Vaez, an analyst who covers Iran for the International Crisis Group.

Videos posted online by a Kurdish group called the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights showed darkened streets with apparent gunfire going off and a bonfire burning in Sanandaj, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Tehran.

Another showed riot police carrying shotguns moving in formation with a vehicle, apparently firing at homes.

A video posted later Tuesday purportedly showed a massive bullet hole inside the home of one Sanandaj resident, a hole that Hengaw alleged came from a heavy .50-caliber machine gun — the type often mounted on armored vehicles. Another video purportedly showed security forces randomly firing in the air while arresting someone there on Monday.

Videos later Tuesday showed protesters throwing stones and wielding clubs in the city as they confronted security forces, who fired tear gas into the crowd. Hengaw reported a “fierce conflict” there Tuesday night, as well as in the nearby cities of Baneh and Saqqez, Amini’s hometown.

The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran posted another video showing what it described as a phalanx of motorcycle-riding security forces moving through Sanandaj.

“They reportedly broke the windows of hundreds of cars in the Baharan neighborhood,” the center said.

Amini was Kurdish and her death has been felt particularly in Iran’s Kurdish region, where demonstrations began Sept. 17 at her funeral there after her death the day before.

Amnesty International criticized Iranian security forces for “using firearms and firing tear gas indiscriminately, including into people’s homes.” It urged the world to pressure Iran to end the crackdown as Tehran continues to disrupt internet and mobile phone networks “to hide their crimes.”

Iran did not immediately acknowledge the renewed crackdown in Sanandaj. However, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador over the United Kingdom sanctioning members of the country’s morality police and security officials due to the crackdown.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the sanctions “arbitrary and baseless,” even while threatening to potentially take countermeasures against London.

Jake Sullivan, U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, similarly noted that “the world is watching what is happening in Iran.”

“These protestors are Iranian citizens, led by women and girls, demanding dignity and basic rights,” Sullivan wrote on Twitter. “We stand with them, and we will hold responsible those using violence in a vain effort to silence their voices.”

On Monday, workers held demonstrations in Abadan and Asaluyeh, a key point for Iran’s massive offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf it shares with Qatar.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency on Tuesday claimed the Asaluyeh demonstration was a strike over wages. Videos of the protests included workers chanting: “This is the bloody year Seyyed Ali will be overthrown,” referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei without his Shiite religious title of ayatollah. Workers also said several of their colleagues had been detained by authorities after their protests Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the Contractual Oil Workers Protest Organizing Council claimed another strike at Abadan, posting videos outside of the massive refinery complex in the city near the Iraqi border. The details in the videos correspond with each and to known features of the facility compared against satellite photos taken in recent months.

The council later called on other oil workers to join them in solidarity — potentially raising the stakes further. The council’s contractors typically build oil facilities, so their demonstrations haven’t affected Iran’s oil and gas production. Drawing in other workers potentially could change that.

It remains unclear how many people have been killed or arrested so far in the protests.

An Oslo-based group, Iran Human Rights, estimates at least 185 people have been killed. This includes an estimated 90 people killed by security forces in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan amid demonstrations against a police officer accused of rape in a separate case. Iranian authorities have described the Zahedan violence as involving unnamed separatists, without providing details or evidence.

Iran’s judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi reportedly said Tuesday that Iran has released some 1,700 people arrested in the recent demonstrations, without offering a total figure for those detained so far.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Iranian government spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi alleged without providing evidence that U.S. sanctions affected Amini’s ability to get medicine for the chronic illnesses she faced. However, an Iranian government report Friday said that she was taking hydrocortisone and levothyroxine — two medicines made in Iran available in pharmacies in the country.

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Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Protests in Iran over woman’s death reach key oil industry

By JON GAMBRELL

YESTERDAY

This is a locator map for Iran with its capital, Tehran. (AP Photo)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Workers at refineries crucial for Iran’s oil and natural gas production protested Monday over the death of a 22-year-old woman, online videos appeared to show, escalating the crisis faced by Tehran.

The demonstrations in Abadan and Asaluyeh mark the first time the unrest surrounding the death of Mahsa Amini threatened the industry crucial to the coffers of Iran’s long-sanctioned theocratic government.

While it remains unclear if other workers will follow, the protests come as demonstrations rage on in cities, towns and villages across Iran over the Sept. 16 death of Amini after her arrest by the country’s morality police in Tehran. Early on Monday, the sound of apparent gunshots and explosions echoed through the streets of a city in western Iran, while security forces reportedly killed one man in a nearby village, activists said.

Iran’s government insists Amini was not mistreated, but her family says her body showed bruises and other signs of beating. Subsequent videos have shown security forces beating and shoving female protesters, including women who have torn off their mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

From the capital, Tehran, and elsewhere, online videos have emerged despite authorities disrupting the internet. Videos on Monday showed university and high school students demonstrating and chanting, with some women and girls marching through the streets without headscarves as the protests continue into a fourth week. The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since the 2009 Green Movement protests.

Online videos analyzed by The Associated Press showed dozens of workers gathered at the refineries in Asaluyeh, some 925 kilometers (575 miles) south of Tehran, on the Persian Gulf. The vast complex takes in natural gas from the massive offshore natural gas field that Iran shares with Qatar.

In one video, the gathered workers — some with their faces covered — chant “shameless” and “death to the dictator.” The chants have been features across protests dealing with Amini’s death.

“This is the bloody year Seyyed Ali will be overthrown,” the protesters chanted, refusing to use the title ayatollah to refer to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. An ayatollah is a high-ranking Shiite cleric.

The details in the videos correspond with each and to known features of the facility compared against satellite photos taken Sunday.

Iran did not acknowledge any disruption at the facility, though the semiofficial Tasnim news agency described the incident as a salary dispute. Iran is one of the world’s top natural gas suppliers, just after the U.S. and Russia.

In Abadan, a city once home to the world’s largest oil refinery, videos also showed workers walking off the job. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran cited a statement it said came from the Contractual Oil Workers Protest Organizing Council that called for a strike over “the suppression and killings.”

“We declare that now is the time for widespread protests and to prepare ourselves for nationwide and back-breaking strikes,” the statement said. “This is the beginning of the road and we will continue our protests together with the entire nation day after day.”

The violence early Monday in western Iran occurred in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, as well as in the village of Salas Babajani near the border with Iraq, according to a Kurdish group called the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights. Amini was Kurdish and her death has been felt particularly in Iran’s Kurdish region, where demonstrations began Sept. 17 at her funeral there.

Hengaw posted footage it described as smoke rising in one neighborhood in Sanandaj, with what sounded like rapid rifle fire echoing through the night sky. The shouts of people could be heard.

There was no immediate word if people had been hurt in the violence. Hengaw later posted a video online of what appeared to be collected shell casings from rifles and shotguns, as well as spent tear gas canisters

Authorities offered no immediate explanation about the violence early Monday in Sanandaj, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of Tehran. Esmail Zarei Kousha, the governor of Iran’s Kurdistan province, alleged without providing evidence that unknown groups “plotted to kill young people on the streets” on Saturday, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported Monday.

Kousha also accused these unnamed groups that day of shooting a young man in the head and killing him — an attack that activists have roundly blamed on Iranian security forces. They say Iranian forces opened fire after the man honked his car horn at them. Honking has become one of the ways activists have been expressing civil disobedience — an action that has seen riot police in other videos smashing the windshields of passing vehicles.

In the village of Salas Babajani, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Sanandaj, Iranian security forces repeatedly shot a 22-year-old man protesting there who later died of his wounds, Hengaw said. It said others had been wounded in the shooting.

It remains unclear how many people have been killed so far. State television last suggested at least 41 people had been killed in the demonstrations as of Sept. 24. There’s been no update from Iran’s government since.

An Oslo-based group, Iran Human Rights, estimates at least 185 people have been killed. This includes an estimated 90 people killed by security forces in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan amid demonstrations against a police officer accused of rape in a separate case. Iranian authorities have described the Zahedan violence as involving unnamed separatists, without providing details or evidence.

Meanwhile, a prison riot has struck the city of Rasht, killing several inmates there, a prosecutor reportedly said. It wasn’t immediately clear if the riot at Lakan Prison was linked to the ongoing protests, though Rasht has seen heavy demonstrations in recent weeks since Amini’s death.

The semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted Gilan provincial prosecutor Mehdi Fallah Miri as saying, “some prisoners died because of their wounds as the electricity was cut (at the prison) because of the damage.” He also alleged prisoners refused to allow authorities access to those wounded.

Miri described the riot as breaking out in a wing of a prison housing death penalty inmates.

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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.