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This evening's music features Louisiana swamp blues guitarist Lonesome Sundown. Enjoy!

"The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - 'indoctrination,' we might say - exercised through the mass media."

-- Noam Chomsky

News and Opinion

Another Day, Another CIA Press Release Disguised As News

CNN has a new article out titled “Newly declassified US intel claims Russia is laundering propaganda through unwitting Westerners,” and it’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect if you’ve been critically observing the western mass media over the last several years. An anonymous source making vague and unevidenced claims of an unverifiable nature about a longtime target of the US intelligence cartel, based solely on information provided by that same intelligence cartel.

CNN’s Kate Bo Lillis reports:

“US intelligence agencies believe that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is attempting to influence public policy and public opinion in the West by directing Russian civilians to build relationships with influential US and Western individuals and then disseminate narratives that support Kremlin objectives, obscuring the FSB’s role through layers of ostensibly independent actors.

“‘These influence operations are designed to be deliberately small scale, the overall goal being US [and] Western persons presenting these ideas, seemingly organic,’ a US official authorized to discuss the material told CNN. ‘The co-optee influence operations are built primarily on personal relationships … they build trust with them and then they can leverage that to covertly push the FSB’s agenda.’”

“But the official stressed that the Western voices that eventually became mouthpieces for Russian propaganda were almost certainly unaware of the role they were playing,” CNN adds.

As usual, there is no way to prove or disprove these extremely vague claims about “small scale” actions supposedly being orchestrated by a foreign intelligence agency to create mouthpieces for Russian propaganda who don’t know they’re mouthpieces for Russian propaganda. We’re meant to simply take the word of an anonymous US official citing unsubstantiated assertions by US intelligence agencies.

And it brings up a few questions.

Firstly, what precisely are we meant to do with this very vague information about this very broad supposed trend? It kind of seems like we’re meant to just generally feel more paranoid and suspicious about anyone who isn’t toeing the official western line on issues pertaining to Russia. Whose interests would that serve? Would it perhaps serve the information interests of the US empire, which the US intelligence cartel exists to promote?

Secondly, if the US intelligence cartel believes this very broad, vague threat exists, why not just tell us themselves? Why not just issue some public statements from named officials, instead of funneling it through the news media disguised as a news story? What a weird charade.

Third, and related to the second, why is CNN publishing a CIA press release and disguising it as a news story? “US intelligence agencies believe Russia is up to some shady shenanigans” is not a news story. It’s not a journalist’s job to report how the US intelligence cartel says its feelings feel about things, it’s a journalist’s job to report hard facts based on hard evidence. That’s what news reporting is. Saying the US intelligence cartel feels we should be more paranoid and suspicious about very subtle Russian influence concealed by layers of ostensibly independent actors and people who don’t know they’re actually Russian mouthpieces is just publishing state propaganda.

Fourth, and related to the third, would it not be more efficient and cost-effective at this point to simply publish all news media reporting directly out of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia? Why waste money paying stenographers like CNN’s Kate Bo Lillis to write CIA press releases dressed up as news reporting when you can just cut out the middleman and let the CIA spooks author and publish them by themselves? As an added bonus this would bring a lot more clarity to the situation and greatly improve media literacy, because westerners would no longer suffer from the delusion that they are reading actual news reporting from actual journalistic outlets.

Fifth, and related to the fourth, is it not funny how the western media pour so much more energy into reporting on Russian propaganda and influence operations than on western propaganda and influence operations, even though western propaganda and influence operations dwarf Russian ones by many orders of magnitude in terms of manipulating the way westerners think about the world? Almost as though that’s something the western media would prefer people didn’t think too hard about?

One of the craziest things happening in our world today is how westerners are being trained to overlook the massive amounts of western propaganda they’re inundated with day in and day out and focus instead on “Russian propaganda”, which has no meaningful existence in the west. In 2017 before RT was shut down in the UK, it accounted for 0.04 percent of the UK’s total TV audience. A New York University study published earlier this year found that the supposed Russian Twitter influence campaign ahead of the 2016 election which dominated headlines for years had had “no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior”. An earlier study found that suspected Russian accounts showing up in Facebook’s news feed during that time amounted to “approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content.” A study by Adelaide University found that despite headline after headline warning us about a massive wave of Russian bots manipulating online discourse after the invasion of Ukraine began last year, the overwhelming majority of fake accounts they examined (more than 90 percent) were pro-Ukraine accounts.

Contrast this microscopic smattering of influence with the fact that westerners are continually getting their news reporting from western propaganda outlets which openly publish CIA press releases disguised as news on a regular basis. These people are absolutely telling us the truth when they say we’re under constant bombardment by propaganda and influence operations — they’re just lying about who’s really doing it to us.

GoFundMe Sides With WAR MACHINE– Silences Grayzone!

Under Pressure From Progressives, US Declassifies Documents Related to Chile Coup

The U.S. State Department has declassified a pair of documents related to events leading up to the 1973 coup in Chile, a violent assault on democracy covertly backed by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The two documents were made public late last week following renewed calls for transparency by U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), and other progressive lawmakers who visited Chile earlier this month as part of a broader Latin America trip. The Chilean government and international human rights groups have also been calling for the declassification of documents containing details about the U.S.-backed coup for years.

The newly declassified files are daily briefs President Richard Nixon received on September 11, 1973—the day of the overthrow of Salvador Allende—and three days prior to the coup.

"A number of reports have been received... indicating the possibility of an early military coup," reads Nixon's daily brief for September 8, 1973. "Navy men plotting to overthrow the government now claim army and air force support."

The brief notes that Fatherland and Freedom, a fascist paramilitary group, "has been blocking roads and provoking clashes with the national police, adding to the tension caused by continuing strikes and opposition political moves. President Allende earlier this week said he believed the armed forces will ask for his resignation if he does not change his economic and political policies."

Nixon—who was closely involved in efforts to block Allende from assuming office and once ordered the CIA to "make the [Chilean] economy scream"—also received a daily brief on the day of the coup, just before Allende's ouster. The democratically elected left-wing president took his own life during the coup after refusing to step down.

"Plans by navy officers to trigger military action against the Allende government are supported by some key army units," the September 11 brief reads. "The navy is also counting on help from the air force and national police."

"Socialists, leftists, extremists, and Communists are equally determined not to compromise," the brief adds. "They are gambling that the military and political opposition cannot carry out moves to oust the government or even to impose restraints on it. President Allende, for his part, still hopes that temporizing will fend off a showdown."

Led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the Chilean military seized control of the government on September 11. What followed was a vicious, decades-long reign of terror and repression during which tens of thousands of Chileans were killed, tortured, or disappeared by the Pinochet regime, which continued to receive support from the CIA.

As the CIA admitted in a 2000 report, "Many of Pinochet's officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses... Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or U.S. military."

Pinochet was arrested in 1998 and later indicted for a range of human rights violations. The dictator died before facing trial.

Peter Kornbluh of the nonprofit National Security Archive welcomed the declassification of the two presidential briefs but questioned why they had been kept under such tight secrecy for decades, given that they don't "contain not a single sentence that could compromise U.S. national security."

20 Groups Demand Passage of Bowman Amendment to Disclose Cost of US Military Footprint

U.S. lawmakers remain on August recess but 20 advocacy groups on Monday wrote to top Democrats and Republicans on key congressional panels to demand passage of "commonsense, noncontroversial" legislation to provide the public with greater transparency on U.S. military spending.

When members of Congress return to Capitol Hill next month, they will continue reconciling the differences between the House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024—a process that involves intense disagreements over right-wing policies that Republicans want to stuff into the $886 billion package.

The advocacy organizations—including Amnesty International USA, Demand Progress Action, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Just Foreign Policy, Peace Action, RootsAction.com, Veterans for Peace, and Win Without War—came together to support an amendment to the NDAA proposed by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). ...

For the FY23 NDAA, Bowman introduced "the latest update to John Lewis' Cost of War legislation," an amendment that "requires reporting on a wider range of costs to fully encompass the U.S. military footprint abroad that is not covered by the former two pieces of legislation," the letter details. "This includes the price of training and assisting partner forces, maintaining overseas bases, paying contractors who provide goods and services in support of operations, and all overseas military operations."

Bowman's measure passed the House but was ultimately left out of the final NDAA. The groups behind the letter to panel leaders now hope it will remain included in the next one, writing that "this amendment is crucial as taxpayers and other citizens remain concerned—and inadequately informed—about the cost to U.S. taxpayers of the wide range of U.S. military activities abroad, including those that fall short of active military missions such as wars or contingency operations."

"Many Americans want great public scrutiny and debate about the balance our nation strikes between spending on our military presence abroad and spending on other domestic priorities," the groups stressed. "This includes spending on healthcare, education, and infrastructure, as well as concerns about the rate of taxation or national debt required to sustain the U.S. overseas presence."

"These debates will only become more relevant as our military budget approaches the $1 trillion mark," the organizations added, "and it is important that the American people have the necessary transparency and data about these costs to engage in our nation's democratic decision-making process around such questions."

Rus Advance Kupiansk Sparks Ukr Fear of 2nd Bakhmut Style 'Meatgrinder'; Ukr Stopped Zaporozhzhie

Ukrainian Drone Attacks Inside Russia Use Western Intelligence

The Economist reported Sunday that Ukraine’s increasing drone attacks inside Russia are carried out using intelligence gathered by Kyiv’s Western backers. The report cited sources close to Ukrainian drone developers and Ukrainian military insiders, including a drone coordinator within Ukraine’s military intelligence. It detailed the planning that goes into the drone attacks, which involves gathering intelligence on Russian air defenses.

“Operators launch in the early morning (when defenders’ concentration might be lapsing) and use an order of attack designed to keep air defenses busy. They gather intelligence (often from Western partners) about radars, electronic warfare, and air-defense assets,” the report reads.

Since Ukraine has significantly stepped up drone attacks inside Russia, Biden administration officials have insisted that the US does not “encourage or enable” the operations. The report contradicts the claims, as the US is the leading Western supporter of Ukraine’s war against Russia.

The Economist report said one purpose of the drone attacks, which involves targeting residential buildings in Moscow, is to have a “psychological impact” on “ordinary Russians” not affected by the war, meaning they’re purposely targeting civilians.

Scholz & Macron called Putin expecting sanctions panic, tears. Putin's silence shocked them

NATO Neighbors Demand Belarus Expel Wagner Fighters

Government officials from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia demanded on Monday that Belarus expel the Russian mercenary group Wagner from its territory, amid heightened tensions related to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The four countries — which are all NATO members and, except for Estonia, share a border with Belarus — said in a statement that the presence of Wagner fighters posed a threat to their territorial integrity.

Poland and Lithuania already closed several border checkpoints in recent months, citing security concerns. Speaking at a news conference in Warsaw with his counterparts from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Poland’s interior minister, Mariusz Kaminski, said that the four countries would shutter all their border crossings with Belarus “if there is a critical incident.” ...

In recent weeks, some of the Wagner troops stationed in Belarus — which numbered at least 4,000, according to Polish authorities — were reported to have left the country over low pay. But their whereabouts have been unclear, raising concerns among Western countries.

Estonia PM under pressure over husband’s alleged Russia business links

The Estonian prime minister is under mounting pressure over claims her husband has maintained business interests in Russia that the country’s president, Alar Karis, has said have put “the credibility of the Estonian state into question”.

Reports emerged last week that Stark Logistics, a company partly owned by Kaja Kallas’s husband, Arvo Hallik, has continued to do business in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine last year.

Kallas and Hallik maintain that the business was assisting another Estonian company, Metaprint, to wrap up trade in Russia.

Local media have reported that Metaprint sold €17m worth of goods to Russia between the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the following November.

The prime minister – a vocal supporter of Ukraine against Russia – refused to attend a select committee scheduled on Monday, where she was expected to discuss funding for the presidential office. There is uncertainty as to whether Kallas will attend an anti-corruption select committee sitting on Tuesday, discussing continuing business activities in Russia during the conflict in Ukraine. The budget committee chair, Urmas Reinsalu of the opposition party Isamaa, described Kallas’s behaviour as unprecedented and called for her resignation.

Worth a full read, the neocons are busy:

Unease Over New Zealand Overtures to US in Pacific

Recent reports from New Zealand’s security state have sparked protest after all but suggesting the country join the U.S.-led AUKUS military alliance, a move that would reverse years of New Zealand’s independent foreign and defence policy and put it on a collision course with China.

Ex-Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark lamented the loss of what would remain of the country’s military sovereignty. Clark blasted an “orchestrated campaign” by defence and security officials to join the U.S., Britain and Australia in AUKUS. In a Twitter thread, she said the government was “abandoning its capacity to think for itself and is instead cutting & pasting from Five Eyes partners.” New Zealand is part of a five-nation intelligence sharing arrangement with Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States.

Clark tweeted that “there appears to be an orchestrated campaign on joining the so-called ‘Pillar 2’ of #AUKUS which is a new defence grouping in the Anglosphere with hard power based on nuclear weapons.” The former prime minister quoted from an op-ed article in The Post by academic Robert G. Patman, who wrote that “Aukus has already been criticised for fuelling nuclear proliferation” in the Pacific. “Implication is that this is not something with (sic) #nuclearfree NZ should associate,” Clark tweeted.

Clark quotes Patman as saying: “Staying outside #Aukus would avoid reputational damage to New Zealand’s non-nuclear security policy in the eyes of other states, and complement the strategic goal of diversifying Wellington’s trade ties in the Indo-Pacific region.” Clark says Patman concludes “the Case for NZ staying outside #AUKUS with: ‘Finally, it is important NZ is clear-eyed about possibility that Aukus could constrain its foreign policy autonomy.’ Clark says, “IMHO NZ needs a full public debate on this & not an officialdom-driven realignment. … Furthermore, detachment is consistent with #NZ’s distinctive worldview …”

The direction of a growing New Zealand militarism could indeed raise questions over the future of the country’s nuclear free policy. In 1984, after decades of campaigning against nuclear testing in the Pacific and increasing public objections to visiting U.S. warships, New Zealand under the then Labour Prime Minister David Lange, banned nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from using its ports and waters. Under the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act 1987, the country became a nuclear-free zone. ...

The AUKUS deal has been controversial in Australia. It increases tensions between Canberra and Beijing where before there were virtually none. Australia’s decision to join AUKUS and enter into the submarine deal was concluded by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese without consultation with Parliament, let alone with the Australian people.

AUKUS has been blasted by former Australian Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating who said:

“We are now part of a containment policy against China. The Chinese government doesn’t want to attack anybody. They don’t want to attack us … We supply their iron ore which keeps their industrial base going, and there’s nowhere else but us to get it. Why would they attack? They don’t want to attack the Americans … It’s about one matter only: the maintenance of U.S. strategic hegemony in East Asia. This is what this is all about.”

After U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Wellington last month, New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta told media the government was not contemplating joining AUKUS. However, a new Defence Policy and Strategy document, one of a raft of recent government papers on the issue, says: “AUKUS Pillar Two may present an opportunity for New Zealand to cooperate with close security partners on emerging technologies.” During his own press conference with Blinken, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said the government was “open to conversations” about AUKUS membership.

Khan's graft sentence suspended: Pakistan high court orders former PM to be released on bail

U.S. Knew Saudis Were Killing African Migrants

Last fall, American diplomats received grim news that border guards in Saudi Arabia, a close U.S. partner in the Middle East, were using lethal force against African migrants who were trying to enter the kingdom from Yemen.

The diplomats got more detail in December, when United Nations officials presented them with information about Saudi security forces shooting, shelling and abusing migrants, leaving many dead and wounded, according to U.S. officials and a person who attended the meetings, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

In the months since, American officials have not publicly criticized the Saudis’ conduct, although State Department officials said this past week, following a published report of the killings, that U.S. diplomats have raised the issue with their Saudi counterparts and asked them to investigate. It remains unclear whether those discussions have affected Saudi actions.

The Saudi security forces’ violence along the border came to the fore in a report by Human Rights Watch on Monday that accused them of shooting and firing explosive projectiles at Ethiopian migrants, killing hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of them during the 15-month period that ended in June.

Maui Residents ERUPT IN RAGE

Hawaiian Electric says power lines sparked fire but firefighters fell short

Hawaii’s electric utility acknowledged its power lines started a wildfire on Maui but faulted county firefighters for declaring the blaze contained and leaving the scene, only to have a second wildfire break out nearby and become the deadliest in the US in more than a century.

Hawaiian Electric Company released a statement on Sunday night in response to Maui county’s lawsuit blaming the utility for failing to shut off power despite exceptionally high winds and dry conditions. Hawaiian Electric called that complaint “factually and legally irresponsible” and said its power lines in West Maui had been de-energized for more than six hours when the second blaze started.

In its statement, the utility addressed the cause for the first time. It said the fire on the morning of 8 August “appears to have been caused by power lines that fell in high winds”. The Associated Press reported on Saturday that bare electrical wire that could spark on contact and leaning poles on Maui were the possible cause.

But Hawaiian Electric appeared to blame Maui county for most of the devastation – the fact that the fire appeared to reignite that afternoon and tore through downtown Lahaina, killing at least 115 people and destroying 2,000 structures.

Richard Fried, a Honolulu attorney working as co-counsel on Maui county’s lawsuit, countered that if the power company’s lines hadn’t caused the initial fire, “this all would be moot”.

Kroger worker dies in hot work conditions in Memphis

A Kroger distribution center employee has died on the job in Memphis amid hot working conditions, adding to a national debate in the US over the risk to workers during heatwaves. The worker was identified as Tony Rufus, members from his union announced.

Leaders from Teamsters 667, the local labor union, said Rufus was trying to cool off in the produce section after becoming overheated on Friday night. Rufus worked in the salvage department, a part of the facility that did not have air conditioning. The Memphis police department found Rufus dead at 8.13pm. “Guys said he was dripping with sweat, asking for water,” union leader Maurice Wiggins told Fox13.

Wiggins said Rufus died on a dock in front of his co-workers. His death comes after his union had been asking the company for more breaks, cooler temperatures and drinks other than just water.

In response to Rufus’s death, Kroger issued a statement: “The safety of our associates has always been our top priority. Kroger Supply Chain continues to take the necessary steps to ensure a safe working environment for our associates. We have contacted the associate’s family to offer our condolences and support during this difficult time.”

Unions across the country are demanding for better, cooler working conditions as the record-breaking heat felt this summer rages on. Despite this, conservative political forces are pushing back against such demands. Lobbyists from the agriculture and construction industries are working to prevent heat protection laws from going into effect at the state and federal levels. The Biden administration has proposed federal regulation requiring workers to be protected from the heat, but no such law has materialized so far.

Texas carves out narrow exception to abortion ban in new Republican strategy

A Texas law about to take effect on Friday carves out exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. In June, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, quietly signed HB 3058, allowing doctors to provide abortion care when a patient’s water breaks too early for the fetus to survive, or when a patient is suffering from an ectopic pregnancy.

Crafted by state representative Ann Johnson, HB 3058 appeared to be a rare bipartisan victory in a fiercely conservative state legislature. Johnson, a Democrat who supports abortion access, found an unlikely ally in state senator Bryan Hughes, the Republican who crafted Texas’s infamous “bounty hunter” law, which allows citizens to sue abortion providers as well as anyone who “aids or abets” abortion care.

Johnson and her fellow Texas Democrats welcomed the bill’s passage as a small but important compromise to improve reproductive health in the state.

But abortion rights advocates across the country said HB 3058 offers little help to Texas doctors treating high-risk pregnancies. “The exceptions in the bill are so narrow, and the penalties for violating the Texas ban are so high, that invariably, a lot of doctors are going to continue not to offer abortion in those situations because they don’t want to get in trouble,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis.

State attorney says DeSantis fired her because she was ‘prosecuting their cops’

An elected Democratic prosecutor whose removal Ron DeSantis boasted about during the first Republican presidential debate said the hard-right Florida governor and his allies ousted her because she was “prosecuting their cops”. Law enforcement agencies in central Florida were “all working against me”, Monique Worrell told the Daily Beast, “because I was prosecuting their cops, the ones who used to do things and get away with them”.

She added: “They thought that I was overly critical of law enforcement and didn’t do anything against ‘real criminals’. Apparently there’s a difference between citizens who commit crimes and cops who commit crimes.”

DeSantis has long polled second to Donald Trump in national and key state surveys of the Republican primary but he remains far behind, most observers saying his campaign is stalling. In Florida, he has removed two elected Democratic prosecutors: Andrew Warren of Hillsborough county in August 2022 and Worrell earlier this month.

Warren said he would not enforce an abortion ban signed by the governor. The prosecutor sued to regain his job but has so far failed, even though a judge found DeSantis to be in the wrong. Worrell previously responded to her removal by calling DeSantis a “weak dictator” seeking to create a “smokescreen for [a] failing and disastrous presidential campaign”.

MEADOWS TESTIFIES: Trump Chief of Staff Wants GA Case Moved to Federal, END Prosecutions ENTIRELY?

Mark Meadows testifies in bid to move Georgia election case to federal court

The sprawling 41-count indictment of Donald Trump and 18 other defendants in Fulton county had its first test on Monday as Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, took the stand before a federal judge over his request to move his Georgia election interference case from state to federal court. ...

Meadows faces two felony charges, including racketeering and solicitation of a violation of oath by a public officer. But Meadows argued that he acted in his capacity as a federal officer and thus is entitled to immunity – and that his case should be heard before a federal judge.

Meadows swiftly filed a motion to move his case to the federal US district court of northern Georgia after Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, handed down her indictment. In a response, Willis argued that Meadows’ actions violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits government officials from using their position to influence the results of an election and were therefore outside his capacity as chief of staff. ...

Three other defendants have filed motions to remove their cases from Fulton county. Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official, along with Georgia fake electors David Shafer, Shawn Still and Cathy Latham, are each seeking to move their cases to federal court.

Trump is expected to file a similar request in the coming weeks.

Cornel West On Rising: Bernie, AOC Are 'WINDOW DRESSING' At Best, Dems 'BEYOND REDEMPTION'

77% Voters Say Biden Is 'TOO OLD' For Four More Years, Including 69% Of DEMOCRATS

Tropical Storm Idalia strengthens as it threatens to strike Florida

Residents along Florida’s Gulf coast were warned of an “increasingly dangerous situation” on Monday as Tropical Storm Idalia continued to bulk up off the coast of Cuba and threatened to strike the state later in the week as a major hurricane. With the storm moving north on a path almost parallel to Florida’s west coast, the location of its landfall, expected early Wednesday, was difficult to predict, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said in a late-morning briefing.

But there was growing confidence in the intensity of Idalia, which was strengthening in the abnormally hot water of the Gulf of Mexico. “Steady to rapid intensification is predicted beginning Tuesday while Idalia traverses the warm waters of the eastern Gulf and the upper-level environment becomes more favorable,” NHC officials said.

Winds of 115mph are expected at landfall, making the storm a category 3 hurricane. Any hurricane higher than a category 2 is considered major. Forecasters were also predicting storm surge of up to 11ft, which could bring significant inland flooding in vulnerable areas north of Tampa.

Prehistoric bird once thought extinct returns to New Zealand wild

Tā Tipene O’Regan, 87 years old, leaned into his carved walking stick and reached down to a large wooden box. He paused a second, then slowly lifted the lid. Out shot the hefty body of a bright turquoise bird, legs windmilling, launching from its cage like a football from a slingshot. “I am now largely blind, but I still saw them,” O’Regan says: a flash of blue feathers and bright red legs racing for the tussocks.

That streak of colour was the takahē: a large, flightless bird, that was believed for decades to be extinct. Eighteen of the birds were released in the Lake Whakatipu Waimāori valley, an alpine area of New Zealand’s South Island last week, on to slopes they had not been seen roaming for about 100 years. For Ngāi Tahu, the tribe to whom the lands belong, and who faced a long legal battle for their return, it is particularly significant, marking the return to the wild of the birds that their ancestors lived alongside, in lands that they had fought to regain.

Takahē are unusual creatures. Like a number of New Zealand birds, they evolved without native land mammals surrounding them, and adapted to fill the ecosystem niches that mammals would occupy. They are flightless, stand at around 50cm tall, and live in the mountains. Their presence in Aotearoa dates back to at least the prehistoric Pleistocene era, according to fossil remains. “They’re almost prehistoric looking,” says Tūmai Cassidy, of Ngāi Tahu. “Very broad and bold.” Front-on, their bodies can appear almost perfectly spherical – coupled with the blue-green plumage, they look like a model planet Earth perched atop two long, bright red legs. ...

In New Zealand, the return of wild takahē populations marks a cautiously celebrated conservation victory, and the return of one of the world’s rarest creatures. The birds had been formally declared extinct in 1898, their already-reduced population devastated by the arrival of European settlers’ animal companions: stoats, cats, ferrets and rats. After their rediscovery in 1948, their numbers are now at about 500, growing at about 8% a year. ...

Work to sustain takahē is part of a far wider effort in New Zealand to protect its unique, threatened birds. The country is in the midst of a national effort to wipe out its worst introduced predators – rats, possums and stoats – by 2050. As trapping efforts have expanded, rare species are being re-introduced outside sanctuary fences: last year kiwi, the national birds, were reintroduced to wild spaces on the outskirts of the city for the first time in generations.

Dramatic climate action needed to curtail ‘crazy’ extreme weather

The “crazy” extreme weather rampaging around the globe in 2023 will become the norm within a decade without dramatic climate action, the world’s leading climate scientists have said. The heatwaves, wildfires and floods experienced today were just the “tip of the iceberg” compared with even worse effects to come, they said, with limitations in climate models leaving the world “flying partially blind” into the future.

With fears that humanity’s relentless carbon emissions have finally pushed the climate crisis into a new and accelerating phase of destruction, the Guardian sought the expert assessments of more than 40 scientists from around the world.

They said that the rise in global temperature was entirely in line with decades of warnings and was being boosted this year by the return of the El Niño climate pattern. But they said that people and places were more vulnerable to extreme weather than expected and were suffering effects never previously experienced as climate records were shattered. ...

Climate models have accurately predicted the rise in global temperature as humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions have surged. But numerous scientists highlighted the particular difficulty they have in projecting extreme weather events, which are by definition rare. “We may be seriously underestimating the dangers ahead,” said Dr Raúl Cordero, until recently at the University of Santiago, Chile. “We are flying partially blind on what to expect for climate extremes.” ...

A “tiny window” of opportunity remained open to avoid the worst of the climate crisis, the scientists said. The researchers overwhelmingly pointed to one action as critical: slashing the burning of fossil fuels down to zero. “We need to stop burning fossil fuels,” said Dr Friederike Otto at Imperial College London. “Now. Not some time when we’ve allowed companies to make all the money they possibly can.”

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Ukraine SitRep - U.S. To Prolong Its Proxy War

Shocked by Niger coup, Victoria Nuland appeared “desperate” during Africa tour

What’s so bad about ‘aggressive neutrality’?

Libyan Protests Over Rumors of Normalization with Israel

‘Threatened and vulnerable’: Cop City activists labeled as terrorists pay high price

Journalist Sues Over Gag Rules At County Jail In Pennsylvania

Burning Man attendees roadblocked by climate activists: ‘They have a privileged mindset’

RECESSION WATCH: Buffett Makes Bet AGAINST US Economy

DEFUNDED For WRONGTHINK? GoFundMe FREEZES Donations Made To Independent Outlet The Grayzone

A Little Night Music

Lonesome Sundown - Gonna Stick to You Baby

Lonesome Sundown - Lost Without Love

Lonesome Sundown - Lonesome, Lonely Blues

Lonesome Sundown – Just Got To Know

Lonesome Sundown – Midnight Blues Again

Lonesome Sundown - I´ve Got the Blues

Lonesome Sundown – Black Cat Bone

Lonesome Sundown - Blues For My Baby

Lonesome Sundown - She's Fine