The Evening Blues - 4-16-21



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta blues musician Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes. Enjoy!

Roosevelt Barnes - Ain't Goin' To Worry, About Tomorrow

"Sure I guess spending your nation’s wealth and resources on an endlessly expanding worldwide military campaign while impoverishing your citizenry at home and keeping them in line with an increasingly violent and militarized police force is one way you can choose to do things."

-- Caitlin Johnstone


News and Opinion

Contrary to What Biden Said, US Warfare in Afghanistan Is Set to Continue

There's no good reason to assume the air war in Afghanistan will be over when—according to President Biden's announcement on Wednesday—all U.S. forces will be withdrawn from that country.

What Biden didn't say was as significant as what he did say. He declared that "U.S. troops, as well as forces deployed by our NATO allies and operational partners, will be out of Afghanistan" before Sept. 11. And "we will not stay involved in Afghanistan militarily."

But President Biden did not say that the United States will stop bombing Afghanistan. What's more, he pledged that "we will keep providing assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces," a declaration that actually indicates a tacit intention to "stay involved in Afghanistan militarily."

And, while the big-type headlines and prominent themes of media coverage are filled with flat-out statements that the U.S. war in Afghanistan will end come September, the fine print of coverage says otherwise.

The banner headline across the top of the New York Times homepage during much of Wednesday proclaimed: "Withdrawal of U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Will End Longest American War." But, buried in the thirty-second paragraph of a story headed "Biden to Withdraw All Combat Troops From Afghanistan by Sept. 11," the Times reported: "Instead of declared troops in Afghanistan, the United States will most likely rely on a shadowy combination of clandestine Special Operations forces, Pentagon contractors and covert intelligence operatives to find and attack the most dangerous Qaeda or Islamic State threats, current and former American officials said."

Matthew Hoh, a Marine combat veteran who in 2009 became the highest-ranking U.S. official to resign from the State Department in protest of the Afghanistan war, told my colleagues at the Institute for Public Accuracy on Wednesday: "Regardless of whether the 3,500 acknowledged U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, the U.S. military will still be present in the form of thousands of special operations and CIA personnel in and around Afghanistan, through dozens of squadrons of manned attack aircraft and drones stationed on land bases and on aircraft carriers in the region, and by hundreds of cruise missiles on ships and submarines."

We scarcely hear about it, but the U.S. air war on Afghanistan has been a major part of Pentagon operations there. And for more than a year, the U.S. government hasn't even gone through the motions of disclosing how much of that bombing has occurred.

"We don't know, because our government doesn't want us to," diligent researchers Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies wrote last month. "From January 2004 until February 2020, the U.S. military kept track of how many bombs and missiles it dropped on Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and published those figures in regular, monthly Airpower Summaries, which were readily available to journalists and the public. But in March 2020, the Trump administration abruptly stopped publishing U.S. Airpower Summaries, and the Biden administration has so far not published any either."

The U.S. war in Afghanistan won't end just because President Biden and U.S. news media tell us so. ...

No matter what the White House and the headlines say, U.S. taxpayers won't stop subsidizing the killing in Afghanistan until there is an end to the bombing and "special operations" that remain shrouded in secrecy.

SECDEF hints at lingering US involvement with Afghanistan after withdrawal

The remaining 2,500 troops are set to pull out of Afghanistan before the 20th anniversary of 9/11, but U.S. support to that country’s military is likely to endure.

Though the Afghan government and its military/police organizations will be responsible for keeping the peace, that may continue to be at U.S. expense, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a NATO press conference on Wednesday.

“We will look to continue funding key capabilities, such as the Afghan air force and Special Mission Wing,” he said. “And we will seek to continue paying salaries for Afghan security forces.”

There may also continue to be a U.S. counter-terrorism presence “in the region,” he added. ...

In addition to training, advising and assisting Afghan forces, U.S. troops have been deploying to the country to tamp down on terrorist presence, whether that’s lingering al-Qaida influence or the persistent threat of ISIS-K, the Afghanistan wing of the Islamic State.

That mission will continue, if not from within Afghanistan. The U.S. has the ability to target within the country from outside of it, Austin said.

Biden Sanctions Russia for Cyber Espionage While Remaining Silent over Israeli Cyberattack on Iran

Biden hits Russia with new sanctions in response to election meddling

The Biden administration has announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and broad sanctions against Russian officials and companies in retaliation for Moscow’s interference in elections and cyber-espionage campaigns such as the SolarWinds hack.

The sanctions, which were the Biden administration’s largest punitive action against the Kremlin yet, also targeted six Russian cybersecurity companies deemed to be involved in the SolarWinds hack, as well as 32 individuals and entities deemed to be involved in efforts to influence the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election.

The Biden administration also barred US financial institutions from buying rouble bonds newly issued by Russia’s central bank or other large financial institutions, targeting the country’s sovereign debt and its broader economy.

In a formal statement later on Thursday, Joe Biden stressed the calibrated nature of the US measures, and his hopes that he and Vladimir Putin, whom he had warned about the coming sanctions earlier in the week, would be able to stabilise the US-Russian relationship. But at the same time he warned against any Russian military moves in Ukraine.

“I was clear with President Putin that we could have gone further, but I chose not to do so. I chose to be proportional. The United States is not looking to kick off a cycle of escalation and conflict with Russia,” Biden said in televised remarks from the White House. He confirmed he had offered Putin a summit meeting in Europe this summer, and their aides were discussing arrangements.

Ukraine-Russia tensions: Zelensky, Macron and Merkel hold security talks

Max Blumenthal: The War Machine Reloads

US has ‘low to moderate confidence’ in reports of Russian bounty on US troops

US intelligence agencies have only “low to moderate confidence” in reports last year that Russian spies were offering Taliban militants in Afghanistan bounties for killing US soldiers. The reports in the press citing intelligence sources sparked outrage and demands from Democrats for the Trump administration to confront the Kremlin over the issue.

Unveiling a raft of sanctions against Russia on Thursday, US officials said that the allegations of Russian bounties was not one of the grounds for imposing the measures, but a warning had been sent to Moscow that there would be a punitive response if such incentives were found to have been paid in the future.

US intelligence had “low to moderate confidence” in the reporting on bounties because “it’s based in part on detainee reporting and because of the difficult operating environment in Afghanistan”, a senior administration official told reporters.

Intercept Reporter's Pathetic Excuse For Not Debunking RussiaGate

Warren and Smith Reintroduce Bill to Block US From Starting Nuclear War

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Adam Smith on Thursday reintroduced legislation to establish that "it is the policy of the United States to not use nuclear weapons first."

"Threatening to use nuclear weapons first makes America less safe because it increases the chances of a miscalculation or an accident," said Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a statement. "There are no winners in a nuclear war, and the U.S. should never start one."

Smith (D-Wash.), chair of the House Armed Services Committee, concurred, saying that "the United States should never initiate a nuclear war."

"This bill would strengthen deterrence while reducing the chance of nuclear use due to miscalculation or misunderstanding," he explained. "Codifying that deterring nuclear use is the sole purpose of our nuclear arsenal strengthens U.S. national security and would renew U.S. leadership on nuclear nonproliferation and disbarment."

In addition to Warren and Smith, the bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

Former Employee BLASTS "Democracy Now" For Pushing Establishment Propaganda

War Hawks Are Working Overtime to Derail US-Iran Diplomacy

Just as talks between the United States and Iran were taking place last week in Vienna, a cyberattack was carried out on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility. Reports are that the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, was behind the attack that blacked out the facility just one day after Tehran launched new advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges, and as US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was in Israel speaking about the United States' "enduring and ironclad" commitment to the Jewish state.

This is the latest in a series of Israeli attacks on Iran designed to scuttle negotiations. Last summer, a number of explosions attributed to Israel broke out across Iran, including a fire at the Natanz site. These took place while US elections were in full swing and Biden was promising that if elected, he would return the United States to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA) that Trump withdrew from in 2018. In November 2020, Israeli operatives assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's top nuclear scientist in the city of Absard outside Tehran. Had Iran responded, the United States might have been dragged into an all-out war.

Israeli officials have also directly lobbied the US Congress to quash the deal. In 2015, Netanyahu traveled to Washington, DC in 2015 to address a joint session of Congress in an attempt to uncut Obama's original negotiations. This time, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen will be traveling to Washington to meet with top White House and US intelligence officials, and he hopes with Biden directly, to convince the administration that Iran has been concealing details about its nuclear program and therefore can't be trusted. This is indeed ironic coming from a country that, unlike Iran, actually has nuclear weapons and refuses to disclose any information about its program.

Like Israel, the powerful US lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is trying to convince Biden not to go back into the JCPOA. Last month, they organized bipartisan letters in the House and Senate, urging the Biden administration to insist on an expanded deal that included missiles, human rights, and Iran's activities in the region. Since Tehran has been clear that an expanded or amended deal is a nonstarter, such "advice" was an attempt to quash talks.

The neoconservative think tank Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which worked inside the Trump administration during and after Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, has been relentlessly pushing for war with Iran. After the United States recklessly assassinated Iran's top general, Qassem Soleimani, FDD CEO Mark Dubowitz gloated, tweeting that the death of Soleimani was "more consequential than the killing of [Osama] #BinLaden"; and on April 11, the same day as the Natanz blackout, former CIA officer and FDD fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht, speaking on CNN, voiced disappointment that Trump hadn't taken the United States and Iran into an all-out war.

Another group against a deal with Iran is Christians United for Israel (CUFI), one of the most powerful pro-Israel voices in the United States. In March 2021, CUFI urged the Senate not to confirm Colin Kahl for a top policy position at the Pentagon, claiming, "Kahl is a serial Iran appeaser" who "helped advance the disastrous Iran nuclear accord." In response to the blackout at Natanz, they cheered Netanyahu, tweeting "'Battling Iran is a colossal mission,' Netanyahu says following blackout at Iranian nuclear plant."

The People's Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which the United States had previously designated as a terrorist organization and is known for assassinations and bombings it has carried out, is virulently opposed to US-Iran diplomacy. In March 2021, a number of US Senators attended a virtual event organized by the MEK-aligned Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC) calling for continued US sanctions and "bringing down the regime." Senator Bob Menendez, the powerful chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was among several Democrats in attendance.

The opponents of the Iran deal are trying to keep in place the draconian wall of sanctions that the Trump administration imposed precisely to make it more difficult for a future US administration to rejoin the JCPOA. But these sanctions are causing immense suffering for ordinary Iranians, including runaway inflation and skyrocketing food and medicine prices. According to the UN, they contributed to the government's "inadequate and opaque" response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has hit Iran particularly hard.

While "successful" in inflicting harm on the Iranian people, the sanctions have failed to broaden the terms of the talks, led the nation to increase its uranium enrichment, negatively impacted the human rights situation, and put the United States and Iran on the brink of an all-out war on multiple occasions.

That's why so many people in Iran, and those who care about them, have been encouraged by this new round of diplomatic engagement. But Israel, AIPAC, CUFI, FDD, MEK, Menendez, and the like are probably instead hoping that Iran carries out the revenge that Iranian officials have called for in response to the Natanz blackout. But as the saboteurs of diplomacy hope for a violent escalation, let's keep in mind—and hope Iran agrees—that the best revenge would be a revived JCPOA.

Krystal Ball: Americans Like Taxing The Rich EVEN MORE Than Infrastructure

719 Billionaires Now Own Four Times More Wealth Than Poorest 165 Million Americans Combined

After seeing their fortunes surge during the deadly coronavirus pandemic, America's 719 billionaires are now collectively worth $4.56 trillion—making them over four times wealthier than the roughly 165 million people in the bottom half of U.S. society combined, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies and Americans for Tax Fairness.

The two groups found that the wealth of U.S. billionaires grew by $1.62 trillion—55%—between March 18, 2020 and April 12, 2021, a period in which millions lost their jobs and more than 500,000 Americans lost their lives to Covid-19.

The 165 million people at the bottom of the wealth distribution, meanwhile, collectively own around $1.01 trillion, far less than the nation's hundreds of billionaires.

IPS and ATF note that in 1990, "the situation was reversed"—adjusted for inflation, the bottom 50% owned $380 billion in combined wealth while the nation's 66 billionaires owned $240 billion.

"It's not just during the pandemic—billionaires have been running up the score on average Americans for decades," said ATF executive director Frank Clemente. "The way to reverse this trend is by making sure the wealthy, and the corporations they own, start paying their fair share of taxes."

Covid booster shot could be needed after nine to 12 months, White House says

The US is preparing for the possibility that a booster shot will be needed between nine and 12 months after people are initially vaccinated against Covid-19, a White House official said on Thursday.

While the duration of immunity after vaccination is being studied, booster vaccines could be needed, David Kessler, the chief science officer on Joe Biden’s Covid-19 response taskforce, told a congressional committee meeting.

“We are studying the durability of the antibody response. So I think for planning purposes, planning purposes only, I think we should expect that we may have to boost,” Kessler said.

“The current thinking is those who are more vulnerable will have to go first,” he said.

The CEO of Pfizer, Albert Bourla, has also said it is “likely” that people will need a third coronavirus vaccine dose within a year, with annual revaccinations also a possibility.

David Sirota: Did Biden's Inaction DOOM Amazon Union Fight?

Amazon must ‘do a better job’ for its workers, says Jeff Bezos

Amazon needs to “do a better job” for its employees, Jeff Bezos told shareholders in his final letter as chief executive of the online giant, but he also pushed back against criticism of the company’s work practices. Bezos, who reclaimed his title as the world’s richest person this year, said that Amazon’s recent defeat of an attempt by some workers to form the company’s first union in Alabama did not bring him “comfort”. ...

“I think we need to do a better job for our employees. While the voting results were lopsided and our direct relationship with employees is strong, it’s clear to me that we need a better vision for how we create value for employees – a vision for their success.”

Amazon, which employs 1.3 million people globally and is the second-biggest private employer in the US, has been criticised by some warehouse workers over working conditions. However, Bezos rejected the criticism, saying reports that workers were “treated as robots” were inaccurate. ... “We don’t set unreasonable performance goals,” he said.

Medical Examiner Accused of Covering Up Police Killing in Maryland Becomes Witness for Derek Chauvin

Much more detail at the link:

George Floyd killing: defense rests case after Derek Chauvin declines to testify

Derek Chauvin declined to testify in his murder trial over the killing of George Floyd as the defence wrapped up its case after just two days of testimony. Chauvin invoked his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination as he sacrificed the chance to explain to the jury why he kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes and for his lawyers to paint a more sympathetic picture of the police officer. But he also avoided a minute interrogation of his actions and thinking by the prosecution’s cross-examination.

Both sides will make closing arguments on Monday and the case will then go to the jury. ...

The defence rested its case after a series of witnesses challenged prosecution claims that Chauvin and two other police officers were responsible for Floyd’s death by pinning him to the ground and instead blamed the 46-year-old Black man’s heart conditions and drug use. On Wednesday, the defence’s leading medical expert, Dr David Fowler, also introduced the idea that carbon monoxide from vehicle exhaust contributed to Floyd’s death.

And on Thursday, the judge allowed the prosecution to recall one of its key witnesses, Dr Martin Tobin, to rebut Fowler’s testimony. Tobin challenged Fowler’s assertion that the level of carboxyhemoglobin in Floyd’s blood – carbon monoxide attached to protein which displaces oxygen – was between 10% and 18% which would have contributed to heart failure. “I believe it is not reliable,” said Tobin. Tobin said tests showed Floyd’s blood oxygen saturation was 98%, leaving just 2% for “everything else”.

Last week, Tobin, a pulmonologist, told the trial that Chauvin and the other officers caused Floyd’s death by cutting his oxygen supply which caused brain damage and his heart to stop. Tobin discounted defence attempts to shift the cause of death to Floyd’s heart disease and drug use, saying that without the police officers on top of him he would not have died and that “a healthy person subjected to what Mr Floyd was subjected to would have died”.

This much is clear: Derek Chauvin’s trial won’t change policing in America

[I]t would be wrong for people to think that the trial has some sort of larger, transformative potential for policing and punishment in this country. If Derek Chauvin goes to prison, this will, for some, be evidence of the system “working”. Chauvin did something bad, and now he’s been punished. Case closed. Justice served. Next. In this scenario, nothing is on trial besides Derek Chauvin himself. And many people would be fine with that. But it’s simply not enough. Chauvin is, of course, responsible for his violence; and it would be too strong, too kind to him, to say (in the case of a conviction) that he’s just a scapegoat for the larger institutions that trained him to be violent, paid him to be violent, and legitimated his violence time and time again before he eventually, in the estimation of others within that institution, simply took it too far.

But it would not be too strong to say that a Chauvin conviction would serve a convenient purpose for policing as an institution and for his (former) fellow officers, because a guilty verdict would allow people to leave unexamined the larger issues at hand. For them, if Derek Chauvin is guilty of murder, it means, more or less, that he did his job badly and in violation of his training, in contrast to “good policing” and good use-of-force training. A conviction grants other police and supporters of the police the ability to say that Chauvin’s violence was a bad exception to, rather than a representative example or logical extension of, the everyday forms of violence and violation that constitute policing as a practice.

We’ve already seen this playing out in the trial, when the prosecution called a number of Chauvin’s former colleagues in the Minneapolis police department to testify against him. ... But if you pay attention to their testimony, you will also take note of the things they said and, importantly, what they did not. To a person, their testimony against Chauvin revolved around the fact that he had broken departmental policies in some sort of technical way: that he had applied a knee to the wrong part of Floyd’s neck area, that he should have stopped restraining Floyd after he was no longer “resisting”, that he had knelt on Floyd’s neck for too long.

Not once, you will note, did they speculate that perhaps no police officer should kneel on a person’s neck, ever, let alone for allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill. The fact of police violence – elemental and central to the institution, the first language of police and the structuring logic of policing – was never a point of reflection or comment. The fact that Derek Chauvin deployed that violence in ways that were in technical violation of departmental policies was all that mattered. In other words, if the Minneapolis police’s use-of-force guidelines had said that it was OK to kneel on someone’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds, this would not have been an issue.

And that really is the problem with thinking that this trial has the potential to serve as some sort of sea change in American policing. The questions surrounding it are all about Derek Chauvin, when Chauvin was really just doing many of the things police do: respond to reports of a reported “crime” that had essentially no victim; escalate; make an arrest; use violence. Remember that multiple colleagues of Chauvin’s simply stood by and watched while he killed George Floyd. Their inaction is the tell: what Chauvin was doing did not seem so extraordinary to them as to warrant intervention and save Floyd’s life.

Kim Potter appears in court as Wright family calls for ‘full accountability’

The former Minnesota police officer charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black motorist, during a traffic stop made her first court appearance on Thursday as the Wright family called for “full accountability” for his death.

Kim Potter, wearing a plaid shirt, confirmed her presence during a brief online hearing and waved to the judge from a table in her lawyer’s office. Potter, 48, was not asked about the shooting or her intended plea.

The Hennepin county judge Paul Scoggin set the next court date for 17 May and ordered Potter, who is out on a $100,000 bond, not to use firearms or explosives for the duration of her case.

In charging Potter with second-degree manslaughter, prosecutors will try to show she was “culpably negligent” and took an “unreasonable risk” in shooting Wright in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center on Sunday.

If convicted, Potter, who is white, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. Potter, a 26-year veteran of the police force, resigned on Tuesday.

"Cold-Blooded Murder": Chicago Police Officer Shot 13-Year-Old Adam Toledo with His Hands in the Air

Video appears to show Chicago police shooting Adam Toledo, 13, as he raised his hands

Body camera video footage released for the first time on Thursday appears to show a Chicago police officer fatally shooting Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old, as he raised his hands into the air. The footage has ignited fresh outrage in the city where Toledo was shot last month. On Thursday, Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, stood alongside Latino community leaders and called for calm.

Lightfoot, her voice breaking while speaking at a press conference before the footage was released to the public, described the video as “incredibly difficult to watch, particularly at the end” and said “we failed Adam”. Toledo was shot and killed by police on 29 March following a foot pursuit by officers.

At the time of the shooting, Toledo was with Ruben Roman, 21, who has been charged with several felonies in connection to that night including child endangerment and reckless discharge of a firearm.

The authorities had initially indicated that Toledo had a gun in his hand as he turned towards officers during the chase, after failing to obey commands to stop. But video released on Thursday showed Toledo stopping as the officer shouts after him, turning and putting his hands up, with no sign of any weapon. The boy is then shot in the chest by the officer from a short distance away.

The officer was identified on Thursday as Eric Stillman, 34, a white man who has been with the department since August 2015. ... Information on the shooting, including Toledo’s age, was not made public until days after it happened. Elizabeth Toledo, Adam’s mother, had not been notified about his death until two days after the shooting, leaving her to think her son was missing.



the horse race



Wall Street TRIES TO BUY Manhattan District Attorney Race

Sinema And Manchin Headlining Event For Anti-Union Group Fighting $15 Wage

Weeks after voting to kill a $15 minimum wage, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin will headline the national conference of the restaurant lobbying group that led the battle to block the wage increase and is fighting a separate Democratic measure to make it easier for workers to form unions. Both lawmakers have also recently raked in campaign cash from corporate interests that have been fighting a minimum wage increase.

Sinema and Manchin will join disgraced former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel next week in speeches at a conference held by the National Restaurant Association (NRA), according to the conference agenda. The NRA has been aggressively lobbying against Democrats’ proposed minimum wage hike and labor legislation.  

Manchin and Sinema, who represent West Virginia and Arizona respectively, will be featured on panels entitled “Seeking Unity: Conversations on Finding Bipartisan Solutions.” The event is the NRA’s annual “public affairs conference,” which in Washington-speak means it is for lobbyists and focused on shaping legislation. ...

The two Democrats, who were not on the NRA’s original event schedule, have been workingrecently with Republicans to replace Democrats’ $15 minimum wage proposal with a lower wage — reportedly $11, which is lower than Arizona’s current minimum wage. It’s not clear yet whether their proposal, which hasn’t been released, would eliminate the lower subminimum wage for workers like restaurant servers who rely on tips.



the evening greens


97% of Earth's Land No Longer Ecologically Intact, Study Finds

Ecologists and environmental advocates on Thursday called for swift action to reintroduce species into the wild as scientists at the University of Cambridge in England found that 97% of the planet's land area no longer qualifies as ecologically intact.

"Conservation is simply not enough anymore," said financier and activist Ben Goldsmith. "We need restoration."

The authors of the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, expressed alarm at their findings, which showed that of the 3% of fully intact land, much lies in northern areas which weren't rich in biodiversity to begin with, such as boreal forests in Canada or tundra in Greenland. 

The amount of ecologically intact land "was much lower than we were expecting," Dr. Andrew Plumptre, head of the Key Biodiversity Areas Secretariat at Cambridge and lead author of the study, told Science News. 

"Going in, I'd guessed that it would be 8 to 10%," he added. "It just shows how huge an impact we've had."

The researchers examined whether natural habitats had retained the number of species which were present in the year 1500—the standard used by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to assess species' extinction.

Earlier research using satellite imagery led to estimates that 20 to 40% of the planet had retained its natural biodiversity. But areas including dense forests, which can appear intact from above, were found to be missing numerous species.

The researchers linked the loss of unscathed land to hunting and other destructive human activities, disease, and the impact of invasive species. According to The Guardian, the study may underestimate the intact regions because it does not "take account of the impacts of the climate crisis, which is changing the ranges of species."

Only 11% of the land still considered intact was found to be in officially protected areas, but much of the intact regions "coincide with territories managed by indigenous communities, who have played a vital role in maintaining the ecological integrity of these areas," the researchers wrote.

The reintroduction of up to five species could help restore 20% of the planet to previous levels of biodiversity, the study found.

"Examples would include reintroducing forest elephants in areas of the Congo Basin where they have been extirpated, or reintroducing some of the large ungulates that have been lost from much of Africa's woodlands and savannas because of overhunting (e.g., buffalo, giraffe, zebras etc.), as long as overhunting has ceased," the researchers wrote.

Previously, the rewilding of gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. led to a resurgence in the park's ecosystem.

Third of French wine lost after rare cold snaps devastate vines

At least a third of French wine production worth almost €2bn (£1.7bn) in sales will be lost this year after rare freezing temperatures devastated many vines and fruit crops across France, raising concerns over the climate crisis.

“This is probably the greatest agricultural catastrophe of the beginning of the 21st century,” the French agriculture minister, Julien Denormandie, said this week as the government declared an “agricultural disaster” and began preparing emergency financial measures.

The unseasonal wave of bitter frost and ice hit suddenly after a bout of warm weather, which worsened the damage. The warmth had encouraged vines and fruit trees to develop earlier than usual, only to be withered by the sudden cold.

The national federation of agricultural holders’ unions told AFP it believes at least a third of French wine production would be lost as certain grape harvests in many of France’s best-known wine-producing regions risked being decimated.

The destruction has hit a swathe of France, including Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhône Valley and Provence, damaging vines but also hitting growers of kiwis, apricots, apples and other fruit as well as crops such as beet and rapeseed.


Brazil demand for U.S. to pay upfront stalls deal to save Amazon forest

The United States and Brazil are at an impasse on a deal to stop destruction of the Amazon rainforest, which has surged under right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

While Brazil wants to receive money upfront to pay for the protection of the world's largest rainforest, the United States is insistent on seeing results first before it opens the purse strings, sources said. ...

Environment Minister Ricardo Salles, who is leading the Brazilian negotiators, has publicly asked for $1 billion in foreign aid in advance, that potentially could come from the United States with other partners. One of the sources confirmed that request has been made in the talks.

Salles told Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo this month that upon receiving that money, Brazil could lower deforestation by 30%-40% in a span of 12 months. Without money up front, he said Brazil would not be able to set a hard target.

But U.S. officials want to pay only once there are results. That includes a decline in deforestation this year, the two sources familiar with the negotiations said.

Whitest-ever paint could help cool heating Earth, study shows

The whitest-ever paint has been produced by academic researchers, with the aim of boosting the cooling of buildings and tackling the climate crisis.

The new paint reflects 98% of sunlight as well as radiating infrared heat through the atmosphere into space. In tests, it cooled surfaces by 4.5C below the ambient temperature, even in strong sunlight. The researchers said the paint could be on the market in one or two years. ...

Currently available reflective white paints are far better than dark roofing materials, but only reflect 80-90% of sunlight and absorb UV light. This means they cannot cool surfaces below ambient temperatures. The new paint does this, leading to less need for air conditioning and the carbon emissions they produce, which are rising rapidly. ...

The new paint was revealed in a report in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. Three factors are responsible for the paint’s cooling performance. First, barium sulphate was used as the pigment which, unlike conventional titanium dioxide pigment, does not absorb UV light. Second, a high concentration of pigment was used – 60%. Third, the pigment particles were of varied size. The amount of light scattered by a particle depends on its size, so using a range scatters more of the light spectrum from the sun.


Also of Interest

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

Ukrainian Envoy: NATO or Nuclear Weapons

Three Recent Failures In Foreign Policy Coordination - Why Is Jake Sullivan Creating Such A Mess?

The latest US moves against Russia

Greek, Turkish foreign ministers clash at press conference

Lula clear to take on Bolsonaro as Brazil court upholds ruling

New York judge reverses firing of officer who fought colleague over chokehold

Murder of Daunte Wright Ruined Derek Chauvin Show Trial

It’s The Media’s Job To Normalize War: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

A Reaper drone crashed at Syracuse’s airport. Why wasn’t the public told?

Freedom Rider: Vaccine Passports in a Failed State

New York State Hands Billions Back to Wealthy Investors—and NYT Doesn’t See a Story

Gillibrand, Ocasio-Cortez Call on Congress to Help Rebuild USPS With Postal Banking Pilot Programs

Daunte Wright’s Killing Makes the Case for Shrinking Police Budgets

Union Members Expel National Guard From St Paul Minnesota Labor Center

Andrew Yang leads the New York mayoral race despite missteps. But can he win?


A Little Night Music

Roosevelt 'Booba' Barnes - How Many More Years

Roosevelt 'Booba' Barnes - Have A Talk With You

Roosevelt Booba Barnes - Tin Pan Alley

Booba Barnes - Rocking Daddy

Roosevelt 'Booba' Barnes - Blindman / I pity the fool

"Booba" Barnes And The Playboys - Louise Louise Blues

Roosevelt Booba Barnes (and the Playboys) - Baby, Scratch My Back

Roosevelt 'Booba' Barnes - Thrill Is Gone

Roosevelt 'Booba' Barnes - Heart broken man


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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

i was staring at that cartoon for a while because something about it seemed inauthentic, but i couldn't put my finger on it. then it struck me, those money pipelines are depicted with shutoff valves!

have a great weekend!

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12 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

So, this headline

David Sirota: Did Biden's Inaction DOOM Amazon Union Fight?

caught my attention bigly. I mean Joe Effing Biden would not act on behalf of the union, any union, regardless of his pseudo-laborite credentials. Any action he would've been at all likely to take would have certainly hurt the union more. What is that they say about headlines that ask a question like that, that the answer is always no, iirc. If the answer were yes, they'd comr right out and assert it to be the case.

And, speaking of Unions, it was great to see the Unions in St. Paul get to National Guard oust the National Gaurd from their encampment/base at the St. Paul Labor Center. Way to go.

be well and have a good one, and, while you're at it, have a wonderful weekend.

And, PS, one of the Cal Falcon eggs is hatching in that the chick inside has poked a breathing hole in the egg tht is visible in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ooeTUYlflk at 12:58:10 time stamp when they change nest sitting duty.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

heh, there are certain ways that biden is exactly like obama. one of them is that he is willing to give lip service (often in a big way) to labor movements, but when it comes down to acting on that lip service he does little or nothing.

nothing will fundamentally change.

have a great weekend!

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

you'd think that these guys would be smart enough to cool it for a while to give the public a false sense of security, but no, they think that it is their god-given right to shoot black and brown people whenever they want.

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ggersh's picture

https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

Also regarding the 13 year old Toledo being murdered is local TV coverage is giving both Lightfoot and the pigs the benefit of doubt. The pigs attorney even said "why isn't anyone asking how he's doing, what he's going through, why?"

Well thanks for the blues n news Joe, stay safe everyone and have a great weekend!

EDIT: adding commondreams link regarding Cop Union leader calling the murdering of Toledo "heroic" cuz he only shot him once.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/04/16/entire-system-blame-outrage...

Outrage over the police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago was compounded overnight and into Friday after the president of the city's police union claimed the shooting was "100% justified" and that the officer's actions were "heroic."

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was among the critics who responded to Chicago Police Union head John Catanzara's remarks by calling for "systemic" changes to policing to end the killing of civilians.

"The problem is systemic and it requires systemic solutions," tweeted the congresswoman.

On CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time" Thursday night, Catanzara told host Chris Cuomo that the officer deserved praised for shooting the 7th grader only one time. Body camera footage released Thursday showed Toledo with both arms raised when he was fatally shot with a single bullet by Officer E. Stillman.

"He could have been shot multiple times but the officer assessed in a split second," said Catanzara, who earlier this year defended the mob that violently stormed the Capitol building, saying the group caused "very little destruction of property."

"Unfortunately, he already committed to the first shot, justifiably so," he added.

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

joe shikspack's picture

@ggersh

heh, i am going to have to put that catanzara guy's picture in my dictionary next to the entry for "shameless."

have a great weekend!

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@ggersh @ggersh https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/548812-judge-orders-minnesota-o...

A federal judge in Minnesota granted a temporary restraining order that says law enforcement officers cannot arrest or use physical force against journalists covering the Duante Wright protests.

U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright issued the order on Friday and it is in effect for the next two weeks, the Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported.

The order states that police cannot use physical force or chemical agents against the media, or take away their press passes.

Journalists argued in court that they were “directed by law enforcement to vacate the protest area, physically grabbed, struck by less-lethal projectiles and rubber bullets, and pepper sprayed.”

Although journalists did not have to abide by curfews, they were still required to leave areas when dispersal orders were given. The judge’s order allows for journalists to be exempt from dispersal orders, the Pioneer Press reported.

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https://thehill.com/policy/defense/548792-secret-fb-groups-of-special-op...

Special operations officers reportedly shared racist comments and language supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory in secret Facebook groups.

NBC News reviewed of hundreds of Facebook posts on pages for current and former Rangers, Green Berets and other elite and found comments lamenting a so-called deep state run by pedophiles, a hallmark of the QAnon theory.

One post accused aides to former Vice President Mike Pence of being part of a "Concerted effort by the thieves and pedophiles walking the hallowed halls of the peoples government" to undermine former President Donald Trump.

Everywhere includes law enforcement, politicians and the judiciary.

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

remember back in the days of yore when claims such as those would require compelling evidence to accompany them?

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

sometimes the onion is too spot on to be mere satire.

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Azazello's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD_jSZC14Vk width:500 height:300]

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

happy friday right back atcha!

have a great weekend!

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7 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

@joe shikspack
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y7zrudDdx8 width:400 height:240]

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6 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

joe shikspack's picture

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4 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

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7 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.