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This evening's music features barrelhouse piano player and singer Rufus "Speckled Red" Perryman. Enjoy!

"Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem."

-- Howard Zinn

News and Opinion

Oh yeah, the Democrats are the party of the people. This is yet another reason why the Democratic establishment needs to go:

Prominent Democratic Consultants Sign Up to Defeat Single Payer in Colorado

Influential Democratic consultants, some of whom work for the Super PACs backing Hillary Clinton, have signed up to fight a bold initiative to create a state-based single-payer system in Colorado, according to a state filing posted Monday. ...

The filing reveals that the anti-single-payer group has retained the services of Global Strategy Group, a Democratic consulting firm that has served a variety of congressional candidates and is currently advising Priorities USA Action, one of the Super PACs backing Clinton’s bid for the presidency. ...

A number of other Democratic firms have signed up to help defeat single payer, too. Hilltop Public Solutions, a firm managed by former campaign staffers to Barack Obama, was paid $45,000 by the group. Hilltop has also provided consulting services to Ready PAC, another Clinton-supporting Super PAC that eventually folded into the Clinton campaign.

The Trimpa Group, a consulting company run by Democratic strategist Ted Trimpa, also received a payment from Coloradans for Coloradans.

Russia Rises From the Mat

Until the eye-opening display of Russian military gear and capability beginning with the bloodless reunification with Crimea of spring 2014 and running through the resoundingly successful five-month Russian air campaign in Syria starting in October 2015, American behavior towards Russia in the new millennium had been conditioned by a now seriously outdated view of its potential adversary as a failing state lacking in economic might and in social coherence to withstand serious pressure from outside, enjoying unjustified international rights inherited from its Soviet past and having as its only military props an aging strategic nuclear force that would be practically unusable if push came to shove because that would spell national suicide.

The reality today is what President Boris Yeltsin foretold to Bill Clinton when Russia was in a supine position, protesting lamely against American intervention in Russia’s old client state, Serbia: “think again, because Russia will be back.”

Indeed, under Vladimir Putin Russia has come back as great powers usually do. It may be smaller than the USSR, but it is vastly more fit, with a mixed market/directed economy that is far more agile and better managed, with conventional forces that approach and in certain domains exceed Western standards. Russia’s living standards are higher and it possesses strong reserves of patriotism to support a shared sense of its place in the world. Russia is now a formidable and arguably unbeatable foe if confrontation is where some U.S. policymakers want relations to go.

There are those Americans who look back with nostalgia to what they perceive as Ronald Reagan’s negotiations with Moscow “from a position of strength.” U.S. Ambassador to Russia at the time, Jack Matlock, has made it clear that the U.S. carefully avoided any appearance of abusing its relative advantage when dealing with Mikhail Gorbachev to reach a dramatic relaxation of tensions through dismantling the Soviet Union’s Eastern European empire on mutually agreed terms. But even if we assume that the “position of strength” was an invisible driver of those talks, in conditions of today’s revitalized Russia such an approach is only bringing us tit-for-tat escalation of military and political posturing.

In such a climate of heightening tensions, the law of averages tells us that if something can go amiss it will, and there is presently too little shared trust to ensure that faulty launch warnings or some similar technical or human errors will not lead to irrevocable counter-responses, ending civilization on Earth as we know it.

Statesmanship and common sense dictate that the United States and Russia seek ways to engage with one another in permanent rather than episodic manner, and that we deal with each other in a spirit of equality and mutual respect.

Moscow hopes for truce in Aleppo

As Rebels Pound Aleppo, Kerry Threatens Assad

Though the only incidents reported in Aleppo on Tuesday were rebel forces firing on a government-held district, hitting a hospital and killing 19 civilians, the talking points of US officials continued to center on blaming the Assad government for all ceasefire problems.

Secretary of State John Kerry warned that there would be “repercussions” for Assad if the ceasefire failed, hinting at previous reports that the US intends to begin massive weapons shipments to “vetted” rebels as soon as the ceasefire ends.

The fighting in Aleppo, however, has seen both the Assad government and rebels trading fire, both regularly hitting civilian neighborhoods, and both killing scores of civilians. Despite this, the Obama Administration has only warned the government over the incidents, and is avoiding any criticism of the rebels, even when they attacked a hospital today.

Syrian Rebels Pound Aleppo Hospital, Killing 19 Civilians

Adding to the number of hospitals being hit in the fighting in Syria’s Aleppo, rebels fired a flurry of rockets and mortars against a government-held district pounding Dabbit Hospital and leaving at least 19 civilians killed across the neighborhood.

This happened less than a week after apparent airstrikes by the Syrian military hit a hospital in a rebel district, killing scores of civilians there. Today’s rocket fire hit the maternity wing of the hospital, with three women killed and 17 wounded in that wing of the hospital.

Pakistani govt tolerates US drone strikes in exchange for money - opposition leader Imran Khan

US Mulls Sending More Troops to Iraq, Syria to Fight ISIS

Speaking today in Germany during meetings with European officials, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter confirmed that the US is once again considering options for the further escalation of the war against ISIS, which would involve sending more US ground troops into both Iraq and Syria.

The US has announced two such escalations in the past two weeks, with 217 troops announced to be heading to Iraq on April 18, and 250 more troops being deployed to Syria just last week. Despite this, President Obama continues to present his wars as something other than “boots on the ground.” ...

The announcement also comes the same day as a US Navy SEAL was killed in ground combat in Iraq, despite repeated administration protestations that the US forces in the country are strictly “non-combat” facilitators, there to train and advise the Iraqi military.

Britain Considers Sending Hundreds More Troops to Iraq

British defense officials are confirming that there is ongoing consideration of a plan to send “hundreds more” troops to Iraq, with the troops to be listed as “trainers.” This would be a substantial addition to the existing 300 troops in Iraq. ...

With the US getting increasingly aggressive with its deployments, it seems likely that they will pressure other nations’ trainers to be more proactive in putting their own troops in combat. This is especially true of nations like Britain, with significant presences in the nation.

Gulf states starting to feel the pinch of cheap oil

Nurse who refused to force feed at Guantanamo back to duty

A Navy nurse has been allowed to resume full medical duties by the military nearly two years after he refused to take part in force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, his lawyer said Tuesday. ...

In the summer of 2014, the nurse, a lieutenant, was abruptly sent home from a temporary assignment at Guantanamo after he refused to administer liquid nutrients with nasogastric tube to hunger striking prisoners, a procedure intended to prevent them starving themselves to death in protest of their confinement.

Hundreds of doctors and nurses and medics have participated in the procedure over the years, which the military calls "enteral feeding" and says is performed humanely. Officials have said the nurse was the only one to refuse to take part, though his ethical objection has been backed by the American Nurses Association, Physicians for Human Rights and other groups.

Pegida Leader Escapes Jail but Is Fined for 'Inciting Hatred' Against Refugees

The leader of German anti-immigration group Pegida has been fined for insulting refugees and immigrants in a social media post.

Lutz Bachmann, 43, went on trial in April in a court in Dresden, capital of the German state of Saxony. He was ordered to pay a fine of 9,600 euros ($11,000) but escaped a prison sentence.

In a Facebook post two years ago Bachmann had called immigrants "trash, "cattle," and "brutes."

During the trial, which began in mid-April, prosecutors for the state argued that the internet is a public forum, and Bachmann's comments could be considered as aimed at inciting hatred with the potential to disturb public peace. ...

Bachmann is one of the founders of Pegida — an acronym that stands for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West.

This is worth taking the time to read in full. Here's a taste:

Why Activists Today Should Still Care About the 40-Year-Old Church Committee Report

Last week marked 40 years since the final report of the Church Committee was released to the public. You can read its report here. Set up in January 1975 in the wake of Watergate, and shortly after investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed the CIA’s role in not only undermining foreign governments but in spying on U.S. citizens, the Committee spent 16 months trawling through classified and unclassified documents and grilling hundreds of counterintelligence officers, CIA directors, FBI higher-ups and other officials in order to shine a light on the scope of the intelligence community’s abuses over the previous decades.

The result was an unprecedented public spotlight on the shadowy world of American intelligence that forever altered the public’s perception of the United States’ various intelligence agencies. This was particularly so with the NSA, whose role and even existence was little-known among the public prior to the Committee’s revelations.

More important was what the Committee actually revealed. Its final report, released on April 26, 1976, detailed a stunningly broad scope of lawlessness and abuses by the intelligence world, which had, under successive presidents, turned its considerable powers increasingly on the American people themselves. ...

Most accounts of the Church Committee tend to focus on certain now-infamous programs that have become emblematic of agency abuses. ... Less talked about today are programs like the military’s surveillance of domestic protest groups, maintaining files on at least 100,000 Americans ranging from Jesse Jackson to Joan Baez and Arlo Guthrie, or the FBI’s “Custodial Detention List,” a list kept by the FBI of foreigners and citizens to be immediately detained in case war broke out. Perhaps most shocking was the Huston Plan, which in the report’s words called for “the highest political figure in the nation to sanction lawlessness within the intelligence community”—namely, relaxing the rules around surveillance of U.S. citizens and allowing agencies to break into targets’ homes, among other things. The measures were briefly authorized by Nixon, until J. Edgar Hoover convinced the president to change his mind, out of fear that the measures would be discovered and he personally would be thrown under the bus. ...

The FISA Court is commonly thought-of as the Committee’s greatest legacy, establishing much-needed oversight of the country’s intelligence agencies, which had run roughshod over Americans’ civil liberties. In reality, the tangible legacy of the Committee is far more ambiguous. The FISA Court today is widely seen as little more than a rubber stamp, declining just 0.3 percent of the surveillance requests that have come its way over the last 33 years. Even then, when it came to the most controversial pre-Snowden surveillance measure—the Bush administration’s post-9/11 warrantless wiretapping program—the government simply bypassed the court. Not only that, but if anything, domestic surveillance has intensified since the Committee completed its work, with the NSA today scooping up and storing untold amounts of Americans’ communications data far more intimate and revealing than that which so concerned the Committee four decades before. Only a few days ago, the Supreme Court granted the FBI the power to hack into potentially millions of computers with a single warrant. And these are just the things we know about.

NSA and CIA Double Their Warrantless Searches on Americans in Two Years

From 2013 to 2015, the NSA and CIA doubled the number of warrantless searches they conducted for Americans’ data in a massive NSA database ostensibly collected for foreign intelligence purposes, according to a new intelligence community transparency report.

The estimated number of search terms “concerning a known U.S. person” to get contents of communications within what is known as the 702 database was 4,672 — more than double the 2013 figure.

And that doesn’t even include the number of FBI searches on that database. A recently released Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruling confirmed that the FBI is allowed to run any number of searches it wants on that database, not only for national security probes but also to hunt for evidence of traditional crimes. No estimates have ever been released of how often that happens. ...

The missing data from the FBI is of great concern to privacy advocates. The USA Freedom Act, passed in June 2015, “conspicuously exempts the FBI” from disclosing how often it searches the 702 database, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) wrote in a letter to the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, in October 2015.

“There is every reason to believe the number of FBI queries far exceeds those of the CIA and NSA,” POGO wrote. “To present a fair overview of how foreign intelligence surveillance is used, it is essential that you work with the attorney general to release statistics on the FBI’s use of U.S. person queries.”

A Brazilian Court Has Overturned a Ruling that Left the Country Without WhatsApp for a Day

A Brazilian appeals court has overturned a 72-hour suspension of the WhatsApp messaging service after a day in which the block triggered outrage among the application's many users in Latin America's largest country.

WhatsApp was cut off in Brazil at 2pm on Monday afternoon after a judge in the remote northeastern state of Sergipe ordered Brazil's five main wireless operators to block access to the app. This was the second such freeze in five months, apparently related to court demands that the company release information related to a criminal investigation.

The order was lifted when an appeals judge on Tuesday ruled in favor of an injunction by WhatsApp's lawyers, the court said in a statement. ...

California-based WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, had said in a statement on Monday that it was "disappointed" at the judge's decision to suspend its services. It said it had done the utmost to cooperate with Brazilian tribunals, but it did not possess the information the court was requesting.

The company has said in the past that it does not store encrypted information from WhatsApp messages.

Brazil's ex-president Lula charged in secret Petrobras case, says report

Brazil’s prosecutor general has charged the former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva with participating in a scheme to buy the silence of a former executive at state-run oil company Petrobras, newspaper Estado de S.Paulo has reported.

Lula’s name was included in the case against Senator Delcidio do Amaral, who in December was charged with obstructing Brazil’s largest ever corruption investigation for trying to stop Nestor Cervero from collaborating, the paper said. ...

Estado de S.Paulo obtained court documents showing the prosecutor general, Rodrigo Janot, had charged Lula, Rousseff’s predecessor and mentor. The case is proceeding in secret at the supreme court and the federal prosecutors’ office would not confirm the charge.

The supreme court did confirm on Tuesday that Janot asked for Lula and several of Rousseff’s ministers to be formally investigated, including chief of staff Jaques Wagner; the minister in charge of legislative affairs, Ricardo Berzoini; and Rousseff’s spokesman Edinho Silva.

Janot is expanding the investigation largely because of testimony from Amaral, who decided to collaborate with the investigation in exchange for a lighter sentence. The court was already investigating some 50 politicians, including the leaders of both houses of Congress

Italian Court Rules Stealing Food is Not a Crime If You are Poor and Hungry

Stealing food if you are hungry and poor is not a crime, Italy's highest appeals court ruled on Monday.

Judges with the Supreme Court of Cassation overturned a theft conviction against a Ukrainian man who stole $4.50 (€4.07) of sausage and cheese from a supermarket in Genoa in 2011, finding that he had taken the food "in the face of immediate and essential need for nourishment."

In 2015, the man, Roman Ostriakov, was sentenced to six months in jail and ordered to pay a $115 (€100) fine.

"The condition of the defendant and the circumstances in which the merchandise theft took place prove that he took possession of that small amount of food in the face of the immediate and essential need for nourishment, acting therefore in a state of need," the court ruled on Monday. For that reason, the theft "does not constitute a crime."

An op-ed in the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera pointed out, it took three rounds of court rulings before a case concerning $4 of goods, "in a country burdened with [$69 billion] a year of corruption," was overturned. It is "unthinkable" that the law made no note that hundreds of people become homeless in Italy every day, the editorial by Goffredo Buccini said.

Revolutionary, Strike Leader & Columnist: Juan González Retires from NY Daily News After 29 Years

Who Can Go After Banks for the Foreclosure Crisis?

In the wake of the housing crisis, surprisingly few people or institutions have been held accountable for the risky lending practices that nearly wrecked the U.S. economy. That’s partly because the people who were most damaged by the foreclosure crisis—the people who lost their homes—don’t have the resources to bring lawsuits.

Cities [...] lost tax revenue when homes sat vacant, and saw property values within their boundaries decrease when vacant and boarded-up homes sat empty. Cities had to pay for police and fire protection to keep those homes from being vandalized and to respond to reported break-ins and criminal activity at the houses.

So should cities be able to sue the banks, too? ...

That’s the question making its way through courts across the country after municipalities including Los Angeles, Miami, Oakland, and Providence all filed lawsuits against lenders under the Fair Housing Act. ... Oakland, for instance, argues in its complaint against Wells Fargo that the city “has suffered economic injury based upon reduced property tax revenues resulting from (a) the decreased value of the vacant properties themselves, and (b) the decreased value of properties surrounding the vacant properties.” Last month a judge declined to dismiss the suit. ...

Those violations themselves could be very costly to the banks, but the much, much bigger question at stake is whether the cities even have standing to bring the cases. If they do, that will be a nightmare for banks, which could face lawsuits from every corner of the country if indeed the cities can bring such cases. Much to the horror of the lenders, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in September that Miami did indeed have standing to bring its case against Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Citigroup. (A similar suit by Miami against JP Morgan Chase has been dismissed, though the city is appealing.)

Verizon Accused of Deceptive Practices as Historic Strike Perseveres

Three weeks after roughly 40,000 Verizon workers began a historic work stoppage to protest the "corporate greed" of the telecom company, the union behind the strike joined pubic interest groups in charging Verizon with "systematically deceiving customers" as part of its push to transfer users from copper telephone wires to fiber service.

The informal complaint (pdf) to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was filed Tuesday by Common Cause, Public Knowledge, the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and several other groups.

It charges that the internal Verizon policy known as "Fiber Is the Only Fix" both deceives customers and constitutes "unjust and unreasonable practices" that violate federal law. It also alleges that Verizon has been giving retail customers as little as 15 days notice before ending their copper service, when FCC rules say they must be given at least 90 days notice.

A press statement from CWA explained:

When a "Fiber is the Only Fix" customer calls in with trouble on their line—such as no dial tone or noise on the line—Verizon creates a "ghost" service order to transfer the customer to fiber service. The service order is called a "ghost" service order because the customer is not told about it.

Verizon then dispatches a technician on the ghost service order. The technician is instructed not to discuss the purpose of the dispatch prior to arriving at the customer’s location. At that time, the technician informs the customer that Verizon no longer repairs copper lines, and the customer must upgrade to fiber. If the customer does not want to upgrade to fiber, Verizon will not allow the technician to repair the copper line and advises the customer that Verizon will disconnect the line.

A Verizon official confirmed to the New York Times that "the company writes up a 'ghost' service order to switch a customer's service before it sends a technician to investigate a problem. The company even uses a ghost icon that resembles a character in the Pac-Man video games to indicate that the company hopes to make the switch."

US private sector adds 156,000 jobs in April for slowest growth in three years

US companies added jobs at the slowest pace in three years in April, a private survey found, a sign that slower growth and volatile financial markets could weigh on hiring.

Payroll processor ADP says that businesses added 156,000 jobs in April, down from 194,000 in March. Manufacturers shed 11,000 jobs, after losing 3,000 the previous month. Services firms added 166,000, down from 189,000.

Detroit teacher 'sickout' enters day two as 45,000 students miss class

Nearly every school in Detroit was closed for the second straight day on Tuesday, once again causing more than 45,000 students to miss class because of a funding crisis that has put the city at odds with teachers.

The Detroit Teachers Federation called for a mass sickout after the school district’s management announced over the weekend that it would not be able to pay teachers in the summer.

Union leaders met with district leadership on Monday but did not reach an agreement. That night, the union said teachers were not expected to return to work. “We do not work for free and therefore we do not expect you to report to school tomorrow,” the union wrote. ...

Judge Steven Rhodes, who approved the city’s post-bankruptcy reorganization plan in 2014, was appointed the school district’s emergency manager in March. He succeeded Darnell Earley, who resigned in February amid criticism over his central role in the Flint water crisis.

Rhodes announced that teachers would not be paid in the summer on Saturday. On Monday, he said he understood teachers’ frustrations, but thought the sickout was “unnecessary”.

The union’s interim president, Ivy Bailey, said on Monday night that Rhodes again refused to guarantee teacher’s full pay during discussions with union leadership. Without a deal, teachers who chose to get paid through the summer will not receive money they are owed for work they did before the 30 June deadline.

The mainstream media are shocked by Sanders' win.

Bernie Sanders pulls off shock victory over Hillary Clinton in Indiana

Bernie Sanders threw a last-minute hurdle in front of Hillary Clinton’s march toward the Democratic party nomination on Tuesday by clinching a surprise victory in the Indiana primary.

Despite trailing by an average of seven points in opinion polls and losing a string of bigger, more diverse states on the east coast, Sanders once again proved his appeal to disaffected midwest voters by pulling off his 18th victory of 2016, according to Associated Press projections.

Sanders seemed on track to win a narrow majority of the 83 delegates on offer. With 93% reporting, Sanders had 52.7% of the vote to Clinton’s 47.3%.

Sanders said: “The Clinton campaign thinks this campaign is over. They’re wrong. Maybe it’s over for the insiders and the party establishment, but the voters in Indiana had a different idea.”

The political revolution wins in Indiana! Thank you. pic.twitter.com/Ix7wutAw2g

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 4, 2016

Strong Majority of Democratic Voters Agree: Sanders Should Fight to the End

The majority of left-leaning voters want Bernie Sanders to stay in the presidential race, a new poll reveals.

Just as the Vermont senator is promising to take his candidacy all the way to the Democratic convention in Philadelphia in July—and contest the delegate allocation if necessary—voters around the country are expressing just how much they believe in him and what his candidacy represents.

A full 89 percent of Sanders supporters say they would like to see him stay in the race until July, with 57 percent of Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters agreeing, according to the NBC News/SurveyMonkey survey released Tuesday.

The poll also finds a "sizeable" 28 percent of rival Hillary Clinton's base wanting the same.

Clinton: FBI hasn't contacted me for email interview

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said the FBI has not contacted her as part of its investigation into her personal email server.

“No,” Clinton responded after MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell asked if the agency had contacted her for an interview. ...

FBI Director James Comey said last month that his agency feels no pressure to finish the probe before the Democratic National Convention in July, when Clinton is expected to become the Democratic presidential nominee.

“The urgency is to do it well and do it promptly,” Comey told The Niagara Gazette. "And ‘well’ comes first. [I’m staying] close to this one to make sure we have the resources to do it competently.”

"Slickest Con Man Out of NYC": Donald Trump Set to Be GOP Nominee Despite Links to Organized Crime

It's Over: Trump Zeroes In On Nomination, Cruz Drops Out After Indiana Loss

Donald Trump swept the Indiana primary on Tuesday evening, forcing Senator Ted Cruz to finally bow out of the presidential race and essentially hand the Republican nomination to Trump.

Trump led his Republican rivals with around 53 percent on of the vote according to CNN projections. The frontrunner dealt a fatal loss to Senator Ted Cruz, who banked much of his faltering campaign on defeating Trump in Indiana on Tuesday night.

"From the very beginning I said i would continue on as long as there was a viable path to victory," Cruz said, speaking to an audibly distraught crowd of supporters in Indianapolis, Indiana. "Tonight I'm sorry to say it appears that path has been foreclosed."

"We left it all on the field in Indiana," Cruz continued before ending his speech without endorsing or even mentioning Trump.

.@realDonaldTrump will be presumptive @GOP nominee, we all need to unite and focus on defeating @HillaryClinton #NeverClinton

— Reince Priebus (@Reince) May 4, 2016

Cruz's withdrawal from the race concludes one of the most brutal days of sparring between him and Trump so far during the primary race. Cruz unleashed on the GOP frontrunner earlier on Tuesday, calling him a "narcissist," "utterly amoral" and "pathological liar." Trump responded with a statement calling Cruz "unhinged."

Republican contender John Kasich ends campaign https://t.co/MZaadkmXeN pic.twitter.com/CJEEWYbVSF

— Newshub (@NewshubNZ) May 4, 2016

Backtracking on Clean Energy, Clinton Turns Chameleon on Coal

Campaigning in Appalachia on Monday, Hillary Clinton claimed she "misspoke" when previously declaring her opposition to coal, telling voters that as president she would work to ensure that the dirtiest of the fossil fuels will "continue to be sold and continue to be mined."

Arriving in Williamson, West Virginia—the heart of coal country—the Democratic frontrunner was greeted by a wall of protesters who were angry over remarks she made in March foretelling the end of the coal industry.

During the March 13 town hall event, Clinton said that her energy policy would "bring economic opportunity—using clean, renewable energy as the key—into coal country. Because we’re going to put a lot of coal companies and coal miners out of business."

And earlier, at a November press conference announcing her League of Conservation Voters endorsement, the presidential hopeful declared, "We have to move away from coal. Everybody understands that. There's no doubt about it."

While those comments were celebrated by environmentalists, they aroused the ire of people dependent on coal jobs, such as Bo Copley, a former coal company employee who was one of the West Virginia residents who met with Clinton on Monday.

During their discussion, Copley referenced those previous remarks, asking: "I just want you to know—how can you say you’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs and then come in here and tell us you’re going to be our friend?" He added that the protesters outside "don’t see you as a friend."

Clinton apologized for the "misstatement" and said she was "sad and sorry" that people had "misused her comments."

Gripped by Climate Disruption, World on Brink of Global Water Crisis

Rising demand combined with increasingly 'erratic and uncertain' supply could reduce water availability in cities by as much as two thirds by 2050

Global water shortages, exacerbated by human-caused climate change, are likely to spur conflict and migration across the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa—all while negatively impacting regional economies, according to a new World Bank report published Tuesday.

Rising demand combined with increasingly "erratic and uncertain" supply could reduce water availability in cities by as much as two thirds by 2050, compared to 2015 levels, the report warns. Meanwhile, "food price spikes caused by droughts can inflame latent conflicts and drive migration," a World Bank press statement reads.

The report further cautions: "Unless action is taken soon, water will become scarce in regions where it is currently abundant—such as Central Africa and East Asia—and scarcity will greatly worsen in regions where water is already in short supply—such as the Middle East and the Sahel in Africa.

Canada's Oil Capital Is Being Evacuated As Wildfires Spread Rapidly

The mayor of Wood Buffalo, Alberta ordered the immediate evacuation of Fort McMurray on Tuesday afternoon, after wild fires rapidly doubled in size and engulfed the city's main highway.

The massive fires caught the city by surprise, and have left residents scrambling to get out.

Fort McMurray is the home to the Canadian oilsands, which pumps billions of dollars of oil out of the ground — and into the Canadian economy — every year. The fires, if they continue advancing, could threaten much of that infrastructure. ...

Overnight, the forest fires spread rapidly, covering more than 2,500 hectares and wiping out some homes in the area.

By Tuesday afternoon, the fire reached the city's downtown core.

Dozens of fire fighters are battling the blaze, and eight aircraft have been deployed.

Canada wildfire: Thousands evacuated as blaze threatens oil sands town

'We're like second-class citizens': Flint's struggle continues as Obama visits

Since 12-year-old Flint resident Jeremiah Loren contracted a debilitating bacterial infection that has rankled his stomach, his grades have dropped dramatically, he’s missed four months of school this year, and there are days he doesn’t even get out of bed.

Jeremiah, who has tested positive for elevated blood levels, first contracted the infection a few months after the Flint switched the city’s water supply to a corrosive local river. His mother, Tammy Loren, attributes his illness directly to the city of Flint, Michigan’s contaminated water supply. ...

As Barack Obama treks north to Flint on Wednesday at the behest of an 8-year-old resident, he’ll be greeted by a city ensnared in a cascade of ongoing issues similar to the Lorens’. The water crisis, now entering its third year, has done more than shatter residents’ trust in their government: there are potentially long-term health consequences, a lack of funding to remove the network of lead piping, and an unnerving reliance on bottled water, as officials have yet to declare it’s safe for residents to drink their tap water without a filter.

“They don’t give a damn about us and they ain’t been giving a damn about us,” said Nayyirah Shariff, 39, an activist and member of the Flint Democracy Defense League. “Like we’re a poor community, so they’re like screw poor people … screw people of color? They just don’t give a damn.” ...

Though Obama’s visit has created a glimmer of optimism, some believe the trip should have occurred months ago. The president was in Detroit for the North American International Auto Show in January, where he addressed the “terrible tragedy” of Flint.

“I feel like Obama should’ve been here,” said Nakiya Wakes, 40, a resident and activist. “It took a little girl to write him for him to come.”

Repression Has Become the Norm in Honduras

Australia's Government to Wipe Out Carp Using Herpes Virus

Australian politicians are declaring "Carp-ageddon" on the country's most abundant fish pest. Their weapon of choice? Herpes.

The country's federal budget, released on Tuesday, allocates $15 million ($11 million USD) to the new carp-control program, which Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says is the only way to wipe out the "bottom-dwelling, mud-sucking fish." Joyce is a member of a ministerial task force focused on the problem that also includes Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Christopher Pyne, Australia's minister of industry, innovation, and science. ...

The species, also known as "European carp," breeds prolifically, allowing it to compete with native fish. Because carp have no teeth, the fish suck up fish eggs, insects, mussels, and plant matter from the riverbed, stirring up sediment. As a result, they're blamed for adversely affecting water quality and making it difficult for native fish that rely on sight to feed and survive. ...

Carp have posed a problem to American waterways as well, particularly in the Mississippi River Basin. The US has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on efforts to combat the spread of carp, using electric barriers, seismic water guns, and scent-based traps to impede their movement.

Also of Interest

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

The Pentagon Shouldn’t Get to Absolve Itself for Bombing a Hospital

Nuland Tells Cyprus To Cut Russian Ties – Pressures Anastasiades To Accept Nato Plan For Turkish Troops In Cyprus

War Equals Profit in the Wild West of the Syria-Jordan DMZ

Q&A: When Is a Boot on the Ground Not a Boot on the Ground?

Shying Away from 9/11 Evidence

Donald Trump in South Sudan

DNC Chairwoman Alienates Independents With Defense Of Closed Primaries

The Real Heroes of the Flint Water Crisis

Arcosanti – the unfinished answer to suburban sprawl

A Little Night Music

Speckled Red - Oh Red!

Speckled Red - Cow Cow Blues

Speckled Red - Speckled Red's Blues

Speckled Red - Welfare Blues

Speckled Red - Woke Up This Morning

Speckled Red - Early in the Morning

Speckled Red - The Dirty Dozen

Speckled Red - Dad's Piece

Speckled Red - It Feels So Good