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“Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.”

-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

News and Opinion

Noam Chomsky: Survival of Organized Human Life is at Risk Due to Climate Change & Nuclear Weapons

Will Donald Trump Get in the Way of the Best Chance in More Than a Decade to End the War in Afghanistan?

For a brief few days this June, the long-suffering people of Afghanistan had a glimpse of what their country might look like at peace. Out of respect for the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Fitr, the Taliban and the Afghan government announced a historic three-day truce, building on previous temporary ceasefire agreements made by the warring parties. The agreement led to scenes reminiscent of the famous World War I “Christmas Truce,” with Taliban and government fighters — who had just days earlier been trying to kill each other — embracing, taking selfies, and exchanging gifts.

After several decades of nearly unremitting warfare — triggered by the Soviet Union’s invasion of the country in the 1979 and punctuated by civil wars and NATO intervention — many Afghans have clearly had enough. In recent months, a grassroots peace movement emerged, consisting of ordinary people who have held protest marches across the country to demand an end to the violence. While recent ceasefires have not been extended indefinitely, there are indications that the political leadership on both sides, as well as the U.S. military, is taking seriously the idea of negotiating an end to the conflict. ...

So is Afghanistan heading towards a new era of peace, free from the nightmare of armed conflict? And is the United States on the precipice of ending its grueling 17-year military occupation of the country? ... “In many ways the mood music is there for serious peace talks. We are now at the milestone of 40 years of war in Afghanistan and the situation is unsustainable. The conflict can’t continue without external aid to both sides. They have to talk to each other eventually, why not now?” says Kate Clark, co-director of the Afghan Analysts Network. “The Eid ceasefire was immensely helpful for allowing everyone a glimpse of what a peaceful Afghanistan could look like. It provided a humanizing picture of both sides, and the spontaneous nature of the fraternization between low-level Taliban and government forces was important. The Taliban leadership was shocked and dismayed by this. It’s more difficult to motivate your troops if they’ve just been drinking tea and praying with the enemy.” ...

Despite the hopeful signs, some experts feel that a peaceful outcome in the foreseeable future is still unlikely. And the major culprit behind this might wind up being the Trump administration. Despite signs that it is willing to speak to the Taliban, the administration has shown little ability or willingness to negotiate the wider regional agreements that would be needed to put an end to the war. President Donald Trump’s decision to renege on the Iranian nuclear deal has significantly ramped up tensions with that country. The leadership in Iran, Afghanistan’s western neighbor, has been incentivized to play a spoiler to any U.S.-led agreement, rather than supporting it. And U.S. relations with other countries in the region have not been much more hopeful in terms of consensus-building.

“I think it’s clear that the Taliban, the Afghan government, and the Afghan people as a whole are more ready for peace than ever. At this point, there is a need for assurances from the U.S. side that they will be willing to withdraw their troops, or at least modify their deployments, and that they will accept the result of talks among Afghans,” said Barnett Rubin, a senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. “The problem is that any sustainable peace deal also needs to have involvement from other countries in the region, including Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan, and India. The current administration is unable to even cooperate with Canada, so successfully engineering such a deal doesn’t seem very likely.”

Palestinian protest icon Ahed Tamimi released from Israeli prison

Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi says no regrets after release from Israeli prison

Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi said Monday she was deeply changed by her eight-month sentence in an Israeli jail for slapping two soldiers, but does not regret any of her actions. Tamimi, who was 16 when she was arrested in December for hitting and kicking soldiers in front of her house in the occupied West Bank, was released Sunday and swarmed by media from across the globe.

In an interview the day after her release, the now 17-year-old told AFP that she understood she had become a "symbol" of the Palestinian cause. "Of course my life has been changed a lot. I changed a lot in prison," said Tamimi. ...

Asked if she would have done the same thing if she had known it would land her behind bars for months, she said yes. She pointed to the circumstances in which the soldiers had entered the garden of her house in December during a day of major protests that saw her cousin shot in the head with a rubber bullet. "I didn't do anything wrong that I should regret," she said.

"If I had known I would be in jail eight months, of course I would have done it because it was a natural reaction to a soldier being in my house shooting at people, people from my village," she said. "Any person in this situation -- I hit him, maybe there are people that would have killed him." ...

Tamimi said she hoped to study law to expose the issue of Israel's occupation to the rest of the world.

Noam Chomsky Condemns Israel’s Shift to Far Right & New “Jewish Nation-State” Law

Egypt Responds to Trump's Lifting of Military Aid Ban by Sentencing 75 Anti-Coup Protesters to Death

Egypt on Saturday sentenced 75 people to death for taking part in a 2013 sit-in protest against the military ouster of democratically elected president Mohammed Morsi—a court decision that came days after the United States sent "the wrong message to one of the most abusive governments in Egypt's recent history" by restoring $195 million in military aid to the nation.

The dozens sentenced in Saturday's ruling are among 739 defendants, including members of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood and members of the press, the government is targeting over their participating in the protest. The day became known as the al-Rabaa Massacre, as security forces under the command of now-President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi killed hundreds of people in a matter of hours. 

The lifting of the blocked military aid was announced last week, with the Trump administration commending purported "steps Egypt has taken over the last year in response to specific U.S. concerns." The administration had withheld aid last year, citing "serious concerns regarding human rights and governance in Egypt."

Rather than making any gains, however, Amr Magdi, Middle East and North Africa researcher with Human Rights Watch, argues that the county is actually in the midst of "intensifying crackdown on human rights by the Egyptian authorities." As such, "The decision to release the funds despite a significant deterioration in the rights situation in Egypt is both baffling and troubling."

Trump blasts back after New York Times publisher decries 'enemy of the people' attacks

Hours after saying he had a “very good meeting” with the publisher of the New York Times about his labelling the press the “enemy of the people”, Donald Trump launched a blistering attack on “anti-Trump haters in the dying newspaper industry”.

“The failing New York Times and the Amazon Washington Post do nothing but write bad stories even on very positive achievements,” Trump tweeted. “And they will never change!”

Earlier, the White House confirmed Trump met Times publisher AG Sulzberger on 20 July. Sulzberger then issued a statement that opened an exchange over whose activities were more damaging to America. Sulzberger said he had raised “concerns about the president’s deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric” and “implored him to reconsider his broader attacks on journalism, which I believe are dangerous and harmful to our country”.

Sulzberger did not say how the president responded. Hours later, Trump obliged. In a multi-tweet rant, he claimed reports on “internal deliberations of our government … truly put the lives of many, not just journalists, at risk”. He added: “Freedom of the press also comes with a responsibility to report the news accurately.” Claiming without evidence that “90% of media coverage of my administration is negative”, Trump said he would “not allow our great country to be sold out by anti-Trump haters in the dying newspaper industry”.

Europe’s far-right just got a dangerous boost from an Austrian judge

Europe's youth-focused Identitarian movement was already one of the most influential groups on the Continent's rising far-right scene. Now a high-stakes court ruling that could have shut down the group’s Austrian operations has gone the movement’s way — and observers say it’s only emboldened the extremists. Leaders of the Identitarian Movement say they have been vindicated after a judge in the district court of Grazer Strafland acquitted 17 members and sympathizers on charges of belonging to a criminal organization and hate speech.

Ten prominent members of the group, including 29-year-old co-leader Martin Sellner, and seven sympathizers, had been on trial in the city of Graz this month, following a two-year-long investigation into their activities. But last Thursday, all 17 – 16 men and one woman, aged 20 to 35 — were found not guilty of criminal association and hate speech. The judge ruled that although members of the group may have committed individual crimes, the Identitarian movement was not at its core a criminal organization. ...

The Identitarians were buoyant in the wake of the verdicts, trumpeting the acquittals on social media as a vindication of their activism. “Love of the homeland is not a crime,” the group said in a statement. Two of the accused were found guilty and fined on lesser charges. One was convicted of bodily harm and coercion and fined 720 euros ($843) for an altercation when the group stormed a lecture on refugee policy at Klagenfurt University in 2016, unfurling a banner which read "Integration is a lie." Another was convicted of property damage and fined 240 euros ($281). ...

Austria is a hub of Generation Identity, the far-right pan-European movement that is opposed to immigration, particularly from Muslim countries. The group’s goal is to mainstream debate on issues such as immigration and multiculturalism, by abandoning the politically toxic symbols of the traditional far-right and presenting what they intend to be a more palatable version of their xenophobic politics. The group generally avoids openly racist statements, instead couching its opposition to mass immigration in rhetoric about a “Great Replacement.”

Qatar accused of running “black ops” against rival World Cup bids

Qatar ran a “black ops” campaign to sabotage rival bids ahead of being awarded the 2022 World Cup, according to a whistleblower speaking to the Sunday Times. The bombshell report claims England, the U.S. and Australia were all victims of a coordinated dirty tricks campaign. The whistleblower, who worked with the Qatari team on their World Cup bid, leaked sensitive emails to the newspaper that details smear tactics orchestrated by a New York-based public relations firm and involving former CIA agents. ...

According to the leaked emails, a secret campaign to gather dirt, create controversy and disseminate negative publicity, was coordinated in the Manhattan offices of PR agency Brown Lloyd James (BLJ), who secured lucrative contracts worth $80,000 a month from the Qatari World Cup bid. “For the past four months we have undertaken an extensive campaign to undermine the 2018/2022 candidacies of competitor countries, particularly Australia, and the U.S.” BJP president Michael Holtzman said in an email titled “Strategy” and sent to Ahmad Nimeh, a senior advisor employed by the Qatari team. The email was sent in May 2010, seven months before the FIFA committee would vote on who would host the World Cup. ...

The email details the lengths the Qatari team and its PR company were willing to go to in order to secure votes. As well as employing PR professionals, the emails revealed that a number of former CIA operatives were engaged to conduct due diligence work. Professor Dennis Coates, an economist from Maryland University, has admitted to accepting $9,000 to write a 23-page report that concluded that “U.S. taxpayers are better off saying no to an expensive and secretive World Cup bid.”

The Qatari team also engaged U.S. lobbying groups and politicians to help them undermine the U.S. bid, and they even recruited a group of American gym teachers to try and persuade their local lawmakers to stop the World Cup bid, arguing the money would be better spent on teaching resources.

'Creepy Violation of Constitutional Rights': TSA Uses Armed Undercover Air Marshals to Surveil Unsuspecting Travelers

Air marshals are conducting "secret missions" to tail ordinary travelers not suspected of a crime or on any terrorist watch list: https://t.co/u0M24Jdk3k pic.twitter.com/VINdFlxUEk

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) July 28, 2018

A domestic surveillance program called Quiet Skies—which is operated by the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, and was revealed Saturday in a "blockbuster" Boston Globe exposé—is provoking strong criticism, with the ACLU asserting that "such surveillance not only makes no sense, it's a waste of taxpayer money and raises constitutional concerns."

"Already under Quiet Skies, thousands of unsuspecting Americans have been subjected to targeted airport and inflight surveillance," the Globe reports, citing documents and people within the department. The program, which launched in March, uses armed federal air marshals to covertly monitor how U.S. citizens behave on commercial domestic flights.

The undercover marshals are required to take "notes on whether travelers use a phone, go to the bathroom, chat with others, or change clothes." In their reports to TSA, marshals may "document whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a 'jump' in their Adam's apple or a 'cold penetrating stare,' among other behaviors," according to the Globe's review of agency records. Although TSA declined to even confirm the existence of Quiet Skies—a spokesman claimed disclosing such information "would make passengers less safe"—in addition obtaining to internal records, the Globe spoke with marshals who "say the program has them tasked with shadowing travelers who appear to pose no real threat—a businesswoman who happened to have traveled through a Mideast hot spot, in one case; a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, in another; a fellow federal law enforcement officer, in a third."

"Quiet Skies represents a major departure for TSA," the newspaper notes. "Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the agency has traditionally placed armed air marshals on routes it considered potentially higher risk, or on flights with a passenger on a terrorist watch list. Deploying air marshals to gather intelligence on civilians not on a terrorist watch list is a new assignment, one that some air marshals say goes beyond the mandate of the U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service. Some also worry that such domestic surveillance might be illegal."

A New Broadband Network Is Pitching Surveillance Enhancements to Cops Across the Country

The latest technologies promise cops the ability to whip out a smartphone, take a snapshot of a passerby, and instantly learn if that person is in an immigration or gang database. A federal broadband program, designed after 9/11 to improve first responder communication during emergencies, will enhance this sort of capability and integrate it into an internet “super highway” built specifically for police and public safety. The program, called FirstNet, is already expanding the surveillance options available to law enforcement agencies across the country. ...

FirstNet is a public-private partnership that creates a dedicated lane for public safety agencies within AT&T’s existing broadband network. As of January, all U.S. states had opted in to FirstNet, meaning that they agreed not to build their own competing broadband lanes for law enforcement and public safety. Then, in March, AT&T announced that FirstNet’s core — the infrastructure that isolates police traffic from the commercial network — had become operational at last. ...

FirstNet recently pitched U.S. Customs and Border Protection to convince the agency to subscribe to the network. In a white paper, FirstNet claims its services will provide CBP access to “photographs, real-time audio/video feeds, and databases from other state, local, or Federal agencies … to aid in the identification and apprehension of terrorists, undocumented aliens, and smugglers.” These capabilities would be offered “in times of crisis or simply day-to-day operations.”

In the pitch, FirstNet also promises to help agents “connect to critical databases to identify whether detained persons have been previously apprehended for violating immigration law by quickly and efficiently collecting biographic (e.g., name, date of birth, place of birth) and biometric information (e.g., 10-print fingerprints, photo image), which are submitted remotely to said databases.” The document also promotes FirstNet’s support of other data-heavy technologies, such as live video streaming from drones.

Trump threatens government shutdown over immigration

Donald Trump said on Sunday he would allow the federal government to shut down if Democrats refuse to back major changes to immigration laws. “I would be willing to ‘shut down’ government if the Democrats do not give us the votes for Border Security,” the president tweeted, “which includes the Wall! Must get rid of Lottery, Catch & Release etc. and finally go to system of Immigration based on MERIT! We need great people coming into our Country!”

The federal government has already shut down twice this year, first over a failed deal for Dreamers, young undocumented migrants brought to the country as children, then over a funding bill.

Following a day of relative silence on Twitter on Saturday, Trump’s shutdown tweet was part of an early Sunday broadside on immigration.

Here’s how many immigrant children still haven’t been reunited with their parents

Thursday was the court-ordered deadline for the government to reunify the remaining 2,531 children aged 5 or older who were separated from their parents at the border either before or since the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy went into effect. But almost a third of all children are still not reunited, according to government data provided in court filings. As of 6 p.m. EST Thursday, the government had reunited 1,442 children aged 5 or older with their parents in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security maintain that they have met the deadline to reunite all eligible parents with their children — but they are relying on their own definition of what eligible means.

Parents deemed ineligible to reunite with their children include 443 people who have already been deported. Another 79 children have a parent who has been released into the interior, and 94 children have parents whose location is “under case file review.”

Further complicating efforts to track the government’s progress was a sudden shift in the metric used to count reunifications. Government lawyers had been citing the number of parents who were eligible to be reunited with their children — 1,637 — but in Thursday’s court filing, the government switched to counting children. Some parents may have more than one child, so the new number of 1,442 children doesn’t actually tell us whether all 1,637 eligible parents were reunified with their kids.

New Orleans cops who beat man they called a “fake American” could face hate crime charges

Two New Orleans police officers might face hate crime charges after they allegedly beat up a Latino man outside a bar earlier this week, following a dispute over his military record in which the officers called him a “fake American.” John Galmon, 26, and Spencer Sutton, 24, both rookie cops who hadn’t yet completed their probationary period, were off-duty at the time of the incident, which occurred in the early hours of Tuesday morning at the Mid-City Yacht Club, a neighborhood sports bar.

The victim, 39-year-old Jorge Gomez, spoke to local news outlets later on Tuesday after he was released from the hospital. Gomez, who says he's a military veteran and served in the National Guard, told reporters that it all started when Galman and Sutton called him over to interrogate him about his nationality and the camouflage clothing he was wearing. “He told me I was a fake American,” said Gomez, his face badly bruised and his forehead full of stitches. “And that I wasn’t in the National Guard, either. I told him I served a tour of duty in Iraq.” Gomez didn’t specify which officer made the offending comments.

Gomez — who told the New Orleans Advocate that he was born in the United States, grew up in Honduras, and then moved back to New Orleans as an adult — said that although he tried to walk away, the officers wanted to engage and started to hit him. He also recalled them threatening him, saying, “You’re going to die.”

Galman and Sutton were arrested and charged with misdemeanor charges of simple battery. They both pleaded not guilty Wednesday, and Sutton claims that he has “no specific memory” of the fight that led to his arrest. ... Police Superintendent Michael Harrison said Tuesday that multiple video accounts and eyewitness statements “clearly demonstrate that our officers were the aggressors in this incident.” Galman and Sutton have since been fired.

Rand Paul reverses on threat to oppose Trump supreme court pick

Rand Paul had publicly suggested he might not support Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s second supreme court nominee. On Monday, he endorsed him.

The Kentucky senator said he would back Kavanaugh despite misgivings about the judge’s views on surveillance and privacy.

Few had expected Paul would oppose Trump’s pick in the end.

In March, the Kentucky senator said he would do “whatever it takes” to block the approval of Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, over the former congressman’s views on the Iraq war and interventionist foreign policy. In April, Paul flipped and approved the nomination. In May, Paul did vote against Gina Haspel, Trump’s pick to succeed Pompeo at the CIA, over her role in the agency’s historic use of torture. She was confirmed anyway, thanks to Democratic swing votes.

Paul’s endorsement gave Kavanaugh a boost as he prepared to sit down on Monday afternoon with Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, who backed Haspel and is again seen by Republicans as a likely pickup.

The “Mulvaney Discount”: Trump’s Consumer Protection Czar Is Shrinking Fines for Law-Breaking Companies

There's a hot new trend in Donald Trump’s Washington: the “Mulvaney discount.” After pausing enforcement work when Acting Director Mick Mulvaney took over, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been on a relative tear, announcing five civil settlements of cases begun under Mulvaney’s predecessor, Richard Cordray. But in at least three of them, CFPB has explicitly reduced the fine handed down against corporate offenders to a fraction of the initial amount. The smaller fines mean softer punishment for violations of law and, in some cases, less restitution to victims of the misconduct.

In two of the cases, CFPB claimed that the companies and individuals in question didn’t have the financial means to pay the fine. That’s an excuse more commonly reserved for the types of indigent populations the CFPB is supposed to protect from financial predators, though the American justice system rarely treats impoverished defendants with such mercy.

“A pattern is emerging of greater willingness [to discount fines] than we saw in bureau cases in the past,” said Christopher Peterson, former enforcement counsel of the CFPB during the Obama administration, who now teaches law at the University of Utah.

Peterson could only remember a couple of cases during the previous five years of the bureau’s existence when fines were reduced. And in those rare cases, CFPB did so to maximize restitution to victims of fraud and abuse — the smaller fine left more money for victims. Here, those victims are often being shortchanged. Transparency as to why has been lacking. “The thing for me that’s most puzzling is the bureau doesn’t seem to have an articulable justification for why it is that fines are being suspended,” Peterson said.

Obama Joins Club of the Super-Rich – Defends Global Capitalism in Lecture

Donald Trump, 'worst politician ever', on path to re-election, Thomas Frank says

Donald Trump is “the worst politician ever” but he’s on a path to re-election because the Democratic party refuses to counter his courtship of working class disaffection, says the American political analyst and historian Thomas Frank. Frank, who is in Australia for events organised by the Chifley Research Centre, told the Guardian: “Trump is his own worst enemy of course – that news conference with Vladimir Putin – it’s just insane what this guy does ... but he could blunder into re-election, hell yeah.”

He said the US economy was rebounding and unemployment was as low as it had been since the 1960s, “and if this continues, then wages will go up, and when wages go up, whoever is president becomes very, very popular”.

“If Trump were to stop tweeting, keep his mouth shut and stop picking trade wars, then, yes, he could be re-elected,” Frank said on Monday. The American has written a number of bestselling books charting the decline of the middle class and expressing frustration with left political parties abandoning the interests of working people in an effort to court the professional class.

Frank said Trump was “uniquely dangerous” as a political figure, and that required the left to reconnect with working people to counter “the long turn of the American right towards populism”.

“I am absolutely certain the way for a left party to beat that stuff is not to join it and bid for the bigot vote, but to counter fake populism with the real deal,” Frank said. “There is a labourist, workerist populism that has been around for more than 100 years, is deep in the American grain, and is very popular, but the Democratic party simply doesn’t believe in it any more.”

Therapists say ‘Trump anxiety disorder’ is a real thing in US

Because He "Won't Let Go of His Corporate Polluter Past," EPA Chief Andrew Wheeler Already Facing Lawsuit and Call for Ethics Probe

Acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Andrew Wheeler hasn't even been on the job for a full month, and he's already facing a lawsuit from one of the nation's most prominent environmental groups and a call for an ethics probe, after it was reported that he has repeatedly violated vows to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

According to an E&E News review of public documents, Wheeler—a former coal lobbyist—has "had at least three meetings with former clients" and "attended other events that prominently included the head of a company he is currently prohibited from getting involved with" since being confirmed as deputy EPA administrator in April.

Citing E&E's report, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.)—the second ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the ranking member of its subcommittee on oversight—called on the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) to open a probe into Wheeler's conduct. "As a former coal lobbyist, and as the successor to scandal-tarred Scott Pruitt, Andrew Wheeler should know better than to break his ethics pledge," Beyer told the Huffington Post on Thursday. "If these reports are true, he did so repeatedly."

In a bid to find out more about Wheeler's meetings with industry insiders and other potential ethical transgressions, the Sierra Club this week sued the EPA for Wheeler's internal communications—an approach that elicited damning and often downright bizarre information from former EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who resigned in disgrace earlier this month. ...

Since Pruitt's resignation earlier this month, Wheeler has picked up right where his predecessor left off by pursuing policies that reward big polluters while harming the planet and the public.

Hottest Four Years Ever? 2015. 2016. 2017. 2018?

According to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 2018 is on pace to be the fourth hottest year on record. Only three other years have been hotter: 2015, 2016 and 2017. "The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle," Michael Mann, a climate scientist and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, told CNN. "We are seeing them play out in real time in the form of unprecedented heat waves, floods, droughts and wildfires. And we've seen them all this summer," he said.

Even more than extreme weather, climate change is best exemplified by the consistent rise in temperatures year after year.

New NOAA data released Friday shows:

NOAA shows that the first half of 2018 was characterized by warmer to much-warmer-than-average conditions across the Earth's land and ocean surfaces. Record warmth was present across portions of the global oceans as well as parts of the Mediterranean Sea and surrounding areas. New Zealand and small areas across North America, Asia and Australia also had record warm year-to-date temperatures. Cooler-than-average conditions were limited to the eastern and central tropical Pacific Ocean, central tropical Indian Ocean, the North Atlantic Ocean, and parts of western Russia and eastern Canada. No land or ocean areas had record cold January–June temperatures.

Averaged as a whole, the combined land and ocean surface temperature for the globe during January–June 2018 was 0.77°C (1.39°F) above the 20th century average and the fourth highest since global records began in 1880. The global land-only temperature was the fifth highest on record at +1.19°C (+2.14°F). The global ocean-only temperature of 0.60°C (1.08°F) above average was also the fifth highest on record.

Five of six continents had a January–June temperature that ranked among the ten warmest such period on record. Europe, Africa, and Oceania had a January–June temperature that ranked among the five highest since continental records began in 1910.

The Swedish town on the frontline of the Arctic wildfires

Until this month, nobody would have imagined that the bucolic Lapland town of Jokkmokk could be home to one of the world’s busiest fire brigades. ... But after two freakishly hot, dry months in Sweden and much of the Arctic and Europe, this station has found itself alarmingly overstretched. In just 12 days, they have had to tackle eight wildfires, the biggest of which tore across an area of boreal forest the size of 900 football pitches and sent smoke billowing through the Lule valley. ...

“We have forest fires every year, but never so many big ones in such a short time,” said the acting chief of the fire station, Gunnar Lundström, who went 43 hours without sleep during the peak period of the recent blazes. ... “It’s an extraordinary summer. We’ve hardly had rain in two months and it’s been very hot. We never used to get temperatures above 30C.” ...

The Arctic Circle and surrounding northern climes might once have been considered a refuge, but global warming is more pronounced in these regions than elsewhere. Satellites have recently tracked massive fires in Siberia that have sent clouds of smoke across the north pole to Greenland and Canada. Norwegian authorities have reported three times more wildfires already than are normal in an entire year. Sweden has been hit by more than 60 forest fires this month, forcing the evacuations of three communities, disrupting train services and prompting appeals for help under the European Union’s civil protection mechanism. France has dispatched soldiers, Italy sent water bombing aircraft, while Denmark, Norway and Estonia also provided fire fighters and equipment.

Most of the fires are in south and central Sweden, but even Lapland in the north has suffered. Over-extended fire services have relied on local communities for help near the frontline. Among Jokkmokk’s population of 3,100, this has meant teachers, students, holidaymakers and asylum seekers taking up hoses to douse down the forest near the fires.

Whether the Arctic blazes prove the exception or the norm depends how climate change unfolds. Scientists have warned that lightning strikes are likely to become more frequent as more energy enters the atmosphere from a warming planet. Weather fronts – both hot and cold – are also lingering longer which makes their impacts such as drought or flood more pronounced. For now, the situation in Jokkmokk is under control. But blazes still rage elsewhere in Sweden and another dry spell here followed by wind could whip up new fires.

Also of Interest

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

Ahed Tamimi: 'I am a freedom fighter. I will not be the victim'

Ahed Tamimi and Her Mother are Freed from Jail

Be Suspicious Of Everyone Who Habitually Defends The Powerful From The Weak

Reunited With Their Children, Immigrant Mothers Find Themselves in a Strange and Unforgiving Land

After a Voicemail Threat Purportedly From ISIS, a Muslim Leader Went to the FBI — Only to Face Harassment From the Feds

Accidents at Amazon: workers left to suffer after warehouse injuries

Photo of Kissing Gay Couple Sparks Controversy at One of Brazil’s Most Important and Iconic Tourist Sites

Once a city of powerful journalism, New York loses out as cuts bite

In Refusing To Defend Assange, Mainstream Media Exposes Its True Nature

Koch-Funded Hit Piece Backfires: Shows Medicare for All Would Save 'Whopping $2 Trillion' Over Ten Years While Covering Everybody

'This Was the Plan All Along': With Workers' Wages Falling, CEOs Enjoy 'Eye-Popping' Payouts From GOP Tax Scam

A Little Night Music

Juke Boy Bonner - Houston, The Action Town

Juke Boy Bonner - True Love Waiting

Juke Boy Bonner - The Best Way To Lose The Blues

Juke Boy Bonner - Jumpin' With Juke Boy

Juke Boy Bonner - Nowhere To Run

Juke Boy Bonner - Six Over Ten

Juke Boy Bonner - Yakin' in my Plans

Juke Boy Bonner - Can't Hardly Keep from Cryin'

Juke Boy Bonner - Struggle Here In Houston

Juke Boy Bonner - Grandmas Will Dog You Around

Juke Boy Bonner - Running Shoes