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The Obama Administration Finally Revealed How Many Civilians Have Died in Drone Strikes

by AntonyDodson Posted on July 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Obama administration announced on Friday that the United States has killed a much lower number of civilians in drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia than have been previously estimated by outside researchers.

A report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said airstrikes (overwhelmingly by drones) killed between 64 and 116 civilians in those four countries from 2009 to 2015. The numbers excluded “areas of active hostilities” such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

The report is the first time the Obama administration has provided official estimates of the death toll in the secretive drone war. President Barack Obama also issued an executive order on Friday that requires the government to deliver an unclassified report on drone strikes each year that includes the number of combatants and noncombatants killed. The order also instructs the government to ramp up its efforts to avoid civilian casualties and acknowledge them when they do occur. Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, reacted to the order on Twitter by calling it a “positive step but riddled with caveats and weak formulations.”

The official numbers are significantly lower than the totals compiled by journalists and researchers. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a London-based investigative news outlet, calculates that the Obama administration has killed at least 325 civilians in drone strikes outside of war zones (and possibly hundreds more). The liberal-leaning New America Foundation counts anywhere from 247 to 294 civilian deaths. In both cases, the minimum numbers are more than double the government’s maximum estimate. Those estimates also exclude strikes in Libya.

The government’s report acknowledged that official numbers would vary from outside estimates. While calling some of the nongovernmental data “credible reporting,” the report argued that the US government is more experienced in assessing strikes, and better informed, thanks to classified information about the strikes that outside sources can’t access. “The U.S. Government uses post-strike methodologies that have been refined and honed over the years and that use information that is generally unavailable to non-governmental organizations,” it noted.

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The US Could Have Its Very Own Brexit, Samantha Bee Warns

by StefanFrank Posted on June 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Monday night’s episode of Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, our host outlined some pretty scary parallels between the UK’s Brexit vote and the United States’ presidential election in November.

“While the Brits were waking up in the ruins of their nation saying, ‘Oh God, what have we done?’ a lot of Americans were looking over and saying, ‘Oh God, what are we about to do?'” Bee said, as she showed British news clips highlighting racist outbursts, directed at Muslim and Eastern European immigrants in particular, in the aftermath of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

In the UK and in the US, “there’s the sad conservative leader who gambled the nation’s future on his ability to control the extremists in his own party and lost,” Bee says as the screen shows photos of Britain’s disgraced PM David Cameron and US Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

And Boris Johnson, “Europhobe and former mayor of London,” as well as the likeliest choice to become the next prime minister, is “basically Trump with his hair on backwards.”

But America is not Britain. In fact, not being British is kind of central to our brand, Bee says. While the UK is 87% white, the US is significantly more multiracial. And this diverse population is the key to ensuring that Trump not only loses the general election in November, she says, but loses “in a fucking landslide.”

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The US Could Have Its Very Own Brexit, Samantha Bee Warns

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Multiple Explosions Rock Ataturk Airport in Istanbul

by ylejity Posted on June 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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At least ten people are dead after explosions hit Ataturk airport in Istanbul on Tuesday, Turkey’s Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag has confirmed. The explosions reportedly took place outside the international terminal, the third largest airport in Europe.

Another Turkish official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told multiple media outlets that two suicide bombers attempted to enter the terminal but were stopped by police gunfire. The two suspects then blew themselves up.

A video posted by Yana (@yana_chizhanova) on Jun 28, 2016 at 12:02pm PDT

At least 20 people have been reported wounded.

This is a breaking news story. We will update as more news becomes available.

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Wave goodbye to California’s last nuclear plant

by Elida531785 Posted on June 22, 2016

nuclear’s unclear

Wave goodbye to California’s last nuclear plant

By on Jun 22, 2016Share

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

California’s biggest electric utility announced a plan on Tuesday to shut down the state’s last remaining nuclear power plant within the next decade. The plant, Diablo Canyon, has been controversial for decades and resurfaced in the news over the last few months as Pacific Gas & Electric approached a deadline to renew, or not, the plant’s operating license.

“California’s new energy policies will significantly reduce the need for Diablo Canyon’s electricity output,” PG&E said in a statement, pointing to the state’s massive gains in energy efficiency and renewable energy from solar and wind.

The most significant part of the plan is that it promises to replace Diablo Canyon with a “cost-effective, greenhouse gas-free portfolio of energy efficiency, renewables, and energy storage.” As I reported in February, some environmentalists were concerned that closing the plant could actually increase the state’s carbon footprint, if it were replaced by natural gas plants, as has happened elsewhere in the country when nuclear plants were shut down:

As the global campaign against climate change has gathered steam in recent years, old controversies surrounding nuclear energy have been re-ignited. For all their supposed faults — radioactive waste, links to the Cold War arms race, the specter of a catastrophic meltdown — nuclear plants have the benefit of producing huge amounts of electricity with zero greenhouse gas emissions…

A recent analysis by the International Energy Agency found that in order for the world to meet the global warming limit enshrined in the Paris climate agreement in December, nuclear’s share of global energy production will need to grow from around 11 percent in 2013 to 16 percent by 2030. (The share from coal, meanwhile, needs to shrink from 41 percent to 19 percent, and wind needs to grow from 3 percent to 11 percent.)

Michael Shellenberger, a leading voice in California’s pro-nuclear movement, estimated in February that closing Diablo Canyon “would not only shave off one-fifth of the state’s zero-carbon energy, but potentially increase the state’s emissions by an amount equivalent to putting 2 million cars on the road per year.” That estimate presupposed that the plant would be replaced by natural gas. The plan announced today — assuming it’s actually feasible — appears to remedy that concern. In a statement, Shellenberger’s group, Environmental Progress, said the plan is destined to “fail” because the notion that the plant can be replaced without increasing greenhouse gas emissions is “a big lie.”

In any case, the plant won’t be closing overnight. Over the next few years we should be able to watch an interesting case testing whether it’s possible to take nuclear power offline without worsening climate change.

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Here’s What’s Killing 4 Important Pollinators (And How You Can Stop It)

by MaybellTichenor Posted on June 17, 2016

Why are so many animals that pollinate our flowers, trees and food crops under siege? Generally speaking, it’s because we humans don’t value these creatures enough to band together to protect them.

So much food is available in grocery stores and farmers markets, it’s probably hard to believe that our food system might actually be threatened due to lack of pollination.

Regardless of the reason for our nonchalance, it’s a mistake. That’s because the creatures that pollinate the plants that produce our food also pollinate the plants that support the very web of life, what scientists call biodiversity. So even if you don’t care whether bees will be around to pollinate your almonds or apples, you should probably worrythat pollinatingbees, butterflies, bats and birdsmay not be around to helpthousands of plants survive in the wild.Because without all those wild plants, entire ecosystems could collapse.

To drive the point home, here’s a description of what’s killing four pollinators we depend on for both food and beauty and what you can do to stop it.

Honey Bees and Bumble Bees– Honey bees live in colonies of tens of thousands, buzzing around in a hive or a colony. The colonies have become infected with a bacteria called Paenibacillus larvae. The bees themselves have been attacked by mites. Both the mites and the bacteria, plus pesticide exposure, and the disruptive way the bees are trucked around the country to pollinate crops like almonds, have led to what scientists call colony collapse disorder.

Climate change is also a large factor, because warming global temperatures has accelerated flowering seasons and the bees haven’t quite caught up yet. In other words, flowers that bees normally depend on for food have bloomed and faded before the bees arrive to feed on them. Bees are also particularly susceptible to a kind of pesticide called a neonicotinoid. “Fully half of the 46 or 47 species of bumble bees in the U.S. seem to be in some level of decline,” reports Bioscience.

What you can do: You can help make a difference by not only gardening organically yourself, but by shifting your spending to purchasing organically grown food. Consumer demand creates the financial incentives farmers need to stop using insecticides. Show them there’s a market for food grown with pollinators in mind. On the energy front, do your part to help put the breaks on climate change by driving less, switching to solar and wind, and saving energy at home and at work. Here are some great energy saving tips you can adopt today.

Monarch Butterflies – Any animal that migrates is particularly at risk, because opportunities for them to be exposed to threats occur all along their migratory path and at virtually every stage of their life cycle. One such case is that of monarch butterflies.

These elegant creatures have a complex life cycle that takes them, in some cases all the way from the eastern seaboard of the U.S. to Mexico, a trip of 2,000 miles. As they travel,they need flowers on which to lay their eggs and nectar to eat. But lack of their primary food source, milkweed, along with rampant pesticide spraying, habitat loss and climate change, is killing monarchs in alarming numbers. Scientists say that the number of monarchs that overwintered in Mexico in 2012-2013 was only 59 percent of those that overwintered the year before, reports Bioscience. Monarchs cannot survive cold winters so they have no choice but to migrate.

What you can do:Grow a butterfly garden that will provide both food for the adults and host plants on which adults can lay eggs to support new populations. Practice organic gardening, planting milkweed and other plants that monarchs specifically love. Consider becoming a Certified Monarch Waystationand convince your neighbors and community to do the same.

Bats – In addition to loss and degradation of habitat, bats may be killed indiscriminately simply because people aresuperstitious about them or fear bats carry disease. Bats are also hunted for food and folk medicine. Non-native, invasive species like snakes, ants and feral pigs can also take their toll. Bat Conservation International saysas many as 25 of the 47 U.S. and Canadian bat species may be vulnerable to the introduced fungusPseudogymnoascus destructans, the cause of White-nose Syndrome. By some estimates, WNS has killed more than 6 million bats since 2006 in central and eastern North America.

What you can do: Support global bat conservation by “adopting” a baby bat. Urge your elected officials to support national and global policies that will protect endangered bat “hot spots,” reduce habitat destruction and fund research into strategies to protect bats. At home, build bat houses to make it easy for bats to reproduce, raise their young and shelter in a safe place. You can find instructions here.

Hummingbirds – Hummingbirds are important in the U.S. for the role they play in pollinating wildflowers. Because hummingbirds have good eyes, they’re particularly attracted to bright colors like red, yellow or orange. They love flowers that produce abundant nectar, so they manage to collect pollen on their heads and back when they stick their long beaks into the flower blossom to take a nectary slurp.

But hummingbirds face a lot of threats. Like other animals, they’re losing habitat as suburbs expand, industrial agriculture spreads and clearcutting knocks down forests. Hummingbirds are much smaller than may other birds which makes them more vulnerable to pesticides, insecticides, fertilizers and pollution. They could be attacked by cats, fly into windows or get diseases from dirty hummingbird feeders. Plus, invasive plants might crowd out the native nectar producers that hummingbirds need to survive.

What you can do: If you have a cat, keep it inside, particularly during the day, when hummingbirds are out and feeding. Put up a hummingbird feeder, but clean it regularly so that the food it provides is clean and healthy to eat. Of course, garden organically and use no toxic chemicals in and around your yard. Urge your neighbors to do the same, and work with local officials to create non-toxic, safe habitats for all of the pollinators that visit your ecoregion. And plantcardinal flowers and other plants specifically to attract and nourish hummingbirds.

Related
An Easy Guide to Saving Energy at Home
 How to Create a Pollinator Oasis Right at Home

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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North Korea Praises "Wise Politician" Donald Trump

by SusannaVolz Posted on May 31, 2016

Mother Jones

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Just days after President Barack Obama said international leaders were justly “rattled” by the unlikely rise of Donald Trump, state-run media from North Korea—one of the world’s most unpredictable dictatorships—has endorsed the presumptive GOP nominee.

In an editorial on Tuesday, the country’s state-run media outlet DPRK praised the presumptive Republican nominee as a “wise” and “far-sighted” politician who would work toward unification with South Korea.

“In my personal opinion, there are many positive aspects the Trump’s ‘inflammatory policies,'” Han Yong Mook, who according to the outlet is a Chinese North Korean academic, wrote. “Trump said he will not get involved in the war between the South and the North. Isn’t this fortunate from North Koreans’ perspective?”

The editorial also called on American voters to reject “dull” Hillary Clinton. The article criticized the likely Democratic nominee for pushing sanctions against North Korea in order to limit its nuclear capabilities, similar to the strategy adopted in Iran.

In previous remarks, Trump has proposed withdrawing American troops to abandon its stations in South Korea, and he has slammed the country for being a national security freeloader by not paying to protect itself and forcing the US to foot its national security bill. The real estate magnate has also suggested replacing troops with nuclear options—comments that alarmed both South Korea and neighboring Japan.

The plan, however, has apparently found support in North Korea.

“Yes, do it now,” Han wrote. “Who knew the slogan ‘Yankee Go Home’ would come true like this? The day when the ‘Yankee Go Home’ slogan becomes real would be the day of Korean Unification.”

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When You See the Film of These Brave Veterans in Therapy, It Will Change How You Think About PTSD

by Nilda0140pi Posted on May 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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As millions of Americans around the country fire up the grills on Memorial Day and welcome the arrival of summer, it might be easy to forget what the holiday is supposed to commemorate. That’s why on Monday, the POV (Point of View) series on PBS will air Of Men and War, a documentary years in the making that chronicles the stories of American combat veterans as they undergo therapy to cope with their traumatic memories of war.

French filmmaker and producer Laurent Bécue-Renard spent 10 years working on the project, conceptualizing it, scouting locations, finding veterans who would be willing to participate, and then filming their therapy sessions. He focused much of the film on the Pathway Home, a therapy and service center for veterans in Northern California that offers an immersive residential treatment setting for veterans. Bécue-Renard and his cinematographer spent 14 months filming therapy sessions and then checked in on the veterans over the course of four years, filming their family lives after treatment.

“Rage and anger carried me through everything,” one veteran says as the cameras roll. Another describes killing somebody. “I leveled my weapon, led my target, and I pulled the trigger,” he says, adding that while subsequently moving the body, “a big chunk of his brain fell on my foot.” As he starts to tear up, he describes the blank stare on the corpse’s face. “He just kept looking at me.”

The film originally debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014 and went on to win the award for best feature-length documentary at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam later that year. Monday’s airing is the US television debut. Bécue-Renard’s first war documentary, War Wearied, was released in 2003 and chronicled the lives of three war widows in Bosnia. Of Men and War is the second film in this trilogy; the third will focus on the children of veterans and how their parents’ military service shapes their lives.

Bécue-Renard spoke with Mother Jones about the process of making the film, how it affected him, and what he thinks people should take away from it.

Mother Jones: This film deals with some pretty heavy stuff. How did the material affect you?

Laurent Bécue-Renard: I had a specific quest while doing this project. Both my grandfathers fought in World War I, but they never spoke about it to their wives, nor to their kids, or to their grandkids. So I always felt that there was something that wasn’t being told in the family and that I definitely wanted to access. I also have my own experience of war as a civilian, since I spent the last year of the war in Bosnia as the editor of an online magazine. That experience determined my career as a filmmaker, and I first made a film called War Wearied, where the question of being a war widow was addressed. After that film, I really felt the need to have access to what it is to be a young man sent to war, survive it, come back home, and start a family, or live with a family, and raise kids.

I was ready to hear what I was going to hear while I would be shooting. Besides that, for three years before starting to shoot, I did extended scouting, mostly in California, with combat veterans and their families and therapists. All that I heard, including what I heard afterward while shooting, sounded very familiar. It’s not only about death, it’s about surviving. The film itself is a journey toward life, which makes it a rather positive outcome. Although it’s tough. There are a lot of difficulties for each of these young men to survive. On the daily basis when you’re sitting in the therapy room, it’s mostly about death.

So I won’t be hiding that. At times it was tough to hear, because when you’re in the editing room for four years, you keep hearing it, day after day after day after day, and we had so much material, 500 hours to edit, so it takes a toll on you, of course. But again, I had a quest, and also, as the therapist is doing in the therapy room, I was seeking to show their quest to regain life. And that also helped not only me, but also my editors and my cinematographer.

MJ: Less than 10 percent of the US population has served in the military. What do you want Americans to take away from this film?

LBR: There’s a huge amount of young men and women deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan that are paying a high price, and this is the real cost of the war. It can’t be only when we talk “this war” or “that war,” or “going to war there or there,” and we are in favor or we are against. It can’t be only a discussion over the idea or the concept or the politics of the war. It has always to bear in mind the high price that will be paid by these young men and women and their families. That’s one thing.

The second thing is, you’re right, people have no idea, consciously they have no idea. But all our families in the Western world have gone through two world wars in the course of the 20th century and subsequent wars in the post-colonial world. You’re talking about the US—all families were touched one way or another by World War II. So what these guys are saying, and what I was saying earlier about my grandfathers, it’s something that did touch their family at one stage or another, and it did shape the psyche of the family in one way or another.

I’m always amazed in America, when I write the subject and say it’s not really about now—of course it’s about now because I shot now—but it’s also about your father or your grandfather or your great grandfather. And you know, they would have said most probably the same thing as these men in the therapy room had they been in a position to talk about their experience, to talk about what they felt and how war affected them.

MJ: You point out the generational aspect of this, and it’s certainly apparent in the film. Why are generations so important in this story of war?

LBR: In the film you see a few kids who are growing up next to their father, who has been traumatized by the experience of war. And these kids that we see on screen, to some extent it is us, or it is our parents, who grew up next to a father or a grandfather that was strongly affected by the experience of war.

So it’s not that far away. You just need to think a little bit. If we, the democracies, go to war, of course it’s always a failure because we didn’t manage to solve our problem through diplomacy or politics or economics or culture or whatever. But there’s a high price that will be paid by a few young men and women, and we should always have that in mind.

It is already in our family. We might not know it consciously, but it’s there. It’s been experienced in the past and it has shaped our families.

I’m deeply convinced that most modern neuroses find their roots in the experience of war in the previous generation in the 20th century, and sometimes we don’t know why we have that kind of neurosis in our behavior, and in one way or another there’s a link to some extent with the experience of the war.

MJ: There has been a lot of PTSD coverage in the US in various mediums. What makes this film different?

LBR: The camera is, from scratch, embedded in the therapy process. And it’s part of the therapy process. Meaning that you, the viewer, you’re part of it. And you’re in this room from the very beginning of this journey that each of these guys is going through in therapy, and they want you to be there; otherwise they would not accept the camera. It is, for them, very important to be acknowledged, and that their trauma and their experience be validated by not only the community they belong to, but the community of mankind that they feel separated from because of their experience with war. I know a lot of programs have addressed the question of…what is PTSD, what are the consequences of PTSD? But here you’re part of the process.

MJ: It seems as if the role of narrative in all this is really important.

LBR: Part of the trauma and part of the consequences of the trauma is that they feel so lonely. Not only within the family, but within the community. The premise of the film is also that this story they’re working on and their work as a patient in therapy is something that is going to be shared. The process itself, not only the story, but the process of how difficult it is to find a way to tell a meaningful story about what happened to you in the context of the war. That’s what you’re witnessing on screen.

It’s not a depressing process. This is the difference between just interviewing people with trauma. Here they are in a survival process. They want to survive, they want to live. So what you’re witnessing is their fight for survival, even though it’s tough, and things you’re going to be hearing are tough things. Even though these guys went through very, very difficult things, they’re fighting to survive psychologically. And that’s what you’re witnessing, and you’re part of their survival journey.

MJ: What do you think about the Memorial Day timing of your film’s first screening in the United States?

LBR: I’m very happy and honored that POV and PBS chose Memorial Day to broadcast the film. It’s not only about the Afghanistan or the Iraq war. It’s about all the men and women who went to war and experienced it and were traumatized by it and survived it and lived with the experience of the war. I think if people can bear that in mind, always, it will help them, even in their daily life. That’s where we come from. At one stage or another we have to face it, and it’s better than avoiding it.

I’m also very happy for the characters in the film, because for them it was not only a courageous journey to go through therapy. Very few men and women go to such a residential therapy program during which, for three to four months on average, you go to sessions and you’re really working hard on your psychological wounds. It’s a very courageous journey—but it’s all the more courageous to do it and publicly accept the camera in the room and to stick to it. They never asked us to leave the room or stop filming. They really wanted it and they did it very courageously.

And when they eventually saw the finished film, they realized and they told us how important it was for them. They realized that the film was giving a voice not only for them, but for all the guys and women who would never go to therapy or would never be heard by not only their families, but the community. So I’m so proud that it’s broadcast on Memorial Day.

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No, the Summer Olympics Will Not Be Leaving Rio

by Daniella76U Posted on May 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Last week, as Brazil was grappling with the ouster of President Dilma Rousseff, University of Ottawa professor Amir Attaran called on the International Olympic Committee to postpone this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro—or move them elsewhere—due to the continued threat of the Zika virus. He argued in the Harvard Public Health Review that exposure to the mosquito-borne virus in the heart of Rio, where he said the number of suspected cases has reached 26,000, could result in a “full-blown global health disaster” and should prompt Olympic officials to take action as a “precautionary concession.”

“Simply put,” wrote Attaran, a legal and medical scholar, “Zika infection is more dangerous, and Brazil’s outbreak more extensive, than scientists reckoned a short time ago.”

For months, would-be Olympians have expressed their concerns about the virus. Some even have refused to participate in this year’s Games. On May 12, the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization reiterated a series of precautions for athletes and tourists planning on attending the Games, like avoiding impoverished and overcrowded parts of Rio and urging pregnant women to not visit Zika-stricken areas. And on Tuesday, after Attaran’s article had prompted a new level of scrutiny, WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan told reporters the Olympics should go ahead as scheduled: “You don’t want to bring a standstill to the world’s movement of people.”

But at this point, is it even possible to move the multibillion-dollar spectacle? I got in touch with two Olympic insiders—A.D. Frazier, who served as chief operating officer of the Atlanta Olympic Committee, and Olympic historian David Wallechinsky—to see what they thought about a last-minute change. They were…less than optimistic. “Just forget it,” Frazier said. “The International Olympic Committee won’t cancel unless Rio goes completely bankrupt.” Wallechinsky was even more blunt: “I understand that this is no joke, but in terms of moving them at the last minute, unless there was suddenly an epidemic of people falling over dead in Rio, it’s not going to happen.”

Here are the three main reasons why:

It would be unprecedented. Wallechinsky, president of the International Society of Olympic Historians, noted that the only times the Olympics have been canceled were during World War I and World War II. They’ve endured violence before and during the Games: Ten days before the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City, for example, police and military officers opened fire into a crowd of student demonstrators, killing and wounding hundreds; at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, 11 members of the Israeli team were killed by terrorists; and in 1996, a bombing during the Atlanta Games killed two and injured more than 100. (Atlanta COO Frazier recalled being briefed about dozens of bomb threats each day during the 17-day event.)

Still, Wallechinsky admitted that Rio 2016’s Zika problem is a unique one. The closest parallel that he could think of came two years ago, when Africa’s Ebola crisis spurred concerns at the summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China. Officials from China and the International Olympic Committee announced that athletes from affected areas would not be allowed to compete in combat sports or swimming out of fear that athletes could transmit the virus. The event took place as scheduled, but three athletes were unable to compete.

There’s too much cash riding on Rio 2016. “Sponsors and the TV networks have put so much money into these Olympics being in Rio that it’s impossible to imagine moving them at this late date,” Wallechinsky said. The organizing committee, Frazier noted, would have locked in place sponsorship deals and contracts for buses, hotels, and other infrastructure long before the event. Moving the Olympics to a new host city would require advanced notice not just for top international sponsors that typically support the Games, but also for local sponsors like the ones in Brazil helping fund Rio 2016, Wallechinsky said. Local and international sponsor deals account for 52 percent of the Rio Organizing Committee’s revenue, or $962 million, making it the dominant source of funding. (The bulk of those sponsorship agreements were made in 2014, right around the time of World Cup, which was also held in Brazil.)

Earlier this year, organizers trimmed expenses by $500 million to balance its $1.85 billion operating budget, eliminating thousands of seats from venues and taking away televisions from rooms in the Olympic Village. Still, economists project that the overall costs for this year’s events could reach more than $10 billion. “You can’t just pick up and move carte blanche,” Wallechinsky said.

Possible sites would need a “pickup squad” of organizers, fast. Two years ago, rumors surfaced that organizers were considering moving the Rio Games to London—host of the 2012 Olympics—out of concern for Brazil’s preparation. But finding a replacement site at this late stage with available venues is just one piece of the puzzle, Frazier said. Preparing the surrounding roads and infrastructure for a massive influx of athletes, business personnel, and spectators, as well as coordinating a flawless 17-day spectacle in three months with thousands of contractors and vendors, would pose a virtually impossible challenge for the “pickup squad” of organizers who would have come together at the last moment.

And that’s putting aside the travel schedules for the spectators and athletes themselves, as well as the need for safe, comfortable accommodations for athletes at an Olympic village. “The village itself is too complex to start in three months,” Frazier said. “If you’re talking about 15,000 athletes and officials and their safety, do you think somebody would organize a totally secure Olympic village in three months? No, not a chance.” He added that since the Munich Games, the security of the venues and athletes’ housing has been a pressing issue for organizers. Moving an event is one thing, but Frazier noted that moving an entire Games—opening ceremony and all—is “folly.”

“You can’t do it. Two years ago, I would’ve felt differently,” Frazier said. “Today they’ve got three months to go, man. Only a fool would take on the responsibility of taking the Games away from Rio.”

Taken from:

No, the Summer Olympics Will Not Be Leaving Rio

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We Thought We Could Not Be Shocked by Donald Trump. Then He Tweeted This.

by CatalinKethel Posted on May 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Today is Cinco de Mayo, and here’s what presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump tweeted to celebrate the occasion:

Stop tweeting.

Original article: 

We Thought We Could Not Be Shocked by Donald Trump. Then He Tweeted This.

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A Week of Slaughter in Aleppo Also Destroyed One Of Its Hospitals

by porvluef Posted on April 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday night, two missiles from the Assad regime’s Syrian Arab Air Force struck the Al Quds hospital in Aleppo, killing at least 14 medical staff and patients, including one of the last pediatricians who still worked in Syria’s largest city. Within 24 hours of the attack, widespread airstrikes and shelling in the area killed at least another 60 people, bringing Syria’s death toll for the week to around 200. Rescue workers from Syria Civil Defense, which lost five of its own members when targeted strikes hit one of its centers earlier in the week, report that they are “still dragging people from the rubble.”

“This devastating attack has destroyed a vital hospital in Aleppo, and the main referral center for pediatric care in the area,” wrote Muskilda Zancada, Doctors Without Borders’ head of mission for Syria, in an online statement. “Where is the outrage among those with the power and obligation to stop this carnage?”

In Syria’s five-year-old war that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, the attack on the Doctors Without Borders-supported Al Quds hospital is part of a broader pattern of Bashar Al-Assad’s systematic targeting of civilian infrastructure. Airstrikes on civilian neighborhoods and medical facilities are the norm, despite being illegal under international law. The United Nations estimates that at least half of Syria’s medical facilities have been destroyed. A report from the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) from February 2015 estimated that some 600 medical professionals had been killed in the fighting, a figure that doesn’t account for the past year of the conflict.

“Compounding this tragedy is that the dedication and commitment of the staff of Al Quds, working under unimaginable conditions, has been unwavering throughout this bloody conflict,” said Zancada. A press release from SAMS this morning said that Mohammed Wasim Moaz, the last remaining pediatrician in the eastern part of Aleppo, was considered “one of the best pediatricians left in Syria.”

This week’s increased attacks on Aleppo come amid what was supposed to be a partial ceasefire in Syria, but which has all but collapsed. Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy for Syria, characterized the talks as “barely alive,” the Guardian reports. “How can you have substantial talks when you have only news about bombing and shelling?” he asked.

Meanwhile, many believe the situation in Aleppo will only get worse in coming weeks, with reports of a military buildup around Aleppo that some fear will result in the government’s attempt to embark on a complete siege of the city’s civilian neighborhoods.

“Wherever you are, you hear explosions of mortars, shelling and planes flying over,” said Valter Gros of the International Committee of the Red Cross in a statement yesterday. “There is no neighborhood of the city that hasn’t been hit. People are living on the edge. Everyone here fears for their lives and nobody knows what is coming next.”

In videos of the ongoing violence posted online, rescue workers drag bodies—including those of children—from collapsed buildings, old men sob, residents race injured victims away in cars, and a terrified young girl in pigtails cries quietly in the arms of a man.

A week before the most recent onslaught, Syria Civil Defense—a volunteer organization established in 2013 that attempts to provide help to victims of the massive bombing campaigns—posted a heartbreaking tweet, as new rounds of airstrikes began hitting Aleppo following a brief respite from the fighting under the ceasefire. The tweet foreshadows what appears to be yet another bloody chapter in Syria’s war:

“We return to work with sadness and heavy hearts,” Syria Civil Defense reported a few days later. As the UN warns of a “catastrophic breakdown“—noting that in the past 48 hours, one Syrian has been killed every 25 minutes—the worst may still lie ahead.

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A Week of Slaughter in Aleppo Also Destroyed One Of Its Hospitals

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