Tag Archives: international

Almost Everything You’ve Bought Recently Came to You Via This Dirty Industry

by choneqjxs Posted on October 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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If you’ve recently purchased a new iPhone, or a fancy t-shirt, or a children’s toy… or really virtually any consumer or industrial good, there’s a strong chance that a giant ship ferried it from or through China. China, dubbed “the world’s factory” for pumping out so much of the world’s consumables, now boasts seven of the world’s top ten busiest trading ports. Strung up and down its densely populated eastern coast, China’s ten biggest ports handle nearly 30 percent of the world’s containers each year.

These mega-ports—Shanghai’s is the planet’s busiest—helped China become the biggest trader in the world, eclipsing the US in 2012. China has also become the world’s second largest consumer market—meaning that more and more ships are unloading wares in the country’s ports, not just loading up.

But there’s a big downside for the planet in all that trade, according to a report released Tuesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a US-based environmental advocacy group with offices in Beijing. When the country’s brutal smog and worsening air crisis make international headlines, as it did earlier this month after runners in the Beijing marathon donned air masks, coal burning and China’s grid-locked streets get most of the attention. But emissions from China’s vast shipping industry have so far been “very much overlooked” by Chinese leaders, says Barbara Finamore, an author of the report and NRDC’s Asia director.

“Last September, the central government issued a national air control plan and it only mentioned this in passing,” she said in a phone interview from Beijing.

Finamore’s report argues that poor regulation in China means that in a single day one container ship can pollute as much as half a million trucks:

NRDC

That’s because regulations allow China’s oceangoing ships to burn fuel with sulfur levels that are 100 to 3,500 times higher than those permitted for road vehicles, according to the report. This so-called “bunker oil” is extremely dirty and spews toxic exhaust into the air, including harmful diesel particulates, and nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide that cause smog. Those chemicals are known to lead to respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses. Shipping is not a small contributor: Two thirds of the sulfur pollution in the Chinese megacity of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, comes from the shipping industry, says Finamore.

The exhaust not only pollutes the air locally, but also carries a powerful climate toll: A portion of the exhaust is “black carbon,” a fine particulate that, after CO2, is the second largest contributor to global warming. The US Environmental Protection Agency says it is particularly potent in melting arctic sea ice. As more ships take polar routes made more hospitable by warming, the black carbon they leave behind may accelerate melting, potentially further opening up once ice-bound lanes for more shipping. “It’s a vicious cycle,” says Finamore.

The report finds that 70 percent of emissions from major shipping routes occur within 400 km (about 250 miles) of a coastline, and that emissions can travel hundreds of miles inland. Stricter rules in North America (especially in California) and Europe mandate cleaner fuel when coming into port, and China is working to implement similar standards. In July, Hong Kong became the first city in China to regulate shipping emissions; other Chinese port cities and coastal regions have begun to introduce other control measures.

What works? According to the NRDC, there are three areas that could help clean up the industry, including moving to natural gas, using cleaner fuels, and powering down ships in ports:

NRDC

In a country where ambient air pollution contributed to an estimated 1.2 million premature deaths in 2010, Finamore says leaders are “scrambling” for solutions.

It’s this kind of pollution—and the public discontent it causes—that has gotten attention from the highest levels of government. Vice Premier Li Keqiang, the second-ranking Chinese official, formally declared a “war on pollution” earlier this year. Another Chinese leader gave a speech at the September UN climate talks in New York pledging that China would reach a peak in emissions “as soon as possible”—an unprecedented promise.

“They are taking it seriously,” Finamore says. “They are doing more than ever before to examine the environmental issues of various plans and sources of energy.”

But in China, she says, “implementation is always a problem.”

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Almost Everything You’ve Bought Recently Came to You Via This Dirty Industry

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Kobani Still Holding Out — But Is That Good News?

by AlfredoMoffet Posted on October 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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Like Mark Thompson, I’ve been a bit out of circulation for the past couple of weeks—enough to pay only minimal attention to Iraq, anyway—and also like Thompson, I’m a little surprised to come back and discover that Kobani is still holding out against ISIS. This is largely thanks to the US bombing campaign, and Thompson isn’t sure what to think of this success:

While that’s obviously good news in the short term for the city’s 200,000 largely-Kurdish residents, it’s tougher to handicap what it means for the long-term U.S.-led effort to “degrade and destroy” ISIS.

Earlier this month, U.S. military officers were speaking of ISIS’s “momentum,” and how its string of military successes over the past year meant that quickly halting its advance would likely prove difficult if not impossible. Yet, as far as Kobani is concerned, that seems to be what is taking place.

But that raises the stakes for the U.S. and its allies. Having smothered ISIS’s momentum, an eventual ISIS victory in the battle for Kobani would be a more devastating defeat for the U.S. military than an earlier collapse of the town.

There are concerns that the focus on saving Kobani is giving ISIS free reign elsewhere in its self-declared caliphate—that the U.S., in essence, could end up winning the battle while losing the war.

“The U.S. air campaign has turned into an unfocused mess,” Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote Friday. “The U.S. has shifted limited air strike resources to focus on Syria and a militarily meaningless and isolated small Syrian Kurdish enclave at Kobani at the expense of supporting Iraqi forces in Anbar and intensifying the air campaign against other Islamic State targets in Syria.”

The flip side of this is the obvious one: have patience. “Here we are not three months into it and there are critics saying it’s falling apart; it’s failing; the strategy is not sound,” Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said Friday. “The strategy is sound and it’s working and there’s no plans to deviate it from right now.”

If we’re really engaged in a years-long battle against ISIS, then a few months here or there doesn’t matter much. And saving Kobani isn’t just a moral good, but can also demonstrate to others that ISIS is not some magical, unstoppable force destined to overrun Iraq. It’s just an ordinary group of guerrilla soldiers who can be defeated with determination and patience. Stay tuned.

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Kobani Still Holding Out — But Is That Good News?

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Olympics to Crack Down on Human Rights Abuses…After 2022

by USAUnitedCashLoans123 Posted on October 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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Following widespread allegations of wrongdoing in both the Beijing and Sochi Olympics, human rights protections will be added to the contracts signed by future Olympic host cities. The International Olympic Committee’s president presented this change to Human Rights Watch at an October 21 meeting.

The new language will contractually require host countries to “take all necessary measures to ensure that development projects necessary for the organization of the Games comply with local, regional, and national legislation, and international agreements and protocols, applicable in the host country with regard to planning, construction, protection of the environment, health, safety, and labour laws.”

These changes make the human rights requirements for Olympic host cities more explicit than ever before, particularly with the mentions of health, environmental, and labor concerns. The new “international agreements and protocols” rule makes it clear that hosts will be required to abide by laws like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits forced labor, arbitrary arrest or detention, sentence without trial, and protects freedoms of assembly, religion, and opinion.

Beijing, China and Sochi, Russia floundered on some of these protections during the 2012 and 2014 Olympic Games. The international community criticized both host countries for corruption and exploitation of migrant construction workers: Sochi contractors cheated workers out of wages, required 12-hour shifts, and confiscated passports to keep laborers from leaving. In both countries, authorities regularly forced evictions and silenced media and activists. A Russian law passed in the months leading up to the Games that criminalized gay expression garnered global outrage.

Minky Worden, director of global initiatives at Human Rights Watch, says the planned wording will make it easier for the IOC to take official action if a host country breaks contract—through litigation or “the thermonuclear option,” termination. Even before such extreme consequences, she is optimistic the explicit wording will give the IOC more power to “put the scare in any host country that is not playing by the human rights rules.”

“This is a real rebuke to Russia,” she says. “The IOC wants to avoid a repeat.”

Since host cities for the next three Olympic Games have already been selected and signed contracts, host countries will be held to the new clause beginning with the 2022 Winter Olympics. Worden says this is particularly timely, as two of the finalists—Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China—have repressive governments. (The third finalist is Oslo, Norway.)

The human rights clause expands on another impending addition, previewed in a September letter from the IOC to the 2022 candidate cities. That statement promised that future host city contracts will have “an express reference…to the prohibition of any form of discrimination.”

Technically, host cities like Sochi and Beijing were already broadly obligated to steer clear of human rights violations and discrimination: The Olympic Charter calls for a respect for “human dignity” and bans discrimination “with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise.” But, “we’ve clearly reached a moment when the words of the Olympic Charter are not enough,” says Worden. “You have to put these guarantees in a contract and force the host country to sign it.”

Worden hopes the IOC’s action will be adopted by organizers of other mega-sporting events at risk of mishandling human rights, such as FIFA. Sharan Burrow, the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, estimates in an ESPN documentary that, at current rates, 4,000 people will die in preparation of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

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Olympics to Crack Down on Human Rights Abuses…After 2022

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Kevin Vickers, Canada’s Badass National Hero, Is a Portrait of Humility

by LacyVachon Posted on October 23, 2014

Mother Jones

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Kevin Vickers, Canada’s sergeant at arms since 2006, is being heralded worldwide as a national hero after he reportedly shot and killed an armed assailant in the nation’s Parliament building Wednesday morning. It was a highly emotional moment when Vickers returned to Parliament today—watch the video above—and was greeted with an extended standing ovation. Witnesses are convinced that Vickers, 58, prevented a large-scale massacre in Ottawa. And though he has not yet spoken publicly about his actions (he’s notoriously modest), his record of public service is proof enough of his exceptional character.

Eight years ago, Vickers celebrated his election as the House of Commons’ top cop by traveling in style from Ottawa to New Brunswick on a brand new Harley. “As a gift, his two daughters bought him a vanity licence plate with the letters SGTATRMS,” wrote Bea Vongdouangchanh of The Hill Times. But his career began nearly three decades earlier as a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the “Mounties”), who are responsible for policing provincial and criminal cases while monitoring Canadian internal security.

The Mounties were convened in 1873, in part to monitor and deal with Americans who were trading with Native Americans in Canada—cheap whiskey for buffalo hides. Today, the force focuses on issues like organized crime and national security, and has jurisdiction in eight provinces, three territories, 184 aboriginal communities, and three international airports. Vickers signed up almost 40 years ago, and spent 29 years on the force—a true-blue local boy from small town Miramichi who moved up in the ranks over time.

In 2000, he was put in charge of the Burnt Church Crisis, a heated battle in which Canadian fishermen destroyed hundreds of indigenous people’s lobster traps. The Native lobstermen retaliated by trashing fish-processing plants. The Mounties were called in to deal with the tense standoff and resolved it peacefully thanks to Vickers’ “thorough assessment” and “measured response,” according to an account from a book on Canadian policing. In an interview with his hometown paper, Vickers credited his experience delivering milk in Burnt Church and Neguac during summer vacations as vital to his understanding the region’s people—which helped him deal with both sides of the crisis respectfully.

Vickers was also involved in several high-profile investigations involving murders, drug crimes, and a tainted Red Cross blood supply. By the end of his term with the Mounties, he held the title of chief superintendent.

In 2005, he joined the House of Commons as director of security operations, and a year later was elected sergeant at arms. From the start, Vickers led the charge on the development of Canada’s “bias-free policing strategy”—now a part of RCMP officer training—by reaching out to the Canadian Muslim community to discuss cultural sensitivity. He served a security guard for the Queen of Canada herself, and was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal to “honor contributions and achievements made by Canadians,” according to an official fact sheet. He also received the Canada 125 Medal and the RCMP Long Service Medal. The United States has offered Vickers a commendation for his “Outstanding Contribution to Drug Enforcement.”

Vickers has remained humble despite his many plaudits—he insists he’s just doing his job. A 2011 feature on Vickers in The Globe and Mail describes how he defended the right of people to wear the kirpan—a ceremonial dagger carried by baptized Sikhs—in the National Assembly. In response, the World Sikh Organization hosted a dinner in his honor. He spoke with The Globe and Mail about why he stood up for the Sikhs:

“As we go forward, we should ask ourselves what Canada should be when it grows up…We have a long way to go before reaching adulthood. The seizure of the kirpans at the Quebec legislature last winter demonstrates the challenges that lay before us as we continue on this journey of sewing together the fabric of our nation with the thread of multiculturalism. Perhaps it would be beneficial for our country, as a nation, to define its core values. What are the core values of Canada, what makes up the soul and heart of our nation?…I told them Canadian officials that if they made me their sergeant-at-arms, there would be no walls built around Canada’s Parliamentary buildings…and the fact that you may wear your kirpans within the House of Commons proves there are no walls around Parliament and I have kept my promise.”

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Kevin Vickers, Canada’s Badass National Hero, Is a Portrait of Humility

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Here’s What’s Happening With the Shooting at the Canadian Parliament

by HeatherBurchfie Posted on October 22, 2014

Mother Jones

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Click here for the latest updates.

Downtown Ottawa is under lockdown as police investigate reports of shootings in two locations: the National War Memorial and Parliament Hill. Police have confirmed that, contrary to earlier reports, no shooting incidents occurred at the Rideau Centre shopping mall. Police have confirmed reports that an unknown gunman shot and killed a soldier, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, standing guard by Canada’s National War Memorial with a rifle, then moved on to Canada’s Parliament Hill and Centre Block and opened fire, resulting in the ongoing lockdown at Canada’s Parliament building. A shooter wounded a security guard near Parliament Hill before he was shot, according to the CBC. Canadian Parliament member Tony Clement tweeted that at least 30 shots were fired just before 10 a.m. during a caucus meeting where most MPs were located; Clement and two colleagues, Mark Strahl and Kyle Seeback, remained inside the building under lockdown. The prime minister, Stephen Harper, was rushed out of the building.

Readers should note that breaking news stories often contain inaccuracies. Many details of the attack remain unclear, and even initial information from law enforcement sources in this type of situation can be wrong. Check back for updates. (Also see how Canadian TV news coverage has put American cable news coverage to shame.)

The Globe and Mail‘s Josh Wingrove captured live footage of the shootings inside the Parliament building:

Wingrove described the scene in a firsthand account: “Once police were halfway down the hallway, gunfire erupted again—an estimated two dozen shots that ended with a motionless body falling from a doorway just in front of the library. It was unclear who the person was. Guards briefly appeared to check for a pulse before beginning a search of the rest of the building.”

According to reporters on the scene, the atmosphere calmed down around 10:30 a.m., but the Parliament building remained on lockdown and those inside were being told to stay away from the windows. Many fled the building after hearing shots in multiple corridors, some escaping down scaffolding being used for renovations, according to the Telegram. A helicopter arrived on scene just before 11:30 a.m., according to CBC reporter Stu Mills.

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board told parents not to come to schools to pick up their children, who were also on lockdown in their classrooms. Some reporters claimed that cellphone signal is going in and out of service. Police said they suspect that two other shooters might be on the loose, and police reportedly are going door-to-door searching for a suspect. (Reports of additional shooters in these sorts of situations are often wrong.)

CBC News reporter Andrew Davidson posted this map of the Canadian Parliament and National War Memorial Area at 11:15 a.m.

And CNN posted this map of the area where the attacks have been reported:

UPDATE 1, Wednesday, Oct 22, 2:28 p.m. EST: Ottawa police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have released this statement:

(Ottawa)—The Ottawa Police Service and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) responded to reports of shooting incidents this morning in the downtown area. Police can now confirm that incidents occurred at the National War Memorial and on Parliament Hill.

Contrary to earlier reports no incident occurred near the Rideau Centre.

One shooting victim succumbed to injuries. He was a member of the Canadian Forces. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his loved ones.

Next of kin notification is underway and as such, the victim’s identification will not be released.

One male suspect has also been confirmed deceased. There is no further update on injuries at this time.

This is an ongoing joint police operation and there is no one in custody at this time.

Ottawa residents are asked to stay away from the downtown area while the investigation continues. If you work in one of the downtown buildings, follow the instructions from the building management you are in.

A number of RCMP and Federal government buildings are also closed to the public; as is Ottawa City Hall and all Ottawa Police stations.

UPDATE 2, Wednesday, Oct 22, 2:55 p.m. EST: Ottawa police chief Charles Bordeleau speaks to the public:

UPDATE 3, Wednesday, Oct 22, 3:46 p.m. EST: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have created a website for potential witnesses to Wednesday’s shootings to upload photos and videos. Additionally, President Barack Obama spoke with Prime Minister Harper, and the National Security Council tweeted the conversation.

UPDATE 4, Wednesday, Oct 22, 5:04 p.m. EST: CBC News reports that the soldier killed outside the National War Memorial today was 24 year-old Corporal Nathan Cirillo.

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Here’s What’s Happening With the Shooting at the Canadian Parliament

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Rwanda Hits Back at America’s Ebola Paranoia

by BradyT03jjkzycx Posted on October 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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Rwanda will be begin screening all Americans entering the country for Ebola, regardless if they’re exhibiting symptoms or not, government officials in the East African nation announced Tuesday. Coincidence? The new measure comes just days after two Rwandan students were denied enrollment at a New Jersey school over Ebola fears, even though Rwanda has had zero cases of Ebola. The United States, on the other hand, has had three confirmed cases. Rwanda is also more than 2,500 miles from the closest Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

The US Embassy in Rwanda explains the situation:

On October 19, the Rwandan Ministry of Health introduced new Ebola Virus Disease screening requirements. Visitors who have been in the United States or Spain during the last 22 days are now required to report their medical condition—regardless of whether they are experiencing symptoms of Ebola—by telephone by dialing 114 between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. for the duration of their visit to Rwanda (if less than 21 days), or for the first 21 days of their visit to Rwanda. Rwandan authorities continue to deny entry to visitors who traveled to Guinea, Liberia, Senegal, or Sierra Leone within the past 22 days.

Although there’s no way to tell if the screenings are indeed motivated by retaliation for the ignorant panic displayed by the New Jersey school, this sure is an interesting turn of events.

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Rwanda Hits Back at America’s Ebola Paranoia

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We can provide power to everyone without a huge leap in emissions, study finds

by KarolinZinnbaue Posted on October 20, 2014

We can provide power to everyone without a huge leap in emissions, study finds

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20 Oct 2014 2:51 PM

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When we talk about international climate action, it’s often taken for granted that developing countries need room to pollute as they pull their citizens out of poverty. More than a billion people worldwide don’t have access to electricity, the argument goes, and getting them connected will require major development projects that will come hand-in-hand with significant new emissions.

But that might be a false assumption, according to a new paper in Nature Climate Change.

Shonali Pachauri, a researcher with the Austrian International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, finds that the world’s poorest people use so little energy at the moment that initially, upon being connected to the grid, they will not make much of a difference at all.

New Scientist writes:

The test case is rural India, where more unplugged people live than anywhere else — 400 million of them. But that is changing. India has connected an estimated 650 million people to the grid in the past 30 years, and Pachauri analysed government data on electricity use to find out what difference it made.

She found that the emissions of the newly connected, most in poor villages, amounted to just 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. That was less than 4 per cent of the increase in national emissions during that time, which was overwhelmingly from cities and industry.

The big reason for this relatively tiny increase is that many poor households in developing countries just don’t have that much stuff to plug in. The average Indian household uses less than one tenth of the energy of an American household.

Of course, as nations become wealthier and more electrified, this will change: Their people will get more stuff, and use more energy. So getting growing countries’ energy economies on the right track now will help to keep their emissions from spiraling out of control in the future.

Fortunately, in the case of India, recently elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been touting a plan to get the rural poor hooked up to solar power. As chief minister of Gujarat, a state in the western part of India, he encouraged the rapid development of solar — and he’s now pushing to expand similar incentives across the country.

But in an essay this summer in New Scientist looking at central Africa, Fred Pearce noted that it is important that development efforts like this be big enough to actually make a difference.

… a couple of panels on the roof can charge phones and run a few lights and a radio but would be no good for anything more demanding, like boiling a kettle. Most Kenyans would probably prefer to be hooked up to centralised power, but the grid only reaches one-fifth of the country. …

That is especially troubling if the main argument for solar power is to tackle climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change argues that reducing poverty is vital to helping poor communities become more resilient. So it would be criminal if green technologies were imposed on poor people to help hold back carbon emissions — only to leave them even more vulnerable.

So off-grid, low-capacity solar arrays might not be the whole answer. Bigger, more robust renewable energy projects would be better. Finding the right form for those projects will be the challenge.

Source:
Powering up the poor shouldn’t hurt the climate

, New Scientist.

Access to electricity in India has no impact on climate change

, The Economic Times.

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We can provide power to everyone without a huge leap in emissions, study finds

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Will Cambodia Flood a Sacred and Biodiverse Valley for a Dubious Dam?

by AshleigFHIY Posted on October 19, 2014

Mother Jones

On September 15, Cambodian police detained 11 environmental activists for blocking a convoy of government vehicles headed for Areng Valley, the site of the controversial Stung Cheay Areng hydro dam project. The activists were released, but twelve Royal Cambodian Armed Forces officers are now stationed at the makeshift roadblock where villagers have been protesting the dam since March. Nothing now stands in the way of Sinohydro Resources, the Chinese company that the Cambodian government has contracted to construct the dam.

Earlier this year, my film crew and I traveled to Areng Valley to document the story of the Chong people and their fight to stop this proposed dam, which they fear will destroy their forests, livelihood, and heritage. The Chong, who are considered Khmer Daeum (or original Khmers), have lived, farmed, fished, and hunted in this valley for more than 600 years. At a protest, one woman expressed her purpose clearly: “We’ve come to protect our land for our future grandchildren. And we’re afraid all our spirit forests will be lost.”

If built, the Stung Cheay Areng dam would flood at least 26,000 acres or 40 square miles (some estimates say 77 square miles) — displacing more than 1,500 people who have no desire to leave their ancestral homes. The government plans to forcibly resettle them within the Central Cardamom Protected Forest, a vital elephant corridor, causing further encroachment on an area internationally recognized as a biodiversity hotspot. The dam would thereby threaten the habitats of 31 endangered animals, including the world’s largest habitat for the threatened Siamese crocodiles.

Conservation experts also question the project’s economic viability, citing high production costs and a very low rate of economic return. During the rainy season, the dam is hypothetically capable of producing enough electricity to power some 87,000 US-style homes. But, according to Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia Program Director for International Rivers, “the dam will only operate at 46 percent capacity during the dry season, precisely when Cambodia most needs the electricity.”

The proposed Stung Cheay Areng dam is one of 17 the Cambodian government intends to build over the next 20 years to tackle the country’s energy crisis. The dam building spree is prompted by some of the highest electricity prices in Asia. But Cambodia will sell most of the power to neighboring countries like Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos. And, as a US State Department cable obtained by Wikileaks indicates, “the proposed dams’ construction and maintenance contracts will funnel near and mid-term profits to foreign construction companies.”

As with all large hydro dams being built in the country, Sinohydro will transfer ownership of the Areng dam to the Cambodian government in 40 years, just as maintenance costs spike and substantial sediment build-up is predicted to render the dam nearly inoperative. Many of the dams so far built are poorly constructed; the Stung Atay dam, located not too far from Areng, collapsed mid-construction in December 2012, killing four workers.

“Cambodia’s hydropower ambitions are not new, but China’s substantial foreign aid in the form of grants and soft loans has driven much of the recent progress,” the Wikileaks cable notes. Indeed, Sinohydro is the third company the Cambodian government approached to build this dam. Two Chinese companies that conducted feasibility studies pulled out of the project. The first company discontinued its involvement on moral grounds, citing issues of corporate social responsibility; the environmental and social impacts are irreversible and cannot be mitigated. The last company to bail concluded the dam was “economically unviable.”

So then why is the Government of Cambodia so eager to pursue this project? According to a Phnom Penh Post investigation, one of the country’s wealthiest and most politically powerful couples—Cambodian People’s Party senator Lao Meng Khin and his wife, Choeung Sopheap—are believed to have brokered the deal between Sinohydro and the Cambodian government. This would not be their first foray into environmental devastation for profit. The couple are the owners of Shukaku Inc, the company behind the controversial Beoung Kak Lake development in Phnom Penh, which has forcibly evicted and displaced over 1,500 families. They also own Pheapimex Group, a controversial development firm responsible for the land seizure of hundreds of thousands of acres of forest and farmland in Cambodia.

Furthermore, the couple is connected to powerful logging syndicates that stand to benefit from the dam project. The construction will provide unhindered access to the Central Cardamom Protected Forest, building roads where none currently exist, and sending loggers deeper into the forests in search of rosewood, a highly prized luxury hardwood. Logging is technically not permitted in protected areas, but activists fear that timber will find its way onto trucks in the concession area. At that point, as one conservation activist noted, it is as if “the timber has already reached Vietnam.” When the Stung Atay dam was built, conservation experts estimated 1,300 cubic yards of rosewood would be harvested. However, in actuality, at least 20,000 cubic yards were harvested, netting approximately $220 million in profit for timber companies. Experts expect the total area deforested in this project would almost equal that of the combined surface area cleared in four existing dam projects in the Cardamoms.

The loggers are often poor migrants who have themselves been displaced by the destruction of their forests and farmland. Continuing this cycle of devastation they receive temporary permits to enter the forests and clear land, supplying luxury timber to logging tycoons. Once the land is cleared, it will never be reforested. Businessmen will snap it up for development. Meanwhile, local, indigenous communities are pushed deeper and deeper into protected areas, where they will, of necessity, place demands on previously pristine forest and wildlife habitats. According to a Global Witness report, since 2003 400,000 Cambodians have been harmed by economic land concessions granted to companies for industrial agriculture or dam construction. More than 70 percent of the concessions in 2012 were situated inside national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and protected forests.

A panel of Sinohydro experts recently approved the technical feasibility of the project. The Cambodian government is expected to waive through the dam’s environmental impact assessment, allowing Sinohydro to begin construction.

Meanwhile, local NGOs like Mother Nature and Khmer Youth Empire continue to wage an empowering social media campaign against the dam and rallying protests in Phnom Penh. International environmental organizations like International Rivers, Conservation International, and Wildlife Alliance are also exerting pressure on the Cambodian government and Chinese companies to pull out.

Villagers in Areng, dedicated to stopping the dam, vow to continue blocking the sole access road into the valley. One woman vehemently expressed it thus: “Even if they piled money one meter above my head, I don’t want their Chinese money. I want to stay in my village. Even with all this money, I could only spend it in this life. I wouldn’t be able to pass it on to my grandchildren. I just want my village and my land for the future of my grandchildren.”

And they just might be successful. On October 1, the leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party, Sam Rainsy, said he’d been assured by Prime Minister Hun Sen that the activists call for a moratorium had been heeded. The dam would be put on the backburner for the foreseeable future, it’s fate left to “future generations” to decide. However, the Minister of Mines and Energy has continued to insist that the dam will be completed by 2020 while the Minister of Environment assured that the dam had not been cancelled and nor had construction been postponed. It remains to be seen which party in this complicated fight over land and money and tradition will win out.

This project was made possible by a grant from The Kendeda Fund, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and the Sundance Institute Artist Services Program. The film was originally produced for The New York Times Op-Docs.

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Will Cambodia Flood a Sacred and Biodiverse Valley for a Dubious Dam?

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Will Cambodia Flood a Sacred and Biodiverse Valley for a Dubious Dam?

The Anthropocene is here, whether geologists make it official or not

by Brittan6935 Posted on October 18, 2014

Age of Us

The Anthropocene is here, whether geologists make it official or not

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18 Oct 2014 7:00 AM

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Humans rule the world, for worse or for worse. This week, a 30-strong team of geologists, ecologists, and climate scientists from around the globe are meeting in Berlin to discuss whether we’ve entered into a new geologic “epoch of humans.” Their question, in Greek-inspired sciencese (scienglish? scienceGreek?): Is it time to declare the Holocene officially over and the Anthropocene underway?

Our question, in plain English: Does it even matter what these highbrows decide? The sixth mass extinction, a remarkable build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide, rapid sea-level rise, and the halving of the world’s wildlife populations — all human-caused — prove that the Anthropocene is upon us.

Popular discourse and scientists of every stripe aren’t waiting around for a royal decree from the egghead society to declare the Age of People a real phenomenon. CBS News reports that more than 500 scientific studies published this year alone have referred to the current time period as the Anthropocene. Grist has published dozens of stories about the Anthropocene concept, dating back to this 2008 think piece.

The big bureaucratic body that makes decisions about geologic time periods — the International Commission on Stratigraphy — responded to the overwhelming adoption of a term they’ve not formally approved by setting up this Anthropocene Working Group and giving it until 2016 to hash out a proposal.

So who’s in this little club? Twenty-nine men and one woman, which prompted this from the Twittersphere:

What these mostly white men are debating is whether humanity is leaving an impact on the earth that will affect the geologic record as much as other events that have marked new chapters in the planet’s history. If the ICS ultimately approves such an amendment to the geologic time scale, then somewhere a golden spike will be driven into a particular exposed rock layer to mark the epochal transformation.

Making it all official would be cool, but we don’t need their gilded nail to identify where humans took over the globe. That point in time will be distinguished by a layer of substances practically nonexistent in the pre-industrial geologic record: plastic particles, plutonium and other radioactive isotopes, as well as polyaromatic hydrocarbons and lead released by fossil fuel burning.

It would be a downer note to leave the story on that note. Instead, a poignant response to ecological-economic thinker Kate Raworth’s “Manthropocene” tweet:

Source:
Anthropocene: is this the new epoch of humans?

, The Guardian.

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The Anthropocene is here, whether geologists make it official or not

Posted in alo, Anchor, Aroma, Citizen, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, New Chapter, ONA, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Anthropocene is here, whether geologists make it official or not

43 Mexican College Students Disappeared Weeks Ago. What Happened to Them?

by rikkiqlyons Posted on October 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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Nearly three weeks have passed since 43 Mexican college students went missing in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero after clashing with local police suspected of having ties to the Guerreros Unidos cartel. A break in the case seemingly came earlier this week when a mass grave with 28 bodies was unearthed, but Mexican authorities later said the students were not among the dead. (That remains unclear.) What exactly is going on?

Let’s start from the beginning. Who are these college students?
The students went missing on September 26 after trying to collect money to attend upcoming protests against discriminatory hiring practices for teachers, according to the Guardian. The students were in Iguala, a town about two and a half hours inland from Acapulco. After fundraising and protesting in Iguala, the students apparently tried to hitchhike back to their rural teacher’s college in Tixtla, about two hours south of Iguala, but police say the students eventually commandeered three buses from a local terminal.

According to the Guardian, local police chased the buses down and apparently opened fire. The buses stopped, the unarmed students got out, and the attacks got worse. Many of the students apparently fled, but roughly 20 of them were taken away in patrol cars. Later, some of the students returned to the scene and were talking to reporters when they were assaulted again by police or other gunmen. Two students reportedly died, and one was left in a vegetative state. “The body of a third student was found dumped nearby later, his face reportedly skinned and his eye gouged out,” the Guardian reported.

The students’ school, the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers College of Ayotzinapa, is one of more than a dozen around the country that formed after Mexico’s revolution with the goal of raising living standards for impoverished Mexicans and teaching poor farmers to read and write, according to the Christian Science Monitor. The schools are typically seen as leftist, and people from this school, in particular, were some of the major players in the run-up to the Tlatelolco Massacre, a violent clash between students and police in Mexico City in 1968 that led to dozens of deaths.

It’s unclear whether the students’ politics played a role in the attacks. Students from the school reportedly seized and vandalized Iguala’s city hall in June 2013, according to the Wall Street Journal, and have clashed with police there before. “They practically destroyed the building,” an Iguala city councilman told the Journal. “That’s what these boys do. They cause trouble.” The Journal added that the attacks could also have come about as the students were commandeering the buses; police could have feared that the students were going to disrupt a political rally organized by the mayor’s wife set for the same evening.

But what about the cops who led the assault on the students?
Four days after the attack, the state government charged 22 municipal police officers with murder, according to the Guardian, but many more might have been involved. Corruption among Mexican police is a well-covered issue, but this situation reflects how things have reached a whole new level. Ioan Grillo, a veteran reporter who has covered narco crime in Mexico for more than a decade, wrote in the New York Times that this was something new: “As I inhaled the stench of death on that hill, and saw photos of the mutilated student on the road, I felt as never before that I was covering an act of pure unadulterated evil.”

Grillo explained that while the slaughtering of students may “seem inexplicable,” the truth is that drug cartels have taken over so completely that they either control government officials or are themselves the government officials. “Being ruled by corrupt and self-interested politicians can be bad,” Grillo wrote. “But imagine being ruled by sociopathic gangsters. They respond to rowdy students in the only way they understand: with extreme violence designed to cause terror. They stick the mutilated body of a student on public display in the same way they do rival traffickers.”

After the attacks, the federal government took away the local police force’s power and brought in hundreds of its own cops.

Which cartel is behind the violence?
The working theory is that Guerreros Unidos (Warriors United) got the police to attack the students, mounted the attack themselves, or worked directly with police. According to Grillo, Guerreros Unidos is a cartel fighting to control a strategic drug transport area packed with marijuana and opium fields. The cartel operates valuable drug corridors in Guerrero and Morelos, the state immediately to the northeast, according to the Independent.

It’s hard to stay on top of the ever-evolving Mexican cartel breakdown, but here’s what we know: Guerreros Unidos was formed in 2009 after breaking away from the Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO) following Arturo Beltrán Leyva’s death. According to InSight Crime, a foundation that studies organized crime in the Americas, Guerreros Unidos is in a bitter turf war with Los Rojos (also an offshoot of the BLO) and the Knights Templar (a separate cartel) for control of the area’s drug routes. The BBC has reported that the turf battle has taken a bite out of drug profits, so the cartel also makes money from kidnapping, extortion, and collecting fees.

The cartel’s extracurricular activities have put it in the crosshairs of the federal government, which, under President Enrique Peña Nieto, has been trying to look like it’s taking on the country’s most powerful cartels. The drug wars between the cartels and the Mexican federal government had apparently gotten quieter in recent times because, as the Washington Post notes, “the gore, it seems, was bad for business.”

That pressure may have also led one of the leaders of Guerreros Unidos, Benjamín Mondragón Pereda, to kill himself earlier this week after being surrounded by police. Iguala’s mayor and police chief, both suspected of working closely with the cartel, are on the run.

What happened with the unearthing of the mass grave?
When word came after the students’ disappearance that there was a mass grave found nearby, it seemed reasonable that it was the final resting place for the bodies. But yesterday Mexican authorities announced that none of the 28 bodies belonged to any of the students. As the Post reported after the announcement, the news brought fresh hope for families that the students may still be alive, but “to the rest of Mexico, the news that 28 mutilated, charred corpses correspond to another group of victims is a new stop on a carousel of horrors.”

There are at least eight more burial sites in just that area, the Post noted, and it’s possible the students are in one or more of them. (The Post notes that authorities haven’t said how many dead have been recovered, or who the bodies might be.) In fact, Guerrero is home to the largest mass grave ever found in Mexico: In 2010, authorities discovered more than 60 people who had been bound and gagged, some dismembered and decapitated, and thrown down a mine ventilation shaft.

So what’s next?
The disappearance and likely murder of the college students has led to mass protests across the country, with Mexicans once again arguing that the government isn’t doing enough to protect them. In Chilpancingo, the state capital of Guerrero, protesters have burned government buildings and demanded the resignation of the state’s governor. Meanwhile, the federal government has said it will continue to search for the students and try to identify the bodies found in the additional burial sites.

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43 Mexican College Students Disappeared Weeks Ago. What Happened to Them?

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 43 Mexican College Students Disappeared Weeks Ago. What Happened to Them?