Tag Archives: international

Your Olive Oil Is Almost Certainly Fake

by charitys21 Posted on August 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Bite is Mother Jones‘ new food politics podcast. Listen to all our episodes here, or by subscribing in iTunes or Stitcher or via RSS.

Walk into your kitchen and pick up your bottle of olive oil. You know, that health-promoting nectar of Mediterranean age-defying prowess, lubricant of pasta, the only thing that makes your kale salad palatable? Yeah, that stuff is almost certainly not what you think it is.

That’s because unless you’ve plucked your own olives from your own backyard grove and crushed the fruit and pressed the oil yourself, that slippery substance was likely cut, adulterated, and deceptively labeled before it reached the bottle in your hands. “It’s amazing how many people there are in America who don’t even know what the real thing tastes like,” laments Larry Olmsted, author of the new book Real Food, Fake Food: Why You Don’t Know What You’re Eating and What You Can Do About It and our guest on this week’s episode of Bite. “Most oils sold in the United States are fake,” he writes.

Food fraud—or the act of deceiving consumers about a food or ingredient for the sake of profit—affects as much as 10 percent of the global food supply. Of all the instances of food fraud in the United States, according to a scholarly database tracking this very thing, olive oil leads the way, making up 16 percent of cases (followed by milk, honey, saffron, and orange juice). This type of deception has been around for basically as long as we’ve packaged food: Researchers have excavated mislabeled Roman jars containing counterfeit samples of oil.

One of the reasons oil is so often faked is that it’s bottled before you use it, and it travels far before it lands on grocery store shelves. “If it’s something you can’t look at and easily recognize, it’s more likely to be defrauded,” Olmsted explains. The United States imports more olive oil than any other country, and yet regulations on the labeling of said oil are voluntary. The Agriculture Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2017 urged the Food and Drug Administration to take a harder look at the issue; in an earlier draft report accompanying the bill, the Appropriations Committee stated it was “concerned with reports that consistently describe the prevalence of adulterated and fraudulently labeled olive oil imported into the US.”

Since extra-virgin olive oil is the most valuable oil category in the United States, shady producers and dealers have plenty of incentive to mess with it in hopes of reaping more profit. They defraud consumers in three main ways: by (1) diluting real extra-virgin olive oil with less expensive oils, like soybean or sunflower oil; (2) diluting high-quality olive oil with low-quality olive oil; or (3) making low-quality extra-virgin olive oil, “typically incorporating older—and often rancid—stocks of oil held over from bumper crops of previous seasons,” writes Olmsted. When the University of California–Davis researchers tested olive oil bought off the shelf in 2010, they found that 69 percent of imported “extra-virgin” samples failed to meet international standards.

Aside from imparting rotten flavors and ripping people off, this fraud deprives people of the health benefits that may have prompted them to buy the oil in the first place: Fresh extra-virgin olive oil is high in the omega-3 fatty acids that may reduce the risk of heart disease. It’s also low in saturated fat and contains antioxidants. “Bad oil isn’t just a deception, it’s a crime against public health,” one Italian olive oil trade association president told Olmsted.

So what’s the best way to avoid getting punked? Olmsted offers up some handy advice:

Don’t trust most labels: Be wary of words like “pure,” “natural,” “virgin olive oil,” “premium,” “light,” “made in Italy,” and just “olive oil.” They suggest a low-quality substance, and one potentially made from refining the remainders of the skin and pits of olives rather than the olives themselves. “First cold pressed,” while sounding legit, doesn’t actually mean much these days since extra-virgin olive oil is typically spun out of olives with centrifuges rather than pressed. Even the term “extra-virgin olive oil” gets slapped on bottles of low-grade oil illegally—and enforcement is very sparse—so terminology isn’t necessarily your safeguard.

Stamp of approval: Here in the United States, look for the seal denoting approval by the California Olive Oil Council: “COOC Certified Extra Virgin.” (And here’s its list of 2015 certified oils). Olmsted also recommends Extra Virgin Alliance (EVA) and UNAPROL, the respected Italian olive growers’ association. Concern over olive oil fraud in the United States sparked the Department of Agriculture to add olive oil to its voluntary quality monitoring program in 2012, but so far only two companies participate. (Look for the label “USDA Quality Monitored.”)

Judge the country of origin: “If you have to purchase blindly with no other clue besides where it was made, choose Chile or Australia,” writes Olmsted. The two countries received the highest marks from the US International Trade Commission’s report on average quality of extra-virgin olive oil.

Buy in season and in the dark: Look for bottles with dates listed on them, and buy the oil that was bottled most recently. The end of the year is the worst time to buy oils from the Northern Hemisphere, because they will likely be leftovers from last season; likewise, avoid oils from Chile, Australia, and South Africa during our spring and summer. Olive oil’s quality degrades in the light, so don’t purchase clear bottles that have been sitting by a window; opt for dark glass bottles or cans instead.

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Your Olive Oil Is Almost Certainly Fake

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Why Some American Olympians Had to Crowdfund Their Way to Rio

by PollyGraf09 Posted on August 6, 2016

Mother Jones

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More than 550 American athletes will be competing in the Rio Olympics, but for some, finding the money to get themselves and their families to Rio hasn’t been easy.

On the GoFundMe crowdfunding site, dozens of US Olympians, Paralympians, and their families have set up campaigns to help raise money for their trips. Olympic decathlete Jeremy Taiwo, for example, began his campaign way back in December. Taiwo asked for $15,000 to help fund equipment, health care, and training costs. After meeting the original goal, Taiwo increased it to $47,100 and has so far received $63,375.

Paralympic soccer player Gregory Brigman started his campaign for $6,000 in late July and still has almost $4,000 to go. Brigman wrote that he had to resign from his engineering job in order to have enough time to train. “The U.S. Soccer organization covers all expenses for athletes while playing and training, but they do not support the common bills of life,” wrote Brigman, who is asking for funds to help with daily needs and training costs.

There’s a reason why so many American athletes turn to sites like GoFundMe for financial help: Unlike other countries, the United States doesn’t provide government funding to its Olympic committee. This agreement, set in 1978 as part of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, allowed the US Olympic Committee to hold exclusive control over the representation of American athletes and terms associated with the Olympics. As a result, the USOC is responsible for fundraising the amount of money needed to send athletes to the competition, maintain training facilities, secure sponsorships, and pay its staff.

“Our nation stands apart from others because our Olympic and Paralympic teams are not just cheered by an enthusiastic national fan base, but also funded by one,” the US Olympic Foundation, a nonprofit that fundraises for the USOC, notes on its website.

Contrast the United States with the United Kingdom, for instance, which pours about £543 million (about $709 million) from the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport and the National Lottery into UK Sport, a sports agency that manages funding and partnerships for the country’s Olympic athletes. Olympic athletes there are eligible to receive anywhere from £15,000 to £28,000 a year (almost $20,000 to some $37,000) based on their performance. That’s in addition to other services and training support UK athletes receive. In Canada, the government invests about $200 million CAD ($153 million USD) into the Olympics annually, and senior athletes receive $1,500 monthly stipends. Some athletes are given extra funding if they have won medals in the past.

The USOC does dole out millions of dollars for its athletes, as well as cover basic airfare, lodging, and food during the games. It says it spent $73 million in direct funding for athletes and another $81 million for programming in 2013. Sponsorships from private companies such as Deloitte and Chobani also provide funding, but these only cover a certain number of teams and athletes. “Sports that don’t draw a lot of revenue get a smaller share of the funding that’s available, so it’s up to the individual sport federation and how many athletes they support before making the team,” said Mark Dyreson, a professor of kinesiology and history at Penn State University. “In smaller sports, it’s just a handful of athletes that get support.”

Though there’s no comprehensive data on how much American Olympic athletes are paid, an investigation by the Washington Post found that of all the funds involved in the USOC, athletes made the least amount of money. A member of the track and field team made an average income of $17,000, while athletes on the swimming team could make only up to $42,000 in stipends. Even if a track and field athlete was ranked among the top 10 in the country for his events, athletes still brought home an average income of $16,553. The CEO of the track and field team, on the other hand, made about $1.1 million a year, according to the Post. The investigation also called into question how the USOC spent its funds. Though the USOC says that it directs around 90 percent of its budget to supporting athletes, one study found that, in 2012, less than 10 percent of that budget went directly to athletes as cash payments. Instead, the USOC spent a large amount of its money on Olympic training centers where fewer than 13 percent of US Olympians train.

As the Post investigation put it, some International Olympic Committee members will be paid more to watch the Olympics than the actual athletes competing in the Games. “The athletes are the very bottom of a trickle-down system, and there’s just not much left for us,” US javelin thrower Cyrus Hostetler told the Post. “They take care of themselves first, and us last.”

Brigman, of the Paralympic soccer team, told Mother Jones in an email that he is not paid as an athlete, and that the team pays for flights, food, lodging, and some gear. He reached out to some 20 companies and only heard back from one. (It turned him down.) So after resigning from his job, he started his campaign to cover his August bills.

“I had to choose between my job and the team,” Brigman said, “and when asked to play for your country you just don’t think twice about it.”

Of course, going to the Olympics will be a chance for athletes to win medals, which comes with cash prizes, and to secure sponsorship opportunities from private companies. And sponsorship, Dyreson points out, is where American athletes could have more of an advantage than athletes from other countries.

“If you’re an athlete, there’s no better place to fund your training than in the US,” Dyreson said. “It’s just frustrating because athletes here have to be individual entrepreneurs more than athletes in other nations.”

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Suspected US Coalition Airstrikes In Syria Kill Scores of Civilians

by ArnoldMidgett Posted on July 19, 2016

Mother Jones

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Suspected airstrikes by the United States-led coalition in Syria recently killed at least 56 civilians, including 11 children, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The death toll from airstrikes targeting two villages near the Islamic State-controlled city of Manbij could be as high as 200, which would make it the coalition’s deadliest attack in two years.

In an interview with the non-profit journalism outlet Syria Direct on Tuesday, a local citizen journalist said the school housed displaced people and that 124 dead had been counted so far. A day earlier, 21 people were killed in raids also believed to be carried out by coalition aircraft north of Manbij. The airstrikes coincided with a ground offensive launched by ISIS against the US-backed Syria Democratic Forces, according to the New York Times.

In a statement, Amnesty International stated that the United States needs to do more to prevent civilian casualties. “The bombing of al-Tukhar may have resulted in the largest loss of civilian life by coalition operations in Syria,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty’s interim deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program. “There must be a prompt, independent and transparent investigation to determine what happened, who was responsible, and how to avoid further needles loss of civilian life. Anyone responsible for violations of international humanitarian law must be brought to justice and victims and their families should receive full reparation.”

United States Central Command (CENTCOM) has not commented on the latest reports of civilian deaths. The Pentagon’s estimates of civilian casualties from its anti-ISIS campaign have long been at odds with those of reputable monitoring groups.

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This Dinosaur Isn’t Going Extinct Anytime Soon

by DwayneR96jrlznc Posted on July 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared on TomDispatch.

Here’s the good news: Wind power, solar power, and other renewable forms of energy are expanding far more quickly than anyone expected, ensuring that these systems will provide an ever-increasing share of our future energy supply. According to the most recent projections from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy, global consumption of wind, solar, hydropower, and other renewables will double between now and 2040, jumping from 64 to 131 quadrillion British thermal units (BTUs).

And here’s the bad news: The consumption of oil, coal, and natural gas is also growing, making it likely that, whatever the advances of renewable energy, fossil fuels will continue to dominate the global landscape for decades to come, accelerating the pace of global warming and ensuring the intensification of climate-change catastrophes.

The rapid growth of renewable energy has given us much to cheer about. Not so long ago, energy analysts were reporting that wind and solar systems were too costly to compete with oil, coal, and natural gas in the global marketplace. Renewables would, it was then assumed, require pricey subsidies that might not always be available. That was then and this is now. Today, remarkably enough, wind and solar are already competitive with fossil fuels for many uses and in many markets.

If that wasn’t predicted, however, neither was this: Despite such advances, the allure of fossil fuels hasn’t dissipated. Individuals, governments, whole societies continue to opt for such fuels even when they gain no significant economic advantage from that choice and risk causing severe planetary harm. Clearly, something irrational is at play. Think of it as the fossil-fuel equivalent of an addictive inclination writ large.

The contradictory and troubling nature of the energy landscape is on clear display in the 2016 edition of the International Energy Outlook, the annual assessment of global trends released by the EIA this May. The good news about renewables gets prominent attention in the report, which includes projections of global energy use through 2040. “Renewables are the world’s fastest-growing energy source over the projection period,” it concludes. Wind and solar are expected to demonstrate particular vigor in the years to come, their growth outpacing every other form of energy. But because renewables start from such a small base—representing just 12 percent of all energy used in 2012—they will continue to be overshadowed in the decades ahead, explosive growth or not. In 2040, according to the report’s projections, fossil fuels will still have a grip on a staggering 78 percent of the world energy market, and—if you don’t mind getting thoroughly depressed—oil, coal, and natural gas will each still command larger shares of the market than all renewables combined.

Keep in mind that total energy consumption is expected to be much greater in 2040 than at present. Humanity will be using an estimated 815 quadrillion BTUs (compared to approximately 600 quadrillion today). In other words, though fossil fuels will lose some of their market share to renewables, they will still experience striking growth in absolute terms. Oil consumption, for example, is expected to increase by 34 percent—from 90 million to 121 million barrels per day. Despite all the negative publicity it’s been getting lately, coal, too, should experience substantial growth, rising from 153 to 180 quadrillion BTUs in “delivered energy” over this period. And natural gas will be the fossil-fuel champ, with global demand for it jumping by 70 percent. Put it all together and the consumption of fossil fuels is projected to increase by 38 percent over the period the report surveys.

Anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of climate science has to shudder at such projections. After all, emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels account for approximately three-quarters of the greenhouse gases humans are putting into the atmosphere. An increase in their consumption of such magnitude will have a corresponding impact on the greenhouse effect that is accelerating the rise in global temperatures.

At the UN Climate Summit in Paris last December, delegates from more than 190 countries adopted a plan aimed at preventing global warming from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius (about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial level. This target was chosen because most scientists believe that any warming beyond that will result in catastrophic and irreversible climate effects, including the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps (and a resulting sea-level rise of 10-20 feet). Under the Paris Agreement, the participating nations signed onto a plan to take immediate steps to halt the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and then move to actual reductions. Although the agreement doesn’t specify what measures should be taken to satisfy this requirement—each country is obliged to devise its own “intended nationally determined contributions” to the overall goal—the only practical approach for most countries would be to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

As the EIA report makes eye-poppingly clear, however, the endorsers of the Paris Agreement aren’t on track to reduce their consumption of oil, coal, and natural gas. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions are expected to rise by an estimated 34 percent between 2012 and 2040. The predicted net increase of 10.9 billion metric tons is equal to the total carbon emissions of the United States, Canada, and Europe in 2012. If such projections prove accurate, global temperatures will rise, possibly significantly above that 2 degree mark, with the destructive effects of climate change we are already witnessing today—the fires, heat waves, floods, droughts, storms, and sea level rise—only intensifying.

How to explain explain the world’s tenacious reliance on fossil fuels, despite all that we know about their role in global warming and those lofty promises made in Paris?

To some degree, it is undoubtedly the product of built-in momentum: our existing urban, industrial, and transportation infrastructure was largely constructed around fossil fuel-powered energy systems, and it will take a long time to replace or reconfigure them for a post-carbon future. Most of our electricity, for example, is provided by coal- and gas-fired power plants that will continue to operate for years to come. Even with the rapid growth of renewables, coal and natural gas are projected to supply 56 percent of the fuel for the world’s electrical power generation in 2040 (a drop of only 5 percent from today). Likewise, the overwhelming majority of cars and trucks on the road are now fueled by gasoline and diesel. Even if the number of new ones running on electricity were to spike, it would still be many years before oil-powered vehicles lost their commanding position. As history tells us, transitions from one form of energy to another take time.

Then there’s the problem—and what a problem it is!—of vested interests. Energy is the largest and most lucrative business in the world, and the giant fossil fuel companies have long enjoyed a privileged and highly profitable status. Oil corporations like Chevron and ExxonMobil, along with their state-owned counterparts like Gazprom of Russia and Saudi Aramco, are consistently ranked among the world’s most valuable enterprises. These companies—and the governments they’re associated with—are not inclined to surrender the massive profits they generate year after year for the future well-being of the planet.

As a result, it’s a guarantee that they will employ any means at their disposal (including well-established, well-funded ties to friendly politicians and political parties) to slow the transition to renewables. In the United States, for example, the politicians of coal-producing states are now at work on plans to block the Obama administration’s “clean power” drive, which might indeed lead to a sharp reduction in coal consumption. Similarly, Exxon has recruited friendly Republican officials to impede the efforts of some state attorney generals to investigate that company’s past suppression of information on the links between fossil fuel use and climate change. And that’s just to scratch the surface of corporate efforts to mislead the public that have included the funding of the Heartland Institute and other climate-change-denying think tanks.

Of course, nowhere is the determination to sustain fossil fuels fiercer than in the “petro-states” that rely on their production for government revenues, provide energy subsidies to their citizens, and sometimes sell their products at below-market rates to encourage their use. According to the International Energy Agency, in 2014 fossil fuel subsidies of various sorts added up to a staggering $493 billion worldwide—far more than those for the development of renewable forms of energy. The G-20 group of leading industrial powers agreed in 2009 to phase out such subsidies, but a meeting of G-20 energy ministers in Beijing in June failed to adopt a timeline to complete the phase-out process, suggesting that little progress will be made when the heads of state of those countries meet in Hangzhou, China, this September.

None of this should surprise anyone, given the global economy’s institutionalized dependence on fossil fuels and the amounts of money at stake. What it doesn’t explain, however, is the projected growth in global fossil fuel consumption. A gradual decline, accelerating over time, would be consistent with a broad-scale but slow transition from carbon-based fuels to renewables. That the opposite seems to be happening, that their use is actually expanding in most parts of the world, suggests that another factor is in play: addiction.

We all know that smoking tobacco, snorting cocaine, or consuming too much alcohol is bad for us, but many of us persist in doing so anyway, finding the resulting thrill, the relief, or the dulling of the pain of everyday life simply too great to resist. In the same way, much of the world now seems to find it easier to fill up the car with the usual tankful of gasoline or flip the switch and receive electricity from coal or natural gas than to begin to shake our addiction to fossil fuels. As in everyday life, so at a global level, the power of addiction seems regularly to trump the obvious desirability of embarking on another, far healthier path.

Without acknowledging any of this, the 2016 EIA report indicates just how widespread and prevalent our fossil-fuel addiction remains. In explaining the rising demand for oil, for example, it notes that “in the transportation sector, liquid fuels predominantly petroleum continue to provide most of the energy consumed.” Even though “advances in nonliquids-based electrical transportation technologies are anticipated,” they will not prove sufficient “to offset the rising demand for transportation services worldwide,” and so the demand for gasoline and diesel will continue to grow.

Most of the increase in demand for petroleum-based fuels is expected to occur in the developing world, where hundreds of millions of people are entering the middle class, buying their first gas-powered cars, and about to be hooked on an energy way of life that should be, but isn’t, dying. Oil use is expected to grow in China by 57 percent from 2012 to 2040, and at a faster rate (131 percent!) in India. Even in the United States, however, a growing preference for sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks continues to mean higher petroleum use. In 2016, according to Edmunds.com, nearly 75 percent of the people who traded in a hybrid or electric car to a dealer replaced it with an all-gas car, typically a larger vehicle like an SUV or a pickup.

The rising demand for coal follows a depressingly similar pattern. Although it remains a major source of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change, many developing nations, especially in Asia, continue to favor it when adding electricity capacity because of its low cost and familiar technology. Although the demand for coal in China—long the leading consumer of that fuel—is slowing, that country is still expected to increase its usage by 12 percent by 2035. The big story here, however, is India: According to the EIA, India’s coal consumption will grow by 62 percent in the years surveyed, eventually making it, not the United States, the world’s second-largest consumer. Most of that extra coal will go for electricity generation, once again to satisfy an “expanding middle class using more electricity-consuming appliances.”

And then there’s the mammoth expected increase in the demand for natural gas. According to the EIA’s latest projections, gas consumption will rise faster than any fuel except renewables, and experience the biggest absolute increase of any fuel. At present, natural gas appears to enjoy an enormous advantage in the global energy marketplace. “In the power sector, natural gas is an attractive choice for new generating plants given its moderate capital cost and attractive pricing in many regions as well as the relatively high fuel efficiency and moderate capital cost of gas-fired plants,” the EIA notes. It is also said to benefit from its “clean” reputation (compared to coal) in generating electricity. “As more governments begin implementing national or regional plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, natural gas may displace consumption of the more carbon-intensive coal and liquid fuels.”

Unfortunately, despite that reputation, natural gas remains a carbon-based fossil fuel, and its expanded consumption will result in a significant increase in global greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the EIA claims that it will generate a larger increase in such emissions over the next quarter-century than either coal or oil—a disturbing note for those who contend that natural gas provides a “bridge” to a green energy future.

If you were to read through the EIA’s latest report as I did, you, too, might end up depressed by humanity’s addictive need for its daily fossil fuel hit. While the EIA’s analysts add the usual caveats, including the possibility that a more sweeping than expected follow-up climate agreement or strict enforcement of the one adopted last December could alter their projections, they detect no signs of the beginning of a determined move away from the reliance on fossil fuels.

If, indeed, addiction is a big part of the problem, any strategies undertaken to address climate change must incorporate a treatment component. Simply saying that global warming is bad for the planet, and that prudence and morality oblige us to prevent the worst climate-related disasters, will no more suffice than would telling addicts that tobacco and hard drugs are bad for them. Success in any global drive to avert climate catastrophe will involve tackling addictive behavior at its roots and promoting lasting changes in lifestyle. To do that, it will be necessary to learn from the anti-drug and anti-tobacco communities about best practices, and apply them to fossil fuels.

Consider, for example, the case of anti-smoking efforts. It was the medical community that first took up the struggle against tobacco and began by banning smoking in hospitals and other medical facilities. This effort was later extended to public facilities—schools, government buildings, airports, and so on—until vast areas of the public sphere became smoke-free. Anti-smoking activists also campaigned to have warning labels displayed in tobacco advertising and cigarette packaging.

Such approaches helped reduce tobacco consumption around the world and can be adapted to the anti-carbon struggle. College campuses and town centers could, for instance, be declared car-free—a strategy already embraced by London’s newly elected mayor, Sadiq Khan. Express lanes on major streets and highways can be reserved for hybrids, electric cars, and other alternative vehicles. Gas station pumps and oil advertising can be made to incorporate warning signs saying something like, “Notice: Consumption of this product increases your exposure to asthma, heat waves, sea level rise, and other threats to public health.” Once such an approach began to be seriously considered, there would undoubtedly be a host of other ideas for how to begin to put limits on our fossil fuel addiction.

Such measures would have to be complemented by major moves to combat the excessive influence of the fossil fuel companies and energy states when it comes to setting both local and global policy. In the US, for instance, severely restricting the scope of private donations in campaign financing, as Senator Bernie Sanders advocated in his presidential campaign, would be a way to start down this path. Another would step up legal efforts to hold giant energy companies like ExxonMobil accountable for malfeasance in suppressing information about the links between fossil fuel combustion and global warming, just as, decades ago, anti-smoking activists tried to expose tobacco company criminality in suppressing information on the links between smoking and cancer.

Without similar efforts of every sort on a global level, one thing seems certain: The future projected by the EIA will indeed come to pass and human suffering of a previously unimaginable sort will be the order of the day.

Michael T. Klare, a TomDispatch regular, is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of The Race for What’s Left. A documentary based on his book Blood and Oil is available from the Media Education Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1.

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This Dinosaur Isn’t Going Extinct Anytime Soon

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What the Hell Is Going On in Turkey?

by Candace00O Posted on July 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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Update, July 15, 11:20 p.m. ET: At least 42 people have died in the attacks on Turkey’s capital, including 17 police officers killed in the helicopter attack on the police special forces headquarters, according to local agencies. There are also an unknown number of casualties from clashes in Istanbul.

Update, July 15, 9:30 p.m. ET: Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ&#159;an, in an appearance on NTV from Ataturk airport in Istanbul early on Saturday morning, said that coup plotters loyal to his rival, the controversial Turkish preacher Fethullah Gullen, “will pay a heavy price for their treason.” ErdoÄ&#159;an blamed Gullen and his followers for the attempted coup, and added: “The Turkish armed forces must be cleansed. We have called them a terrorist organization, an armed organization, and that has now proven itself and they are using this nation’s arms to shoot at this nation.” (The Alliance for Shared Values, the group led by Fethullah Gullen, issued a statement condemning “any military intervention in domestic politics of Turkey.”)

Update, July 15, 8:31 p.m. ET: A bomb has hit Turkey’s parliamentary building, according to the Associated Press. According to an AFP photographer, Turkish military forces opened fire on crowds gathered at the entrance to Istanbul’s Bosphorus bridge.

Update, July 15, 7:32 p.m. ET: President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have come out in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ&#159;an and the “democratically-elected Government of Turkey,” urging all parties to “show restraint, and avoid any violence or bloodshed.”

Update, July 15, 7:18 p.m. ET: Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported that 17 police officers have been killed in a helicopter attack on the police special forces headquarters on the outskirts of Ankara, according to the Associated Press.

Update, July 15, 6:58 p.m. ET: The leaders of a third opposition party, the left-wing People’s Democratic Party, or HDP, have also announced their opposition to the coup. “HDP is under all circumstances and as a matter of principle against all kinds of coups,” said the party’s co-chairs in a statement. The announcement is significant: The HDP was attacked and repressed by ErdoÄ&#159;an’s government after it won 13 percent of the vote in last summer’s parliamentary elections and blocked ErdoÄ&#159;an from changing the constitution to give himself more power.

Update, July 15, 6:37 p.m. ET: Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ&#159;an have responded to his call for people to gather in the streets to try to block the military’s coup attempt. Images and reports from Turkey show crowds gathering in public spaces like Istanbul’s Taksim Square and chanting against the military.

Turkey’s Hürriyet Daily News also reported that two parties, the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party and the secularist Republican People’s Party, expressed their opposition to the coup.

Update, July 15, 5:30 p.m. ET: Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ&#159;an made a statement on Turkish TV stations urging supporters of him and his Freedom and Justice Party, known as the AKP, to take to the streets and gather at airports to resist the military coup. “I am commander in chief in this country,” he said. “Those who attempted a coup will pay the highest price.” In a surreal moment, ErdoÄ&#159;an delivered his speech via video chat, with TV anchors holding their phones up to the camera to broadcast his message.

The Turkish military announced on Friday that it has taken over the country from Turkey’s civilian leadership. “To regain our constitutional, democratic, and human rights, we are now officially controlling the country,” the military announced on Turkish television.

It’s still unclear the military’s commanders authorized the coup or if the attempt was made by a smaller faction of the military. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, speaking on Turkey’s NTV station, had said earlier on Friday afternoon that at least some Turkish military units were attempting a coup against the country’s civilian leadership, but insisted it was a “a group within the military” and downplayed the presence of soldiers in the streets of Istanbul.

Just minutes later, the military took over the airwaves, shutting down state broadcaster TRT and making its announcement. Several outlets also reported that the military has closed Istanbul’s Atatürk airport, with no flights currently leaving. Later, after the military’s takeover, Reuters reported that the “statement made on behalf of armed forces was not authorized by military command.”

Modern Turkey has a long history of military coups dating back to 1960. The Turkish military has typically acted as a guardian of the secular vision espoused by the country’s founder, Kemal Atatürk, and stepped in when it believed civilian governments were violating those principles. But under Prime Minister and now-President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ&#159;an, religion has played a much larger role in Turkish public life and there had not been a coup attempt since 1997. ErdoÄ&#159;an has also attempted to consolidate power, cracking down heavily on journalists and protest movement while attempting to change the constitution to give his office more power. ErdoÄ&#159;an was reportedly on vacation when the coup attempt began.

Images and videos of Turkish military units in Istanbul blocking bridges to the city’s Asian side and apparently telling motorists to return to their homes began appearing on social media around 3:30 p.m. Eastern time on Friday.

Other posts showed military jets were buzzing over the city at low altitude, and gunfire was reported.

While there was at first confusion about whether the military presence was due to a terror alert or some other event, Yildirim said military units had attempted an uprising and would “pay the highest price.”

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What the Hell Is Going On in Turkey?

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How Do You Stop an Attack Like the One in Nice? You Can’t.

by TukeEasterling Posted on July 15, 2016

Mother Jones

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One day after a terrorist attack killed at least 84 people in Nice, France, French authorities announced that the man who carried out the attacks had never been suspected of terrorist sympathies. So do intelligence agencies have any effective way to stop such isolated acts of terrorism?

“No,” says Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security. “I wish there was a better answer than that, but there frankly isn’t.”

Prosecutors in Nice told the media on Friday that Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, the 31-year-old French citizen originally from Tunisia who carried out the attack, was “completely unknown to both France’s domestic and foreign intelligence officials.” That bucked the trend of recent terrorist strikes in Europe, including the Paris attacks last year and the Brussels bombings in March. The perpetrators of those attacks were connected to known jihadist networks, and intelligence officials were criticized in those cases for failing to pursue leads or carry out surveillance that may have caught the attackers before they struck.

But in the case of isolated individuals, Hughes says there’s little to be done. “At the end of the day, this really comes down to human intelligence,” he says. “You try to understand the group of people that are drawn to this and then you try to infiltrate as best you can.” If there isn’t anywhere to infiltrate, or the attacker has no previous signs of radicalization to alert authorities, attackers can simply pop up at any point with little warning.

The only real way to slow down such attacks may be to target propaganda from ISIS and other jihadi groups. ISIS is notoriously adept at churning out propaganda videos and flooding social media with sympathizers and recruiters. “Is that actually an important effect on would-be recruits?” Hughes asks. “Are they more likely to go mobilize to action than they have been in the past?”

He believes the answer is yes. “If you’re constantly being told to do what you can where you are, you’re constantly told in three different platforms on a daily, almost minute-by-minute basis, it’s going to have some level of effect on individuals who are already drawn to this,” he says. The more propaganda that’s available, he argues, the more people like Lahouaiej-Bouhlel may carry out “ISIS-inspired” attacks, deciding in the spur of the moment to act on their private thoughts.

That’s not only potentially harder to stop, but also psychologically harmful. Freelance attackers may use whatever methods or targets are at hand, and that seeming randomness, Hughes says, “shocks the system. We’re not just talking about airports. We’re also not just talking about small arms, which means you get more media coverage, which means inspiring the next individuals who want be copycats or who want to do more.”

The US government has made attempts to cut down on the flow of jihadi propaganda online. National security officials met with tech industry executives in January, and the White House held a summit in Washington a month later to try to generate cooperation between tech companies and security agencies. But efforts so far haven’t yielded much—one State Department anti-extremism program on Twitter called “Think Again, Turn Away” is a notorious punchline among terrorism experts—especially given ongoing tension between the two sides over encryption and other privacy issues. “It’s like you’ve been asked to partner up and dance with the bully at school who keeps trying to trip you in the hallways,” one of the White House summit participants told BuzzFeed.

Hughes is certain about one thing: Aggressive anti-Muslim responses only increase the likelihood of more attacks. Other terrorism analysts agree. “Unfortunately, the most likely reaction after the Nice attack is also the worst one: more vitriol and hostility toward French and European Muslims,” wrote Georgetown professor Daniel Byman for Slate on Friday. “That makes it harder for European security services to gain the cooperation of local communities and easier for ISIS to gain recruits and score victories.”

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How Do You Stop an Attack Like the One in Nice? You Can’t.

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Donald Trump Has Nice Things to Say About Megalomaniac Autocrats

by John Parks Posted on July 13, 2016

Mother Jones

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When Donald Trump recently praised former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein at a rally in North Carolina, it was not his first time expressing admiration for dictators and despots. In the past, he has complimented North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. His top political operative, Paul Manafort, a veteran Republican lobbyist and consultant, has made millions of dollars working the system on behalf of corporations seeking government favors as well as Third World strongmen and kleptocrats.

In fact, the two men have been involved with an unusual number of the world’s autocrats and despots. Here are a few whom Trump has praised or for whom Manafort has worked, and some of their most notable abuses of power.

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein: During Saddam’s reign in Iraq from 1979 to 2003, human rights groups documented numerous instances in which the regime engaged in brutal torture, systematic rape, arbitrary executions that included beheadings, and other abuses. After Saddam was captured in 2003 by US forces, the New York Times estimated that his regime had contributed to approximately 1 million deaths in Iraq’s prisons and in the war he had launched against Iran.

Trump connection: At a rally in North Carolina in July, Trump said of Saddam: “He was a bad guy—really bad guy. But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read them the rights. They didn’t talk. They were terrorists. It was over. Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorism.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin: Since returning to power in 2012, Putin has passed laws and instituted policies that crack down on freedom of expression and assembly. A 2012 law targeted groups that accept foreign funding—often NGOs with social justice causes. Authorities have arrested hundreds of activists at opposition rallies across the country. Under Putin, the Russian parliament also unanimously passed several pieces of anti-gay legislation, including the “gay propaganda” bill, passed in the run-up to the 2014 Sochi Olympics, that emboldened vigilante gangs to torment gay people. Some Russia researchers and Putin opponents suggest a link between Putin, one of his allies, and the 2015 killing of Boris Nemtsov, a prominent opposition activist, as well as the deaths of other opposition figures.

Trump connection: “I think Putin’s been a very strong leader for Russia,” Trump said during a GOP debate in March. “He’s been a lot stronger than our leader, that I can tell you.” A few months prior, Trump said in an interview with ABC, “In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that. I don’t know that he has.”

Former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi: Gaddafi’s 42-year reign in Libya was marked by the arrest, imprisonment, disappearance, or torture of thousands of government critics, protesters, and civilians perceived to be in cahoots with the political opposition. The regime also sanctioned televised public hangings and mutilation of political opponents. In 1996, security forces fatally shot more than 1,000 inmates at a Libyan prison.

Trump connection: In a February GOP debate, Trump said, “We would be so much better off if Gaddafi were in charge right now.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un: Last week, the US government issued sanctions against the North Korean leader as well as 10 other North Korean officials for their complicity in human rights abuses. “Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture,” said Adam J. Szubin, acting undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in a press release. The Treasury Department singled out Kim Jong Un’s Ministry of State Security, which maintains a network of prison camps that hold 80,000 to 120,000 people. Egregious abuses in these state-run camps are common, according to the Treasury Department, and include “torture and inhumane treatment of detainees during interrogation and in detention centers. This inhumane treatment includes beatings, forced starvation, sexual assault, forced abortions, and infanticide.”

Trump connection: At a January rally in Iowa, just days after North Korea said it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, Trump said, “If you look at North Korea, this guy, he’s like a maniac, okay? And you got to give him credit. How many young guys—he was like 26 or 25 when his father died—take over these tough generals and all of a sudden, you know, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it. How does he do that? Even though it is a culture, and it’s a culture thing, he goes in, he takes over, he’s the boss. It’s incredible.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: According to a 2016 Human Rights Watch summary on Syria, Assad’s government has been carrying out “deliberate and indiscriminate” attacks on civilians while doing little to end the ongoing civil war. “Incommunicado detention and torture remain rampant,” Human Rights Watch noted. A UN Human Rights Council report found that many detainees in Syrian prisons had been beaten to death or died as a result of injuries sustained during torture or due to inhumane living conditions. “The Government has committed the crimes against humanity of extermination, murder, rape or other forms of sexual violence, torture, imprisonment, enforced disappearance and other inhuman acts,” the UN concluded.

Trump connection: On a June 2015 episode of The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, Trump discussed his Middle East policy shortly after announcing his run for president. “So we’re helping the head of Syria, who is not supposed to be our friend,” Trump said, “although he looks a lot better than some of our so-called friends.”

Ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych: Yanukovych served as Ukraine’s president from 2010 to 2014 before being ousted in February 2014, following mass protests against his regime in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in the wake of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. His rule was marked by a slide from democracy to a more authoritarian style of government. Yanukovych’s regime jailed officials of the previous administration, including the former prime minister. Following Yanukovych’s ouster, a warrant was issued for his arrest due to involvement in the “mass killing of civilians,” related to the deaths of at least 82 people, primarily protesters, in Kiev earlier that winter.

Trump connection: Manafort was first hired to work for Yanukovych on his 2004 presidential campaign. Yanukovych was momentarily victorious but lost power after allegations of massive electoral fraud led to the Orange Revolution and a revote in which Yanukovych lost. He was appointed prime minister in 2006 and soon hired Manafort again to help his party win that year’s parliamentary elections. Manafort then stayed on as a general consultant. He worked on Yanukovych’s messaging and brand, trying to help the strongman and his party improve their image in the eyes of the Ukrainian people. After the 2010 presidential election, which Yanukovych won, Manafort continued working for him as an adviser. A former associate familiar with Manafort’s earnings told Politico that his total pay from work with Yanukovych ran into the seven figures.

Jonas Savimbi, former Angolan guerilla army leader: Savimbi and his guerilla army, UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), tried for decades to overthrow the Angolan government. In the process, they maimed or killed tens of thousands of civilians with land mines, and a Human Rights Watch report described men being forcibly recruited to fight, girls held in sexual slavery, and random killings or beatings of suspected government sympathizers.

Trump connection: With Angola in the middle of a civil war in 1985, Savimbi paid Manafort’s DC lobbying firm $600,000 to help him get funds and other support from the US government for UNITA’s work to overthrow the government. The lobbying effort led Sen. Bob Dole to encourage the United States to send additional arms to UNITA and the Reagan administration to funnel $42 million to UNITA from 1986 to 1987. Several sources, including Sen. Bill Bradley, have credited Savimbi’s continued willingness to pay large sums to Manafort’s firm, and the continued US funds that Manafort’s firm lobbied for, with delaying a cease-fire and protracting the violence in Angola.

Mobutu Sese Seko, former ruler of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo): Mobutu seized power of the Democratic Republic of Congo in a 1965 coup. He renamed the country the Republic of Zaire in 1971 and would remain its president until 1997. Mobutu established a political structure that kept most power in his hands, and he used his power to steal a fortune from the state for himself, while the rest of the country floundered economically. His regime was also marked by brutal treatment of its citizens: widespread torture of political opposition, illegal searches, military looting, beating, rapes, and arbitrary arrest and detention, often without a fair trial.

Trump connection: In 1989, Mobutu hired Manafort’s firm to orchestrate a PR campaign to clean up his image. Mobutu paid the firm $1 million a year for this service.

Sani Abacha, former president of Nigeria: Abacha became the head of Nigeria in 1993, when he overthrew a transitional government. The following year, he formally assigned absolute power to his regime, issuing a decree that placed his jurisdiction above that of the courts. His rule ended in 1998 with his death, but in the intervening years Abacha’s regime engaged in brutal treatment of Nigerian citizens: He arrested or executed his opponents, shut down democratic institutions, and reportedly stole nearly $500 million from the government for his own personal coffers.

Trump connection: Abacha hired a firm run by Manafort in 1998 to help him orchestrate a PR campaign that would convince Americans that he was the leader of “a progressive emerging democracy,” wrote the New York Times in 2000. The Times reported that the Abacha account was handled primarily by Manafort himself.

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Donald Trump Has Nice Things to Say About Megalomaniac Autocrats

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This Salvadoran Woman Served 4 Years for Having a Miscarriage

by AishaMcLean5884 Posted on July 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Maria Teresa Rivera didn’t realize she was pregnant in 2011 when she went into early labor. The 28-year-old factory worker in El Salvador, who already had one son, started bleeding heavily late one night, so her family called an ambulance to drive her to the hospital. The next day, Rivera was taken to jail.

Her crime? Having a miscarriage.

Rivera is one of a number of women in El Salvador incarcerated not for abortion, which is illegal, but as a result of miscarriages. An abortion rights group in the area has identified 17 people convicted of homicide, with sentences upward of 40 years, after facing obstetric emergencies such as miscarriage or stillbirth.

After serving four of her 40-year prison sentence for aggravated homicide, Rivera’s conviction was overturned by a judge and she walked free this spring. But the prosecution appealed her release, and this week a three-judge panel will decide whether to hold a new hearing or throw out the charges for good.

Only six countries in the world, including El Salvador, ban abortion in all cases, even when the pregnancy is the result of rape or threatens the life of the mother. Nicaragua, Chile, the Dominican Republic, the Vatican city-state, and Malta are the only other places with similar prohibitions. In January, El Salvador’s deputy health minister told women to avoid getting pregnant for two years because of worries over the effects of Zika virus.

“A woman who procures herself an abortion is running a very high risk,” Carmen Barroso, the former regional director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in the Western Hemisphere, told Mother Jones. “She’ll run the risk to her life because she’ll have to have an unsafe abortion because they are so limited in availability. It is tragic.”

The ban in El Salvador got international attention in 2013, when the country’s highest court rejected the abortion request of a young woman, known only as Beatriz, with a potentially life-threatening pregnancy, ruling the “rights of the mother cannot be privileged over those” of the fetus. The fetus suffered from anencephaly, a severe congenital disorder where the fetus’ brain and skull stop growing, giving it little chance of surviving outside the womb. The woman survived after getting a controversial caesarian section.

Despite the ban, more than 19,000 illegal abortions were reported in El Salvador between 2005 and 2008, according to the Ministry of Health’s Information, Monitoring, and Evaluation Unit, an estimate that advocates say is low. Nearly a third of abortions performed were on adolescents, who make up a large percent of the region’s unplanned pregnancies. According to the World Health Organization, 9 percent of maternal deaths in Central America are the result of illegal abortions.

As a result of the criminalization, women in El Salvador frequently face legal scrutiny for abortion-related crimes. According to research done by a Salvadoran advocacy group, between 2000 and 2011 about 130 women were criminally prosecuted for ending their pregnancies. That number doesn’t include cases where the allegations were dropped or cases involving minors, whose records are sealed. Almost 50 women were convicted of either illegal abortion or different degrees of homicide, which carries a sentence of up to 50 years.

Then there are the cases of the 17 women who are part of “Las 17,” as they’re known, who are all, like Rivera, young, impoverished, and accused of losing their pregnancies on purpose. Guadalupe Vasquez, a housekeeper, was only 17 years old when she became pregnant from rape. She decided to keep the baby but lost it during labor. After her employer sent her to the hospital, she was reported to the police and eventually sentenced to 30 years behind bars.

Many of the women, including Rivera, were reported to the police by medical staff at the hospital. In some cases, neighbors or friends called law enforcement.

“I felt the need to go to the bathroom, I pushed, and it was the baby that came out into the latrine,” Rivera said in a video from prison. She passed out from loss of blood and was in the hospital when she woke up. “Then they took me to this place,” she said.

Rivera was convicted “despite the complete lack of evidence of any wrongdoing,” according to an analysis of Las 17 cases by a Salvadoran lawyer and a Harvard sociologist. The analysis also concluded that Salvadoran courts systematically discriminated against the women by aggressively pursuing “the mother’s prosecution instead of pursuing the truth.”

“In stark contrast to the courts’ findings, our analysis concludes that the legal and medical facts in the majority of these cases correspond with medical emergency—not with homicide,” they wrote.

Rivera successfully appealed her conviction and has spent the last two months walking free.

“What worries me is leaving my son alone again,” Rivera, who grew up in orphanages, told Rewire after being released in May. “I was forced to abandon him for four and a half years, and he suffered greatly during that time.”

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This Salvadoran Woman Served 4 Years for Having a Miscarriage

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Are Brazilian Cops Ready for the Olympics?

by TrevorChristie Posted on July 9, 2016

Mother Jones

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The Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro has promised to beef up public security ahead of the Olympics next month. But those efforts are complicated by a staggering rate of unlawful police killings, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch, that has fostered deep divisions between law enforcement and the communities it serves.

Since 2006, Rio’s police have killed at least 8,021 people, including 645 people last year, according to the 109-page report, released Thursday. In the city of Rio alone, police killings accounted for a whopping 20 percent of all homicides last year. And while Human Rights Watch says many of these officer-involved killings were likely justified uses of force, since cops patrolling Rio often come up against heavily armed gangs and need to protect themselves, the advocacy group found ample evidence to suggest that some were “extrajudicial killings.”

Human Rights Watch found that for every officer killed on duty in Rio de Janeiro last year, 24.8 civilians were slain by the police—three times the rate in the United States.

In at least 64 cases since 2006, the Brazilian police have allegedly tried to cover up unlawful killings, Human Rights Watch found, citing interviews with officers, victims’ families, prosecutors, and others. The report details incidents where cops planted evidence, guns, or drugs on shooting victims; removed clothes from dead bodies, hoping to discard bullet fragments that could identify the shooter; and even delivered the corpse of someone they’d shot and killed to a hospital, claiming they were trying to “rescue” the victim. Of 32 “rescues” that Human Rights Watch examined, the victim was dead on arrival at the hospital in at least 27 cases. “While these false ‘rescues’ give the appearance of legitimate effort by officers to help victims, in reality they destroy crime scene evidence and hinder forensic evidence,” the advocacy group wrote.

Most of the officers involved have never been brought to court. There were 3,441 recorded police killings between 2010 and 2015, but the state attorney general’s office pursued charges in just four cases, Human Rights Watch found. Rio’s attorney general, Marfan Martins Vieira, said his office had only been able to prosecute a small number of officers because official investigations of such killings are typically of “poor quality,” even though he knows of killings where he believes cops faked a shootout to make it look like they acted in self-defense.

This isn’t the first time the issue has come up just before Brazil prepares to take center stage. Nine years ago, weeks before the Pan-American Games opened in Rio, authorities converged on the Complexo do Alemao favela as part of a series of sweeps against drug operations in the city’s slums. In an ensuing shootout, 19 civilians were killed. Five of the victims that day were shot at point-blank range. Nine others were shot in the back. Human Rights Watch found that no officer was ever held accountable for the 2007 incident, and a federal commission later determined that several deaths “were the result of a procedure of summary and arbitrary execution.” At the time, then-State Security Secretary Jose Mariano Beltrame told NPR the operation was not intended to be violent but had turned bloody after a confrontation with suspected drug traffickers. “We do not go to these regions looking for or producing violence,” he said. “We were met brutally with bullets and potent arms.”

Ahead of the Olympics, Rio de Janeiro has bolstered security around the games’ venues to 85,000 officers, thanks to some emergency funds. But high-profile incidents continue to trouble the city. Athletes have been mugged and human remains have washed up on a beach near the volleyball arena. Robert Muggah, a security expert at the Igarapé Institute in Rio, recently noted a 15 percent increase in homicides during the first four months of this year compared with same period in 2015. The city’s mayor has blamed the state, which he said was “completely failing at its work of policing and taking care of people.”

Maria Laura Canineu, the Brazil director at Human Rights Watch, said police brutality has made cops feel less safe. It’s dangerous to patrol Rio’s slums—attacks by gang members are common—and criminals are more likely to fight back if they think their lives are at risk, the advocacy group wrote in its report. Some officers told Human Rights Watch that they’d witnessed unlawful police killings but didn’t report anything because they feared potential retaliation from their colleagues. “Unlawful killings turn communities against the police and undermine security for all,” Canineu said in a statement. “You can’t expect community policing to work when police are executing members of the communities they are supposed to protect. And you can’t expect honest cops to perform well when they live in constant fear—not only of gang members, but also of their fellow officers.”

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Are Brazilian Cops Ready for the Olympics?

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Obama still hasn’t banned Arctic drilling, but he just made it more annoying

by KennyPyzndltjzo Posted on July 8, 2016

polar attraction

Obama still hasn’t banned Arctic drilling, but he just made it more annoying

By on Jul 8, 2016Share

Environmental activists have been on a winning streak when it comes to keeping fossil fuels in the ground, from knocking down approval for the Keystone XL pipeline to stopping the Obama administration from opening Atlantic waters to drilling. They’ve been holding out for one more big win over Arctic drilling.

Activists were disappointed, then, on Thursday when the Department of Interior teased a “major” announcement only to leave the future of the Arctic open. Instead, Interior finalized regulations that will supposedly make it safer to drill in the difficult polar waters, while costing the industry around $2 billion over the next 10 years. The most prohibitive of the measures requires backup rigs in the case of a spill, and as well as planning for Arctic-specific conditions like limiting drilling during bad weather.

At the moment, Obama’s not really making environment or industry allies happy. “It may be the case that the rules require safer drilling practices, but the simple fact is that there’s no safe way to drill for oil in the Arctic with the climate crisis deepening all around us,” David Turnbull of Oil Change International told Grist.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) thought it sent mixed messages on the offshore industry’s future and was “dismayed by the regulatory onslaught” on energy production.

In any case, this is just the prelude to Obama’s big climate finale of his administration. The draft for the administration’s five-year offshore-drilling plan offered new leases for sale in the Arctic; the final plan is due out later this year, and will determine development all the way through 2022.

Obama has already protected more ocean than any other president before him, but his decision on Arctic leasing might be the legacy that sticks.

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Obama still hasn’t banned Arctic drilling, but he just made it more annoying

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