08 October 20
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FBI Arrests 6 Right-Wing Militia Members in Plot to Kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer
Amanda Holpuch, Guardian UK
Holpuch writes: "Six people have been charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer that involves links to a rightwing militia group, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced."
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U.S. president Donald Trump and Democratic presidential candidate, former vice president Joe Biden participate in the first presidential debate. (photo: Olivier Douliery/Reuters)
Trump Pulls Out of Virtual Debate With Biden, Worries He'll Be Muted
Steve Holland, Reuters
Holland writes: "President Donald Trump on Thursday rejected plans for his next debate with Democratic rival Joe Biden to be a virtual one to guard against spreading COVID-19, complaining that his microphone could be cut off, and his campaign proposed postponing the Oct. 15 encounter by a week."
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Dr. Sean Conley, physician to President Donald Trump, center, talks with reporters at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Monday. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
Trump Made Walter Reed Doctors Sign Non-Disclosure Agreements Last Fall; Why?
Carol E. Lee and Courtney Kube, NBC News
Excerpt: "President Donald Trump required personnel at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to sign nondisclosure agreements last year before they could be involved with treating him, according to four people familiar with the process."
At least two Walter Reed doctors who refused to sign nondisclosure agreements last year were not permitted to be involved in Trump’s care.
During a surprise trip to Walter Reed on Nov. 16, 2019, Trump mandated signed NDAs from both physicians and nonmedical staff, most of whom are active-duty military service members, these people said. At least two doctors at Walter Reed who refused to sign the NDAs were subsequently not permitted to have any involvement in the president's care, two of the people said.
The reason for his trip last year remains shrouded in mystery.
The four people familiar with the process did not know whether, during the president's most recent visit over the weekend, he had the same requirement for Walter Reed staff members who had not previously been involved in his care.
Anyone providing medical services to the president — or any other American — is automatically prohibited by federal law from disclosing the patient's personal health information without consent. The existing legal protection for all patients under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, raises the question of why Trump would insist that staff members at Walter Reed sign NDAs.
"Any physician caring for the President is bound by patient physician confidentiality guaranteed under HIPAA, and I'm not going to comment on internal procedures beyond that," White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said in a statement.
In addition, all personnel assigned to the White House Medical Unit, which treats the president and the vice president day to day, are required to have special "Yankee White" security clearance. To obtain the clearance, they must be U.S. citizens and undergo extensive background checks.
Transparency about Trump's health has been a heightened concern since the White House announced last week that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, and the president has seemed to tightly restrict the information his doctors are authorized to share with the public. Dr. Sean Conley, the president's physician, has refused to answer key questions, such as when Trump last tested negative for the virus and whether the illness has caused him to develop pneumonia.
Multiple times in recent days, Conley, a Navy officer, has refused to disclose information about Trump's health by citing HIPAA.
"We've done routine standard imaging. I'm just not at liberty to discuss," Conley told reporters Monday when asked whether the president had any pneumonia or inflammation in his lungs.
Conley's written updates on Trump's health have included the note "I release the following information with the permission of President Donald J. Trump."
Walter Reed spokesperson Norris Agnew referred NBC News to the White House for comment.
Trump has routinely required that employees at his company, the Trump Organization, sign nondisclosure agreements. He continued the practice when he ran for president and even with some White House officials after he took office.
Arthur Caplan, the director of medical ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said some celebrities and wealthy businesspeople ask their physicians to sign NDAs, even though it is not necessary to protect their privacy.
"Ethically and legally you can ask for an NDA, but you don't need one," Caplan said. "Doctors can't share information with anyone except anyone caring for the patient or anyone billing the patient. And ultimately it's up to the patient whether or not the doctor can share information.
"It's more redundant than unethical. The presumption is privacy first," and doctors who violate privacy rules without just cause face severe consequences, he said.
Since his coronavirus diagnosis became public Oct. 1, Trump has sought to project an image of strength, with carefully choreographed public appearances, and he could see any information about his health to the contrary as undermining that narrative.
Trump spent three nights at Walter Reed after the White House announced that he had tested positive. He was discharged Monday and returned to the White House.
After Trump's unscheduled trip to Walter Reed last year, the White House said he was there to complete parts of his annual physical exam, which is usually done in one visit after the new year.
"Anticipating a very busy 2020, the president is taking advantage of a free weekend here in Washington, D.C., to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam at Walter Reed," Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary at the time, said in a statement.
Trump's two previous physical exams as president had been announced in advance, and the medical staff at Walter Reed was widely notified to expect a high-level visit. Neither of those steps were taken ahead of Trump's visit last year.
Food banks are removing a letter included in U.S. Department of Agriculture coronavirus food aid to be distributed to hungry families. (photo: AP
Food Banks Across US Remove Trump Letter From Meal Boxes, Calling It 'Outrageous'
Don Sweeney, McClatchy DC
Sweeney writes: "Food banks across the United States are intercepting and removing a signed letter from President Donald Trump included in federal food aid."
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Hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters hold their phones aloft in Portland, Oregon, in July. (photo: Noah Berger/AP)
Portland: Officers Targeted Medics With Teargas and Projectiles, Report Finds
Jason Wilson, Guardian UK
Wilson writes: "Law enforcement officers in Portland, Oregon, specifically targeted medics with teargas and projectiles during summer protests in 'indiscriminate attacks,' according to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)."
aw enforcement officers in Portland, Oregon, specifically targeted medics with teargas and projectiles during summer protests in “indiscriminate attacks”, according to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).
The study is based on interviews and medical examinations involving health professionals, volunteer medics and emergency services personnel. It also found Portland police and fire personnel did not provide on-site medical care for injured protesters, and prevented ambulances from accessing the area of protests.
The PHR described an overall pattern that constituted “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” from Portland police and federal agents, violating several international compacts on the use of force.
According to Dr Michele Heisler, medical director of PHR and one of the authors of the report, “some would argue that it meets the criteria for torture”.
The report covers June and July in the city, which has seen hundreds of protests in the months since the death of George Floyd, which were only briefly interrupted by Oregon’s wildfire emergency. This period included weeks in which federal agents participated in crowd control in the downtown area on the instructions of the Trump administration, and over the objections of local and state elected officials.
The document includes testimony from in-person observers, including a deputy fire chief, who say that “the number and severity of injuries” increased markedly after the arrival of federal agents, who were more likely to shoot “less lethal” ordnance like teargas canisters directly at protesters and medics.
The report says this caused head injuries, severe lacerations, chemical burns and other injuries. It directly quotes a food service volunteer who was partially blinded by an impact round; a participant in the “wall of moms” protest who was struck in the forehead with a similar projectile, leading to severe bleeding; and medics who describe treating facial lacerations that cut to the bone.
Separate reporting by PHR details 14 head injuries caused in Portland by police officers firing rubber bullets or other “kinetic impact projectiles” at civilians, and a national total of 115 such injuries nationwide during the George Floyd protests.
Because police would not reliably allow medical access to the protest site, the report says, volunteer medics stepped in. It quotes several of them, including a neuroscientist, two former EMTs and a veteran combat medic, who say federal agents were deliberately targeting them as they treated injured protesters.
Comparing the police violence to what she saw in separate research in Turkey, after police there brutally responded to the 2013 Gezi Park uprising, Heisler said much of what she saw in Portland was more severe, and that “many of the injuries would have been far more serious if people didn’t have protective equipment”, which was more available than it had been to protesters in Istanbul.
Heisler said that apart from the widespread physical injuries, she expected the events would lead to “widespread collective trauma”, including “disillusionment and a lack of trust” as a result of the violence “being perpetrated by state officials”.
“A lot of people came to believe that officers wanted to hurt people”, Heisler added, and this itself had a chilling effect.
“If the intention was to scare people into not coming out to protest, to some extent it worked.”
In response to questions about the matters raised in the report, PPB’s spokesman, Lt Greg Pashley, pointed to existing policies regarding reporting on the use of force, and directives on crowd control, and said that the use of cameras would be “a budget and a contract matter”.
Pashley added that PPB “is interested in protecting the constitutional rights of all people”, but that the bureau “responds when the safety of human beings is placed in danger from arson or other violent activities, or when vital infrastructure is threatened. Portland police bureau actions are precipitated by criminal activity, not protesting.”
A spokesman for Mayor Ted Wheeler, Jim Middaugh, acknowledged in a telephone conversation that “there is a lot of work to be done to ensure that the whole community feels safe around PPB”, especially communities of color, but added that in current protests, “people are literally fire-bombing the police”, that “taxpayer-funded assets are being burned to the ground”, and that “bad behavior on the part of protesters leads to the use of harsher tactics” by police.
On the conduct of federal officers, Middaugh said that “it’s widely known that Mayor Wheeler has significant differences with the Trump administration” and had always maintained that “when the feds came in, it made the situation significantly worse”.
Crowds have gathered in Kyrgyzstan's capital following a controversial parliamentary election on October 4. (photo: Vladimir Voronin/AFP
Kyrgyzstan Crisis: No Clear Leadership After Days of Unrest
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "Kyrgyzstan slid deeper into a political crisis, with several people barred from leaving the country while Russia described the current situation, with the country lacking clear leadership, as 'chaotic.'"
Border guards were given a list of people barred from leaving the country, ostensibly to ensure security amid unrest that has toppled the government. Russia’s Tass news agency described the people in that list as “high-ranking” officials.
The closures on Thursday came as Russia, which has an airbase in Kyrgyzstan, said Moscow had obligations under an existing security treaty to prevent the situation from totally breaking down. Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s FSB security service, spoke to Kyrgyzstan’s new acting security chief on Wednesday.
“The situation looks like a mess and chaos,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a briefing.
The former Soviet republic, landlocked and bordered by Kazakhstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, has seen thousands protest against the results of the October 4 parliamentary election.
The results of that election, which handed victory to establishment parties, have now been annulled, something the opposition had been calling for.
But the demonstrations peaked when, soon after the vote, opposition protesters seized government buildings and freed jailed ex-President Almazbek Atambayev.
The rallies have forced the Kyrgyz cabinet to resign, leaving the country with no clear leadership.
Three opposition groups have each proposed candidates for an interim prime minister who would need to oversee a repeat vote in the coming months, local media said.
In addition to Sadyr Zhaparov, an opposition politician who was released from jail and appointed acting prime minister, businessman Tilek Toktogaziyev has also made his ambitions clear.
Omurbek Babanov, a former prime minister, has also emerged as a contender.
Meanwhile, the outgoing parliament has itself split into two groups that were meeting separately outside the headquarters ransacked by protesters.
The group that met overnight in a hotel only included 40 MPs, whereas important decisions such as naming a cabinet require a 61-vote majority.
MP Elvira Surabaldieva posted a video from the meeting online, saying it had failed to pass a motion to impeach President Sooronbay Jeenbekov, who has clung to power despite the resignation of Prime Minister Kubatbek Boronov’s administration.
The embattled president has not appeared in public in recent days, although his office said he remained in the capital, Bishkek. He has appealed for calm and issued several statements calling for talks between rival political factions.
One person has been killed and more than 1,000 have sought medical help since the unrest broke out, as Bishkek residents scuffle with protesters and looters.
Kyrgyzstan’s central bank allowed financial institutions to reopen on Thursday since their closure on Tuesday, as business associations warned the nation of 6.5 million could face food shortages if banks and tax offices remained shut and public safety could not be guaranteed.
Kursan Asanov, the acting interior minister who took over this week after running in the election as an opposition candidate, said police, boosted by vigilante groups, had managed to prevent mass looting in the capital.
He promised to stop any attempts to further destabilise the country where violence killed hundreds after the removal of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in 2010 in another revolt.
Kursanov also urged parliament to convene and install a legitimate cabinet, describing the current situation as stable but tense.
Some 269 million people around the world indulged in drugs in 2018, according to the United Nations. (photo: Creative Commons)
How Growing Drugs Damages the Environment
Tim Schauenberg, Deutsche Welle
Schauenberg writes: "Whether they smoked a joint on the couch or sniffed a line in a club, some 269 million people around the world indulged in drugs in 2018, according to the United Nations."
Cocaine production is at record levels, opium has been on an upward trend for the past decade, the market for synthetic drugs is growing in the Netherlands and some countries are legalizing cannabis. In short, business is booming.
It is no secret that drug trafficking and cartel wars cost human lives but so far there has been little focus on how this global trade impacts the environment.
Cannabis Vs. Potatoes: Which Has a Bigger Carbon Footprint?
With 192 million users in 2018, cannabis is by far the most popular drug worldwide — excluding alcohol and tobacco.
Efforts to legalize marijuana are continuing to gather pace in the United States, where the drug has already become a billion-dollar market. But cultivating the plants in greenhouses, with optimum light, ventilation and temperature, guzzles an enormous amount of resources.
According to estimates, cannabis production in the U.S. already accounts for around 1% of the country's total energy consumption.
"Within a single year, approximately 16.5 tons of carbon dioxide are emitted in the United States as the result of indoor cannabis production, equivalent to the annual emissions of 3 million cars," according to a report by the University of California, Davis.
That means that a single joint has a similar carbon footprint to about 6.6 pounds of potatoes.
Cannabis Plants Add to Water Stress
Cannabis is also an extremely thirsty plant, needing twice as much water as tomatoes or grapes.
About 70% of the cannabis consumed across the country is grown in California. Such large-scale cultivation of a crop that requires up to 6 gallons of water per day per plant has only intensified the region's water shortages during dry seasons.
Scientists from the Californian Department of Fisheries and Wildlife estimate that illegal outdoor cultivation has lowered the water level in some flowing streams by up to a quarter.
Clearing Forests to Plant Coca
The ecological footprint of the world's 19 million cocaine users is particularly apparent in Latin America. According to the United Nations, Colombia had the potential to produce 1,120 tons of pure cocaine in 2018 — a record crop for the South American country.
Since 2001, about 741,000,000 acres of forest have been cleared for the cultivation of coca — the plant that produces cocaine.
Following a temporary decline, "we can see actually the same peak of coca that we were watching 20 years ago," Paulo Sandoval, a geographer at the University of Oregon, told DW.
Sandoval's latest satellite data shows that around 123,000 acres of coca are currently being cultivated in Colombia's Amazon region alone — about half of it in nature reserves that are home to a rich diversity of species.
But the plantations he surveyed account for only 20% of the total cultivated area.
Colombia's Approach 'Harms' the Environment
Until now, the Colombian government has relied on a strategy of eradication in its fight against coca cultivation. As part of its campaign, aircraft sprayed plantations with the highly concentrated herbicide glyphosate. This method effectively destroyed many coca plantations, but it also damaged neighboring forests and farmland.
Elizabeth Tellman, a geographer at Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York, says this approach harms rather than helps the environment. And once the fields are destroyed, the cartels simply clear more forests elsewhere and plant new coca crops.
"We do know that it [the destruction of cultivated areas] has not only had no effect (...) it's been really counterproductive," she told DW in an interview.
Coca leaves aren't just grown in the jungle; they're also processed into cocaine in secret laboratories there. This process requires highly toxic chemicals such as ammonia, acetone and hydrochloric acid. Scientists estimate that several million liters of these substances end up in soils and rivers each year. There are now few aquatic plants or animals living in those contaminated waters, according to a 2015 EU report.
MDMA, Ecstasy and Co.
So-called party drugs — from pills to a line of powder in a nightclub bathroom — have grown in popularity in recent years.
The Netherlands and Belgium are hotspots for synthetic drugs. The production of a kilo of pure MDMA, the main substance in ecstasy, results in 10 kilos (22 pounds) of toxic waste — or 30 kilos (66 pounds) in the case of amphetamines. This might include sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acids and acetone, substances that would normally have to be disposed of as hazardous waste using protective suits.
The Dutch Water Research Institute (KWR) estimates that in 2017, around 7,000 tons of these substances were either dumped somewhere in drums or leaked into the ground and rivers. "That's unbelievable," says Eric Emke, a scientist at the KWR.
A report aired by Dutch public broadcaster NOS showed just how abrasive these liquids can be. In it, a scientist immerses a chicken leg in a yellow sodium hydroxide solution. After two days, the meat has completely dissolved, leaving just the bone behind.
Emke says the waste is sometimes dumped into containers used to collect cattle excrement, becoming mixed with the dung that is spread on corn crops.
"And so five years ago, they discovered amphetamine and ecstasy residues in corn lice."
Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime for Southeast Asia, says Thailand, Laos and Myanmar have also become a hub for "industrial scale" global synthetic drug production in recent years.
"The spillover damage to groundwater and habitats is severe, and frankly it is nothing short of an ecological and public health disaster," he said.
Groundwater Sinking in Afghanistan
Around 337,000 football fields, or 23 times the size of Paris — that's the amount of land that was used to cultivate opium worldwide in 2019, according to the UN. The main producers are Myanmar, Mexico and Afghanistan — which accounts for 84% of global cultivation.
Poppy fields spread mainly across the country's southwest in areas where, until the 1990s, there was nothing but arid desert. Today, some 1.4 million people live there, making a living from cultivating opium and agriculture. That's all possible thanks to more than 50,000 solar-powered water pumps that have greened the desert. But that is not as green as it sounds.
A report by socio-economist David Mansfield found that the region's groundwater is sinking by 9.8 feet per year. Wells as deep as 426 feet are now being drilled to find water.
"Each year, more people are arriving in the desert and installing solar deep wells. There are local fears that there will fast become a time when agricultural production will no longer be viable."
The poppy farmers also use chemical fertilizers and strong pesticides to control weeds. Groundwater tests have shown that nitrate levels are significantly higher than what is deemed safe. This can increase the risk of blue-baby syndrome, which leads to heart defects and death in newborns.
Mansfield warns that if water in the region does eventually run out, it will likely force large numbers of people from their homes, sparking a rural exodus.
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