28 November 20
It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News
Robert Reich | How Mitch McConnell's Do Nothing Republicans Are Killing You
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "The Senate adjourned and left town without even trying to pass a COVID disaster relief bill."
READ MORE
A patient hospitalized with COVID-19. (photo: Belga)
US Is 'Rounding the Corner Into a Calamity,' Expert Says, With Covid-19 Deaths Projected to Double Soon
Christina Maxouris, CNN
Maxouris writes: "As Thanksgiving week draws to an end, more experts are warning the Covid-19 pandemic will likely get much worse in the coming weeks before a possible vaccine begins to offer some relief."
More than 205,000 new cases were reported Friday -- which likely consists of both Thursday and Friday reports in some cases, as at least 20 states did not report Covid-19 numbers on Thanksgiving.
The US has now reported more than 100,000 infections every day for 25 consecutive days and hospitalizations remain at record high levels -- with more than 89,800 patients reported nationwide Friday, according to the COVID Tracking Project. A record was set just a day earlier, with a staggering 90,481 hospitalizations, according to the project. And the nation recorded a daily death toll of less than 1,000 only twice this week -- while the two days prior to Thanksgiving each saw more than 2,000 American deaths reported.
And while there is more good news on the vaccine front, for now Americans need to "hunker down" and prepare for a difficult winter ahead, according to Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and a visiting professor at George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health.
"We cannot let our guard down," she told CNN Friday night. "The vaccines will make a big difference in the spring and the summer; they're not going to make a difference right now."
Based on the current Covid-19 numbers in the US, the country is far from rounding the corner, she said.
"If anything, we are rounding the corner into a calamity," Wen said. "We're soon going to exceed well more than 2,000 deaths, maybe 3,000, 4,000 deaths every single day here in the US."
That projection has been echoed by other experts including Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, who predicts the country's daily death toll will likely double in just the next 10 days.
American troops surveying the dam
Iraq Fears Trump's Final Weeks Could See a US-Iran Confrontation
Louisa Loveluck and Mustafa Salim, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The Iraqi government is on edge as the Trump presidency enters its final weeks, fearing that a last-minute confrontation between the United States and Iran could erupt on Iraqi soil."
READ MORE
Honestie Hodges. (photo: Hodges Family/NYT)
Honestie Hodges, Handcuffed by the Police at 11, Is Dead at 14
Glenn Rifkin, The New York Times
Rifkin writes: "Honestie Hodges, who was handcuffed by the police outside her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when she was 11, a frightening incident that drew outrage and national headlines in 2017, died Sunday. She was 14."
READ MORE
A Black Lives Matter rally. (photo: Evelyn Hockstein/WP)
Black Lives Matter Helped Shape the 2020 Election. The Movement Now Has Its Eyes on Georgia.
Rachel Ramirez, Vox
Ramirez writes: "The police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor set off protests like the nation has never seen - more than 15 million people marched in the name of justice for Black lives this summer."
READ MORE
This photo released by the semiofficial Fars News Agency shows the scene where Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was reportedly killed in Absard, a small city just east of Tehran, Iran, on Friday. (photo: Fars News Agency/AP
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's Top Nuclear Scientist, Assassinated Near Tehran
Matthew S. Schwartz, NPR
Schwartz writes: "A top Iranian scientist believed to be responsible for developing the country's military nuclear program was killed Friday, causing outrage in Iran and raising U.S. concerns over potential retaliation."
READ MORE
Wendsler Nosie, Sr. speaks with Apache activists in a rally to save Oak Flat, in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (photo: Molly Riley/AP)
Trump Is About to Hand Over Sacred Apache Land to a Mining Company
Ian Kumamoto, VICE
Kumamoto writes: "President Donald Trump's administration has sped up a process that will hand over the rights to a sacred Apache Indigenous area outside of Phoenix, Arizona, to a mining company by next month - a full year ahead of schedule."
Trump officials are rushing to hand over Oak Flat in Arizona to Resolution Copper by next month, a full year ahead of schedule—while they still can.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to release its official environmental impact statement that will give the go-ahead to transfer Oak Flat in the Tonto National Forest to the mining company Resolution Copper, a joint venture by mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP, a year before its planned December 2021 date.
The announcement came just days after the Trump administration issued an executive order that declared the U.S. dependence on China for “critical minerals” a national emergency and vowed to “cut down on unnecessary delays in permitting actions.”
Some see the expedited process to mine the Oak Flat as part of a final push to weaken environmental regulations and fulfill Trump’s campaign promise to bring back mining jobs from abroad.
“They are afraid of what a (Joe) Biden administration would do and so they want to get this done now,” Randy Serraglio, who works at the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, said.
Once the Environmental Impact Statement is released, Tonto National Forest will have at most 60 days to finish the land exchange, but critics think it will try and execute as fast as possible to avoid litigation and public opposition.
Democratic Arizona representative Raúl Grijalva and Senator Bernie Sanders have introduced a bill calling for the land transfer to be repealed. “If the land exchange happens, it will be difficult to roll back,” Grijalva told the Guardian.
“The Trump administration is cutting corners and doing a rushed job just to take care of Rio Tinto,” he said. “And the fact they are doing it during COVID makes it even more disgusting. Trump and Rio Tinto know the tribes’ reaction would be very strong and public under normal circumstances but the tribes are trying to save their people right now.”
The desertous and otherworldly Oak Flat is located in the outskirts of the San Carlos Apache reservation, and has been a highly contested area for more than two decades. In 1995, enormous copper deposits were found 7,000 feet, or five Eiffel Towers, beneath the ground. Resolution Copper hopes to extract 1.4 billion tons of ore and 40 billion pounds of copper cliff by using a technique called panel caving, which could likely cause the collapse of surrounding land and leave a giant crater once the company is finished mining.
Local Indigenous communities are worried about the destruction of the land, particularly Apache Leap, the site of a mass suicide in which warriors jumped off to escape an onslaught of U.S. soldiers in the 1870s. On top of that, the area is also considered to have the best-preserved artifacts of Apache culture and is the location of Sunrise coming-of-age ceremonies.
“I tell people that it’s no different than when people talk about the Holy Land,” Wendsler Nosie Sr., an Apache activist, told VICE News. “This place is a place where you can be born and die of old age because it has everything… It’s a provider for all.”
In an email, Dan Blondeau, a spokesperson for Resolution Copper, ensured that Resolution Copper was going to protect Apache Leap and that it was “partnering with consulting Western Apache tribes… (to) protect and conserve culturally significant Emory Oak groves.”
But Native opposition against the mine is strong and Nosie Sr., who lives in Oak Flat, said that the company feels “no responsibility to talk to the tribes.” He also says it hasn’t spoken to him or others he knows about some of Apache’s spiritual concerns.
In 2012, a Senate hearing addressed the issue of the Apache peoples’ fight against Resolution Copper.
“Senator (Jon) Kyl and I (are constantly) urging that the San Carlos Apache Tribe just sit down, just listen to the Resolution Copper,” Senator John McCain said. “They refuse to do it.”
Two years later, McCain pushed for the land transfer to Rio Tinto, through one of his infamous “midnight rider” maneuvers. Although the Obama administration protected the Oak Flats through a “Historic Places” designation in 2015, this does not override the 1872 General Mining Law, which includes a provision that favors industry over environmental concerns when it comes to mining.
Despite Resolution Copper’s promise that it will bring great economic benefits to the Apache community and that it is working with locals to ensure it respects sacred land, the Guardian reported that Rio Tinto destroyed an ancient Aboriginal site in Western Australia earlier this year even after it claimed it had been working with Native people for decades.
“We deeply regret the events at Juukan Gorge and have unreservedly apologised to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) people,” the company wrote in a public statement.
In its final year in power, Trump has green-lit similar projects that were deemed detrimental to the environment by past administrations. In Alaska, the Trump administration is hastening the auctioning off of drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In Minnesota, officials renewed mineral leases to a copper mining company inside the Superior National Forest.
Aside from its cultural and spiritual significance, Oak Flat is known as a place of awesome natural splendor and is home to endangered ocelots, the charismatic hedgehog cactus, and its namesake tree, the Emory oak.
Some locals believe that the only hope to save the natural area now would be a major legal intervention by the next administration.
“Joe Biden can thank Native people, 90 percent of whom voted for him, for winning Arizona,” Serraglio said. “I hope he can recognize that and do the right thing.”
Rio Tinto CEO resigns after destruction of 46,000-year-old sacred Indigenous site
EXCERPT:
Hong Kong / Sydney (CNN Business)Rio Tinto (RIO) CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques has resigned under pressure from investors over the company's destruction of a 46,000-year-old sacred Indigenous site in Australia to expand an iron ore mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.