06 January 23
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Joe Biden keeps saying he intends to be the Democratic nominee in 2024. Whether he will be is an open question -- and progressives should strive to answer it with a firm No. The next presidential election will be exceedingly grim if all the Democratic Party can offer as an alternative to the neofascist Republican Party is an incumbent who has so often served corporate power and consistently serves the military-industrial complex.
The Biden administration has taken some significant antitrust steps to limit rampant monopolization. But overall realities are continuing to widen vast economic inequalities that are grist for the spinning mill of pseudo-populist GOP demagogues. Meanwhile, President Biden rarely conveys a sense of urgency or fervent discontent with present-day social conditions. Instead, he routinely comes off as “status-quo Joe.”
For the future well-being of so many millions of people, and for the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party in 2024, representing the status quo invites cascading disasters. A few months ago, Bernie Sanders summed up this way: “The most important economic and political issues facing this country are the extraordinary levels of income and wealth inequality, the rapidly growing concentration of ownership, the long-term decline of the American middle class and the evolution of this country into oligarchy.”
Interviewed days ago, Sanders said: “It pains me very, very much that we’re seeing more and more working-class people voting Republican. Politically, that is a disaster, and Democrats have to recognize that serious problem and address it.”
But President Biden doesn’t seem to recognize the serious problem, and he fails to address it.
During the last two years, domestic policy possibilities have been curbed by Biden’s frequent and notable refusals to use the power of the presidency for progress. He did not issue many of the potential executive orders that could have moved the country forward despite Senate logjams. At the same time, “bully pulpit” advocacy for workers’ rights, voter rights, economic justice, climate action and much more has been muted or nonexistent.
Biden seems unable or unwilling to articulate a social-justice approach to such issues. As for the continuing upward spike in Pentagon largesse while giving human needs short shrift, Biden was full of praise for the record-breaking, beyond-bloated $858 billion military spending bill that he signed in late December.
While corporate media’s reporters and pundits are much more inclined to critique his age than his policies, what makes Biden most problematic for so many voters is his antiquated political approach. Running for a second term would inevitably cast Biden as a defender of current conditions -- in an era when personifying current conditions is a heavy albatross that weighs against electoral success.
A Hart Research poll of registered voters in November found that only 21 percent said the country was “headed in the right direction” while 72 percent said it was “off on the wrong track.” As the preeminent symbol of the way things are, Biden is all set to be a vulnerable standard-bearer in a country where nearly three-quarters of the electorate say they don’t like the nation’s current path.
But for now anyway, no progressive Democrat in Congress is willing to get into major trouble with the Biden White House by saying he shouldn’t run, let alone by indicating a willingness to challenge him in the early 2024 primaries. Meanwhile, one recent poll after another showed that nearly 60 percent of Democrats don’t want Biden to run again. A New York Times poll last summer found that a stunning 94 percent of Democrats under 30 years old would prefer a different nominee.
Although leaning favorably toward Biden overall, mass-media coverage has occasionally supplied the kind of candor that Democratic officeholders have refused to provide on the record. “The party’s relief over holding the Senate and minimizing House losses in the midterms has gradually given way to collective angst about what it means if Biden runs again,” NBC News reported days before Christmas.
Conformist support from elected Democrats for another Biden campaign reflects a shortage of authentic representation on Capitol Hill. The gap is gaping, for instance, between leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the constituency -- the progressive base -- they claim to represent. In late November, CPC chair Pramila Jayapal highlighted the gap when she went out of her way to proclaim that “I believe he should run for another term and finish this agenda we laid out.”
Is such leadership representing progressives to the establishment or the other way around?
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of a dozen books including War Made Easy. His next book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, will be published in Spring 2023 by The New Press.
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Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) cheers in the House Chamber during the third day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 05, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty)
ALSO SEE: McCarthy Is About to Lose 12th Vote for Speaker but Picks Up New Support
The 14 votes who flipped in favor of McCarthy on the 12th ballot are: Reps. Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Michael Cloud of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Byron Donalds of Florida, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Mary Miller of Illinois, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Chip Roy of Texas, Keith Self of Texas, Victoria Spartz of Indiana (who had been voting present and had said she would continue to do so until she saw progress.), Paul Gosar of Arizona and Andy Ogles of Tennessee.
McCarthy is locked in a fight for his political future as the California Republican attempts to win the votes he needs to become speaker of the US House of Representatives in what has now become the longest contest in 164 years.
Efforts to secure a deal with conservatives who oppose McCarthy have gained momentum over the past day, but it is still unclear if it will be enough to save his imperiled speaker’s bid.
McCarthy suffered a string of defeats on Thursday as the House took round after round of failed votes. The longer the fight drags on, the more dire it becomes for McCarthy as it risks further defections and a loss of confidence in the GOP leader.
“We’re going to make progress today. We’re going to shock you,” McCarthy told reporters as he arrived on Capitol Hill Friday morning, adding, “We’re going to get it done.”
McCarthy strikes positive tone on GOP conference call
McCarthy kicked off a GOP conference call on Friday morning by saying an agreement has still not been reached, sources tell CNN. But he tried to strike a more positive, gracious tone and laid out some of the details that have emerged in the negotiations, the sources added.
“I’m not telling you we have an agreement. We’re in a good position and have meetings,” McCarthy said, setting the tone for the call, according to sources.
McCarthy said committees need to be a microcosm of the conference, with more far-right Freedom Caucus members on all committees, a signal that promising committee posts have been a key part of the negotiations. Sources say McCarthy is describing this as equal representation.
But GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a McCarthy ally and negotiator in this process, said on the call that no committee gavels have been promised and that talk of that is all rumors, sources told CNN.
McCarthy specifically thanked Texas Rep. Chip Roy for his role in the negotiations, previously a key holdout, and said he can tell that members are working hard and trying to work through their disagreements in good faith.
He said the rules package presented on Sunday is staying the same and that the only change is the threshold to allow one member to call for the motion to vacate, which he claims not to be worried about.
“Everyone on our call before January 3rd loved that package,” McCarthy said according to sources.
But the 20 GOP lawmakers against McCarthy are not on the conference call and are instead in their own meeting, two sources told CNN.
The call is ongoing, so the 20 lawmakers could jump on at any time.
Progress seen in talks
Several members said ahead of the vote they were very close to a deal that in many ways is an attempt to rebuild frayed alliances and trust hampered by a harsh Tuesday morning conference meeting.
“The main things we’re talking about are a conservative agenda around spending and the nature of our Republican majority,” McHenry said. “That’s really the crux of the conversation. And that’s really the contours of it.”
McHenry said process changes and rule overhauls are part of the talks.
“Rules, structure and process dictate outcomes in this place, in a substantial way,” McHenry said. “So you want to make sure all those things are in place.”
He added: “What I’ve seen over the last 36 hours is immense amount of effort to take the emotion out of this and get into the substance of the challenges.”
McHenry said they are not discussing issues like specific committee assignments for holdouts, but talking about their agenda around issues like spending.
In one sign of forward momentum, GOP Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, one of the holdouts, told CNN after viewing a deal in Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer’s office Thursday evening: “This is changes that we want.”
But he also indicated that nothing was final. “This is round one. It’s on paper, which is a good thing,” he said.
Norman said the majority of the deal revolves around rule changes like a 72-hour rule to review bills, term limits, and open amendments. Norman said the deal did not address committee assignments.
CNN was first to report on Wednesday night that in a series of key concessions, McCarthy agreed to propose a rules change that would allow just one member to call for a vote to oust a sitting speaker, according to two sources familiar with the matter. McCarthy had initially proposed a five-member threshold, down from current conference rules that require half of the GOP to call for such a vote.
He also agreed to allow for more members of the Freedom Caucus to serve on the powerful House Rules Committee, which dictates how and whether bills come to the floor, and to vote on a handful of bills that are priorities for the holdouts, including proposing term limits on members and a border security plan.
‘I won’t be a weaker speaker’
It still remains to be seen, however, whether additional concessions and attempts at deal-making will be enough for McCarthy to secure the votes he needs.
On the concessions he’s made so far, McCarthy said Thursday evening that he’s not concerned about giving just one member the power to call for a vote to oust the speaker. “I’m very fine with that,” the California Republican said. “I’m not afraid. … I won’t be a weaker speaker.”
McCarthy also denied that any members would lose committee assignments and said there have been no negotiations that involved giving subcommittee chairmanships to dissidents.
Patience is wearing thin among lawmakers and moderates have also grown increasingly frustrated over the concessions, which many believe may make it harder for the new GOP majority to effectively govern, though they will likely still swallow them.
McCarthy was defiant earlier in the day on Thursday in the face of the stiff headwinds, saying that he will continue to face opposition until he reaches a deal with his detractors.
“It’s all going to be this way until an agreement comes,” he told CNN. “It’s easier if we’re able to all get an agreement together.”
Asked by CNN the point he would make a realization that the outcome won’t change, McCarthy said: “After I win.”
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Roman Abramovich and his daughter Sofia watch Chelsea football club play at Stamford Bridge in London in 2017. (photo: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA)
Exclusive: Files raise questions about whether oligarch’s children were made beneficiaries to protect fortune from possible asset freezes
Leaked files seen by the Guardian suggest 10 secretive offshore trusts established to benefit Abramovich were rapidly reorganised in early February 2022, three weeks before the start of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The sweeping reorganisation of Abramovich’s financial affairs commenced just days after governments threatened to impose sanctions against Russian oligarchs in the event of an invasion.
The leaked documents raise questions about whether the changes to trusts were made in an attempt to shield the oligarch’s vast fortune from the threat of asset freezes.
Analysis suggests the amendments made Abramovich’s seven children, the youngest of whom is nine years old, beneficiaries of trusts holding assets worth at least $4bn, though the total value could be much higher.
The changes appear to have made the children the ultimate beneficial owners of trophy assets long-linked to their father, including luxury properties and a fleet of superyachts, helicopters and private jets.
Sanctions experts said the sweeping reorganisation of the trusts could complicate efforts to enforce sanctions against the oligarch and potentially frustrate attempts to freeze assets previously believed to belong to the metals tycoon.
The revelations are likely to raise questions about whether Abramovich’s children should also be subject to asset freezes. Unlike family members of some of Putin’s closest advisers, many families of oligarchs subject to sanctions have avoided restrictions.
UK and EU governments have cast Abramovich as a pro-Kremlin oligarch and in March 2022 imposed sanctions on him for allegedly benefiting from close relations with Putin. Abramovich has denied financial ties to the Kremlin and filed legal action to overturn the EU’s measures.
Abramovich, who holds Russian, Israeli and Portuguese citizenship, has not been added to the US sanctions list. Ukraine reportedly asked the White House not to impose sanctions against him after the businessman emerged as an unofficial mediator in peace negotiations.
The files appear to have been obtained through a hack of a Cyprus-based offshore service provider that administers the Abramovich trusts. The large cache of documents was shared anonymously with the Guardian.
The files illustrate how Abramovich has for decades used opaque trust structures to shelter his wealth in secretive offshore havens, and point to the challenges western authorities face in piercing these complex structures to enforce sanctions.
Abramovich’s financial holdings have come under intense scrutiny since the invasion. Authorities in Jersey have tried to freeze $7bn in assets in the Channel Islands, while the US has seized two of his private jets for violating export controls.
The FBI said in court filings at the time that it believed Abramovich had reorganised two trusts, one of which held the seized jets, by making his children beneficiaries.
The leaked files, however, suggest the reorganisation was more far-reaching.
In a burst of activity in February 2022, shortly before the invasion, Abramovich was removed as a beneficiary of the two trusts identified by the FBI. Meanwhile, his children were appointed as beneficiaries of eight additional trusts established to benefit their father.
Sanctions experts said the changes may have been a deliberate but not unlawful attempt to distance the oligarch from his wealth before sanctions were imposed.
The reorganisation, they said, could present challenges for authorities now pursuing assets long-believed to be owned by Abramovich as they determine who in reality owns and controls the multibillion-dollar fortune: the oligarch or his children. Abramovich and his children did not respond to detailed requests for comment.
Reorganisation of luxury assets
In February 2022, a day after Russian tanks rolled across Ukraine’s borders, Abramovich’s 25-year-old daughter, Sofia, reportedly shared a post on Instagram with a stridently anti-war message.
Featuring an image of the Russian president blocked out with a red line, it read: “The biggest and most successful lie of Kremlin’s propaganda is that most Russians stand with Putin.”
But for Sofia and her six other siblings, the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine marked another significant milestone: it was the day they in effect became billionaires.
On 24 February, as Russian fighter jets began bombing Kyiv, the finishing touches were made to an extensive reorganisation of their father’s offshore affairs set in motion three weeks earlier.
Until that month, Abramovich was the sole beneficiary of at least 10 Cyprus and Jersey trusts, documents suggest. But on 4 February – almost in one fell swoop – the trusts began to be amended to appoint Abramovich’s seven children as beneficiaries.
Files suggest the changes granted the children – five of whom are now adults – a collective 51%, or in some cases 100%, beneficial interest in the trusts’ assets. These range from shares in large Russian companies to more eye-catching physical assets such as the Eclipse, a superyacht with nine decks and two helipads.
The 163-metre vessel, long-believed to be owned by Abramovich, is ultimately held by the Europa Trust. Documents show Abramovich was removed as the trust’s beneficiary and replaced with his children. At the end of 2021, companies it controlled held assets worth $2.6bn, according to the files.
Details of the reorganisation of the trusts are laid bare in the Oligarch files, a cache of apparently hacked files from the offshore provider MeritServus, which has managed Abramovich’s financial interests for more than 20 years.
Demetris Ioannides, the chair and managing partner of MeritServus, did not respond to detailed requests for comment, saying the firm is prevented from disclosure of information to third parties, citing European data protection rules and UK case law, on which Cypriot trust laws are based. However, he added: “The paramount responsibility of a trustee is to protect the assets of a trust.”
The documents offer a snapshot of the oligarch’s fortune on the eve of the invasion and illustrate how his trusts have held a myriad network of companies in secretive jurisdictions and funded an extravagant lifestyle.
For decades, the trusts’ web of companies have enabled Abramovich and his family to live the high life: from purchasing aircraft – a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and multiple Airbus helicopters – to paying the pop star Prince for a private concert in the Caribbean.
But the timing of the sudden reorganisation of the trusts last February raises questions about whether the changes were designed to ensure his family could continue to benefit from his fortune and circumvent sanctions.
Under US law, if a person subject to sanctions directly or indirectly owns 50% or more of an entity its assets can be frozen. UK and EU rules are similar but allow assets to be frozen when a person owns less than 50% of the entity if they exercise direct or indirect control over it.
But establishing who really controls assets, particularly when they are held by opaque offshore trusts, is rarely a straightforward task, experts say.
With Abramovich’s trusts, measures appear to have been taken that would enable him to state that he does not legally control the trusts’ assets. Files suggest he has been permanently prevented from exercising any control over the trusts as a trustee or protector.
A former senior US sanctions enforcement official said the reorganisation of the trusts could be used as an effective way of distancing someone from assets vulnerable to being frozen as a result of sanctions.
“It is often challenging to figure out ownership due to the byzantine ways assets are held through shell companies and trusts,” they said. “And then when you add further levels of abstraction with respect to who controls the assets, enforcement can become a very challenging exercise.”
Challenges facing authorities
It remains unclear what impact, in practice, the reorganisation of the Abramovich trusts has had on sanctions enforcement, but there are indications authorities are facing challenges when tracing assets linked to the oligarch.
In London, a £90m mansion on Kensington Palace Gardens that reportedly belongs to the former Chelsea football club owner has so far avoided a restriction notice that would prevent it from being sold without explicit permission from the UK’s sanctions enforcement agency.
The Land Registry told the Guardian last year that some properties, even if publicly linked to a person subject to sanctions, may not be marked as restricted because of insufficient evidence of ownership, particularly where they are owned by anonymous trusts.
On paper, the west London mansion, which has 15 bedrooms and an underground swimming pool, is owned by A Corp Trustee. Documents suggest the Cyprus-based company owns the property on behalf of the KPG Trust – whose sole beneficiary, until February 2022, was Abramovich.
After the reorganisation, the oligarch’s entitlement to distributions from the trust’s assets was reduced to 49%, while his children were appointed as beneficiaries and granted a 51% entitlement.
Documents suggest the same change was applied to at least seven of the 10 trusts, including: the Grano Trust, Zeus Trust, Zephros Trust, Proteus Trust and Perseus Trust. The children were also appointed as beneficiaries of the Sara Trust but the proportion of their entitlement to its assets is unclear. Abramovich’s beneficial interest in the Ermis Trust was reduced to 49%.
As a result of the reorganisation, other assets in the sights of authorities may prove more challenging to tie back to Abramovich.
Last month, the Canadian government said it planned to seize $26m in assets in the country held by Granite Capital Holdings, a British Virgin Islands company, which it said was owned by Abramovich. If successfully seized, officials said, the proceeds would be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
But documents indicate Granite Capital Holdings is no longer owned by Abramovich. The files suggest he was removed in February 2022 as a beneficiary of the HF Trust that ultimately holds the BVI company.
He was then replaced by his children, though in March 2022, shortly before the UK and EU imposed sanctions on Abramovich, the trustees of the HF Trust told a Cayman Islands-based hedge fund administrator that the children held no fixed interest in the trust’s assets and any distribution of its funds were made at the trustee’s discretion.
Financial statements in the leaked cache suggest that at the end of 2019 the trust held assets worth $3.3bn.
David Rundle, a sanctions and financial crime lawyer at WilmerHale, said the reorganisation of a trust, in anticipation of a connected person being subject to financial sanctions, could protect against the property being frozen but it was not a “silver bullet”.
He said where the children of a person subject to sanctions became beneficiaries shortly before sanctions were imposed, financial institutions were likely to be extremely cautious about how they treat the assets, unless they were satisfied the individual subject to sanctions no longer had effective control over them. “Subject to evidence of estrangement, that is not an easy standard to meet,” he said.
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Migrants walk past razor wire fencing to be taken by the Border Patrol after crossing the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass, Texas, in May. (photo: Dario Lopez-Mills/AP)
ALSO SEE: Biden Immigration Plan Would Restrict Illegal Border Crossings
Give voters a chance, Mr. President. The American people value decency. They don’t respect craven and calculated inconsistency.
This week, the Biden administration announced an expansion of a Trump-era policy to turn away individuals fleeing persecution who reach our borders. This began with a pretext of limiting the spread of COVID-19, using a public health law known as Title 42. Now it’s just a sop to people who oppose immigration.
Until the Trump administration used Title 42 in this way, the nation had honored its obligation to asylum seekers for 40 years, under the 1980 Refugee Act. It grants the right to seek protection. Abrogating that right has resulted in the untold suffering, the return of refugees to persecution and death, and chaos at the U.S.-Mexico border.
In April 2022, the Biden administration stated its intent to end Title 42. Litigation delayed the termination, but in mid-November, a federal judge ruled the policy unlawful, and ordered it to end by Dec. 21. The Supreme Court has stayed that order until it hears arguments next month.
Now, in a head-spinning turn of events, Biden has announced the expansion of Title 42 to Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans — nationalities that had not previously been subject to summary expulsion at the border.
If this were not enough of a contradiction, the administration also plans to resurrect another Trump-era policy which Biden had previously denounced, the “transit ban.” This rule bars from asylum any migrants who do not apply for and receive a denial of asylum from the countries they pass through on their way to the U.S.
This “outsourcing” of our refugee obligations to countries of transit, which a federal court found unlawful when implemented by the Trump administration, is ludicrous on its face. The asylum seekers who arrive at our border pass through countries such as Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, with human rights conditions as dire as in the migrants’ nations of origin.
To date, the only country with which we legally have such an arrangement is Canada — which makes sense because it has a robust refugee protection system and an admirable human rights record. And even if there are other countries of transit, such as Costa Rica, that have a well-developed framework for the protection of refugees, and solid records on human rights, they are already taking in numbers of asylum seekers that far exceed their capacity.
At the same time as the Biden administration rolls out plans for these and other anti-asylum policies, it has announced a number of laudable measures, two particularly worthy of mention.
First, the administration will create a special “parole” program for Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans, similar to one created for Venezuelans. This program will allow the entry of up to 30,000 individuals from the four countries each month — if they have a sponsor in the U.S. These individuals will be permitted to remain in the United States for two years, with authorization to work.
Second, the administration will increase to 20,000 from 15,000 the number of refugees from Latin America and the Caribbean whom it admits for resettlement in fiscal years 2023 and 2024.
These are positive developments, but modest compared with the unlawful and punitive anti-immigrant measures in this package deal.
It is no secret that the Republicans are highly motivated to make the border an issue. They will continue to do so, regardless of the reality. Rather than crack down on asylum seekers to woo the votes of anti-immigrant constituencies, Biden should uphold our legal obligations and make the case for why it is the right thing to do.
Doing so is the principled and moral path. It is also good politics. Polling consistently shows strong support for protecting asylum seekers, across party lines. It is not too late for the administration to change course, to uphold our national ideals, and to be an example to other nations around the world.
Biden will be criticized either way. He might as well be criticized for doing the right thing.
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Email addresses linked to more than 200 million Twitter profiles are currently circulating on underground hacker forums, security experts say. (photo: iStock)
The trove of leaked records also includes Twitter users’ names, account handles, follower numbers and the dates the accounts were created, according to forum listings reviewed by security researchers and shared with CNN.
“Bad actors have won the jackpot,” said Rafi Mendelsohn, a spokesman for Cyabra, a social media analysis firm focused on identifying disinformation and inauthentic online behavior. “Previously private data such as emails, handles, and creation date can be leveraged to build smarter and more sophisticated hacking, phishing and disinformation campaigns.”
Some reports suggested the data was collected in 2021 through a bug in Twitter’s systems, a flaw the company fixed in 2022 after a separate incident in July involving 5.4 million Twitter accounts alerted the company to the vulnerability.
Troy Hunt, a security researcher, said Thursday that his analysis of the data “found 211,524,284 unique email addresses” that had been leaked. The Washington Post earlier reported a forum listing promoting the data of 235 million accounts.
Hunt did not immediately respond to a question from CNN asking whether the records would be added to his website, haveibeenpwned.com, which allows users to search hacked records to determine if they have been affected. CNN has not independently verified the records’ authenticity.
Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Its communication team, along with roughly half of Twitter’s overall workforce, was gutted after billionaire Elon Musk completed his acquisition the company in late October. The significant staff reductions could now add to concerns about the company’s ability to respond to security threats.
The breadth of the leaked data could allow malicious actors or repressive governments to connect anonymous Twitter handles with the real names or email addresses of their owners, potentially unmasking dissidents, journalists, activists or other at-risk users around the world, security researchers warn.
“For those people, this is a very consequential breach,” said John Scott-Railton, a security researcher at The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab.
The account data could also be valuable to hackers who can use the information as part of password-reset attempts and account takeovers. The risk is particularly high for individuals who use the same account credentials on Twitter as they do for other digital services such as banks or cloud storage, researchers said, because hackers could take information gleaned from the leak to pry open user accounts elsewhere.
Verified Twitter users caught up in the apparent leak, or users with particularly large followings, will be particularly valuable targets as a result of the leak, security experts warned, as those account holders may be especially influential celebrities or susceptible to extortion.
To protect themselves from phishing attempts, internet users should use unique passwords for each online service and keep track of them using a digital password manager, security researchers say. They should also enable multi-factor authentication for each of their accounts, and exercise caution when opening unsolicited email or links.
According to the cybersecurity news outlet BleepingComputer, which did claim to test the data, the latest dump appears similar to a leaked dataset advertised on hacking forums in November containing an alleged 400 million records, but slimmed down to eliminate some duplicate records. Twitter has not commented on that leak.
Reports of the leak could expand Twitter’s already significant legal and regulatory risk.
In December, Twitter’s main European privacy regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission, said it is investigating the July 2022 leak as a possible violation of Europe’s signature privacy law, known as GDPR.
Last summer, the company’s former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, filed a whistleblower report to the US government alleging long-ignored security vulnerabilities in Twitter’s operations. Zatko claimed that Twitter’s shortcomings on security reflected a breach of Twitter’s binding commitments to the Federal Trade Commission, a serious offense. (Twitter broadly and repeatedly pushed back at Zatko’s allegations.)
Successive incidents at Twitter have led to the company signing two consent orders with the FTC since 2011 to improve its cybersecurity posture. Violations of FTC orders can lead to fines, business restrictions and even sanctions targeting individual executives.
In November, top Twitter officials responsible for privacy and security resigned from the company, just days after Musk closed his purchase of the platform and amid the mass layoffs that in some cases cut whole departments.
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Relatives and neighbors at the site of a U.S. drone strike that killed 10 civilians in August 2021. (photo: Jim Huylebroek/The New York Times)
Documents obtained through a lawsuit reveal how biases led to the deadly August 2021 blunder, and that officials made misleading statements concealing their assessment of civilian casualties.
The Americans were already on edge. Three days earlier, a suicide bomber had killed scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at a main gate of the Kabul airport. Now, officials had intelligence that there would be another attack there, and that it would involve a white Corolla.
They tracked the car around Kabul for the next several hours. After it pulled into a gated courtyard near the airport, they authorized a drone strike. Hours later, U.S. officials announced they had successfully thwarted an attack.
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Tren Maya workers rip up old rails in the community of La Chiquita, Mexico, in 2021. (photo: Bénédicte Desrus/AP)
The railway and its hasty construction will endanger wilderness and ancient cave systems beneath the jungle floor, say droves of environmental experts and scientists.
In the eyes of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a railway his government is building — known as the Tren Maya — will bring modern connectivity to areas for generations deprived of significant economic benefits.
But the railway and its hasty construction also critically endanger pristine wilderness and ancient cave systems beneath the jungle floor, droves of scientists and environmental activists say.
The railway “is splitting the jungle in half,” said Ismael Lara, a guide who takes tourists to a cave that shelters millions of bats near the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Lara fears the train, due to pass close by, will disrupt wildlife routes and attract too much development to fragile ecosystems.
Over almost a year, Reuters photographed construction at points along the full length of the planned rail track, documenting the evolution of the flagship project which López Obrador has pledged to finish by the end of 2023.
The 910 miles of rail are set to carry diesel and electric trains through the Yucatan Peninsula and connect Mexico’s top tourist destination Cancun to the ancient Mayan temples of Chichen Itza and Palenque.
The railway has deeply divided Mexicans and the controversies surrounding the construction exemplify struggles developing countries across the globe face to balance economic progress with environmental responsibility.
FONATUR, Mexico’s tourism agency charged with the project, has said the railway will lift more than a million people out of poverty and could create up to 715,000 new jobs by 2030. Construction costs are seen at up to $20 billion, López Obrador said in July.
But with the project already billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule, scientists and activists say the government cut corners in its environmental risk assessments in a bid to complete it while López Obrador is still in office.
In December, United Nations experts warned the railway’s status as a national security project allowed the government to sidestep usual environmental safeguards and called on the government to protect the environment in line with global standards.
FONATUR defended the speed with which the studies were produced. “Years are not required, expertise, knowledge and integration capacity are required,” it said in response to questions from Reuters. It declined to comment on the U.N. statement.
Risking some of world's unique ecosystems?
The Tren Maya route cuts a swath up to 46 feet wide through some of the world’s most distinctive ecosystems, bringing the modern world closer to vulnerable species such as jaguars — and bats.
It will pass above a system of thousands of subterranean caves carved out from the region’s soft limestone bedrock by water over millions of years.
Crystalline pools known as cenotes punctuate the Yucatan peninsula, where the limestone surface has fallen in to expose the groundwater. The world’s longest known underground river passes through the caves, which have also been the site of discoveries such as ancient human fossils and Maya artifacts like a canoe estimated to be more than 1,000 years old.
If built badly, the railway risks breaking through the fragile ground, including into yet-to-be explored caves below, says Emiliano Monroy-Ríos, a Mexican geochemist with Northwestern University who has extensively studied the area’s caves and cenotes.
Diesel, he adds, could also leak into the network of subterranean pools and rivers, the main source of fresh water on the peninsula.
With less than 20% of the subterranean system believed to have been mapped, according to several scientists interviewed by Reuters, such damage could limit important geological discoveries.
The government’s environmental impact study for Section 5, the most controversial stretch, says environmental impacts are “insignificant” and have been adequately mitigated. The study says the risk of collapse was taken into account in the engineering of the tracks, and that the area will be observed through a prevention program.
Dozens of scientists disagree, writing in open letters that the assessments are riddled with problems, including outdated data, the omission of recently discovered caves and a lack of input from local hydrology experts.
“They don’t want to recognize the fragility of the land,” said Fernanda Lases, a Mérida-based scientist with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), calling the problems identified “highly worrisome.”
The names of the 70 experts who participated in the government study were redacted from the publication.
One piece of research used by the government to support its conclusions was taken from a blog by Monroy-Rios, who says he was never contacted by the authors of the report. His research highlights the need for extensive surveillance and monitoring for any infrastructure project in the region. He says this has not happened.
“I guess their conclusions were pre-formatted,” Monroy-Rios said. “They want to do it fast and that’s part of the problem. There’s no time for the proper exploration.”
An expert who participated in the reports and spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the work had been done quickly.
“There was pressure, especially due to delivery times,” the expert said.
The expert expressed concern the government would not properly mitigate risks experts had highlighted in the government’s impact studies or dedicate the necessary resources to the train’s maintenance.
FONATUR said the project would have resources and follow-up care in the future, including programs established for environmental protection.
“The Mayan Train project is of course safe, monitored and regulated by the environmental authorities as has happened up to now,” the agency told Reuters.
Inecol, Mexico’s ecology institute which produced the reports, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. A spokesman for López Obrador did not respond to a request for comment.
Despite concerns, support from 'forgotten' villages
Despite the concerns about the railway, it has the support of many in villages that for decades have felt largely forgotten in national development plans.
In Xkuncheil, a small dusty town of about 140 people on Section 2 of the train that runs through Campeche state, Luz Elba Damas Jiménez, 69, owns a small store selling soda and snacks near the tracks. Many of her neighbors, especially the young men, are working on the project, she said. She also has more customers now.
“The government is working on good things for the country... Sometimes there just isn’t work in these small towns, but now they have jobs,” she said. “The truth is that we have benefited.”
Martha Rosa Rosado, who was offered a government payout to move when an earlier plan for the tracks was set to go through her home in Campeche’s Camino Real neighborhood, echoed those sentiments.
“No government ever remembers the southeast. Everything goes to the north, and the southeast is forgotten,” she said as she grilled pork outside her home of 40 years.
Some 280 miles away, in Playa del Carmen, near the beach resorts bustling with tourists, a group of volunteers — clad in helmets and head lamps — descend into the caves at weekends to monitor their condition.
Roberto Rojo, a biologist in the group, says the train will put the entire ecosystem above and below ground at risk.
“They are doing studies now that needed to be done at least four years ago,” Rojo said inside one cave directly below where the train is due to pass.
Behind him, tree roots descend from the ceiling of the cave like coarse rope, stretching down to be quenched by the water pooled at his feet.
“This is our life. We are putting in risk and in danger the stability of this ecosystem,” he said.
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