Two journalists for the Cincinnati alternative newsweekly CityBeat were arrested while documenting a protest across the bridge connecting the Ohio city with Covington, Kentucky, on July 17, 2025.

Demonstrators had gathered at a vigil in Cincinnati in support of Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian immigrant and imam who was detained by immigration authorities July 9, according to local NPR affiliate WVXU.

After the rally, dozens of protesters marched to the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, crossing from Ohio to Kentucky. Within minutes, they were confronted by Covington police officers.

CityBeat photo intern Lucas Griffith and investigative reporter Madeline Fening were documenting the protest and were among the first individuals detained.

In footage captured by WVXU reporter Nick Swartsell, multiple Covington Police Department vehicles can be seen driving toward the advancing line of protesters. In body-camera footage released by the department, officers are heard ordering protesters to move off the roadway and onto the sidewalk multiple times over approximately 90 seconds.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Two journalists for the Cincinnati alternative newsweekly CityBeat were arrested while documenting a protest across the bridge connecting the Ohio city with Covington, Kentucky, on July 17, 2025.

Demonstrators had gathered at a vigil in Cincinnati in support of Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian immigrant and imam who was detained by immigration authorities July 9, according to local NPR affiliate WVXU.

After the rally, dozens of protesters marched to the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, crossing from Ohio to Kentucky. Within minutes, they were confronted by Covington police officers.

CityBeat investigative reporter Madeline Fening and photo intern Lucas Griffith were documenting the protest and were among the first individuals detained.

In footage captured by WVXU reporter Nick Swartsell, multiple Covington Police Department vehicles can be seen driving toward the advancing line of protesters. In body-camera footage released by the department, officers are heard ordering protesters to move off the roadway and onto the sidewalk multiple times over approximately 90 seconds.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Advocacy groups in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) disrupted the US Department of Defense’s public meeting this week, which tackled proposed military training plans on Tinian, voicing strong opposition to further militarisation in the Marianas.

Members of the Marianas for Palestine, Prutehi Guahan and Commonwealth670 burst into the public hearing at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Garapan, chanting, “No build-up! No war!” and “Free, free, Palestine!”

As the chanting echoed throughout the venue on Wednesday, the DOD continued the proceedings to gather public input on its CNMI Joint Military Training proposal.

• READ MORE: Other protests for Palestine reports

The US plan includes live-fire ranges, a base camp, communications infrastructure, and a biosecurity facility. Officials said feedback from Tinian, Saipan and Rota communities would help shape the final environmental impact statement.

Salam Castro Younis, of Chamorro-Palestinian descent, linked the military expansion to global conflicts in Gaza and Iran.

“More militarisation isn’t the answer,” Younis said. “We don’t need to lose more land. Diplomacy and peace are the way forward – not more bombs.”

Saipan-born Chamorro activist Anufat Pangelinan echoed Younis’s sentiment, citing research connecting climate change and environmental degradation to global militarisation.

‘No part of a war’
“We don’t want to be part of a war we don’t support,” he said. “The Marianas shouldn’t be a tip of the spear – we should be a bridge for peace.”

The groups argue that CJMT could make Tinian a target, increasing regional hostility.

“We want to sustain ourselves without the looming threat of war,” Pangelinan added.

In response to public concerns from the 2015 draft EIS, the DOD scaled back its plans, reducing live-fire ranges from 14 to 2 and eliminating artillery, rocket and mortar exercises.

Mark Hashimoto, executive director of the US Marine Corps Forces Pacific, emphasised the importance of community input.

“The proposal includes live-fire ranges, a base camp, communications infrastructure and a biosecurity facility,” he said.

Hashimoto noted that military lease lands on Tinian could support quarterly exercises involving up to 1000 personnel.

Economic impact concerns
Tinian residents expressed concerns about economic impacts, job opportunities, noise, environmental effects and further strain on local infrastructure.

The DOD is expected to issue a Record of Decision by spring 2026, balancing public feedback with national security and environmental considerations.

In a joint statement earlier this week, the activist groups said the people of Guam and the CNMI were “burdened by processes not meant to serve their home’s interests”.

The groups were referring to public input requirements for military plans involving the use of Guam and CNMI lands and waters for war training and testing.

“As colonies of the United States, the Mariana Islands continue to be forced into conflicts not of our people’s making,” the statement read.

“ After decades of displacement and political disenfranchisement, our communities are now in subservient positions that force an obligation to extend our lands, airspace, and waters for use in America’s never-ending cycle of war.”

They also lamented the “intense environmental degradation” and “growing housing and food insecurity” resulting from military expansion.

“Like other Pacific Islanders, we are also overrepresented disproportionately in the military and in combat,” they said.

“Meanwhile, prices on imported food, fuel, and essential goods will continue to rise with inflation and war.”

Republished from Pacific Island Times.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A torrent of water rushes underneath, gray and angry. Wind whips. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Clouds threaten rain. And before you is a bridge.

But it is not just any bridge. It spans from one rocky cliff to the other, and it is strung together by rope and twine, bound and rebound for generations. Eternity. 

This is Q’eswachaka. The last Incan Bridge. It stands over 12,000 feet above sea level and spans 30 meters over the Apurimac River down in a majestic canyon never found by the Spanish.

It was once an important passage along the Qhapaq Ñan, a network of roads stretching more than 2,000 kilometers across the Incan empire, from present day Colombia all the way down to Chile and Argentina.

The bridge has lasted here for more than six centuries. But that is only possible because it is rebuilt every year. 

In early June, the residents of four Quechua communities hold a three-day-long festival, where they rebuild the bridge from scratch. First, they cut down the old one and let it drop into the water below. Then the women beat and work the straw they have brought from the highlands. They begin to weave it. Transform it into the fibers and the rope for the new bridge. The men build the rope flooring and the railings. Slowly, the bridge is built anew.

This is not just a task to be done, but an ancestral ceremony with song and dance, ritual. An ancient art passed down from generation to generation. Their own offering to Pachamama, Madre Tierra—Mother Earth.

The communal building of bridges like this was once cherished and embraced, and carried out by communities across the Incan Empire. But this, they say, is the last. And these communities are holding on, like the very bridge itself.

More than a river crossing, and a connection between two roads, this is a symbol of the community’s connection to their past, to their ancestors, to their culture, their traditions, to the next generations, to the land… and to Mother Earth.

###

Hi folks, thanks for listening. I’m your host Michael Fox. 

The Q’eswachaka festival is happening right now in the Peruvian mountains south of Cuzco. 

It was an honor to visit the location earlier this year. 

You can check out some exclusive pictures and drone footage that I shot on my Patreon. That’s patreon.com/mfox. There you can also follow my reporting and support my work and this podcast.

This is Stories of Resistance, a podcast series co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Each week, I bring you stories of resistance and hope like this. Inspiration for dark times. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment or leave a review.

As always, thanks for listening. See you next time.

Q’eswachaka is the last Incan rope bridge. It’s located down in a valley in the Andes mountains of Peru. And in early June, the residents of four Quechua communities hold a three-day-long festival, where they rebuild the bridge from scratch.

This is not just a task to be done, but an ancestral ceremony. A means of holding on to their traditions and the story—resisting modernity and the passage of time, by preserving this piece of their history and their culture.

The bridge itself is a symbol of the community’s connection to their past, to their ancestors, to the next generations, to the land… and to Mother Earth.

This is episode 48 of Stories of Resistance—a podcast co-produced by The Real News and Global Exchange. Independent investigative journalism, supported by Global Exchange’s Human Rights in Action program. Each week, we’ll bring you stories of resistance like this. Inspiration for dark times.

If you like what you hear, please subscribe, like, share, comment, or leave a review. 

And please consider signing up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed, either in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, or wherever you listen.

To see exclusive pictures and video of the last Incan rope bridge, you can visit Michael Fox’s Patreon: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also follow his reporting and support his work and this podcast.

Written and produced by Michael Fox.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Michael Fox.

Construction has begun on a road bridge that would connect North Korea and Russia over the Tumen River that separates the countries, South Korean satellite imagery revealed.

This would be the first road bridge between these two allies, allowing trucks and buses to transfer goods and people. There is already a rail bridge between the two countries, which recently have been strengthening ties.

South Korean firm SI Analytics announced that it captured the photos on March 3, and they showed that preparatory work had begun for an 830-meter (900-yard) section of road, including the bridge over the frozen river in the northeastern part of North Korea.

Experts said that when completed, the bridge will likely boost trade and tourism in North Korea, and possibly increase Moscow’s influence in the region.

One expert said that it seems as if Russia agreed to build this bridge in exchange for North Korean support in its war with Ukraine. North Korea has sent an estimated 12,000 soldiers to fight in Russia’s war against Ukraine, although neither Moscow or Pyongyang has publicly confirmed this.

Preliminary staging

On the Russian side of the border, the satellite images show that preliminary work for the bridge reaches less than 300 meters (330 yards) from the land.

A yellow structure, believed to be a pillar that would hold up the bridge, can be seen on the frozen surface of the river. Additionally, construction materials can be seen in a staging area on the Russian side.

(PleiadesNEO imagery with analysis by SI Analytics)

“The groundwork will be completed before the river thaws, with the actual bridge pillars being installed in the spring,” SI Analytics said.

Meanwhile, on the North Korean side, construction is underway on the road that would connect to the bridge. It appears that the ground has been compacted, but the road has yet to be paved. Heavy equipment like bulldozers, trucks and smaller cars can be seen at the construction site.

Moscow selected contracting firm TonnelYuzhStroy LLC, to oversee design and construction of the bridge, with a deadline for completion set at Dec. 31, 2026, media outlet Interfax.ru reported.

“Although the Russian government has allocated a two-year construction period, it seems that the rush to complete the groundwork even in the bitter cold is intended to show ‘tangible results’ in accordance with the demands of Russian President Vladimir Putin,” SI Analytics said.

North Korea observers said that the construction of the bridge would be a boon for overland shipping between North Korea and Russia, as only one other bridge connecting the two countries exists, and it is only for trains.

The new bridge will contribute to North Korea’s economic growth, Joung Eunlee, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification, told RFA Korean.

“Land routes can actively transport much more logistics and people than railways,” she said. “If a bridge is built between North Korea and Russia, then the volume of goods transported will be much larger than railways, the transport time will be faster, and the volume of trade will likely increase.”

Quid pro quo?

The bridge is likely being built in return for North Korean military support of Russia in its war with Ukraine, said Bruce Bennett of the U.S.-based RAND Corporation.

“Creating a new bridge would be a direct way for Russia to increase trade with North Korea,” he said. “I believe there is no doubt that this is, at least, a partial payoff to North Korea.”

The new bridge is likely to lead to increased economic, social and military exchanges, and could weaken the effectiveness of sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear ambitions, SI analytics said. Additionally it could reorganize the balance of power in the region, increasing Russian influence at the expense of Chinese.

“China’s response will likely to be a key variable going forward,” SI Analytics said.

But the overall effect of the new bridge could also be relatively mild, Kim Young-hee, from the Institute for North Korean Studies, at Dongguk University in South Korea, told RFA.

“It would have an economic effect, but North Korea would require a lot of travel by train or car to enable trade with Russia,” she said. “Geographically, China is better. Russia is far away, so transportation costs are higher than to trade with China.”

She said that trading with China was more cost effective, so Pyongyang would likely still trade primarily with Beijing.

Translated by Claire S Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Cheon Soram for RFA Korean.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The main bridge connecting North Korea has been packed bumper-to-bumper with Chinese trucks over the past week, indicating that relations between Pyongyang and Beijing are warming up and that trade is picking up swiftly, residents in China told Radio Free Asia.

The Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge spans the Yalu River border, connecting the Chinese city of Dandong with North Korea’s Sinuiju. Most, if not all, official overland trade between the two countries transits this bridge. 

A resident of Dandong  told RFA that over the past few days more than 100 trucks crossed the bridge each day.

“The frozen relationship between China and North Korea seems to be gradually thawing,” he said. “You can see that by looking at the number of vehicles traveling between North Korea and China through the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge.”

Over the past few months, North Korea has been opportunistically cleaving to Russia, which needs all the allies it can get as Moscow’s war with Ukraine isolates it from the rest of the international community. North Korea’s relations with China have thus taken somewhat of a backseat. 

But economically, North Korea depends heavily on China.

The large daily convoys are drawing spectators who enjoy watching such a massive number of trucks cross the bridge all at once, the resident said.

“The reason why the truck movement has increased these days is because fabrics, materials, and equipment are being transported to North Korea to produce clothing,” he said. “This used to be produced in China. This is newly developed news that I learned through a Chinese businessman who has ties to North Korean officials.”

He said the trucks go out in the daytime and unload about 40 tons of cargo each. They then return at nighttime.

Flood recovery efforts

A lot of the goods being transported are needed in flood recovery efforts, another Dandong resident said. In late July and August, heavy rains caused the Yalu River to overflow its banks, damaging communities and even submerging several inhabited islands.

“Most of the items loaded on the vehicles are construction materials needed to restore areas affected by recent floods,” he said. “Additionally, there are lots of raw materials being brought in so that North Koreans can make products that were previously made by North Korean workers in China.”  

Previously North Korea would send large numbers of workers into China to earn foreign currency for the cash-strapped regime. But all North Korean workers were supposed to have returned home by 2019 according to international nuclear sanctions.

The second resident said that the same kind of work is being done, just in North Korea instead of in China.

“In the past, some Chinese companies with a legal address in Pyongyang produced clothing and electronic products in North Korea using Chinese materials and then changed them into Chinese products,” he said.

In addition to sanctions deterring dispatched workers, the mood inside North Korea is also changing, according to the second resident. The North Korean government is also cautious to send workers abroad because it exposes them to the outside world and makes them less easy to control as they learn about life outside the top-down controlled North Korean society.

The second resident said that it is difficult to export products labeled as made in North Korea due to sanctions against North Korea, so products made to order in North Korea are converted to products made in China.

“It is impossible to count the number of vehicles lined up on the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, but at one glance, more than 100 vehicles are transporting goods to North Korea every day,” he said. “This is the result of both North Korea and China agreeing on various exchanges from the standpoint of mutual interest.”

Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. 

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kim Jieun for RFA Korean.

The renovation of an iconic 16th century covered bridge in the central Vietnam tourist destination of Hoi An has prompted criticism from residents who say the new look doesn’t follow the bridge’s historical style.

Work on the Japanese bridge began a year ago. Complaints began trickling into local officials recently after it was repainted with brighter colors that one nearby resident called “garish” and “annoying.” 

The VND20 billion (US$800,000) budget for the restoration work should have included consultations with experienced experts in order to preserve the bridge’s authenticity, said the resident, who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons.

“They did things carelessly and then had to do the correction after a public outcry,” the resident said. “If you aren’t qualified and skillful enough, don’t take on projects that restore ancient structures.”

Hoi An’s city chairman ordered workers to repaint the bridge a second time to return it to something closer to its original appearance, a construction specialist in central Vietnam told Radio Free Asia.

“Restoration work must adhere to the principle of not making monuments and relics look new – they should preserve their weathered, ancient appearance,” he said.

Japanese merchants who had their own enclave in what was then a bustling international trading town began building the 18 meters (59 feet) long bridge in 1593. 

Hoi An at the time included a Chinese neighborhood and a heavy presence from the Dutch East India Company.

Cracks in its pillars

The bridge has been renovated several times over the last 400 years. The preserved neighborhood around the bridge was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1999. 

In 2006, the government issued a 20,000 dong note featuring the bridge, which is also known as the Cau Pagoda bridge and includes a small temple on its north side. 

According to Vietnamese media, the bridge had deteriorated significantly by 2022, with cracks showing in its foundations and pillars. Several columns and the rafters were also damaged, local media reported. 

“Almost all experts that I know clearly outlined the prudent and meticulous steps involved in the restoration and to preserve the original features to the greatest extent possible,” said Hoang Dung, a linguistic and cultural researcher in Saigon.

“However, many people have noted that, given the public's familiarity with its aged appearance, the overly new look might be jarring,” he said. “These reactions, of course, stem from a love for our national heritage.”

The renovation project was expected to be completed on Aug. 3, with an unveiling ceremony as part of the 20th Hoi An-Japan Cultural Exchange celebrations.

Similarly, the 2015 restoration of the Hanoi Opera House was also criticized for its use of overly bright colors. It was also repainted again to give it an older look.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

The two sides agreed to the Tumen River Bridge plan during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Pyongyang on June 19. 

North Korea is only connected on land to Russia by rail, so the new bridge would allow road traffic, meaning it would likely boost trade and tourism. Russian trucks and buses full of Russian tourists could travel across it, although roads need to be built on both sides to link it to existing roads.

Experts immediately made comparisons to the New Yalu River Bridge, a road bridge that connects North Korea and China in North Korea’s northwest. 

Though that bridge was completed almost a decade ago, it still remains unopened, because the North Korean side has yet to install the proper infrastructure.

Road traffic between North Korea’s Sinuiju and China’s Dandong, the two major hubs in Sino-Korean trade, must settle for a single reversible lane on the aging Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, which was built in 1943 towards the end of  Japan’s colonial occupation of Korea and primarily handles rail traffic. 

North Korea and Russia have been discussing road bridge construction since 2015, but talks ended in 2016 when North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test.

Renewed closeness

Unlike the new bridge to China, North Korea’s renewed closeness to Russia makes it highly likely that the bridge to the Russian Far East will be completed and opened without much delay, Choi Eun-ju, a Research Fellow at the Sejong Institute in South Korea, told RFA Korean.

She said that even if war in Ukraine ends and Russia has less incentive to engage with North Korea, the two sides will likely remain close in the long term.

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Choi said that Russia, which believes that the international order can change from a unipolar system centered on the United States to a multipolar system in the future, is actively trying to attract North Korea, while Pyongyang wants to gain practical benefits by increasing its presence through cooperation with Russia.

The agreement to build a land route to Russia is meaningful because unlike with China, there is no road to Russia, Kang Dongwan, a professor of political science at South Korea’s Dong-A University, told RFA. 

“Since the agreement has been signed, regardless of the issue of whether to open the bridge later, it seems that Russia will naturally provide capital and begin construction,” he said. “Isn’t this the best time for North Korea-Russia relations for each other? So, we expect that such exchanges will definitely take place.”

Kang said the New Yalu River Bridge is an entirely different project and its problems should not affect the Tumen River Bridge, which he said will maximize the benefits between the two countries through trade and people-to-people exchanges.”

“I do not agree with the idea that construction can be stopped midway due to changes in international relations,” he said. “If we say that construction is not possible due to a lack of support from Russia or a breakdown in North Korea-Russia relations, we are greatly underestimating the relationship that North Korea and Russia have traditionally had.”

Different dynamics

North Korea expert Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University, told RFA that the relationship between Russia and North Korea is very different from that of China and North Korea.

“The reason North Korea opposed the completion of the New Yalu River Bridge in the past was because it was cautious due to a fear of Chinese interference and influence,” he said, adding that he felt the bridge would be built to completion.

The bridge will increase trade between Russia and North Korea, said Joung Eunlee, a research Fellow at Korea Institute for National Unification.

“Much more cargo can be actively transported than through railways, and people can also be transported,” she said. “Transportation time will be faster, and trade volume will increase.”

However, Lankov, who also writes a weekly column for RFA Korean,  noted that the site of the Tumen River Bridge has no roads connected on the Russian side, and no paved roads on the North Koreans side. So he believes its effect on trade and movement of people in the short-term will be limited.

Send more workers?

Kang predicted that North Korea would push for dispatching more workers to Russia once the bridge is completed.

So far, North Korea has been limited in sending workers by rail or sea, but if it does so over the road, foreign currency earnings through human exchange will become more active, he said. North Korea requires its workers in other countries to send a hefty chunk of their earnings back to the government, which relies on these funds as a key source of revenue.

“What North Korea and Russia currently have in common is that Russia needs manpower during the war in Ukraine, and North Korea needs to earn foreign currency by exporting manpower,” he said. “Both of these issues are trapped within the framework of sanctions against North Korea.”

He said that both countries intend to overcome the constraints of sanctions, and the bridge would be a way to do that.

Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Seo Hye Jun for RFA Korean.

Independent photographer Madison Swart was briefly detained by New York City police officers while covering a pro-Palestinian protest on the Manhattan Bridge on May 11, 2024.

Swart told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was documenting a protest that began in downtown Brooklyn but broke into separate groups following rounds of arrests by police. She said she and another journalist, reporter Katie Smith, continued with a group of about 100 people heading over the bridge toward Manhattan.

“The police weren’t going after anybody while we were actually on the bridge, so I figured, ‘Oh, they’re probably just waiting for us all on the other side,’” Swart said. “I remember texting a friend, ‘I have a weird feeling that I might get arrested when I get off this bridge.’”

As they neared the edge of the bridge, with Swart, Smith and a few other journalists ahead of the march, Swart said she saw the police moving toward the crowd.

“Immediately when they started coming toward us, I moved to the side so as not to be in their way. I was right behind Katie and they went straight for her: She was the first person that they detained on the bridge even though her press pass was clearly visible,” Swart said. “I knew I would be next so I tried to get in as many shots as I could before they arrested me.”

Swart told the Tracker that one of the same officers who had detained Smith informed her she was under arrest. When Swart identified herself as a journalist and asked why she was being detained, he simply replied, “You’re not allowed to be here.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

AFCL checked and investigated some of the most widespread claims and rumors surrounding the incident. Below is what AFCL found.

Did key information about the Dali before the collision go missing?

A Weibo user claimed on April 1 that U.S. authorities said they were unable to obtain key positional data from the ship’s voyage data recorder, also referred to as a black box, in the minutes leading up to the ship’s collision with the bridge. 

But this is misleading. Although motion sensors on the ship did stop briefly for about a minute in the time leading up to the collision, the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, was still able to obtain audio of steering commands and rudder movements recorded by the black box during that time. 

Marcel Muise, the NTSB chief investigator for the incident, noted in a report issued by CNN that the ship’s recorder stopped recording sensor data for about one minute at 1:25 a.m. on March 26 – about four and half minutes before the actual collision occurred. 

During this time, however, audio on the ship – including rudder orders and steering commands – continued to be recorded without interruption using a backup power source. 

Did CNN report that the Dali was full of Chinese goods?

Several influencers on Weibo and Douyin claimed that CNN had reported the Dali was full of Chinese goods when it hit the bridge, citing purported screenshots taken from news broadcast by the American broadcaster. 

This is false. The screenshots superimposed a fake CNN headline over footage from a separate Baltimore local news outlet. 

A closer look at the screenshots revealed notable differences, including font style, subtitle design, headline presentation, and the appearance of the “LIVE” marker, which diverge from CNN’s authentic standards.

A reverse image search found the screenshots in fact were taken from WBAL-TV, a television station in Baltimore. 

Did the US Secretary of Transportation request paternity leave after the incident?

One more widespread claim on Weibo is that the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg asked for paternity leave right after the collapse of the bridge.

A screenshot of a Chinese language news report claiming that Buttigieg announced he planned to take three months leave at an emergency news conference was attached below the post. 

The report is dated to March 26, 2024, and is sourced from The Babylon Bee. 

This is false. The Babylon Bee is a satirical news site, self described as “the definitive source of fake news you can trust.” 

Keyword searches found no credible reports or official announcement about Buttigieg’s paternity leave request. 

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang and Matt Reed.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing and Dong Zhe for Asia Fact Check Lab.

What the dawn’s early light brought on March 26, 2024, by contrast, were shocking news videos of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing when the Singapore-owned cargo ship Dali slammed into it. It was “like something out of an action movie,” said Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. Several commentators are calling it a “black swan” event that will have catastrophic effects on global supply chains. Interestingly, the War of 1812 was also about disruptions to U.S. trade with foreign nations, in that case by blockade by the British navy. But more on that, and on how our forebears turned dependence on foreign manufacturers into economic independence, after a look at what went amiss with the Dali and the bridge.

An Unusual Stroke of Bad Luck

Before it fell, the Key Bridge was a pivotal artery for traffic, cargo and supplies across the country. The Interstate 695 running across the bridge connects to I-95, one of the country’s busiest and most important supply chain highways, running from the northern to the southern end of the Eastern seaboard. Shipping is expected to resume to full capacity by the end of May, but  rebuilding the bridge to appropriate standards could take five to seven years. That means this strategic artery will no longer be accessible for transporting hazardous materials, which Maryland law forbids to be transported by tunnel (including unleaded fuel, diesel, propane gas, and nitrogen chemicals for fertilizer), along with oversized cargo that cannot fit through roadway tunnels in the area (including tractors and military vehicles).

Observers contend there is still no plausible explanation for the direct hit to the bridge’s most critical support. The power went out on the ship about three minutes before the strike, yet multiple layers of security for maintaining steering control are mandated by U.S. and international regulation. Even without power, the Dali should have continued in the direction it was headed; but instead it veered to the right, for a direct hit into the key pylon supporting the bridge.

Engineering Professor Emerita W. M. Kim Roddis, a registered professional engineer with experience in bridge design, acknowledged in an interview in a March 28 article on GW Today that it was a “one in a million” occurrence. As reported in the George Washington University publication, she was asked how a 1.6-mile-long bridge that carried 31,000 cars per day could suffer such a complete collapse. She responded:

The container ship Dali lost power multiple times on its way out of Baltimore Harbor. The ship’s inability to steer resulted in it heading at an angle towards the southwestern major bridge pier—the pylon.

The navigation chart for Baltimore Harbor shows four protective devices called dolphins, one in front of each pier for outgoing and incoming ships. … They essentially serve as bumpers to deflect or slow boats and ships that are headed toward the pylon.

The [Dali’s] angled course allowed the ship to miss the dolphin and strike the pylon. When the ship collided with the pylon it exerted a huge crushing force on the pier, bursting the pylon apart. This pylon was the only support for the bridge on that side. … The continuity of the structure meant that all three spans came down when the southwestern pylon was lost. …

The angle the ship came in at was unusual. So, yes, this was an unlikely accident. …  [O]ne-​in-​a-​million is in the right ballpark.

What About a Cyberattack?

The FBI issued a statement the morning of the Dali crash saying there was no evidence of a terrorist attack, but insurers and reinsurers will no doubt be investigating, since insurance contracts now typically exclude damage from terrorist attacks. Insurance claims are expected to be high and to spill over into the global reinsurance market. (An interesting bit of trivia is that Dali’s insurer, a company named Britannia, is owned by a company called Wadia Group. Founded in 1726, it built the ship from which Francis Scott Key saw the flag waving over Fort McHenry in 1814.)

The cyberattack possibility is confirmed in an April 5 article in Security Magazine titled “Protecting Ships from Cyber Terrorism”. The author observes:

The investigation into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse has only just begun, but we’ve already seen news reports containing an unclassified memo from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and comments from the Department of Homeland Security concerning the cause. … At this time, there is no evidence that the incident was anything more than a tragic accident, but the involvement of these U.S. government agencies indicates concerns of a cyberattack.

Those concerns are highly warranted. For some time, maritime cybersecurity has been top of mind for regional, national and global policymakers. …

There are plenty of onboard systems to attack. Hackers are known to intercept satellite communications used extensively by ships at sea. They can also spoof or jam GPS systems, manipulate the automatic ID system (AIS), steal vital data, or inject malware or ransomware into any number of onboard systems via infected devices files. Such attacks can throw a ship off course. When combined with a compromised propulsion system, the consequences can be horrific.

The cyberattack possibility is also confirmed in an article in The Security Ledger titled “Container Ships Easy to Hack, Track, Send Off Course and Even Sink, Security Experts Say”. In fact, training is now offered at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology to prepare for cyberattacks. An article in Norwegian SciTech News titled “What Do You Do If a Hacker Takes Over Your Ship?” begins with this chilling scene involving the hijacking of a ship’s steering:

You’re on the bridge, with the ship’s course shown on the digital display. But why is the ship continuing to turn west?

Everything looks normal on the computer screens in the dark wheelhouse — but outside, the land is dangerously close. What’s going on?

Down in the engine room, workers report via radio that everything is normal, but they wonder why the bridge has changed course. The engines are revving and the ship is picking up speed. The engine room hasn’t done this. What now?

In July 2020, World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab warned of “the frightening scenario of a comprehensive cyberattack which would bring a complete halt to the power supply,” such that Covid 19 “would be seen as a small disturbance in comparison ….” And at the WEF annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2023, WEF managing director Jeremy Jurgens said during a presentation highlighting the WEF Global Security Outlook Report that 93 percent of cyber leaders believed that the current geopolitical instability makes a catastrophic cyber event likely before 2025.

Time to Repair and Rebuild

Hopefully the Key Bridge strike was an accident, as most news outlets contend. But whether it was or not, we have serious weaknesses in critical infrastructure that need to be addressed. Bridges such as the Key Bridge are classified as “fracture critical” by the federal government – meaning that if one component of the bridge’s primary structural frame fails, all or most of the span will collapse. There are more than 16,800 such bridges in the U.S., according to the Federal Highway Administration. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the federal government, 46,000 U.S. bridges have aging structures and are in “poor” condition. The Dali was 984 feet long—nearly twice the length of the ships used when the bridge was built during the 1970s. To minimize the potential of ships bringing down bridges, say experts, they need to be fortified with dolphins and other structures to protect around their danger points.

And that is just for the bridges. We also have a deficient electrical grid, aging dams and power facilities, and much more that are vulnerable to attack or structural disintegration. In the last of its “report cards,” which come out every four years, the ASCE estimated in 2021 that total U.S. infrastructure needs were approximately $5.937 trillion. Of that sum, $3.35 trillion was funded, leaving a wide funding gap of more than $2.5 trillion. Where will this money come from? The federal government is $34.6 trillion in debt, and the Government Accounting Office is recommending cutting rather than expanding the budget. We need a work-around that avoids tapping federal coffers.

The “American System” of Money and Credit

That brings us back to the War of 1812 and the financial challenges successfully overcome by our forefathers. At the end of the American Revolution, the colonies-turned-states were $44 million in debt, a sum that at the time seemed impossible to repay. But Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, turned the debt to advantage by using it to capitalize the First U.S. Bank. Debt securities were traded for shares in the bank, paying a 6% dividend. The bank then issued the first U.S. currency, leveraging its capital into credit on the fractional reserve system.

But the Bank was controversial, and in 1811 its charter was allowed to expire – right before the War of 1812. Then as now, a major issue was disruption to foreign trade. As recounted on the Federal Reserve’s website:

In the years leading up to the War of 1812, the U.S. economy had been on the upswing. The war with Britain, however, disrupted foreign trade. As one of the United States’ largest trading partners, Britain used its navy to blockade U.S. trade with other nations. The war prevented U.S. farmers and manufacturers from exporting merchandise, blocked U.S. merchants and fishermen from sailing the high seas, and curtailed federal government revenues, which were derived mainly from tariffs on trade. By 1815, the United States found itself heavily in debt, much like it had been at the end of the Revolutionary War thirty years earlier.

In April 1816, Pres. James Madison finally signed an act establishing the second Bank of the United States. The tale is continued in a 2018 article titled “America’s Stunning Growth Under the Second National Bank”:

John Quincy Adams’ March 4, 1825 inauguration was the start of one of the most intense periods of economic progress in history. Canals and roads were pushed through, opening up the West to settlement, funneling new-​mined coal to shops and cities, and creating entirely new Midwestern centers of industry. The iron industry, under tariff protection, was reborn after a century of imperial suppression. Railroads began military-​designed construction and grew quickly from nothing to thousands of miles. Financing and planning of these enterprises was coordinated by Federal, military, state, and local authorities. The Bank of the United States drove the program forward with credit regulation that throttled down parasitical speculation and directed public and private investment funds into infrastructure and industry. Researchers affiliated with the Bank-​military-​government leadership team did pioneering work with engines and electricity that led to spectacular advances later on.

Achievements included the Erie Canal and other canal networks connecting mining with manufacturing centers and Atlantic ports before the railroad era. In later years, the Bank of the United States sponsored creation of the Reading Railroad. The American coal-​mining industry began as a direct result of these projects.

What Sen. Henry Clay and Lincoln’s economic adviser Henry Carey called the “American System” of government-issued money and credit was used again by Lincoln’s government to win the Civil War and to fund substantial post-war development, including completion of the Transcontinental Railroad linking both ends of the country.

That system was also used by Franklin Roosevelt’s government under Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones to get the country through the Great Depression and World War Two. At a time when U.S. banks were bankrupt, critical infrastructure was funded without tapping the federal budget by repurposing and greatly expanding the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) established earlier by Pres. Hoover to save the banks. Beginning with a modest $500 million in capitalization, it lent or invested over $40 billion from 1932 to 1957. It rebuilt the depressed economy, funded the New Deal and America’s participation in World War II, and returned a net profit to the government.

A Modern U.S. National Infrastructure Bank on the “American System” Model

HR 4052, a proposal for a $5 trillion National Infrastructure Bank, is currently before Congress and has widespread support, with 31 co-sponsors. The proposed bank is designed to be a true depository bank, which can leverage its funds as all banks are allowed to do: with a 10% capital requirement, it can leverage $1 in capital into $10 in loans. For capitalization, the bill proposes to follow the lead of Hamilton’s First U.S. Bank: existing U.S. bonds will be swapped for non-voting bank shares paying a dividend. For liquidity to back the loans, the bank will use incoming deposits or will issue bonds. Included in the many projects the bill covers is electrical grid security, a major need not just for ships and bridges but for infrastructure across the country. For more on this proposal, see the website of the NIB Coalition.

Our forebears fought the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War and two World Wars to preserve our freedom and independence, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. They kept the flag waving in our darkest hours. A Hamiltonian-style national infrastructure bank is one promising tool for preserving that vision today.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ellen Brown.

Photograph Source: David Adams – Public Domain

The human mind is often incapable of tolerating the limitless nature of a universe, the absence of a divine architect, or appreciate that intended designs may be absent when it comes to events awful, ghastly and catastrophic.  A disaster with some human agency is bound to have arisen because of a constructed plan, a template to harm, a scheme to injure.

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was another event to befuddle those searching for the plan. The Singaporean-flagged MV Dali container ship lost power on March 26 and collided with the bridge in the early morning, causing the dramatic destruction of the bridge and the deaths of six construction workers who fell into the Patapsco River.

The authorities were quick scotch notions of foul play. FBI Baltimore stated that there was “no specific and credible information to suggest any ties to terrorism at this time.  The investigation is ongoing.”  President Joe Biden, while betraying confusion about whether he ever travelled by train over the bridge or not – an impressive feat if so, given that the bridge never had train lines – described it as “a terrible accident.  At this time, we have no other indication – no other reason to believe there was any intentional act here.”

The Kraken of conspiracy had, however, been unleashed.  Andrew Tate, the Count of Online Misogyny, was quick to the digital podium in suggesting a cyberattack.  In a post of breathless excitement, he notes how the “Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports.”  For the influencer facing charges of human trafficking, forming an organised crime group, and sexual assault in Romania, this was the work of “Foreign agents of the USA”.  With apocalyptic flavour, he declared that a “Black Swan event” was imminent.

With tearing speed, former security advisors and current political representatives made their offerings of conspiratorial theory.  Former US national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about meetings with Russia’s ambassador to the United States leading up to Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, added his own agreement with Tate.  “Black swans normally come out of the world of finance (not military) … There are harbor masters for every single one of these transit ports in America that are in charge of assuring the safety of navigation … start there.”  How exciting.

Former Florida state congressman Anthony Sabatini preferred a vaguer, more intangible culprit, identifying the enemy ideologically.  It all came down to a policy of diversity, equity and inclusion, with the insinuation that the swarthy types were responsible.  “DEI,” he stated with certainty, “did this.”  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) worried whether this was “an intentional attack or an accident” and demanded an investigation, the very thing happening even as she bloviated on the subject.

Almost on cue, culturally charged theories began to froth and bubble.  Matt Wallace, yet another cerebrally overheated influencer with 1.6 million followers, drew a comparison (and connection) between the collapse of the bridge and the Obama produced Netflix film Leave the World Behind, which featured a cargo shipping losing power and running aground on the coast of Long Island.

In the film, the ship’s destination is Sri Lanka.  The country’s national flag sports a lion.  The MV Dali’s destination?  Sri Lanka.  The name of the cargo vessel in the film?  White Lion.  Celluloid could be effortlessly married to harmful plot and wicked design, or what another overly exercised social media user drunk on Christ and premonition liked to call “predictive programming”.

On CNN, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was trying to calm matters.  “We’re in the business of dealing with roads and bridges and sometimes ships and trains.  So we are not in the habit as a Department of Transportation, of being in the business of dealing with conspiracies, or conspiracy theories or that kind of wild thinking.  But unfortunately, it is a fact of life in America today.”  This, at best, is an airy reading of history.

The lifespan of the US Republic has been one of numbing conspiracy.  In the land of Hope and Glory, with Freedom’s wash, conspiracy is mother’s milk.  The Salem witch trials in Massachusetts pointed to Satan’s industrious work; the fledgling republic feared the clandestine seizure of power from within by well organised European elites.  In the 1800 presidential race, rumours were sown by the Federalist Party that the wily Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, was a closeted atheist keen on handing over the new state to France on his election.  Jefferson won, and far from surrendering territory to France, doubled the size of the US with the purchase, from France, of 828,000 square miles.

At its creation during the Cold War, the John Birch Society, after ventilating about global communist conspiracy and home-grown threats, redirected its focus to the fanciful conspiracy that the United Nations was keen on world government and trimming US sovereignty.  This was much too flattering: the UN is rarely united and more akin to a collection of fractious tribes in permanent disagreement.

The problem with conspiratorial overheating is that the residual ash in the incineration can provide clues to something distantly plausible.  This is helped by the fact that governments and state institutions have not been shy in breaching the social contract with the citizenry.  The deep state notion, for instance, is laughed off by the very people who represent such interests and regard it as a crank’s viewpoint.

Fundamentally, there is no need for conspiracy when there is a consensus, an understanding of agreed-upon facts and agreed-upon hierarchies of power.  But as for such calamities as befell the Francis Scott Key Bridge, never let human imbecility, incompetence and error off the hook.  To misjudge is to be human.

The post The Baltimore Bridge Collapse: Conspiracy as Mother’s Milk appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was another event to befuddle those searching for the plan.  The Singaporean-flagged MV Dali container ship lost power on March 26 and collided with the bridge in the early morning, causing the dramatic destruction of the bridge and the deaths of six construction workers who fell into the Patapsco River.

The authorities were quick to scotch notions of foul play. FBI Baltimore stated that there was “no specific and credible information to suggest any ties to terrorism at this time.  The investigation is ongoing.”  President Joe Biden, while betraying confusion about whether he ever travelled by train over the bridge or not – an impressive feat if so, given that the bridge never had train lines – described it as “a terrible accident.  At this time, we have no other indication – no other reason to believe there was any intentional act here.”

The Kraken of conspiracy had, however, been unleashed.  Andrew Tate, the Count of Online Misogyny, was quick to the digital podium in suggesting a cyberattack.  In a post of breathless excitement, he notes how the “Lights go off and it deliberately steers towards the bridge supports.”  For the influencer facing charges of human trafficking, forming an organised crime group, and sexual assault in Romania, this was the work of “Foreign agents of the USA”.  With apocalyptic flavour, he declared that a “Black Swan event” was imminent.

With tearing speed, former security advisors and current political representatives made their offerings of conspiratorial theory.  Former US national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about meetings with Russia’s ambassador to the United States leading up to Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, added his own agreement with Tate.  “Black swans normally come out of the world of finance (not military) … There are harbor masters for every single one of these transit ports in America that are in charge of assuring the safety of navigation … start there.”  How exciting.

Former Florida state congressman Anthony Sabatini preferred a vaguer, more intangible culprit, identifying the enemy ideologically.  It all came down to a policy of diversity, equity and inclusion, with the insinuation that the swarthy types were responsible.  “DEI,” he stated with certainty, “did this.”  Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) worried whether this was “an intentional attack or an accident” and demanded an investigation, the very thing happening even as she bloviated on the subject.

Almost on cue, culturally charged theories began to froth and bubble.  Matt Wallace, yet another cerebrally overheated influencer with 1.6 million followers, drew a comparison (and connection) between the collapse of the bridge and the Obama produced Netflix film Leave the World Behind, which featured a cargo shipping losing power and running aground on the coast of Long Island.

In the film, the ship’s destination is Sri Lanka.  The country’s national flag sports a lion.  The MV Dali’s destination?  Sri Lanka.  The name of the cargo vessel in the film?  White Lion.  Celluloid could be effortlessly married to harmful plot and wicked design, or what another overly exercised social media user drunk on Christ and premonition liked to call “predictive programming”.

On CNN, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was trying to calm matters.  “We’re in the business of dealing with roads and bridges and sometimes ships and trains.  So we are not in the habit as a Department of Transportation, of being in the business of dealing with conspiracies, or conspiracy theories or that kind of wild thinking.  But unfortunately, it is a fact of life in America today.”  This, at best, is an airy reading of history.

The lifespan of the US Republic has been one of numbing conspiracy.  In the land of Hope and Glory, with Freedom’s wash, conspiracy is mother’s milk.  The Salem witch trials in Massachusetts pointed to Satan’s industrious work; the fledgling republic feared the clandestine seizure of power from within by well organised European elites.  In the 1800 presidential race, rumours were sown by the Federalist Party that the wily Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican, was a closeted atheist keen on handing over the new state to France on his election.  Jefferson won, and far from surrendering territory to France, doubled the size of the US with the purchase, from France, of 828,000 square miles.

At its creation during the Cold War, the John Birch Society, after ventilating about global communist conspiracy and home-grown threats, redirected its focus to the fanciful conspiracy that the United Nations was keen on world government and trimming US sovereignty.  This was much too flattering: the UN is rarely united and more akin to a collection of fractious tribes in permanent disagreement.

The problem with conspiratorial overheating is that the residual ash in the incineration can provide clues to something distantly plausible.  This is helped by the fact that governments and state institutions have not been shy in breaching the social contract with the citizenry.  The deep state notion, for instance, is laughed off by the very people who represent such interests and regard it as a crank’s viewpoint.

Fundamentally, there is no need for conspiracy when there is a consensus, an understanding of agreed-upon facts and agreed-upon hierarchies of power.  But as for such calamities as befell the Francis Scott Key Bridge, never let human imbecility, incompetence and error off the hook.  To misjudge is to be human.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

The Singapore cargo ship Dali chartered by Maersk, which collapsed the Baltimore bridge in the United States last month, was carrying 764 tonnes of hazardous materials to Sri Lanka, reports Colombo’s Daily Mirror.

The materials were mostly corrosives, flammables, miscellaneous hazardous materials, and Class-9 hazardous materials — including explosives and lithium-ion batteries — in 56 containers.

According to the Mirror, the US National Transportation Safety Board was still “analysing the ship’s manifest to determine what was onboard” in its other 4644 containers when the ship collided with Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing it, on March 26.

• READ MORE: Baltimore Key Bridge collapse investigation begins

The e-Con e-News (ee) news agency reports that prior to Baltimore, the Dali had called at New York and Norfolk, Virginia, which has the world’s largest naval base.

Colombo was to be its next scheduled call, going around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, taking 27 days.

According to ee, Denmark’s Maersk, transporter for the US Department of War, is integral to US military logistics, carrying up to 20 percent of the world’s merchandise trade annually on a fleet of about 600 vessels, including some of the world’s largest ships.

The US Department of Homeland Security has also now deemed the waters near the crash site as “unsafe for divers”.

13 damaged containers
An “unclassified memo” from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said a US Coast Guard team was examining 13 damaged containers, “some with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] and/or hazardous materials [HAZMAT] contents.

The team was also analysing the ship’s manifest to determine if any materials could “pose a health risk”.

CISA officials are also monitoring about 6.8 million litres of fuel inside the Dali for its “spill potential”.

Where exactly the toxic materials and fuel were destined for in Sri Lanka was not being reported.

Also, it is a rather long way for such Hazmat, let alone fuel, to be exported, “at least given all the media blather about ‘carbon footprint’, ‘green sustainability’ and so on”, said the Daily Mirror.

“We can expect only squeaky silence from the usual eco-freaks, who are heavily funded by the US and EU,” the newspaper commented.

“It also adds to the intrigue of how Sri Lanka was so easily blocked in 2022 from receiving more neighbourly fuel, which led to the present ‘regime change’ machinations.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Photograph Source: NTSBgov – Public Domain

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has sent shock waves throughout the United States. The bridge was not built to withstand a direct hit from a container ship as large as the Dali, which brought down the structure within minutes after its engine failed and it became an uncontrollable force drifting toward the bridge.

The incident is a symbol of how unfettered capitalism has resulted in safety concerns becoming secondary to profits.

The Dali, operated by shipping giant Maersk, was carrying more than 800 tons of corrosive and flammable materials. Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg likened the 95,000-ton ship to an aircraft carrier and the New York Times explained that “When the bridge was built, cargo ships were not the size they are today.” In fact, such ships have grown steadily in size over the past few decades. One economist told the Times that shipping companies “did what they thought was most efficient for themselves—make the ships big—and they didn’t pay much attention at all to the rest of the world.” This in turn has forced nations to expand waterways to accommodate the behemoths, often at the expense of the public.

Some 90 percent of all traded goods that are shipped from one part of the world to the other are transported by water. As corporate appetites for profits have increased, so has globalized trade. And, safety concerns have taken a back seat, as per an investigation published by Jacobin.

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor investigated a complaint against Maersk and concluded that the company had violated the Seaman’s Protection Act by retaliating against a whistleblower employee. At stake was the fact that, as per the Labor Department, “Reporting Policy requires seamen to report safety concerns to the company and allow it time to abate the conditions before reporting to the [U.S. Coast Guard] or other regulatory agencies.” In other words, Maersk, which is one of the world’s top shipping companies, tried to protect itself from government regulators.

A similar scenario of compromising safety in service of profits has unfolded at Boeing, one of the world’s top airplane manufacturers. After an Alaska Airlines flight in January 2024 was forced to make an emergency landing when the Boeing 737 Max plane lost a panel mid-flight, the New York Times published a bizarrely headlined story: “Boeing Faces Tricky Balance Between Safety and Financial Performance.” The story points out a conundrum for Boeing’s executives: “Should they emphasize safety or financial performance?”

The Times explained that, for years the company “put too much emphasis on increasing profits and enriching shareholders with dividends and share buybacks, and not enough on investing in engineering and safety.”

It’s worth stating the obvious: An unsafe aircraft is not an aircraft, it’s a death trap. And yet, within a capitalist framework, everything boils down to a cost-benefit analysis. If the cost of safety for companies like Boeing or Maersk outweighs the financial benefits, it’s simply not worth it for executives and shareholders. While the Alaska Airlines flight thankfully did not result in any deaths this time, hundreds of people on board 737s in 2018 and 2019were not so lucky. Workers at Boeing factories in Washington and South Carolina where aircraft are assembled are required to work at breakneck speed and compromise on safety in the interest of churning out planes as fast as possible.

Who pays the price for such corporate hubris? Vulnerable workers and the public. In the case of the Baltimore bridge accident, all 22 workers on board the Dali were of Indian origin and their quick thinking in notifying authorities that the ship lost power helped ensure that casualties were minimized. As of this writing, they remain trapped on board the ship with one worker having been treated at a hospital for minor injuries.

Meanwhile, the six people who are presumed dead and two who were rescued from the frigid waters were all immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America, working on the bridge as part of a construction crew.

These are the same sort of people who suffer racist attacks and ridicule from white supremacist forces in the U.S. A right-wing outlet posted a virulently racist cartoon of the Dali’s crew on social media. And only weeks earlier, Georgia’s unhinged ultraconservative Congressional representative Marjorie Taylor Greene heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address about a white woman who “was killed by an illegal,” in an attempt to whip up anti-immigrant frenzy.

Greene appeared utterly unconcerned about the fact that construction workers in the U.S. hail disproportionately from Latin American immigrant communities and many die from work-related injuries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2022, “Foreign-born Hispanic or Latino workers accounted for 63.5 percent (792) of total Hispanic or Latino worker fatalities (1,248).”

Taxpayers also pay the price for corporate profiteering at the expense of safety. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is apparently footing the bill for the massive cleanup operation from the Baltimore bridge accident. And, President Biden announced that the federal government would “pay the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge.” Meanwhile, Grace Ocean Private, the Singapore-based company that owns the Dali, is expected to invoke a centuries-old maritime law to limit its liability—the same law that the owners of the RMS Titanic used to limit theirs.

In the case of Boeing, the state of Washington in 2013 gave the company the largest ever tax break in the state’s history in exchange for housing its factory and spurring the creation of jobs. The cost to taxpayers was nearly $9 billion. And, because Washington’s governor failed to make job retention a condition for the massive tax break, Boeing then had it both ways when it cut its labor costs by slashing about 15 percent of its workforce in the state a few years later. Washington eventually eliminated the tax break but Boeing still reaps tens of millions of dollars in other state-level incentives tied to aerospace manufacturing.

It’s critically important to contextualize accidents that are the result of corporations putting profits over safety and people. These incidents are not isolated or unpredictable. They are the cost of doing business—a cost that the rest of us pay for in money and lives.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

The post Corporate Profiteering Destroyed the Baltimore Bridge appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Sonali Kolhatkar.

Search and rescue teams have recovered the bodies of two men from the Patapsco River following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, but four others remain missing and are presumed dead. All six victims were immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, part of a road crew that was filling potholes on the bridge when a cargo ship ran into one of the bridge supports, causing the entire structure to drop into the water. “The construction workers are absolutely essential,” says Gustavo Torres, executive director of the immigrant rights group CASA, which counted two of the victims as members. “Immigrants face higher injury and death rates … than nonimmigrants, and they are significantly less likely to have insurance.” He says the disaster has highlighted the difficult, often dangerous work done by immigrants in communities across the United States, and calls on political leaders to stop dehumanizing rhetoric. “What we need right now is comprehensive immigration reform. We don’t need more attacks against the immigrant community.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Six people are missing and presumed dead after a 984-foot cargo ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing the bridge’s collapse early Tuesday morning. All six have been identified as immigrant construction workers originally hailing from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Maryland Governor Wes Moore said the crew on the ship was able to issue an emergency mayday call before colliding with the bridge, which allowed authorities to stop incoming traffic and prevent more casualties. However, reports say the workers already on the bridge were not given similar warnings. “The question we should be asking about is why the folks on that bridge … had no direct line to emergency dispatch when they are clearly working in a potentially hazardous environment,” says journalist Maximillian Alvarez, the editor-in-chief of the Baltimore-based organization The Real News Network, who has been closely following the story and how it has affected immigrant and working-class communities. “What does this story actually show us? That immigrants are filling our potholes at night so that we can have a smooth drive to work in the morning,” Alvarez says. “I hope people can see this and see the humanity in us.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

• Baltimore bridge collapses after collision with cargo ship, six people missing.
• Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. picks California attorney Nicole Shanahan as Presidential running mate.
• UK court denies U.S. extradition request for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange without assurances of no death penalty.
• President Biden and Vice-President Harris make healthcare themed campaign stop in North Carolina.
• Russia extends detention of American journalist until at least June.
• SCOTUS considers case limiting abortion pill access. 

The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – March 26, 2024 Baltimore bridge collapses after collision with cargo ship, six people missing. appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

Ukrainian military spokesman Dmytro Lykhoviy said on March 4 that the fighting is especially heavy on the eastern outskirts of the village of Novomikhaylovka near Maryinka.

"At the same time, we are saying that in this hottest sector of the direct Russian assault, we are managing to stabilize the situation and the enemy's advance has been halted," Lykhoviy said.

Russian units in this area are attacking even more fiercely using small assault groups and first-person view (FPV) drones, as well as carrying out massive artillery and air strikes, Lykhoviy said.

Russian forces are focusing on an area around the village of Novomikhaylovka, where they were "transferring reinforcements from the depths of Russia," he added in comments to LIGA.net.

In Odesa, an air alert was sounded early on March 5, and air defense forces were operating in the Odesa region, the Ukrainian Air Force said.

The southern Ukrainian port city is still reeling from a Russian drone attack on March 2 that killed 12 people, including five children aged 4 months to 10 years.

Russian forces captured Avdiyivka last month in the biggest victory for Moscow in months, and Russia's Defense Ministry last week said its forces had captured new villages outside the city, but that claim could not be confirmed.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Moscow's forces had "as a result of coordinated action continued to occupy more advantageous positions" near Avdiyivka. It made no mention of the area near Novomikhaylovka.

Elsewhere in the country, Russian artillery shelling during the day on March 4 damaged a school, a kindergarten, and more than 20 apartments in the city of Seredyna-Buda in the northeastern Sumy region, the regional prosecutor-general's office said on Facebook.

The border village was hit in November by strikes that killed three people.

Meanwhile, the head of the press service of the Eastern Group of the Ukrainian military, Ilya Yevlash, said that the military is preparing to defend the village of Chasiv Yar.

Ukrainian forces are currently trying to hold territory that lies between Chasiv Yar and Bakhmut in heavy fighting, Yevlash said. But the Russian army is constantly transferring significant reserves, and its troops are advancing from different flanks, attacking Ukrainian positions head-on, he added.

Chasiv Yar itself is also under constant attack, according to Yevlash. The Russian Army is firing mortars, automatic mounted grenade launchers, and using drones and aircraft.

As Russian forces attempt to press their advantage on the battlefield, exhausted Ukrainian defenders are battling on despite artillery and equipment shortages.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said on March 4 that he and the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces discussed with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin the front-line situation and the supply of weapons.

"We are working together on providing for the needs of the Ukrainian armed forces and increasing the army's capabilities," Umerov said, adding that Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy had also taken part in the call.

Syrskiy said on Telegram that he and Umerov also spoke with British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps and the chief of Britain's Defense Staff, Sir Tony Radakin.

Syrskiy said the discussions focused on the needs of the Ukrainian military and the development of Ukraine's naval capabilities with help from Kyiv's allies.

With reporting by Reuters

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Iranian state media says hard-liners are ahead in the capital, Tehran, as vote counting progresses in Iran's March 1 elections, which were marred by what appears to be a record-low turnout prompted by voter apathy and calls for a boycott by reformists.

The elections for a new parliament, or Majlis, and a new Assembly of Experts, which elects Iran's supreme leader, were the first since the deadly nationwide protests that erupted following the September 2022 death while in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained for an alleged Islamic dress-code violation.

Iran's state-run IRNA news agency said 1,960 from 5,000 ballots in Tehran have been counted so far, with hard-liners ahead as expected.

An alliance led by hard-liner Hamid Rasaee won 17 out of 30 seats in Tehran, state radio reported, while the incumbent parliamentary speaker, conservative Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf also obtained a new seat.

The turnout appears to be at a record low, according to unofficial accounts, despite the officials' repeated appeals to Iranians to show up en masse at the polls as Iran's theocracy scrambles to restore its legitimacy in the wake of a wave of repression in 2022 and amid deteriorating economic conditions.

The Mehr news agency, citing unofficial results, reported that voter turnout in Tehran was only 24 percent.

Iran's rulers needed a high turnout to repair their legitimacy following the unrest, but many Iranians said they would not vote in “meaningless” elections in which more than 15,000 candidates were running for the 290-seat parliament.

State media reported that the turnout was "good." Official surveys before the election, however, suggested that only some 41 percent of eligible Iranians would come out to vote.

The Hamshahri newspaper said on March 2 that more than 25 million people, or 41 percent of eligible voters, had turned out, thus confirming the official survey.

If the figure is confirmed, it will be the lowest election turnout in Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 that brought the current theocracy to power, despite officials twice extending voting hours to allow late-comers to cast ballots.

The pro-reform newspaper Ham Mihan published an opinion piece titled The Silent Majority, reporting a turnout of some 40 percent.

Shortly afterwards, however, the title of the piece was changed to Roll Call without any explanation, which commenters on social media networks blamed on pressure exerted on the newspaper by authorities.

So far, the lowest turnout, 42.5 percent, was registered in the February 2020 parliamentary elections, while in 2016, the turnout was some 62 percent.

As the voting concluded, the United States made clear that the international community was aware that the results of the poll would not reflect the will of the Iranian people.

"As some Iranians vote today in their first parliamentary election since the regime's latest violent crackdown, the world knows the Iranian people do not have a true say at the ballot box," U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Iran Abram Paley wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Ahead of the vote, prominent figures, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, said they would boycott the elections, labeling them as superficial and predetermined.

Mohammad Khatami, Iran's first reformist president, was among the critics who did not vote on March 1.

Mostafa Tajzadeh, a former deputy interior minister, has also voiced his refusal to vote, criticizing the supreme leader's indifference to the country's crises.

Voter apathy, along with general dissatisfaction over living standards and a clampdown on basic human rights in Iran, has been growing for years.

Even before Amini's death, which sparked massive protests and the Women, Life, Freedom movement, unrest had rattled Iran for months in response to declining living standards, wage arrears, and a lack of insurance support.

In a last-ditch effort to encourage a high turnout, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said after casting his ballot in Tehran that voting would “make friends happy and ill-wishers unhappy.”

While domestically attention is mostly focused on the parliamentary elections, it is perhaps the Assembly of Experts polls that are more significant.

The 88-seat assembly, whose members are elected for eight-year terms, is tasked with appointing the next supreme leader. Given that Khamenei is 84, the next assembly may end up having to name his successor.

Analysts and activists said the elections were “engineered” because only candidates vetted and approved by the Guardian Council were allowed to run. The council is made up of six clerics and six jurists who are all appointed directly and indirectly by Khamenei.

In dozens of audio and written messages sent to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda from inside Iran, many said they were opting against voting because the elections were “meaningless” and likely to consolidate the hard-liners’ grip on power.

With reporting by Reuters

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

• Residents of Gaza say Israeli forces dropped leaflets today, warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza. That signals a possible expansion of their operations to the zone where most of the territory’s population has fled to escape Israel’s bombardment and ground assault.
• Lack of fuel may soon shut down the United Nations’ entire humanitarian operation in the Gaza Strip, according to the head of the agency responsible for supplying aid to the territory.
• President Joe Biden spoke at the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit (APEC) in San Francisco, saying the decisions made there will affect the entire world. He highlighted the strong ties between the U.S. and the other 20 members of APEC and emphasized the importance of high labor standards and workers’ rights. The speech comes a day after Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit.
• Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister secured a second four year term today four months after hard fought parliamentary elections were held last July. The new government relies on support from separatist political leaders in Spain’s Catalan region. They were promised amnesty for pro independence activity in Catalunya. Tens of thousands of conservative and right wing opponents to amnesty have held sometimes violent protests in recent days.
• Judge David Friedman of New York’s intermediate appeals court issued a stay on the gag order that barred Donald Trump from maligning court staff in his fraud trial.
• Republican Congressman George Santos of New York says he won’t run for reelection in 2024 after a scathing House Ethics Committee report on his conduct cited “overwhelming evidence” of lawbreaking.

Protestors shut down the SF Bay Bridge on Nov 16th demanding a ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza (Photo / Brooke Anderson)

The post Protesters were arrested on the Bay Bridge today after shutting down the westbound span for over three hours, calling for a cease-fire i Gaza and an end to American military aid to Israel – Thursday, November 16, 2023 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

The New Yalu River Bridge connects the Chinese city of Dandong with North Korea’s Sinuiju. It was completed in 2014 and is intended to replace a much older bridge that has been in use since World War II, but has not opened yet because the North Korean side has not completed infrastructure.

In order to dissuade people from using the new bridge to cross the Yalu into China under cover of darkness, Pyongyang is extending electric fences along the border to cover the area around the bridge, a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Electric barbed wire is being installed from South Sinuiju to Ryongchon County, near the newly built Yalu River Bridge,” he said. “Border Security Command was mobilized for construction.”

North Korea employed electric fencing to keep people from escaping from Sinuiju to China in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic, with the intent of stopping people from escaping while the entirety of the Sino-Korean border was closed and trade with China was suspended. 

But this new fence is drawing criticism and ire from residents, who say it is a misallocation of resources when the people have to put up with regular rolling blackouts due to a shortage of electricity.

“The residents see the construction of this high-voltage electric barbed wire fence, and they say if the authorities have the money to install the barbed wire, why won’t the authorities give people food?” the resident said. “They are openly criticizing the authorities who they say are turning the country into a prison.”

The fences should be completely installed by the end of the year, another resident, who requested anonymity for personal safety, told RFA.

“As the electric barbed wire continues to be installed in the border area of North Pyongan Province, residents ask, ‘What kind of country needs electric barbed wire to catch defectors?’ “ he said. 

“Criticism is pouring in that if there is enough electricity to supply the barbed wire then that electricity should be supplied to the people,” he said.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Son Hyemin for RFA Korean.

On Friday, Free Press called on Congress to transform universal service policies to ensure that low-income households in the United States can afford broadband access now and in the future. In comments submitted to the Senate Commerce Commitee’s Universal Fund Working Group, Free Press urged Congress to make the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) a permanent feature. Free Press also called on Congress to end the practice, via the Universal Service Fund (USF), of regressive taxation of consumers to subsidize major internet service providers’ connectivity efforts.

The ACP, which passed in the last Congress as a component of the bipartisan infrastructure act, is already benefiting more than 20 million families in need. But federal funding for the program will run out by or before April 2024. This requires “immediate further Congressional appropriations to prevent massive disruption and disconnection,” read Free Press’ comments to the Senate working group.

It also requires a shift away from the USF’s emphasis on high-cost distribution policies, which are rooted in an outdated framework designed to provide ongoing support to incumbent telephone companies in rural areas. The government needs to focus program spending on affordability and adoption, not solely on deployment and availability, especially in light of the massive deployment investments made in the infrastructure act and in earlier COVID relief bills.

“The affordability problem is one that will persist however,” read the comments. “Therefore, we urge Congress to make the ACP a permanent program, and appropriate the funding needed to ensure that low-income households can afford broadband long after the initial appropriation from the Infrastructure Act is expended.”

Free Press Senior Economic and Policy Advisor S. Derek Turner said:

“When the previous Congress appropriated more than $80 billion to address the nation’s broadband deployment, adoption and homework gaps, it earmarked more than $50 billion in deployment funding alone to connect to broadband to people living in rural areas. This was more than enough to accomplish that goal. Now policymakers must eliminate all unnecessary high-cost subsidies for ISPs — and focus on ensuring that the broadband market offers affordable options to everyone and is as competitive as possible.

“This shift in emphasis marks a sea change in the work needed to bridge the digital divide. And — despite what some big-business lobbyists claim, the FCC universal service program is not in a death spiral. These massive companies simply want to shift their USF contribution burden onto households and small businesses.

“The data clearly show that the amount of funds collected for USF is stable, and even declining in inflation-adjusted terms. Any move to broaden the contribution base to include retail broadband services would significantly shift the USF contribution burden away from large companies and onto residential households and small businesses. This would hurt low-income households already harmed by the home-internet digital divide. Taxing broadband via USF’s regressive fee system would result in an approximate $4-billion annual wealth transfer from consumers and small businesses to giant companies.

“The FCC’s high-cost universal service distribution policies in particular are structured to benefit legacy telephone-company incumbents. The result is a massive waste of scarce funds — not to mention funds that are collected in a regressive manner.

“This is why we strongly urge Congress to end the practice of regressive taxation of consumers, and instead fund universal service via progressive methods. Achieving and maintaining the end goal of universally available broadband requires that Congress — not ratepayers — provide the funding needed to ensure the availability of quality services at reasonably comparable prices.

“Congress and the FCC must reject the cynical call from some of the nation’s largest businesses to massively lower their own USF contribution burdens by imposing a regressive tax on residential broadband services. Such a regressive change would harm the public interest. It would frustrate the Commission’s universal service goals by making broadband more expensive for residential consumers and small businesses — disproportionately harming low-income families.

“The best way forward is for Congress to make the Affordable Connectivity Program permanent with additional funding at levels needed to ensure equitable broadband access for all.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

On Friday, Free Press called on Congress to transform universal service policies to ensure that low-income households in the United States can afford broadband access now and in the future. In comments submitted to the Senate Commerce Commitee’s Universal Fund Working Group, Free Press urged Congress to make the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) a permanent feature. Free Press also called on Congress to end the practice, via the Universal Service Fund (USF), of regressive taxation of consumers to subsidize major internet service providers’ connectivity efforts.

The ACP, which passed in the last Congress as a component of the bipartisan infrastructure act, is already benefiting more than 20 million families in need. But federal funding for the program will run out by or before April 2024. This requires “immediate further Congressional appropriations to prevent massive disruption and disconnection,” read Free Press’ comments to the Senate working group.

It also requires a shift away from the USF’s emphasis on high-cost distribution policies, which are rooted in an outdated framework designed to provide ongoing support to incumbent telephone companies in rural areas. The government needs to focus program spending on affordability and adoption, not solely on deployment and availability, especially in light of the massive deployment investments made in the infrastructure act and in earlier COVID relief bills.

“The affordability problem is one that will persist however,” read the comments. “Therefore, we urge Congress to make the ACP a permanent program, and appropriate the funding needed to ensure that low-income households can afford broadband long after the initial appropriation from the Infrastructure Act is expended.”

Free Press Senior Economic and Policy Advisor S. Derek Turner said:

“When the previous Congress appropriated more than $80 billion to address the nation’s broadband deployment, adoption and homework gaps, it earmarked more than $50 billion in deployment funding alone to connect to broadband to people living in rural areas. This was more than enough to accomplish that goal. Now policymakers must eliminate all unnecessary high-cost subsidies for ISPs — and focus on ensuring that the broadband market offers affordable options to everyone and is as competitive as possible.

“This shift in emphasis marks a sea change in the work needed to bridge the digital divide. And — despite what some big-business lobbyists claim, the FCC universal service program is not in a death spiral. These massive companies simply want to shift their USF contribution burden onto households and small businesses.

“The data clearly show that the amount of funds collected for USF is stable, and even declining in inflation-adjusted terms. Any move to broaden the contribution base to include retail broadband services would significantly shift the USF contribution burden away from large companies and onto residential households and small businesses. This would hurt low-income households already harmed by the home-internet digital divide. Taxing broadband via USF’s regressive fee system would result in an approximate $4-billion annual wealth transfer from consumers and small businesses to giant companies.

“The FCC’s high-cost universal service distribution policies in particular are structured to benefit legacy telephone-company incumbents. The result is a massive waste of scarce funds — not to mention funds that are collected in a regressive manner.

“This is why we strongly urge Congress to end the practice of regressive taxation of consumers, and instead fund universal service via progressive methods. Achieving and maintaining the end goal of universally available broadband requires that Congress — not ratepayers — provide the funding needed to ensure the availability of quality services at reasonably comparable prices.

“Congress and the FCC must reject the cynical call from some of the nation’s largest businesses to massively lower their own USF contribution burdens by imposing a regressive tax on residential broadband services. Such a regressive change would harm the public interest. It would frustrate the Commission’s universal service goals by making broadband more expensive for residential consumers and small businesses — disproportionately harming low-income families.

“The best way forward is for Congress to make the Affordable Connectivity Program permanent with additional funding at levels needed to ensure equitable broadband access for all.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The post Taking the Golden Gate Bridge … for the Redwoods appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Greg King.

Image via Library of Congress.

It was Election Day 1976. I stood outside a polling station in suburban Maryland. Although I was surrounded by a dozen or so people handing out campaign literature for the Democratic presidential candidate Jimmy Carter, I was still debating whether I should vote for him. I did not want GOP candidate Gerald Ford to continue in the White House–a position he had been appointed to by Richard Nixon after Nixon realized the only way he was going to keep his pension was by resigning. At the same time, Jimmy Carter and I did not share too many points of commonality when it came to politics. Yeah, he was cool in that he quoted Bob Dylan, hung out with him, Willie Nelson and some of the Allman Brothers, and had stated that he was in favor of some kind of amnesty for those who dodged the military draft during the US war on Vietnam. He was kind of cool, but I felt his essential political philosophy was founded in the belief that the private sector could solve many problems of inequality and racism. In other words, capitalism could solve the very problems it had created and its adherents depended on to continue gaining wealth and power. Ultimately, it would be a line from his 1978 State of the Union address which stated this quite clearly: “Government cannot solve our problems, it can’t set our goals, it cannot define our vision. Government cannot eliminate poverty, provide a bountiful economy, reduce inflation, save our cities, cure illiteracy, or provide energy.”

This is the essence of what would end up being called neoliberalism when the Reagan and Thatcher governments took this philosophy down its logical path. By the time Bill Clinton was in the White House, US corporations would be ramming the NOrth American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) down our collective throat and Clinton would be celebrating the destruction of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, calling it welfare reform. Both phenomena would intensify the economic inequality of the Reagan years; an inequality most obvious in the growing numbers of unhoused residents across the nation. Furthermore, Carter opposed a national health insurance system, despite growing support for it in the Democratic Party. His energy policy included the expansion of coal use and the deregulation of natural gas. Although he decried the dependence on foreign fuels, in 1980 he introduced what is known as the Carter Doctrine. This doctrine matched the arrogance of presidents James Monroe and Harry Truman and so-called doctrines named after those rulers and was directly related to the access to foreign fuel. The doctrine’s key sentence is: “Let our position be absolutely clear: An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force..” That doctrine remains US policy to this day.

Which brings us to Carter’s foreign policy. Perhaps the key architect of that policy was Zbigniew Brzezinski. It was Brzezinski who, with Carter’s blessing and together with CIA director Stansfield Turner, established Operation Cyclone, the code name for the CIA program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan. As we know, this program would end up provoking some of the greatest backlash of any foreign policy decision made by the United States in the last forty-five years. Carter was an ally of the Indonesian military’s repression of its own population, as well as the slaughter of the East Timorese people. Although Carter originally provided arms to the Somoza dictatorship against the Sandinista revolutionary forces in Nicaragua, his decision to end military aid to the regime while appointing an ambassador whose role was to convince the dictator to step down would ultimately create a situation for the Sandinistas and their supporters to assume power in Managua. However, first he tried to organize an invasion to support Somoza under the auspices of the Organization of American States. Similarly, he refused to end aid to the death squads in El Salvador, even after the soon to be martyred Bishop Romero asked him to.

Around the same time as the events in Nicaragua, there was a popular revolution approaching its apex in Iran. After years of organizing, repression and a growing popular discontent with the US-installed regime of the Shah, street protests in Iran’s cities reached a critical mass. Despite the fact that the Shah’s regime was the largest recipient of US military aid in the middle east (along with Israel) and enjoyed apparently steadfast support from Washington, the Shah left Iran in defeat in January 1979. It had been only a couple years previous that he and President Carter had been forced to tears from tear gas thrown by police at anti-Shah demonstrators in Washington, DC. Eleven months later, a group of Iranians overran the US Embassy in Tehran and took several dozen employees hostage. The occupiers’ primary demand was a return of the Shah so he could face trial. As the Shah was secretly flown to different cities in the west, the hostage crisis, as it became known, took over US broadcast media and the presidential campaign. Ultimately, this would result in the election of the right wing GOP candidate Ronald Reagan and the release of the hostages immediately after his inauguration. The democratic socialist president of Iran at the time, Abolhassan Banisadr, wrote in his memoirs (My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution and Secret Deals with the US) that he and Carter’s team had negotiated terms of a release which was overridden by the religious/capitalist elements in the revolutionary government under the direction of Imam Ruyollah Khomeini who were negotiating with candidate Reagan’s team. In other words, Reagan and his team committed treason in order to win the election. If nothing else, Carter’s presidency reminded us leftists that US foreign policy came in two forms: liberal imperialism and reactionary imperialism.

I think the support Carter received from the counterculture reflected the end of leftist politics on a grand scale in the counterculture. In ten years time, there would be acidheads defending Reagan. This still pisses me off, especially when I hear these kind of clowns talking about how microdosing helps them focus so they can make more money. George McGovern’s 1972 campaign would end up being the closest the Sixties counterculture left would be involved in the national electoral process. The endorsement of Carter’s candidacy by Hunter S. Thompson, albeit lukewarm and dosed with a cynicism Thompson always had, but which had been intensified at least a thousandfold during the Nixon presidency, threw me off. Still, it wasn’t enough to convince me that Carter was fundamentally different from the Democrats who came before. Indeed, besides Thompson’s classic descriptions of the fools and oinkers who make up our nation’s ruling classes, the best thing about his endorsement was the title stolen from a popular song of the time: “Third Rate Romance, Low Rent Rendezvous.” Electoral politics was only getting shabbier. I subconsciously knew then that there would come a time when people would try to convince me that Richard Nixon was a liberal, Democrats were all communists and Ronald Reagan was a great communicator and friend to the working man. However, I don’t think I would have foreseen Donald Trump in the White House. Not even if I was high on angel dust.

I think I ultimately did vote for Jimmy Carter in 1976. And, yeah, he was a pretty decent guy after he got out of electoral politics and became a carpenter. However, his work for the Empire was already in the books.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Ron Jacobs.

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Local officials in Wisconsin are planning to improve how sheriff’s deputies communicate with people who don’t speak English in response to a ProPublica report that found that an investigation into the death of an 8-year-old Nicaraguan boy living on a dairy farm was mishandled due to a language barrier.

Dane County supervisors said that their goals include making language access a key part of department equity plans and creating a dedicated countywide language-access coordinator.

The efforts come as the parents of the boy, Jefferson Rodríguez, have settled a lawsuit against the farm and its insurance company over the July 2019 death in rural Dane, about a half hour north of Madison. As ProPublica reported in February, sheriff’s deputies wrongly concluded that the boy’s father, José María Rodríguez Uriarte, had accidentally run his son over with farming equipment.

But it was another worker, on his first work day at D&K Dairy, who had been driving the 6,700-pound Bobcat skid steer that crushed Jefferson, ProPublica found. The man had waited at the scene, expecting to be questioned, on the night Jefferson died. But deputies never interviewed him, in part due to a language barrier. ProPublica was able to reach him and he acknowledged he was driving the skid steer that night.

Jefferson’s death was ruled an accident and nobody was charged criminally. But Rodríguez was blamed in the official account. Rodríguez and Jefferson’s mother, María Sayra Vargas, who lives in Nicaragua, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in August 2020 against the farm and its insurer, Rural Mutual Insurance Company.

The trial was originally scheduled to begin this week in Dane County Circuit Court. But, about a month after ProPublica published its story, Jefferson’s parents reached a tentative agreement with the farm and insurance company, neither of which admitted wrongdoing. The agreement was later finalized in court and the lawsuit was dismissed in April.

Lawyers for Rural Mutual and the farm declined to comment.

Rodríguez said that the truth about his son’s death “has come to light” because of ProPublica’s reporting. He declined to share the settlement amount, but said the money will be helpful to him and his family.

“It doesn’t mean I’m happy. The sadness remains,” said Rodríguez, who now works on another dairy farm in Wisconsin. “All the money in the world wouldn’t make me the person I used to be. … I would like to be able to share this with Jefferson. That is what would fill me with joy.”

In the weeks after our initial story was published, more than a half-dozen members of the Dane County Board of Supervisors told ProPublica they were horrified to learn of the conditions leading up to Jefferson’s death and the flawed law enforcement investigation that followed. Jefferson lived with his father above the farm’s milking parlor, the barn where hundreds of cows were brought day and night to be milked by heavy, loud machinery.

The Board of Supervisors sets the budget for and can make recommendations to the sheriff’s office. But it is limited in its ability to set policy.

A spokesperson for the sheriff’s department, which was not a defendant in the wrongful death lawsuit, said there have been no changes to its language access practices. The department has no written policies on what deputies should do when they encounter people who speak a language other than English or when to bring in an interpreter. The department relies on deputies to self-report their ability to speak languages other than English.

County Supervisor Dana Pellebon said one way she and her colleagues on the county board hope to improve language access at the department is through its equity work plan, a road map that each county agency lays out for how it can become more inclusive and fair. County departments are now updating those plans, she said, and the plans are then approved by the Equal Opportunity Commission, which she chairs. “Language access is something that will be a part of all the plans,” Pellebon said.

One area she hopes the sheriff’s office can address is ensuring language access in rural parts of the county where cellphone reception is weak and phone-based interpretation services aren’t available. “We want to make sure there is a workaround,” Pellebon said. “Either get to a space where there is cellphone service or find a landline at the space they’re at.”

She and other county officials are also considering the possibility of testing deputies’ proficiency in a foreign language instead of relying on their self-assessments. The deputy who interviewed Rodríguez the night his son died had described herself as a proficient Spanish speaker. But when a ProPublica reporter interviewed her, we discovered that the phrase she had used to ask Rodríguez whether he had run over his son with the farm machinery didn’t mean what she thought it did: It lacked a verb and a subject, and the result was confusing.

Rodríguez later told ProPublica he thought the deputy had asked whether his son had been run over by the skid steer, not whether he was driving the machine.

Dane County Supervisor Heidi Wegleitner said she will prioritize creating a countywide language-access coordinator position in next year’s budget to help agencies fulfill their obligations and organize the county’s plans and resources.

“It’s a basic access-to-government civil rights issue that permeates every department,” Wegleitner said. County departments that receive federal funding are required by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to take steps to make their services accessible to people who speak limited English.

The challenges that non-English-speaking immigrants face in communicating with law enforcement officials extend beyond Dane County. ProPublica found that sheriff’s deputies and police officers across the state routinely fail to communicate directly with Spanish-speaking immigrant workers on dairy farms when responding to incidents ranging from assaults to serious accidents. Records from dozens of incidents show that law enforcement officials routinely rely on employees’ supervisors and coworkers to communicate with immigrant workers. Often they turn to Google Translate. Sometimes they don’t speak with the workers at all or ask children to interpret.

Language access is “haphazard throughout the system,” said Nancy Rodriguez, a criminology professor at the University of California, Irvine who co-authored a May supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation on the issue. The report, which was based on a survey of criminal justice agencies and organizations across the country, recommended that agencies do more to understand the language needs of the people they serve and to monitor compliance with a language-access plan.

Our investigation into Jefferson’s death was the first story in our series “America’s Dairyland.”

We plan to keep reporting on issues affecting immigrant dairy workers across the Midwest. Among those issues: traffic stops of undocumented immigrants who drive without a license; difficulty accessing medical care or workers’ compensation after injuries on the job; and problems with employer-provided housing.

Do you have ideas or tips for us to look into? Please reach out to us using this form.

And if you know a Spanish speaker who might be interested in this topic, please share with them a translation of the story about Jefferson’s death — which also includes an audio version — or this note about how to get in touch with us.

Help ProPublica Journalists Investigate the Dairy Industry

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Melissa Sanchez and Maryam Jameel.

The eyes of the world are on Sapporo, Japan this weekend as energy ministers of some of the world's largest economies, the G7, meet to discuss global climate and energy policy. In early versions of the G7 draft publication, countries emphasized financing liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports as a supposed bridge fuel to a clean energy future. These claims were met with alarm and disgust from scientists, activists, policymakers, and even some G7 nations—and frontline groups, youth advocates, and other climate advocates jumped into action to ask the Biden administration take a stand against U.S. further LNG liquefaction and export expansion. Later drafts have since walked back language on investing in LNG exports, though, there is still much in the draft to spark concern.

LNG is not a bridge fuel to a clean energy future. The production and transportation of LNG results in significant emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is responsible for approximately 30% of global warming. The carbon footprint of LNG is often larger than that of coal, due to the leakage of methane during the production and transportation process. It's a bridge that ends in a hotter, more dangerous world for all of us, especially the world's most vulnerable people and ecosystems.

We cannot afford to build that bridge—one there's no coming back from. Last year, the G7 committed to ending financial support for the fossil fuel industry by the end of 2022.

The U.S. and other G7 governments have used taxpayer money to prop up a dying industry for too long.

However, according to a report from Oil Change International, G7 countries financed $73 billion for fossil fuel projects between 2020 and 2022, over twice the financing they provided for clean energy during this time period ($28.6 billion). And just this week, the Biden administration approved LNG exports from Alaska Gasline Development Corp.'s project.

Japan, the host of both this weekend's ministerial G7 meeting and the G7 summit in late May, is a primary culprit, hiding their financial support of fossil gas projects as part of their "Green Transformation Strategy." Fossil fuel companies, of course, are in full support of this new tactic in which they capitalize on global instability and human suffering to further rig the system in their favor.

The era of fossil fuels is coming to an end—and we need to accelerate it for the sake of humanity, ecosystems, and life on Earth everywhere. The U.S. and other G7 governments have used taxpayer money to prop up a dying industry for too long. We have already seen the decline of coal due to market pressures as renewable energy becomes more abundant and cost-effective.

Without government financing of new LNG and other gas facilities around the world, these risky, dirty, and harmful new projects would be dead on arrival. Many of these same countries, including the U.S., have already signed onto an agreement reached at COP26 in Glasgow committing to end "new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector within one year of signing this statement [end of 2022], except in limited and clearly defined circumstances that are consistent with a 1.5°C warming limit and the goals of the Paris agreement."

The International Energy Agency has stated that no new investments can be made in fossil fuel infrastructure if we are to keep temperatures below the 1.5°C.

Our message to the G7 is clear: Don't be hypocrites. Honor your commitments and end financing and support of new LNG infrastructure.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Leah Qusba.

Former BJP MLA R P Singh, who is the party’s national spokesperson, shared the video. The tweet has over 17,000 views at the moment.

Congratulations India !!!

Successful small train test run was conducted on 21 March on world’s highest railway track under construction on Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link on Chenab river in Reasi District(Jammu) of Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory #ModiHaiTohMumkinHai pic.twitter.com/MUAPoAw9cr

— RP Singh National Spokesperson BJP (@rpsinghkhalsa) March 25, 2023

Kamran Ali Mir, a Twitter Blue subscriber, shared this video with exactly the same caption. His tweet has received over 70,000 views at the time of the writing of this article.

Congratulations India !!!
Successful small train test run was conducted on 21 March on world’s highest railway track under construction on Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link on Chenab river in Reasi District of Jammu & #Kashmir. pic.twitter.com/zgVb6zhHYH

— Kamran Ali Mir (@kamranalimir) March 25, 2023

Boora Narsaiah Goud, former BJP MP from Telangana, shared this video.

Successful small train test run was conducted on 21 March on world’s highest railway track under construction on Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link on Chenab river in Reasi District(Jammu) of Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory @@BJP4Telangana pic.twitter.com/PA7UpiuhV0

— boora narsaiah goud (@NarsaiahBoora) March 25, 2023 

Industrialist Anand Mahindra quote-tweeted a tweet carrying the video and the above-mentioned caption. He later deleted the tweet. here is a screenshot:

The video was also shared on Facebook multiple times.

Fact Check

When we broke down the viral video into key frames using InVid and reverse-searched one of those frames, we were led to a website called highestbridges.com. The bridge shown in the video is not the Chenab bridge from J&K. It is a bridge in China called Beipanjiang Railway Bridge, Shuibai. It is located southwest of the city of Liupanshui near the north end of China’s Guizhou province on the Shuibai Railway.

The viral video was shared on Facebook by a user named Adnan on June 27, 2022. It has a caption that says ‘Beipan River Bridge Guizhou’. Therefore, it can not be of the Chenab bridge trial run.

Then, by performing a keyword search on Twitter, Alt News came across a tweet from the official handle of Northern Railways, posting pictures about the newly inaugurated Chenab Railway bridge. The picture of the bridge and the topography in this tweet do not match the same in the viral video.

Great wonder of India!

Experience the breathtaking beauty of the world’s highest bridge, the Chenab Bridge, which seems to stand tall amidst the majestic mountains, spanning across the pristine Chenab River. Truly an outstanding feat of engineering.#ChenabBridge #Chenab pic.twitter.com/q5odqRap44

— Northern Railway (@RailwayNorthern) March 15, 2023

Readers can see the differences in the side-by-side comparison below:

Therefore, the video making rounds on social media claiming to be of the Chenab Railway Bridge from Jammu and Kashmir is actually a video of a bridge in China called Beipanjiang Railway Bridge Shuibai.

The post Video from China viral as trial run of train on Chenab bridge in J&K appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Vansh Shah.

ANALYSIS: By Wendy Bacon in Sydney

New South Wales police withdrew a false allegation that four climate change protesters who had stopped traffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge last year blocked an ambulance.

Police included this false allegation in a statement of the so-called “facts” that police prepared on the day of the arrests. The false allegation was designed to paint a hostile image of four peaceful protesters and to successfully argue for onerous bail conditions, including severe restrictions on their movements, and tough sentences.

The documents drawn up on the day of the protest stated: “The actions today have not only caused serious disruption to peak-hour traffic, but this imposition to traffic prevented an ambulance responding to an emergency under lights and sirens as it was unable to navigate through the increased heavy traffic as previously mentioned. This imposition to a critical emergency service has the potential to result in fatality.”

• READ MORE: Wendy Bacon reports on a trail of NSW police allegations ‘bad habits’ – police admit to false allegation against protesters
• Climate activist Deanna ‘Violet’ Coco’s 15-month jail sentence quashed on appeal
• ‘It’s time to be the crowd’, Knitting Nannas tell protest against jailing of climate activist

An unprecedented tough sentence was given to Violet Coco who had already spent 84 days “imprisoned” at home between her arrest in April 2022 and her appearance before Magistrate Alison Hawkins in December.

Hawkins referred to the blocking of the ambulance in her remarks when she sentenced Coco to 15 months in prison and refused bail. After spending 10 days in prison, Coco was released on bail by District Court judge Timothy Gartelmann.

Her appeal against sentence was heard on March 15 when the matter of the false allegations was raised.

The new information emerged during the sentencing hearing against two of Coco’s co-defendants Alan Glover and Karen Fitz-Gibbon who appeared for sentencing earlier this month.

They pleaded guilty to charges arising from blocking one lane of the Harbour Bridge for 30 minutes in April last year. Magistrate Daniel Reiss sentenced both to 18 months Community Correction Orders with a fine of $3000 each.

Compared to previous sentences for peaceful protesters, these are harsh sentences. Their lawyer told the court that they regretted causing inconvenience.

Outside the court, Glover, a comedian and actor who has been a firefighter for 40 years, told the media, “I’m very unhappy and angry. I think the judgement is wrong and I’m going to appeal.”

Asked whether he thought the tactics were appropriate, he said, “I’m a firefighter and what do I have to do to make sure firefighters have the resources to do the job properly. I want the government to recognise that we are already in the midst of climate change problems…We’ve got people dying from smoke inhalation from bushfires that are bigger than anything we’ve ever seen.”

Asked by a journalist if he still agreed with his lawyer’s statement in court that he recognised the action was “inappropriate”, he said, “I do, I thought it was inappropriate at the time but we have to do something to get the government to act now now.. a few minutes delay is nothing compared to the massive disruption that will occur if we do not get action on climate change.”

Greens spokesperson and NSW Upper House MP Sue Higginson who has appeared for hundreds of environmental protesters wrote on Facebook: “I nearly fell off my chair when the Magistrate handed down his sentence — a conviction, an 18 month community corrections order and a $3000 fine. I have represented hundreds of environmental protesters and this sentence is just so wrong. He should not be punished this way. I hope he appeals.

“On the upside, the case today put to rest the dangerous false shrill claims that an ambulance was obstructed during the protest. It wasn’t! When you have a state government and an opposition in lock step in an anti-protest draconian stance and a legal intolerance to dissent and civil disobedience we fail our democracy, our climate, our environment and our communities.”

Greens Senator David Shoebridge agreed and wrote on Facebook: ”The police went into court and REPEATEDLY lied that this had blocked an ambulance — all to try to get a harsher penalty for a climate protector!

Magistrate Daniel Reiss noted that Glover’s two co-accused “Violet” Deanna Coco and Jay Larbalestier had both been sentenced on the “false ambulance assertion” and that “no emergency vehicles were obstructed”.

This could open the way for Larbastier to appeal on his sentence. Police acknowledged that they had taken no steps to inform him that the evidence used against him was partly false.

If it wasn’t for the publicity, he would not know about the ambulance lie.

The cases of the Harbour Bridge protesters were among the first to take place after the LNP government’s draconian anti-protest laws were passed with NSW Labor’s support in April last year.

CCL condemns disproportionate sentences of climate protesters
The NSW Council for Civil Liberties is one of scores of organisations calling for the repeal of the laws. Its president Josh Pallas described the case as “an outrageous” example of “police misstating the facts which have been consequential in the sentences of others.

“The police have offered no justification for this misstatement of facts. They must be held accountable and at the very least, explain how they got this so wrong.

“Climate protesters are being increasingly and disproportionately subjected to punitive legal action by Australian authorities and this has taken that legal action to a new extreme,” he said.

Pallas described this period as “some of the darkest times our members have seen for protesters,” since CCL started advocating for protest rights in 1963.

“We have fought the slow repression of police and the state in cracking down on protest every step of the way. But the fight is hard when the government is protecting mining and business interests and when the mainstream media side with government and large corporates with vested interests to stifle the right to protest,” he said.

“These cases provide yet another example of why everyone should be concerned about increasing repression of public assemblies and protests in NSW and elsewhere around the country. The right to protest and public assembly is an essential democratic right.

“Stifling protest stifles freedom of expression. Enough is enough, the government and the police must respect the right to protest and be accountable for their actions.”

Magistrate focused on ambulance in Coco case
The non existent ambulance featured in the first sentencing hearing against Coco.

The police referred Magistrate Alison Hawkins to the “fact” that Coco had prevented an ambulance with lights and sirens indicating an emergency. Coco’s barrister did not dispute that the ambulance “may have been” on the bridge but warned the magistrate against drawing implications from that or overblowing its significance.

Magistrate Hawkins disagreed asking why she would be going too far to accept that “impeding an ambulance under lights and sirens might be something that potentially has the potential to cause harm to some other person? Why is that a stretch too far?.”

She accepted the existence of the ambulance and the sirens as relevant “facts”.

She then applied these facts in her sentencing saying, “You have halted an ambulance under lights and siren. What about the person in there? What about that person and their family? What are they to think of you and your cause?”

Because Hawkins accepted the ambulance as fact, she felt free to accept that inside the ambulance was a very real person whose life was in danger. This was part of the basis for her referring to the protest as a “childish” and “dangerous” stunt.

She then justified her harsh and angry stance on the basis that this “dangerous behaviour… deserves “condemnation from not only the courts but the community” because Coco had not only illegally protested but she had done so in a manner to cause a “significant level of distress to the community”.

Because of the seriousness of the situation, Hawkins said she had no other option than to impose a full-time jail sentence.

Protester uses body cam footage to prove innocence
One of the effects of the anti-protest laws is to make it less likely that protesters will plead not guilty. This is because the laws are framed so that, for instance, you are either on a road or off a road. You do not have to be given a direction to move.

If an accused pleads not guilty and is then found guilty, there is a risk that a sentence could be even harsher.

When people plead guilty, there is less likelihood that police version of the facts will be tested in cross-examination. This means that there is more latitude for police to create their own facts — in other words, fabricate evidence.

In another case this week, climate activist Richard Boult was found not guilty of all charges brought by NSW Police for stepping onto a road during a climate protest in Sydney last June.

Boult who is part of the Extinction Rebellion drumming group was charged under NSW road rules with obstructing traffic and causing a traffic hazard arising from his participation in Blockade Australia’s call for stronger climate action.

Green Left reported that after attending the protest, he attended a media conference. When he left the conference, police followed him to his car and laid charges alleging he left the footpath and stepped onto the road.

Boult pleaded not guilty, saying his movement from the footpath was at a point in the road designated as a closing point. Significantly, he used body camera evidence that validated his claims. So it was not just his word against the police version of events.

He also rejected a plea deal, which would have dropped one charge but retained another. The court upheld Boult’s plea of not guilty and dropped the charges.

Wendy Bacon was previously the professor of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and is supporting the Greens in the NSW election. One of the reasons, she supports the Greens is because they are the only party committed to repealing the protest laws. Wendy Bacon’s investigative journalism blog.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Wendy Bacon.

Cyclone Gabrielle was battering parts of the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand with strong winds and heavy rain last night.

Most of the North Island is covered by some kind of Severe Weather Watch or Warning either for wind, rain or both.

Red heavy rain warnings have been issued for Northland, Auckland, the Coromandel and the northern parts of Gisborne Tairāwhiti.

• READ MORE: Northland declares state of emergency as Cyclone Gabrielle hits NZ
• Red weather warnings as Cyclone Gabrielle makes NZ landfall
• Cyclone Gabrielle in pictures with RNZ
• Cyclone Gabrielle closes in on Aotearoa: Warnings and forecasts
• Cyclone Gabrielle: Auckland sandbag stations run out of bags, people told ‘bring your own’ as storm approaches
• Follow RNZ’s live news coverage

Red strong wind warnings have been issued for Northland, Auckland and the Coromandel.

Vector said at 7pm 15,000 households in the Auckland area were without power last night.

“Our crews are responding as quickly and safely as they can, given the current weather conditions,” said a spokesperson.

Cyclone Gabrielle covering all of the North Island as of 7:20pm today. pic.twitter.com/niRd0Z1vrn

— Australasia From Space (@AussieFromSpace) February 12, 2023

Auckland Harbour Bridge closed
In the Coromandel Peninsula, about 11,000 homes were without power.

The storm has cut supply in Port Charles, Waikawau, Manaia, Tairua, Cooks Beach and parts of Whitianga.

Electricity has also been cut to Paeroa on the Hauraki Plains and Pururi, just south of Thames.

The Auckland Harbour Bridge remained closed overnight due to high winds.

Waka Kotahi made the decision to close the bridge just after 3:30pm yesterday afternoon, which was met with criticism from motorists.

National Emergency Response spokesperson Mark Owen said that while safety was its priority, closing the bridge was very challenging.

The bridge will remain closed until further notice.

Self-evacuations in Gisborne
Many families in Gisborne left their homes voluntarily ahead of the severe wind and rain.

Cyclone Gabrielle was set to reach Gisborne last night, bringing gale-force winds and nine metre storm surges and heavy rain.

Up to 450mm was forecast north of Tolaga Bay before Tuesday.

RNZ will continue live coverage from 5am Monday morning and update any major developments overnight.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Peng, who hung two protest banners – one of which called for the removal of Chinese leader Xi Jinping – on a Beijing flyover on the eve of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's 20th National Congress has been widely hailed as a hero on social media and by overseas activists. 

"Guo Yi was arrested on or around Oct. 20, 2022, when she took a poster of Bridge Man Peng Lifa she had made to a toilet to post it,"  the Weiquanwang rights website reported. "Bridge Man posters were later also found at her home, and we believe that she has been [formally] arrested now."

Guo, a graduate of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management, hails from the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where she won a top liberal arts scholarship to study in Beijing. She has been involved in activism to promote women’s rights and other social issues. Guo, also known as Edith, had also penned a screenplay titled "The Way of the Vagina,” the group said.

Her apparent detention comes amid an ongoing crackdown on the "white paper" protests of late November 2022, which were sparked by a fatal lockdown fire in Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi, with dozens of young activists, mostly women, detained across China in recent weeks.

‘Citizens, not slaves’

The Bridge Man protest sparked a slew of protests and rallies on university campuses outside China, although participants said they risked bringing trouble down on the heads of their families back home if the police found out they had taken part.

One of his banners read: "Remove the traitor-dictator Xi Jinping!" while another called for: "Food, not COVID-19 tests. Freedom, not lockdowns. Reforms, not the Cultural Revolution. Elections not leaders," adding: "Dignity, not lies. Citizens, not slaves."

In December 2022, Weiquanwang said police had arrested Nanchang-based artist Xiao Liang after he painted a portrait of Peng Lifa and posted it on Twitter.

Veteran rights activist Zhou Fengsuo, who heads the New York-based group Human Rights in China, said Guo hadn't committed any crime.

"Guo Yi's actions should have been protected by her civil rights, because she did no more than express her mind," Zhou told Radio Free Asia. "She has committed no crime, and this was an entirely personal action."

"The regime has already held her for 100 days, every day of which is a crime against her," he said. "She should be released immediately."

He called on Tsinghua alumni to speak out on Guo's behalf, in the hope of gaining an earlier release.

New generation

He said Guo’s voice represented a new generation who dared to speak out against the Chinese Communist Party, and as such were the main hope for change in China.

Guo was last seen at a screening she held at her home of a film shortly after the Oct. 1 National Day holiday, according to a Jan. 31 article on the Women4China Stack Exchange page signed by Wen Xin.

"Everyone sensed that something was going to happen, but nobody knew what Edith was going to do," said the article, describing Guo as "skinny with short red hair ... appearing agile enough to carry the weight of the whole world."

"After graduating, she went on to organize cultural activities for migrant women workers," the article said, adding that she had once hoped to live in the southern city of Shenzhen.

It said Guo had also been writing and staging her feminist screenplay, and had gone out of her way to enlist a trans woman as one of the actors. It said her connection to the LGBTQ+ community likely made her more vulnerable to mistreatment by the authorities.

"When the police went to her apartment to search for the Bridge Man posters, they must have seen the rainbow flag in the room," the article said. 

"This would have made the police even more certain that she was a 'reactionary' - given the close attention they've been paying to women's rights and LGBT issues during the arrests and interrogations that followed the white paper protests."

The article said Guo's family and lawyers have remained silent, and that an application for bail for her had been unsuccessful.

"Edith did nothing wrong; she was a ray of red as the revolution spread. Keep fighting the good fight," the article said, quoting her Instagram signature.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sun Zhe for RFA Mandarin.

Carefully treading a crossing of slippery stones strung across the shallow Rio Grande between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, trickles of migrants climbed up the embankment on the U.S. side.

Joining with others who had crossed from down river, the asylum seekers waited peacefully to surrender to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. Watching the evolving ritual were a gaggle of Mexican journalists and local residents. A young man from Venezuela with one leg hopped around on crutches while a pair of municipal cops observed the drama from a parked truck. Standing atop the Mexican embankment, a young girl gazed across the narrow river at the forming line of asylum seekers of all ages, tears welling up in her sad eyes.

If the scene that unfolded December 11 was part of an “invasion” frequently voiced by the U.S. right (and some clones in Mexico) it was a curious one, indeed: no battle between antagonistic armies was fought, and no force from either side gained territorial ground. Many of the “invaders,” were in fact children.

“I think the big piece in this is not illegal immigration in any sense of the word. They are going to apply for asylum, which is law,” said Dr. Jeremy Slack, associate professor of geography in the sociology and anthropology department at the University of Texas El Paso. “Until there is a change to (asylum) law, this is not illegal. We’re at the moment when people aren’t trying to sneak into the U.S.”

The surrender in small groups to the CBP was repeated again and again in the days after December 11 as thousands of asylum seekers from Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador and other Latin American nations, made their bids to enter this country from Juarez.

For the first time during the contemporary era of migrant caravans traversing Ciudad Juárez Nicaraguans constituted a particularly large if not majority group. Several Nicaraguans interviewed by this reporter described a small Central American nation teetering on the brink from government repression, police corruption, unemployment, and the lingering effects of hurricanes.

“There’s no work. Everything is expensive, and now there is no public safety… it even worsened after COVID,” said Juan Manuel, a young Nicaraguan who together with his wife and infant son spent 23 days on Mexican highways where he said bribes were extracted from migrants at immigration checkpoints before arriving in the borderland.

“This situation we have now is completely new, completely unprecedented,” remarked Dr. Oscar Martínez, local border historian and author who began studying migration in the Ciudad Juárez-El Paso borderland back in 1969 when the migrant population was almost exclusively Mexican. Martínez’s latest book, Latin X El Paso, explores the influx of migrants in the years surrounding the 2019 Walmart massacre of 23 people in an El Paso store by a white racist gunman from North Texas and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic the following year.

For Martínez. a certain irony rests with recent immigration patterns, in which U.S. officials operating on “land basically stolen from (Mexico)” have admitted people from many nations seeking political asylum but systematically denied that right to Mexican citizens from states such as Guerrero and Michoacan where violence, criminality and repression also threaten the population.

“It’s not just a historical issue. Mexico is a neighbor, and the U.S. has played a big role in the violence connected to drug trafficking.”

Cold, Hunger and Solidarity

Quickly processed by the CBP, the migrants who began surrendering December 11 were released into the U.S. with temporary permits typically good for 60 days which instruct them to maintain close contact with the Department of Homeland Security. One asylum seeker showed the reporter the corresponding document written entirely in English, which he said he didn’t understand.

Topping 10,000 asylum seekers admitted through El Paso by December 19, according to local media estimates, the thousands who crossed the Rio Grande in recent days represented the advance contingent of even larger numbers predicted when the Title 42 public emergency health law invoked by both the Trump and Biden administrations to keep out many migrants is expected to be lifted December 21.

Few if any of the migrants plan to remain in El Paso, since many have relatives and friends in other parts of the U.S.

Consequently, the Sun City’s airport and bus stations have buzzed this month with migrants on the go, especially to points east. Some endured excruciatingly cold evenings on El Paso streets. A smorgasboard of Spanish-language accents and varied words lilted through the air. Imagine voices from London, Sydney, Boston, Alabama and Los Angeles singing on the same street corner.

“Don’t you feel cold? You must be used to this,” quipped a young Nicaraguan to the reporter while the newcomer and his fellow countrymen from a hot tropical country shivered in an early winter cold spell.

Wrapped up for the weather, a middle-aged Ecuadoran woman related her journey in an anguished voice, saying her daughter and grandson had been separated from her while family members were being processed by U.S. agents; she was anxious for news about their whereabouts and welfare.

A striking aspect of this month’s migrant scene in El Paso is the emergency relief provided by local residents and non-governmental organizations from all walks of life. A similar outpouring of civil society support has likewise helped keep migrants fed, clothed, warm and alive in Juarez.

To the delight of hungry stomachs and needy hands, locals Irma Olivares and Luis Martinez showed up to a downtown migrant gathering site with food, clothing and small backpacks.

“I’m born and raised in El Paso, Texas, and I feel very sorry for these people,” said Olivares. “God says to help them regardless of their gender or ethnic…or if they’re immigrants or not immigrants.”

Next day, a truck from the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank as well as individual Good Samaritans distributed oranges, pizzas, water and blankets. Pulling up in a car with the name Community Emergency Response Team emblazoned on one side, Suzanne Davis sprung into action. Migrants quickly snatched up the items she offered. “I’m taking things out of my own cupboards, my own closets-blankets, pillows, water. Whatever I have, they’re going to have,” she vowed in a voice cracking with emotion.

“I mobilized as of last night when the temperatures were so cold in my own house, I couldn’t imagine that people were out here with nothing…these are human beings. We can’t leave them alone.”

Danger in Durango

A large group of the December 11 asylum seekers arrived in Ciudad Juárez in a bus caravan escorted by the Mexican National Guard and Chihuahua state and local police earlier this month.

In a harrowing experience one migrant dead-panned was like a “movie,” many of the migrants were part of a group numbering at least in the hundreds which had been kidnapped earlier this month in the state of Durango and held by a highly organized criminal ring allegedly running an industrial scale operation. In several interviews, migrants recounted how they were stopped on a bus at a presumed immigration checkpoint and conducted to a complex containing several large houses where, according to one account, migrants would supposedly be transferred to a another bus because the zone was dangerous.

“In reality, the people who were doing the kidnapping were the same ones dressed like immigration officials and all that,” said a Nicaraguan migrant. Guarded by armed men, the migrants said their Mexican travel documents and cellphones were confiscated. During the next four days, while children were crying, the migrants were subjected to threats and told to pay 5,000 Mexican pesos or an equivalent in dollars; some reportedly had relatives fleeced for more money even after the initial payment. Some captives feared they would not leave the compound alive.

A drone spotted above the complex, however, finally signaled the end of a nightmare as Mexican soldiers arrived and the kidnappers fled. The migrants then made their way to Chihuahua City where another caravan was assembled, but this time the travelers were escorted by Mexican National Guard troops and police to Ciudad Juárez and the border.

Politics, Crooners and Holiday Cheer

While a dissection of the tangled web of inter-hemispheric politics, economics and escalating environmental destruction which underlines the current migrant phenomenon is far beyond the scope of this article, certain developments must be mentioned. As the days grew nearer to Christmas and asylum seeker crossings in El Paso continued at a brisk pace, Texas Governor Greg Abbott had a few holiday surprises of his own.

On December 13, without advance notice, the Governor ordered a new round of secondary inspections of commercial trucks entering Texas from Mexico, triggering a repeat of last spring’s traffic backups which provoked ire in Mexico and hastened moves to shift border commerce through El Paso ports of entry to the neighboring port of entry at Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Not surprisingly, a Ciudad Juárez business leader told the press that the new inspections were more good reason to speed up the move to Santa Teresa.

“Secondary inspections, that has nothing to do with this,” scoffed immigration scholar Jeremy Slack. “Greg Abbot wants to make himself known as someone who is tough on immigration.”

Far from done, the Governor released a statement December 14 informing that he had asked Texas State Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate unnamed non-governmental organizations for their alleged role in human trafficking.

A heady week was marked by the El Paso visit of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who met with officials and a select group of journalists; an announced shift of CBP personnel to asylum seeker processing duties (and warnings of delays in border crossings during the busy holiday season); news that the Biden administration will begin reimbursing El Paso for migrant crossing expenses incurred this year, and an adverse federal court decision against the White House’s application of Title 42 to keep out specific asylum seekers, especially from Venezuela.

In an El Paso Times op-ed, El Paso Deputy City Manager for Public Safety Mario D’Agostino said the city was seeking an additional $20 million from the federal government to support migrant relief and services. The city official urged citizens to consider donating money to non-governmental partners in the effort including Annunciation House, Sin Fronteras, the Opportunity Center, Rescue Mission, El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank, and the Salvation Army.

Finally, after days of debate and initial hesitation, El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser declared December 17 that a state of emergency existed in El Paso due to the migrant influx, a proclamation that permits city government to request additional assistance from the state government.

Meanwhile, as more migrants awaited their chance to enter the U.S., the Christmas holiday season, colloquially known in Mexico as Lupe Reyes, rolled on. Shoppers crowded downtown Ciudad Juárez while street preachers, musicians, informal vendors and open air food stands whipped up a festive mood. The Virgin of Guadalupe was celebrated. For those with the proper documents, it now cost an extra peso or a dime in U.S. coinage to cross the Santa Fe Bridge into El Paso.

In the Texas city, traffic poured in and out of shopping malls, friends and family gathered, and downtown Plaza Lagartos dazzled like a winter glitter land in a bejeweled evening gown.

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” crooned a female singer from the sound system of a popular restaurant stacked with a Christmas playlist ranging from Bing Crosby to Rod Stewart and fronted with a big help wanted sign for “all positions.”

All part of the great annual holiday trek, cars, SUVs, RVs and trucks bearing plates from varied U.S. and Mexican states veered in and out of hotels loaded down for the season and headed for the interstate freeway shaking from the endless roar of semis stuffed with Christmas market cargo.

Complementing the fleet of wheels, jets took to the sky and buses chugged out of busy terminals transporting exhausted, traumatized, half-frozen and gleeful migrants with starry dreams and uncertain futures in Chicago, New York City and other fabled places of legend, lore and lyric. New stories will now be added to an open history book of a long and continuing immigrant saga. Christmas, 2022.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Kent Paterson.

Janine Jackson: Welcome to the best of CounterSpin for 2022. I’m Janine Jackson.

All year long, CounterSpin brings you a look, as we say, behind the headlines of the mainstream news. We hope both to shine some light on aspects of news events, perspectives of those outside of power, relevant but omitted history, important things that might be pushed to the side or off the page entirely in elite media reporting.

But it’s also to remind us to be mindful of the practices and policies of corporate news media that just make it an unlikely arena for the inclusive, vital debate on issues that matter that we need.

CounterSpin is thankful to all of the activists, researchers, reporters and advocates who appear on the show. They help us see the world more clearly, as well as the role that we can play in changing it.

This is just a small selection of some of them. You’re listening to the best of CounterSpin for 2022, brought to you by the media watch group FAIR.

Janine Jackson: “Supply Chain Mayhem Will Likely Muck Up 2022”—that New York Times headline got us off to a start of a year of actual hardship, and a lot of obfuscation about that hardship’s sources. The pandemic threw into relief many concerns that it did not create—and offered an opportunity to address those concerns in a serious and not a stopgap way. Rakeen Mabud is chief economist and managing director of policy and research at Groundwork Collaborative. We talked with her early in the year.

Rakeen Mabud: “On these corporate earnings calls, what we hear CEOs and CFOs saying, in sector after sector, in company after company, is we can use the cover of inflation to jack up prices on consumers, and rake in the profits for ourselves, and pay out some good dividends for our shareholders.”

Rakeen Mabud: So we’ve essentially spent 50 years handing our supply chain over to mega corporations. These companies have built a system that works for them, right, it works for padding their own profits, jacking up their profits, all spurred on by Wall Street, who really demanded short-term profit increases over all else.

And so when you think about what a supply chain is for, usually most people would think, oh, it’s here to deliver goods and services. Well, that’s actually not what our supply chain was built to do. Our supply chain was built to really maximize what companies could get out of this, and the dividends that they can pay off to shareholders.

And what that means is that they’ve essentially built this system that has no redundancy. It has no sort of flexibility for changes in an economy, such as a pandemic, or even something like a climate shock, right, which we’re unfortunately likely to see more of over the coming years and decades.

And so there is what we call a just-in-time supply system, right? This is a supply system that is expected to deliver exactly the number of goods that are needed at exactly the moment that they’re needed.

But with something like a pandemic, all of those predictions about what goods will be needed when go out the window. And that’s when you end up with supply shortages, that’s when you end up with bottlenecks.

The consolidation piece of this is also really important. We have three ocean shipping alliances that carry 80% of the world’s cargo.  So there, if one of them goes down, you can see how that massively disrupt our global supply chain, but you can also see how that might jack up prices.

And my team and I have combed through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of corporate earning calls. And you really don’t have to take my word for it. There’s obviously a big, deep story here. But on these corporate earnings calls, what we hear CEOs and CFOs saying, in sector after sector, in company after company, is we can use the cover of inflation to jack up prices on consumers, and rake in the profits for ourselves, and pay out some good dividends for our shareholders.

Embedded within that is also, let’s cut back on pay for workers. You saw Kroger do this, right? Kroger cut back on hazard pay, jacked up its prices, and then issued a bunch of stock buybacks.

And so the issues facing workers and consumers, as well as these small businesses who aren’t able to negotiate better prices for the inputs that they’re selling in their stores, and are being hit by pandemic profiteering higher up the supply chain. These are all part of the same system, and it’s all rooted in what is essentially, in short, corporate greed.

Janine Jackson: The ease with which US media step into saber-rattling mode, the confidence as they soberly suggest people other than themselves might just need to be sent off to a violent death, in service of something they can only describe with vague platitudes, should be disturbing. Bryce Greene’s piece, “What You Should Really Know About Ukraine,” got more than 3,000 shares on FAIR.org, and that’s because people needed to hear a different version of that story than what they were hearing.

Bryce Green: “Washington decided to expand anyway. And they were the only superpower left, there was no one to challenge them, so they decided they could do it. They ignored Russian objections and continued to enlarge the military alliance, one country at a time.”

Bryce Greene: So this whole story of NATO expansion and economic expansion, it begins right after the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The US and Russia made a deal that NATO, the Cold War alliance, would not expand east past a reunified Germany. No reason to escalate tensions unnecessarily.

But, unfortunately, Washington decided to expand anyway. And they were the only superpower left, there was no one to challenge them, so they decided they could do it. They ignored Russian objections and continued to enlarge the military alliance, one country at a time.

And even at the time, Cold Warriors, like the famed diplomat George Kennan, warned that this was a recipe for disaster. It would make Russia feel trapped and surrounded, and when major nuclear powers feel trapped and surrounded, it doesn’t really make for a peaceful world. But as we all know, Washington isn’t in the interest of peace, and they did it anyway.

In 2004, the US poured millions of dollars into the anti-Russian opposition in Ukraine. They funded media and NGOs supporting opposition candidates. And they did this using organizations like the NED, the National Endowment for Democracy, and USAID. These organizations are broadly understood to serve regime-change interests in the name of “democracy.”

Now, in 2004, it didn’t work exactly, but Ukraine began to start making closer ties to the EU and US. And that process continued up to 2014.

Shortly before the overthrow, the Ukrainian government was negotiating closer integration into the EU, and closer integration with the Western economic bloc. And they were being offered loans by the International Monetary Fund, the major world lending agency that represents private interests around the Western world.

So to get those loans, they had to do all sorts of things to their economy, commonly known as “structural adjustment.” This included cutting public sector wages, shrinking the health and education sectors, privatizing the economy and cutting gas subsidies for the people.

And at the time, Russia was offering a plan for economic integration to Ukraine that didn’t contain any of these strings. So when President Viktor Yanukovych chose Russia, well, that set off a wave of protests that were supported and partially funded by the United States. In fact, John McCain and Obama administration officials even flew to the Maidan Square to help support the protesters who wanted to oust the president and change the government.

And what’s worse is that right after the protests started, there was a leaked phone call between Victoria Nuland, one of Obama’s State Department advisors, and the US ambassador to Ukraine, in which they were describing how they wanted to set up a new government. They were picking and choosing who would be in the government, who would be out.

Well, a few weeks after that, the Ukrainian government was overthrown. And the guy who they designated as our guy, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, became the prime minister.

So clearly, clearly, there’s a lot of US involvement in how the Ukrainian government has shifted over the last decade. After 2014, the Ukrainians opted to accept the IMF loans, they opted to further integrate with the EU economically. And Russia is watching all of this happen.

And so immediately after the overthrow, the eastern regions in Ukraine, who were ethnically closer to Russians, and they speak Russian and they favor closer ties to Russia, they revolted. They started an uprising to gain more autonomy, and possibly to separate from the Ukraine entirely.

The Ukrainian government cracked down hard. And that only fueled the rebellion, and so Russia sent in volunteers and soldiers to help back these rebels. Now, of course, Russia denies it, but we all know they are.

And so since 2014, that sort of civil war has been at a stalemate, and every so often there would be a military exercise on the border by one side or another. But really nothing much has changed. And so this current escalation started because of the US involvement in the Ukrainian government’s politics.

Janine Jackson: The Peace Corps issued a press release warning that African Americans looking to support Ukrainians should accept that they might face racism—because, sooprise, sooprise, of how we’re portrayed in US media.

We talked about the basic story the world and the US hears about Black people, thanks to journalism—with Layla A. Jones, reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer. She’s part of the papers’ “A More Perfect Union” project, online at Inquirer.com.

Layla A. Jones: “This portrayal of urban environments definitely did fuel fear among viewers…. The way that TV news portrayed Black and urban communities really did affect—it does affect—people’s public opinions of Black people and of our communities.”

Layla A. Jones: “Eyewitness News,” and then “Action News,” which came afterwards, went to more than 200 US cities, but also went international, that format. But, yeah, when it was coming up in the late ’60s, and then “Action News” in the early ’70s, at the same time, there was this suburbanization and white flight happening in urban centers, and for a variety of reasons. We were coming off of the civil rights movement, there was a change in industry and work in cities, but also the news was broadcasting city and urban life as something scary, as something very Black, as something dangerous.

And I guess what we talk about in the piece is that this portrayal of urban environments definitely did fuel fear among viewers. They basically said, we proved in the lab that the more people watched local television news, the more likely they were to associate criminality with being Black, the more likely they were to support criminal justice policies that fuel mass incarceration, like longer sentences and even the death penalty. And so the way that TV news portrayed Black and urban communities really did affect—it does affect—people’s public opinions of Black people and of our communities.

The important point to make is that what was happening when these formats were on the rise is really multi-layered. So, first of all, it was being run at the top, and even from the top, basically all the way down, by all white people. A lot of these people were very young, because 1965, 1970, this was brand new. So they’re all learning together.

Then they’re intentionally trying to attract—and this is especially “Action News”—intentionally trying to attract a suburban audience and, locally, our suburbs are more white. So they’re trying to attract a white, suburban audience, because they believe that’s where the money is, and that’s what’s going to draw advertisers.

We also looked at the commercials. A lot of the commercials in between these news segments featured white families, and white picket fences, and things that you don’t really see in the cities that they’re reporting about.

So with all those layers going on, what “Action News” found to work for them, what shot them up past their competitor, “Eyewitness News,” was focusing happy, upbeat and community-oriented stories in the suburbs. So the stories about backyard festivals or charity events, they’ll have a photographer go out there just to cover those good events, to make those people feel seen, and to make sure they tune in and watch the news.

At the same time, the stories that can fill up the time and the newscast and are easy, quick, close by and cheap to cover, which is literally what a veteran anchor Larry Kane told me, are crime stories. He was like, you know, the photographer would just shoot the blood, shoot the scene, you shoot the victim, whatever they have to say, and you can do it in 20 seconds. And speed was another element of this format.

And so it created this dichotomy. And, again, I like to say that I don’t believe, from talking to anyone, that it was like, “We hate Black people and we just want to make them look bad.” I just think it was a complete carelessness, and then once they were told, because the stations had been told this is harmful, they never changed their approach. And I think that’s really important, too.

Janine Jackson: As US media showed there is no playbook too dusty to pull out with their anti-Asian Covid coverage. We talked with Helen Zia, co-founder of American Citizens for Justice, and author of, among other titles,  Asian-American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People. We talked about the 40th remembrance and rededication of Vincent Chin’s murder, VincentChin.org.

Helen Zia: “It became a national movement, really sparked a discussion, a movement that took the moment of the killing of Vincent Chin, and then the injustice that followed, but turned it into a civil rights movement, a human rights movement, that has still an impact today.”

Helen Zia: It was a horrific killing, and not only that, but a continued miscarriage of justice, where the justice system failed at every turn for a young man who was killed and attacked on the night of his bachelor party because of how he looked at a time of intense anti-Asian hate. And all of that was very important. It brought attention to the whole idea that Asian Americans are people, that we are humans, that we are Americans, and that we experience racism and discrimination.

But that’s not all that was important, because that event and the miscarriage of justice catalyzed a whole movement, a civil rights movement led by Asian Americans, with Detroit, Michigan, as the epicenter of that civil rights movement that reached all across America for Asian Americans, and also had a huge impact on, really, democracy in this country, in many, many different ways. And it represented the solidarity of people from all walks of life.

We were in Detroit, now a majority Black city, back then was a majority Black city, and we had incredible support from the Black community, as well as the Arab-American community, multi-faith, multi-class, people from all walks of life, not only in Detroit. And then it became a national movement, really sparked a discussion, a movement that took the moment of the killing of Vincent Chin, and then the injustice that followed, but turned it into a civil rights movement, a human rights movement, that has still an impact today.

And that’s why we’re talking about this. It’s to remember that moment, but the legacy as well—of people coming together in solidarity, with the idea that an injury to one is an injury to all, and we have a basic interest in joining together to ensure each other’s safety. That we are part of a beloved community, that no community should live in fear of violence or hate. And this notion of all our communities being so divided, can we ever be allies, let alone come together.

And so that’s what we’re remembering: Let’s not forget that, actually, we have been in solidarity. And let’s take the lessons of that and move it forward to today, because we need that desperately.

And that’s why we are saying it’s more than remembrance, it’s about rededication. It’s about taking the hard work that happened, and coming together in unity and in solidarity and building a movement. There’s nothing simple about that; there’s no Kumbaya. It really takes people working hard together to bridge understandings and undo misunderstandings, break down stereotypes and build a common understanding and a common bond between communities.

And so when, as you say, communities are portrayed in the news or in TV or in movies, that this is just that community’s concern; it doesn’t involve other people…. Anti-Asian violence, well, hey, that’s just Asians. And we don’t even know that they’re Americans. We don’t even know that they were on this continent for several hundred years.

And so I think you’re right, that’s a way of pigeonholing people and keeping us apart, instead of looking at the true commonality. If we talk about Vincent Chin or violence against Asian Americans, we also talk about Buffalo and we talk about Coeur d’Alene, and how ideas of white supremacy and even active white supremacist groups, they lump us together. They don’t see us as separate groups. They connect the dots in a very negative way. And so it’s really incumbent on all thinking people, and especially our media, to be able to connect those dots too, and not keep us separate.

Janine Jackson: In September of this year, CNN hired John Miller as “chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst”—a clear message to Muslim communities and anyone who cares about them, given that as deputy commissioner of intelligence and counter-terrorism for the New York Police Department, Miller told a New York City Council meeting that “there is no evidence” that the NYPD surveilled Muslim communities in the wake of September 11, 2001. We listened, instead, to Sumayyah Waheed, senior policy council at Muslim Advocates.

Sumayyah Waheed: “He chose to basically spit in the face of Muslim communities who were harmed by this program. And he has basically been rewarded for it, by being hired by a major news outlet.”

Sumayyah Waheed: It’s important to note he had choices in terms of how to respond to this, the request for an apology. He could have flatly refused it. He could have defended the NYPD’s program. I wouldn’t agree with that, either, but he could have done that.

Instead, he chose to lie about something that’s well-documented. And as you said, specifically something that harms a marginalized community, the Muslims in the New York area, whose harms that they suffered from this massive surveillance echo through today.

And this was not that long ago. This program started in the aftermath of 9/11, so about 20-plus years ago, and then the AP reported on it in, I think, 2012. They won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on it.

And they reported with a treasure trove of documents, internal documents from the NYPD, some of which our organization utilized in our lawsuit against the NYPD for their spying. And a federal appeals court explicitly said that our client’s allegations were plausible, that the NYPD ran a surveillance program with a racially discriminatory classification.

So he chose to lie about something that’s well-documented. He chose to basically spit in the face of Muslim communities who were harmed by this program. And he has basically been rewarded for it, by being hired by a major news outlet with a position that, I don’t even know how much he’s going to be compensated, but he’s now got a national platform to further spread lies.

Just from our lawsuit—and our lawsuit was specifically for New Jersey Muslims who were affected by this, and there were other lawsuits for the New York Muslims, and there were Muslims outside of the New York and New Jersey area who were affected by this. But just from our lawsuit, we knew that the NYPD spied on at least 20 mosques, 14 restaurants, 11 retail stores, two grade schools and two Muslim student associations in New Jersey.

So every aspect of Muslims’ lives was being surveilled, and the community finding out about this pervasive surveillance, that’s not something that you can just dismiss. The community basically was traumatized by this.

And the result—there’s a Mapping Muslims report that actually goes into all the effects, some of the impacts on the Muslim community from this notorious program of surveillance. And they found that Muslims suppressed themselves, in terms of their religious expression, their speech and political associations.

It sowed suspicion within the community, because people found out, you know, the person sitting next to me at the mosque was an informant. How can I go to the mosque and trust everyone there? Maybe I won’t go.

Of course, it severed trust with law enforcement, and then contributed to a pervasive fear and unwillingness to publicly engage.

So that you can’t just flip a switch on. If the NYPD actually wanted to address those harms, that would be a really long road to repair.

And by having John Miller in his position, and not actually censuring him or firing him for those comments, the NYPD signaled the opposite, right, that they’re going to back somebody who doesn’t care to address the harms of the department.

Janine Jackson: CounterSpin listeners understand that the news media situation in this country works against our democratic aspirations. There are many problems crying out for open, inclusive conversation in which those with the most power don’t get the biggest megaphone, and they don’t leave the vast majority of us outside of power to try and shout into the dominant noise.

Corporate media work hard, will always work hard, to tell us that their space is the only space, their conversation is the only conversation, and that’s just not true.

One of many projects we should know about that show us a way forward is one in New Jersey—that didn’t talk about shoring up old, traditional media outlets, but about instead about invigorating community information needs. The New Jersey Civic Information Consortium uses public funding to support more informed communities. We talked with an early mover on the project, Mike Rispoli, senior director of journalism policy at Free Press.

Mike Rispoli: “There are all these really profound effects on civic participation and the overall health of our communities when local media isn’t meeting people’s needs.”

Mike Rispoli: In 2016, New Jersey was looking to sell some old broadcast public media licenses that it held, and in the selling of those state assets, the state received $332 million.

And Free Press Action was doing some work in New Jersey at the time. We were organizing in communities, trying to find ways to have communities partner with local newsrooms, but also hold local newsrooms accountable.

And so we were doing organizing around the state, and talking to people about the future of local news in New Jersey. And at that time, they’re set to receive this windfall from the sale of these TV licenses. And so we thought, hey, what would it look like if some of that money coming into the state was reinvested back into communities to address the growing gaps in news coverage and community information needs?

And so with that, we began the idea of what became the Consortium, that ran a statewide grassroots campaign called the Civic Info Bill Campaign. And that work began in 2017.

And obviously we all have seen and experienced and have been impacted by the loss of local news, especially over the past 20 years. And many communities have never been well-served, even in the “good old days of journalism.” There are many communities who were never, never really well-served by local media.

And so when we were looking at this windfall that the state was going to receive, we thought, how could we use public funding to not just invest into local news, or to “save journalism.” But instead, what if we use public funding and public money to help rebuild and really transform what local media looks like in the state? How do we leverage public funding to invest in projects that are filling in gaps left by the commercial media market?

I think that what we knew when we began this campaign was that if this was a campaign to bail out the journalism industry, that wasn’t a thing that people were going to get behind. That was a thing we didn’t even think lawmakers were going to get behind.

But instead, really what we talked about was not the woes of one specific industry, but instead we talked about the impact on communities when local news and information is not accessible. And we know from data, when local media is deficient or disappears altogether, it has significant consequences on civic participation. Fewer people vote, fewer people volunteer, fewer people run for public office; fewer federal dollars go to districts where there’s no local media presence. Government corruption increases, government spending increases.

So there are all these really profound effects on civic participation and the overall health of our communities when local media isn’t meeting people’s needs. And so we wanted to make the campaign, as well as the bill, really centered around that, as opposed to giving government handouts to corporate media who contributed so much to the mess that we are in right now, and that we’re trying to figure our way out of.

Janine Jackson: And that’s it for the best of CounterSpin for 2022. I hope you enjoyed this look back at just some of the year’s conversations. It’s been my sincere pleasure to host them.

Remember, you can always find shows and transcripts at FAIR.org. The website is also the place to learn about our newsletter Extra!, and, of course, to show support for CounterSpin if you’re able and so inclined. The show is engineered by Alex Noyes. I’m Janine Jackson; thank you so much for listening to CounterSpin.

The post ‘It Takes People Working Together to Bridge Understandings and Undo Misunderstandings’ appeared first on FAIR.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

Highway surveillance footage from Thanksgiving Day shows a Tesla Model S vehicle changing lanes and then abruptly braking in the far-left lane of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, resulting in an eight-vehicle crash. The crash injured nine people, including a 2-year-old child, and blocked traffic on the bridge for over an hour.

The video and new photographs of the crash, which were obtained by The Intercept via a California Public Records Act request, provides the first direct look at what happened, confirming witness accounts of what happened at the time. The driver told police that he had been using Tesla’s new “Full Self-Driving” feature, the report notes, before the Tesla’s “left signal activated” and its “brakes activated,” and it moved into the left lane, “slowing to a stop directly in [the second vehicle’s] path of travel.”

An eight-car pile-up on Nov. 24, 2022, on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge.

Photo: California Highway Patrol

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ken Klippenstein.

The rights website Weiquanwang said it learned on Sunday that painter Xiao Liang, based in Nanchang, in the eastern province of Jiangxi, was recently arrested. His detention was confirmed to Radio Free Asia by his wife on Monday.

Peng was dubbed the “Bridge Man” after he hung a protest banner from a Beijing overpass in October calling on President Xi Jinping to step down, as well as for “food, not PCR tests, freedom, not lockdowns, reforms, not the Cultural Revolution.” 

Images of the banner went viral and sparked sympathetic protests and social media support around the world, and Peng was almost immediately detained by police.

"We heard that Xiao was initially held by the authorities under administrative detention for "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," before being transferred to criminal detention," the Weiquanwang report said.

The last tweet to appear on his account, @xiaolong999, was a photograph of the portrait, dated Oct. 15.

"I happened to be out with friends when he was taken away and didn't get the news until [later]," said his wife, who gave only her surname Yan. "They have asked me to cooperate with their investigation. The police told me he painted somebody [politically] sensitive and circumvented the [Great Fire]wall."

"I told them he doesn't have many friends and spends most of his time at home," she said. "I was [at the police station] for a few hours, and they wouldn't let him come home with me."

Self-taught artist

Yan said she is concerned about her 63-year-old husband's health.

"He has high blood sugar, high blood pressure, and high blood lipids, and he has a very serious intervertebral disc herniation," she said. "The police told me that he is fine and that the doctor [in the detention center] can deal with it."

Yan said she is unsure whether to hire a rights attorney, or whether it would risk "angering the police," leading to a worse outcome for Xiao.

"He taught himself to draw and paint. He loves to paint and draw, and paints all kinds of people: men, women, young and old, Chinese and foreign celebrities," she said. "The starting point for his painting of this person [Peng Lifa] was that they were the protagonist of the Sitong Bridge incident in Beijing."

Xiao's detention came after authorities in the eastern province of Zhejiang detained dissident Wu Jingsheng after he reposted the slogans displayed on Peng's banners on the Sitong traffic flyover in Beijing's Haidian district, days before the ruling Chinese Communist Party convened its five-yearly party congress. 

Struck a chord

Retired Shanghai University lecturer Gu Guoping told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview that Peng's banners had struck a chord with many in China.

"[His protest] was representative of the innermost thoughts, hopes and wishes of the majority of people on the lowest rungs of mainland Chinese society," Gu said. "[Peng and his supporters] had the courage to stand up and make this appeal on behalf of everyone."

"This is hugely important ... the Communist Party cannot be allowed to destroy our human rights in this way," he said. "Those rights are enshrined in our constitution, and yet they say one thing and do another."

Gu called on the international community to keep track of China's record on implementing international human rights laws and treaties, and try to help victims of rights abuses.

Authorities in the southwestern province of Guizhou also detained several members of the Guizhou Human Rights Forum, including Shen Youlian, Liao Shuangyuan, Huang Yanming, Li Renke, and Zeng Ning.

The activists were taken away by Guiyang state security police on enforced "vacations" ahead of Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, a dissident who asked to remain anonymous told Radio Free Asia.

"All of the members of the organization were taken out of town by police from several different police stations in Guiyang city and held under house arrest," the dissident said, adding that they were held for "two to three days" before being allowed back home.

Two prominent Guizhou activists, Chen Xi and Mi Chongbiao, remain under close surveillance following their release from prison, they said.

"The police sent people to watch their homes constantly, and none of their friends or co-workers are allowed to visit them: they are basically isolated," the dissident said.

Dissident poet and wife sentenced

Meanwhile, dissident poet Wang Zang and his wife Wang Liqin were jailed by a court in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan after it found them guilty of "incitement to subvert state power" in connection with his public support for the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, Weiquanwang reported.

Wang Zang was handed a four-year jail term by the Chuxiong Prefecture Intermediate People's Court, while his wife Wang Li was jailed for two years. Both have said they were unhappy with the verdict and sentencing, and have vowed to appeal, Weiquanwang reported on Dec. 11.

It said the trial, which took place in December 2021, had focused on Wang Zang's social media posts as evidence for the charges, including his poetry and performance art. He was detained by Beijing police in November 2014 after posting a photo of himself with an umbrella in support of the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement. 

He has also taken part in activities commemorating the death of Mao-era dissident Lin Zhao, the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen massacre and actively supported Uyghurs and Tibetans persecuted by the government, the report said.

The charges against Wang Li appear to stem from her speaking out about her husband's arrest via social media and interviews she gave to foreign journalists, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. 

The wife of prominent human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi said there are concerns over the well-being of her husband and fellow activist Xu Zhiyong, who haven't been allowed visits from lawyers or family members while in pretrial detention.

"Lawyers haven't been allowed in to meet with Xu Zhiyong or Ding Jiaxi for several months now, and I haven't heard anything from [Xu's wife] Li Qiaochu," Ding's overseas-ased wife Luo Shengchun told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview. "There has been no trial or sentence, yet there's no reason for the delay."

"Not holding a trial is in violation of Chinese law, which tells us that the Communist Party doesn't abide by its own laws."

Luo said the human rights situation in China is only getting worse.  "There has been no let-up in the suppression of human rights defenders,” Luo said. “It's still going on."

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Mia Ping-chieh Chen, Gu Ting and Gao Feng for RFA Mandarin.

One of the most explosive revelations in the just released House Oversight Committee report on Big Oil disinformation is that the oil industry never saw methane, what they euphemistically rebranded "natural gas," as a "bridge fuel" to a clean energy future: they always saw it as a "destination," an ongoing addiction they planned to do everything in their power to maintain.

What the "bridge fuel" fantasy always ignored was the terrible impacts that gas has up and down its supply chain.

For years, oil companies, politicians, and even some environmental groups, promoted gas as a "bridge fuel" to a clean energy future, the idea being that gas could help "bridge the gap" between an energy system stuck on coal and renewable energy that wasn't ready for prime time. For a brief moment, one could be forgiven for believing this narrative: the CO2 emissions from gas are indeed lower than coal and in the early 2000s clean energy was still significantly more expensive than fossil fuels. The idea of gas being a "bridge" was so compelling that President Obama made it a central part of his administration's strategy to reduce emissions.

What the "bridge fuel" fantasy always ignored was the terrible impacts that gas has up and down its supply chain. From the fracking needed to produce the gas (which contaminates water and poison communities), to the leaking pipelines that transport it (which spew planet heating methane into the atmosphere), to the burning of it in our homes and power plants (which releases dangerous chemicals like nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde), gas has always a climate wrecking poison.

Even as these impacts became unignorable, and the price of renewables and batteries rapidly dropped, making them the cheapest source of new energy, the fossil fuel industry worked hard to not only maintain the "bridge fuel" narrative—but simultaneously try and reframe gas as not only a "bridge" but a "destination." 

One of the documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Friday is the slide from a 2017 strategy presentation made for BP by the Brunswick Group, a leading fossil fuel PR firm. In the presentation, Brunswick frames the goal of their "campaign" as to "advance and protect the role of gas—and BP—in the future of energy conservation." A different internal BP document, titled the "Role of Gas," describes BP America's goal as to, "Prevent further erosion of near-term support for gas vs. other fuels, protect role of gas as a bridge in a low-carbon transition, and position gas as a destination fuel for the long term" (emphasis added). In another email, BP executives told their colleagues not to "concede the point" that gas didn't have a future by "referring to it mainly as a 'bridge.'"

Other documents show the great lengths the industry has gone to try and make gas a permanent part of our energy mix. In 2021, the American Petroleum Institute released what was branded as a comprehensive "Climate Action Framework," but according to internal emails obtained by the committee, the real purpose of the framework was "the continued promotion of natural gas in a carbon constrained world."

We've all seen the results of this strategy: nonstop advertising campaigns on TV and across social media platforms touting the benefits of gas and pretending it's a key climate solution. While one rarely sees a commercial for old fashioned crude oil, "natural gas" has become the friendly face of the fossil fuel industry.

The documents released by the committee cut through this greenwash and show gas for what it really is: the industry's latest ploy to keep us hooked on their product. Gas was never meant to be a "bridge," that whole rhetorical frame was simply a way to deepen our dependence on a dangerous fossil fuel and hold back real climate solutions.

Our job now is to educate the public about what gas really is: climate wrecking methane. Another dirty fossil fuel which is putting our families and communities at risk. A poisonous gas that the industry has piped into our homes, harming the health of our children and ourselves. An increasingly volatile and expensive source of energy, especially now that cheaper and safer alternatives exist.

That's the important work of campaigns like Gas Leaks, which is combating gas industry propaganda, Clean Creatives, which is going after the PR and advertising agencies that greenwash gas and other fossil fuels, and Rewiring America, who are pushing to electrify homes, schools and buildings across the country.

By revealing gas for what it really is, today's House Oversight Committee Report is a boost to all those efforts. The industry may want methane to be our final destination, but we can choose to move in a different direction. Let's go.  

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Jamie Henn.

More than 200 people from Aotearoa New Zealand’s Chinese community gathered for a vigil at Auckland’s Aotea Square last night to mourn the lives lost under China’s stringent covid-19 lockdowns and to call for an end to the country’s “Zero Covid” policy.

The unprecedented display of defiance by a crowd mainly made up of Chinese Kiwis from the mainland came after a lockdown building fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, last week that killed 10 people.

The Urumqi fire has sparked nationwide protests across China and among overseas Chinese, with vigils and protests building up in major cities including New York, Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

• READ MORE: China Xinjiang: Urumqi rocked by covid lockdown protests after deadly fire
• China softens covid stance after protests, clashes with police

More than 100 people at the event held up blank pieces of A4 paper as a symbol of defiance against China’s censorship of dissent, and chanted in Mandarin: “We don’t want leaders, we want votes — we don’t want dictatorship, we want citizens”.

“Without freedom, I’d rather die.

“Xi Jin Ping, step down, CCP step down.”

A similar vigil for the Urumqi fire victims was also held in Wellington last night.

Step up after seeing suffering
In an emotional speech, one of the organisers of the Auckland vigil said despite having no previous experience participating in social movements, she had decided to step up after seeing the recent tragedies of Chinese people suffering under the lockdowns.

“There were a series of suicides in Hohhot where I come from, I felt at that time that I can no longer say everything is fine — we can say that for New Zealand, but my family and friends are in China, so I can no longer be silent,” she said.

Members of the Uyghur Muslim community from Xinjiang — where the Urumqi fire happened — also attended, showing solidarity and protesting against human rights violations against Uyghurs.

The protesters also called for the release of protesters arrested in China.

The organiser paid tribute to a list of Chinese citizens who had stood up against authority during the pandemic, including jailed citizen journalist Zhang Zhan and the lone protester on Beijing’s Sitong Bridge who displayed banners calling for people to strike and for the removal of Xi Jinping.

Like her, many at the gathering were first-time protesters emboldened by the recent protests in China.

Another protester said he was also inspired by the man on Sitong Bridge.

‘He gave us courage’
“He gave us a lot of courage. He was a person at the bottom of society, who did what he knew was forbidden, he sacrificed himself to awaken the Chinese people’s desire for a democratic society,” he said.

“I feel like he’s planted a fire in all our hearts, he’s like the Prometheus of our times.”

An international student who had just graduated from high school said she wanted to contribute to ending China’s lockdowns.

“If the protests could work and make all the cities stop the lockdown, I was so happy to come to come here today, hear everyone share their stories and using the A4 paper to show our anger.”

Another said he hoped the protests in China and abroad instilled a sense of what it meant to be a responsible citizen for Chinese people.

“If people want to live with dignity in a fair society, there needs to be a civil society,” he said.

‘Softer’ solidarity
Meanwhile, some at the gathering chose a softer way of showing solidarity with the victims of the Urumqi fire.

Chrysanthemums were laid and candles were lit, and a school aged child accompanied by his parents played “Do you hear the people sing” on his flute.

One attendee told RNZ he was glad that the people who gathered could find something in common regardless of where they were on the political spectrum.

“Some people want to see a revolution in China, others just want something small like for their residential area to come out of lockdown earlier, so that people can freely buy groceries,” he said.

“But people can easily find a common denominator, and that’s hoping things will move forward a little bit, and let friends and family living in China be safer and freer.”

At least two major cities in China — Guangzhou and Chongqing — have eased covid-19 restrictions following a clash between protesters and police in Guangzhou this week.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

In the wake of this, several news channels and social media users shared clips of people on the bridge shaking it recklessly, claiming they were all recent ones. In a subtle way, many of them linked this behaviour with the collapse of the bridge. Some went to the length of holding the victims responsible for the accident or even suggesting that there was a conspiracy. Alt News has found that for years, it has been a common practice for people visiting the Morbi bridge to stand on it and make it wobble. And there are ample reasons to believe that the administration was well aware of this practice.

Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri clipped the CCTV footage of the bridge collapsing and tweeted, “There is no doubt now that #MorbiBridgeCollapse is a sabotage by #UrbanNaxals as a planned strategy. They have been destroying schools, hospitals, roads, rail tracks & bridges.” (Archive.)

A conspiracy theory was also alleged by several pro-BJP social media users — Major Surendra Poonia (Retd) (over one lakh views), Flt Lt Anoop Verma (Retd), Sushil Kedia (over 2,500 retweets), @Saffron_Sn. Most of them drew attention to the fact that people were seen vigorously shaking the bridge in various clips. It is relevant to note that in the past, Poonia and Verma have shared misinformation on social media.

Republic Bharat shared a video of its broadcast on Facebook at 10:12 PM IST where the clip of the overcrowded bridge was aired multiple times as ‘exclusive’ footage of the bridge moments before the disaster. In this viral clip, an arrow points at the crowd that can be seen vigorously shaking the bridge, some are even seen kicking the rails of the bridge.

Zee News English also shared a video of its broadcast on Facebook where they aired the footage of the aftermath of the disaster and the overcrowded bridge side by side. This was again aired as ‘exclusive’ footage of the bridge moments before the disaster.

NDTV followed suit and shared the broadcast on Facebook. Unlike the first two, NDTV claimed the viral clip was shot 24 hours before the collapse. Interestingly, the three channels aired the same footage where an arrow points at the people on the overcrowded bridge.

An ABP News report said the crowd on the bridge was increasing and people started shaking it (Archive). BJP worker Priti Gandhi also shared the same clip late Sunday evening. She called for a thorough investigation into the disaster. (Archive)

There are others who were even more vociferous in their victim-blaming. One user, while replying to a tweet by senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, said that “…people themselves have to be blamed for overcrowding”. Her concern was that demand for regulations paves way for the opposition to criticize the government when such mishaps occur. Sushil Kedia, who is the founder of a market research firm, called out Arvind Kejriwal in his tweet. It appears the tweet also put the onus of the accident on the victims.

Shaking of the bridge is an age-old practice

Alt News found that the official website of Gujarat Tourism lists the Hanging Bridge of Morbi (locally known as Julto pul). It is also listed on the Film Facilitation Office India. This establishes one crucial point that the Gujarat government and the central government recognize the bridge as a point of tourist attraction.

In the 30-second CCTV footage of the calamity in question, we see that people were vigorously shaking the bridge. As pointed out earlier in the article, several media outlets and pro-BJP social media handles had highlighted a clip of people acting recklessly on the bridge.

#Watch the CCTV footage of the bridge collapse in Gujarat’s Morbi. Over 200 people have been rescued from the site of the incident, MoS Harsh Sanghvi said Monday. #MorbiBridgeCollapse
Follow live updates: https://t.co/yxhdG5Hw3P pic.twitter.com/d1cKoTSDQw

— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) October 31, 2022

Alt News found multiple clips on social media that establish that it is a common practice for visitors to shake the bridge. Many of them were deleted in light of the calamity. Some of them which can still be accessed are:

• December 2018: Close-up of people on the bridge shaking it
• January, 2021: A detailed vlog about the tourist site. This clip shows reckless shaking as well.
• November 2021: A vlog where around the 1:40 mark we can see the walk-through on the bridge
• March 2022: Another vlog where after the 4-minute mark entire walkthrough of the bridge can be seen

Below, the readers can see a compilation of videos where people are shaking the hanging bridge.

Alt News analyzed the January 2021 vlog (attached below) which includes details of ticket prices and inputs on how safe it is to visit the bridge on holidays when it is crowded. Due to the sensitive nature of the story, we have taken measures to protect the identity of the vlogger while embedding in the video.

In the 2021 vlog, the vlogger estimates that there were approximately 300-400 people visiting the bridge at that particular time. He shows a wide-angle view of people recklessly shaking the bridge. As he approaches the bridge, he informs the viewers that those who want to visit with family should avoid it during festivals and holidays. From the 21st to the 35-second mark, we can see visitors recklessly shaking the bridge. At one point in the video, the vlogger says that he is worried that his phone might fall and is ‘feeling scared’.

Thus, multiple videos establish that it has been usual for visitors for quite some time to shake the bridge recklessly while standing on it. The administration, however, did not place effective measures to stop this practice from the public. Thus, to attribute the collapse of a newly renovated bridge to this behaviour or a conspiracy is misleading.

The vlogger also says that there is an entry ticket for the bridge. Alt News spoke with Gujarat-based journalist Roxy Gagdekar Chhara. The journalist, who did ground reportage on the Morbi calamity, said, “Based on my reportage, it appears everyone purchased the ticket.” As per media reports, about 500 persons were on the bridge at the time when it collapsed. (NDTV, Zee News, and Hindustan Times)

Who is supposed to supervise the functioning of the bridge?

FirstPost reported, “The hanging bridge was first inaugurated on 20 February 1879 by then-Mumbai governor Richard Temple. All the material came from England and cost Rs 3.5 lakh at that time to construct the bridge.” The report added that During the 2001 earthquake, it ‘suffered severe damage’.

In March 2022, Morbi Municipality shut down the bridge for renovation at a cost of Rs 2 crore. The contract was given to the Oreva Group (Ajanta Manufacturing Private Limited), which specializes in making wall clocks, e-bikes and LED lights, for operation and maintenance for 15 years. After six months of renovation, it was reopened on October 26 — five days before the incident took place, the FirstPost report added. (The Indian Express has reported that the Oreva Group has been involved in the maintenance of the bridge since 2008.)

On October 26 Oreva Group’s MD Jaysukh Patel told the media in a press conference, after the inauguration of the bridge, said: “… The way this bridge has been built…. according to us next renovation should take place approximately from eight to 10 years from now… nothing should happen [to the bridge] until then”.

Alt News accessed a contract between Ajanta Manufacturing Private Limited and the approving body Morbi Nagar Palika via NDTV journalist Tanushree Pandey. As per the final point in the contract [highlighted in red], “During the term of the agreement, the revenue and expenditure of the suspension bridge shall be the share of Ajanta Manufacturing Private Limited (Oreva Group) and all administrative functions such as staff appointment, cleaning, ticket booking, maintenance, collection, expense accounts etc. shall be done by Ajanta Manufacturing Pvt Ltd (Oreva Group) who will take care of the affairs which will not involve the intervention of government, non-government, town council or any other agencies.” 

In 2020, the Twitter handle ‘Morbi Today’ tweeted (Archived link) an article reporting how visitors needed to sign an ‘accident consent’ prior to visiting the Jhulta Pul. The article stands deleted as of today. However, the tweet includes the image of the form. Alt News has added the translated version of the form below. This confirms that the government was very well aware of the risks associated with the bridge.

After the accident, an Indian Express report quoted Sandeepsinh Zala, chief officer, Morbi municipality, as saying, “The bridge is a property of the Morbi municipality, but we had handed it over to Oreva Group a few months ago for maintenance and operations for a duration of 15 years. However, the private firm threw the bridge open to visitors without notifying us, and therefore, we couldn’t get a safety audit of the bridge conducted.” He added, “It was opened to the public after the completion of the renovation work. But the local municipality had not yet issued any fitness certificate (after the renovation work).”

It is unclear how the bridge was allowed to be thrown open to the public on October 26 if a fitness certificate was not issued. The readers should note that in an Aaj Tak bulletin (screenshot below) a flex can be seen which warns visitors against overcrowding and taking selfies on the bridge. However, it is clear that the mere existence of the caveat did not stop people from assembling on the bridge in extremely large numbers. 

To sum it up, after the hanging bridge of Morbi collapsed claiming at least 140 lives, several media outlets aired clips of people shaking the bridge as a possible reason for the accident, without informing the viewers that it was a common practice for a long time. However, it is important to note that the local municipality had not issued a fitness certificate after the recent renovation of the bridge.

Furthermore, many pro-BJP social media users have shared unrelated clips of people shaking the bridge in an attempt to whitewash the accountability of the government and the firm entrusted with the bridge’s maintenance to control overcrowding and reckless behaviour on the bridge. Instead, they alleged that the bridge collapsed due to conspiracy.

The post Social media conspiracy theories falsely suggest deliberate sabotage behind Morbi bridge collapse appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Archit Mehta.

This is a war between Russia and the United States.
— Jeffrey Sachs, talking with The Grayzone, October 9, 2022

We’re now 8 months (or 8 years and 8 months) into the Ukrainian conflict, and the “dogs of war” are still barking it up, and their bark has become increasingly “nuclear” in tone.  Take Joe Biden’s recent “Armageddon” reference at a fundraiser, where he compared the current situation to the nuclear-tipped danger of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.  Well, what a bizarre comparison, since Russia would be in the position of the “United States” in the analogy, but maybe Biden’s really that “strategically confused.”  Nevertheless, Biden’s “gaffe” did serve to raise anxiety levels, and Lord Fauci knows we all need some more of that, ever since the Covid kind of receded into the background noise we always knew it was.  Of course, “Apocalypse” Joe may have really been suggesting that we should be sending more Bibles than Bombs to Ukraine, but no available evidence, unfortunately, supports this theory.

By weird coincidence, perhaps, a few days after Biden’s Biblical end-of-times invocation, Russia made Sergei Surovikin commander of their Ukraine operation.  Surovikin’s nickname:  “General Armageddon.”  At the very least, then, we can say that “Armageddon’s” trending this October and — Just in time for Halloween!

Of course, the threat of nuclear war has been baked into the blue-and-yellow cake of this entirely avoidable conflict from the beginning, and, even immediately prior to Russia launching its “Special Military Operation” on February 24; indeed, Ukrainian comedian president Zelensky had made some smelly nuclear noises at the Munich Security conference some days before that may have triggered the invasion.  Chernobyl quickly became a symbol of the conflict in its opening phase, with western corporate media insisting that Putin was trying to cause “Chernobyl 2: the Sequel.”

Somehow, the “Chernobyl story” has gone quiet since Russian forces decided that Kiev (or Kyiv) would not fall in 3 days.  Nevertheless, the Zaporozhia nuclear power plant has risen in the South of “We-don’t-know-what-country!” to take Chernobyl’s place, and to keep the idea of a radiological catastrophe in — or at least hovering around — the news cycle.  Russian forces have had control of the plant, apparently Europe’s largest, for months.  By many accounts, the Zaporozhia nuclear plant has been subjected to frequent shelling, often attributed in the western press to the very same Russians who are in possession of it. Well, one supposes that, by the same illogic, the Russians also scuttled their Nord Stream pipelines in NATO-side Baltic Sea waters just to spite — themselves.  One does not have to be a Scuba Team Sabotage Specialist to see the absurdity of this accusation.

Which brings us to the Kerch Bridge sabotage event of October 8, which was instantly celebrated in Kiev (or Kyiv), with a blown-up (pun not necessarily unintended) postage stamp of the blown-up section of the burning bridge as a downtown sidewalk billboard with folks taking smiling selfies in front of it.  One suspects that these selfie-takers were not taking selfies in front of the blown-up SBU building in downtown Kiev (or Kyiv) two days later.  SBU is the Ukrainian equivalent of the CIA or MI6, both of which Intel agencies no doubt had offices inside.  No word, predictably, upon the extent of the destruction of this Ukrainian intel HQ building. Instead, western media pretended that Russia’s missile barrage was primarily aimed at children’s playgrounds all over Ukraine.  Even Democracy Now! pushed this Russophobic narrative by showcasing a 5-year old Ukrainian boy to explain the initial wave of Russian missile strikes, as if that “progressive” news outfit couldn’t find an adult correspondent:  Talk about child exploitation!

Of course, central to the AmericaNATOstani’s Ukraine script is the talking point that “Villaindimir” Putin is threatening the use of nuclear weapons, and his provocative speech of September 30 is cited, quite hysterically, as “Exhibit A!”  In that speech, “Mad Vlad” was recognizing the validity of the referenda in the 4 breakaway regions of southern and eastern Ukraine, which all voted to join Russia.  In fact, Putin never mentioned nuclear weapons, but he did refer to the collective West as being “anti-democratic, totalitarian, and satanic.”  He also declared, in no uncertain terms, that 4 centuries of Western global hegemony are over (paraphrase).  Pretty bold statement there, Mr Putin!  The non-TransAtlantican World may not approve of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, but certainly are not too upset by it.  Clearly, there is a new world system emerging, and the traditional arbiters of Power, the Imperial West, will have to get used to watching the Show, which they used to direct, from the “cheap seats.”

Ironically, perhaps, Putin is a “westerner,” even though western media, at the behest of western intel agencies, of which they are merely speaking tube apparatuses, wants everyone to believe that he’s the latest incarnation of the “brutal dictator” we’ve been taking down all of these Made-for-TV episodes, or decades:  the “Villain with the Thousand Faces.”  But, truth be told, all slips of slithery tongues aside:  It’s the crazy Bidenite Regime pushing the “Armageddon” button, the Apocalypse envelope — not Putin.

To that end (The End?), it was widely reported this morning, the 10th “22” of 2022, that the U.$. Army’s 101st Airborne Division has been conducting “live fire exercises” in Romania, next door to Ukraine.  The 101st, or “Screaming Eagles” as they are colloquially known, have not been deployed to Europe since World War 2.  One wonders:  What’s up with that?  Operation “Save the Day”?  Another “Charge of the Light Brigade”?  Yet the Sun is inexorably setting on Western power, hegemony, call it what you will.  The West is like a long spoiled child that the rest of the World is sending back to its room; unfortunately, this spoiled child has many nuclear “toys” at its disposal as it tries to tantrum its way out of the inevitable.

Interestingly enough, Armageddon is mentioned only once in the Bible’s last “official” book, the Book of Revelation, 16:16.  Perhaps “Smoke-Signaler-in-Chief” Biden was merely blowing some slippery smoke by invoking “Armageddon,” like:  “It’ll be Armageddon, folks, if you don’t donate, and donate like you mean it!  Hey Fat, you know…the Thing!”  There’s a midterm election coming up.  Some say it’ll be a “game changer,” if only because people like to repeat the talking point phrase “game changer.”  With any luck, it will be an Armageddon Stopper…”Strategic confusion, folks, nothing but strategic confusion!”

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Todd Smith.

Overseas social media among the Chinese diaspora -- where information flows more freely than inside the Great Firewall of internet censorship -- has been abuzz with the news of a protester who hung a banner calling for the removal of leader Xi Jinping on a Beijing overpass on the eve of the party congress.

While censors of China's tightly-controlled internet quickly deleted posts, comments and accounts mentioning the banners, many outside the country hailed the man, named as Peng Lifa, as a hero.

Slogans and comments expressing solidarity with the "bridge man" protest began appearing on college bulletin boards outside China, including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago, New York University, Johns Hopkins, Emory and McGill, as well as at UCL and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London and at Seoul's Korea University.

Many of the comments were supportive of the protest, but anonymous, according to a U.S.-based Chinese student who gave only the surname Wang, for fear of compromising loved ones back home.

"Most of them are Chinese nationals with most of their friends and family back in China, so they want to make sure they're not affected [by their comments overseas]," Wang told RFA.

Wang said Chinese students also fear being contacted by officials from their local Chinese embassy or consulate, or being reported to authorities by one of their Chinese classmates.

Some anonymous solidarity with Peng's protest has also been spotted in China, where public signs of dissent are extremely rare and punishable by detention and jail, or other forms of official retaliation like incarceration in a psychiatric hospital like Dong Yaoqiong, a young woman who splashed ink on a public portrait of Xi Jinping on July 4, 2018.

Photos of anti-Xi graffiti scrawled in public toilets in mainland China echoing Peng's call for direct elections, an end to the zero-COVID policy and to Xi's dictatorship have been circulating on Twitter since last week. 

One of the photos said the graffiti was seen in the men's toilets of the Beijing Film Archive movie theater.

Another, which largely repeated the slogans on one of Peng's banners, was attributed to the men's toilets at the Nanhu Interchange on the Chengdu Metro, in the provincial capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan. 

"Free Chengdu, revolution now!" the slogan added, in a variation on the signature slogan of the 2019 anti-extradition and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Social media users posted photos of similar graffiti in Xuzhou, in the eastern province of Jiangsu.

As local governments started hastily hiring guards to post a round-the-clock watch on all traffic flyovers in Beijing for the duration of the party congress, the Beijing police department issued an order to print and photocopying shops requiring them to review all content before printing orders.

"All printed and copied material must be reviewed by store staff," said the order, a copy of which was circulating on social media.

Unconfirmed reports that anyone buying paint or more than a foot of fabric in Beijing must now register with their real names have also been circulating on social media. RFA was unable to verify the reports independently.

Overseas Solidarity

Chinese internet celebrity Xu Qingen, who currently lives in France, said he was among the first to support Peng's protest openly.

"I was the first to speak up for Mr. Peng, because it is very difficult for people in China to speak up for him," Xu told RFA. "Chinese abroad need to lend their unconditional support ... because they have the geographical advantage of being relatively free."

"Not like in China, where the CCP has total control over public discourse and ideology, and over the whole country," he said.

U.K.-based rights activist Wang Jianhong agreed. "This kind of overseas solidarity is very, very, very important," Wang told RFA. "It's great to see. Anyone who still cares about China's future ... and also about their parents back in their hometown, should do something."

"The Sitong Bridge protest touched people deeply, because everyone feels the same about the harms of the zero-COVID policy," she said. "If there is no freedom at this point, then anyone could wind up dying in a quarantine hospital. The lack of food and emergency medical treatment affects everyone in China."

The protester, seen in a video being loaded into a police car Thursday, has been named as Peng Lifa. He used the handle Peng Zaizhou on social media in a reference to an ancient essay describing the people as the water that holds up the boat of government, and might overturn it if they are unhappy with its rule.

While RFA has been unable to confirm the identity of the protester independently, content posted earlier to Peng's social media accounts was consistent with the tone of his banners, which were displayed from the Sitong flyover on Beijing's Third Ring Road on Thursday.

"Remove the traitor-dictator Xi Jinping!" read one banner, video and photos of which were quickly posted to social media, only to be deleted. A post linked from the account called for strikes and class boycotts to remove Xi.

"Food, not PCR tests. Freedom, not lockdowns. Reforms, not the Cultural Revolution. Elections not leaders," read the second, adding: "Dignity, not lies. Citizens, not slaves."

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jenny Tang for RFA Mandarin.

The post Attack on Crimea’s Kerch Bridge is Damaging to Putin, But It Doesn’t Change the Dynamics of the War appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Patrick Cockburn.

At least four people died and eight were injured, according to the Military Council Spokesman who held a news conference in Naypyidaw.

PDF troops on the bus opened fire after it was stopped and inspected on the bridge, on its way to Sagaing.

Two civilian passengers were killed along with two PDF members, the spokesman said.

Eyewitnesses said two junta soldiers and six passengers were injured.

One witness, who did not want to be named for security reasons, told RFA the fight lasted 30 minutes on the bridge, crowded with cars and motorcycles.

“The bus coming from Mandalay was being checked but soldiers could not find [any PDF members] at the checkpoint,” the witness said. “The troops were fired on when they were getting off the bus, then the fighting broke out. Among the two dead men, one was in Puso [a traditional male garment] and the other was in long pants. The bus was riddled with bullets when the two sides started shooting at each other.”

The bodies were taken to the army base in Mandalay Palace, he added.

Eyewitnesses said one of the six injured civilians was sent to Pyin oo Lwin’s Military Hospital, while the other five were taken to the hospital at Mandalay Palace.

The Sagaing Bridge was blocked for a few hours by junta troops after the shooting and was reopened in the afternoon, but everyone passing through was strictly checked, according to nearby residents.

The checkpoint on the bridge was set up after the Feb. 2021 coup. This was the first time it had been attacked.

It is not known yet which PDFs were killed.

Three PDFs based in the area, the Freeland Attack Force, the Anonymous Force Mandalay and the Emerald Girls Army said four of their members had been out of contact since Tuesday, while on the way to buy weapons.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dedrick Asante-Muhammad – Briana Shelton.

The station in Novocherkassk, in southern Russia, from which there is a direct train to Crimea. Photo: Matthew Stevenson.

This is the eleventh in a series about a journey, by train and bicycle, across Russia to Crimea shortly before the war began.

The overnight train from Novocherkassk to Crimea left just before 6 p.m. I had an early dinner at my guest house and set off on the bicycle for the station, which, while in no way busy, was still in a state of confusion. The electronic departure board was not working, and the dispatcher announcing the trains kept changing the platform for my train, as if calling a Square Dance.

Twice I had to drag my bike and bags up the staircases and over the tracks until I finally came back to the original platform. When the long string of Pullmans (well, the Russian equivalent) pulled into the station, I was at the wrong end of the platform, which meant another sprint while pushing the bicycle to get to my sleeping car.

For whatever reason, this train to Crimea did not have any first class cars, so I was bundled into second, and had to climb a small ladder to an upper bunk—a bit like that opening scene in Moby Dick when the man of God at the Seamen’s Chapel ascends to the pulpit. Nor did my train have a dining car, which meant that I had make do with the hobo food sack that I was carrying.

I divided the ride between my berth—as if reading in a coffin—and the vestibule, looking out the window as we passed through Rostov-on-Don and meandered in the summer half light toward Crimea.

Putin’s New Crimean Railway Bridge

After the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014—either as a result of an armed coup or the spontaneous rising of Crimean citizens (the latter if you ask Russia)—Moscow made the decision to link southern Russian to Crimea with two long bridges spanning the Kerch Strait that separates the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

Before leaving home, I had read that the bridge was almost 20 kilometers long and had two spans (one for cars and trucks, the other for trains) and that it was the longest in Europe.

Without these bridges, Russia (before the war) had no land connection between Crimea and its mainland—as the northern Crimean border only abuts Ukraine.

Nothing official has ever been released, but it is estimated that the bridges cost Russia some $3.7 billion. They opened for car traffic in 2018, and then for trains in 2019-20.

A Bridge of Sighs

Ironically, as they were tools of the invasion, the idea for such bridges dated to a time prior to the Russian attack. In 2010 the Ukraine and Russian governments signed a protocol to connect eastern Crimea to southern Russia using various routes.

In 2013, when the pro-Russian government in Kiev suspended pending agreements between Ukraine and the European Union, the plans for the bridges between Ukraine and Russia became a priority, at least for those favoring greater ties between Crimea and Russia. But as tensions rose between Ukraine and Russia, the plans for the bridges became one more sticking point in diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The day after Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014, President Vladimir Putin announced his unilateral plans to construct the bridges, which Ukraine and the outside world took to mean that Russia would never negotiate its claim over Crimea or compensate Ukraine for the seizure of its land.

When my train finally crossed over the bridge into Crimea, I knew that war was inevitable between Russia and Ukraine, as it felt as though we were rolling along the Berlin Wall

The Kerch Strait

By my reckoning with the timetable, I estimated that the night train would make the bridge crossing around 7 a.m. Just to be sure that I would not miss anything, I set the alarm on my phone for 5:30 a.m. As the sun was rising in southern Russia I ate a breakfast of bread, cheese, and yogurt from my shopping bag, and then took up my post at a window in the corridor.

It reminded me of a ferry trip I took after college from Athens to Istanbul; on that journey at first light we passed through the Dardanelles, another strait of destiny.

As the sun rose on this day, the landscape outside of my train window reminded me of Scotland. There were few towns or cities, and the barren headlands as we approached the sea seemed a mix of heather and gorse. I suppose I was also reminded of Scotland as the wind was howling, and rain was slanting against the train.

All the track that we were on seemed new. As the train approached the sea, it stopped at what felt like a ghost station—a large modern structure built of concrete that had no passengers (only soldiers and railway workers) on platforms that otherwise could have accommodated commuters from a small city.

It made me nervous when the train stopped at what felt like a border crossing, and soldiers began boarding the train. I had been assured that my visa included travel to Crimea (at least in the eyes of the Russians), but I also have traveled enough in the East to know that many governments are run by checkpoints. But for now no one was checking passports.

With the soldiers on board, we approached the Kerch Strait at slow speed. On either side of the tracks, tall fences, capped with razor wire, ran along the line, as though this was a prison train, as perhaps it was.

On Tuzla Island

To navigate the strait, the bridges make use of what is called Tuzla Island, lying in the strait between Crimea and Russia. It’s a rocky, narrow island that spared the bridge construction companies from having to span the entire stretch of water with pylons sunk in the seabed.

For the most part the rail bridge runs close to the surface of the water, as if it was part of a medieval fortification built to deny Ukrainian shipping access to the Sea of Azov (and its ports there, such as Mariupol).

Only under one arched span is there clearance for any ocean-going vessels (think of military vessels such as a NATO aircraft carrier), but even then it struck me as a low bridge, designed, again, to cut off Ukraine from the sea.

In theory, the Kerch Bridge was built to facilitate trade and travel between Russia and its newly-acquired territory of Crimea, but what I saw from my sleeping car looked like a military rampart disguised as a rail link. There was something sinister about the barbed wire looped around the fence tops, as if Crimea was a concentration camp.

The Train to Simferopol

On the Crimean side of the bridge, there were none of the fortifications that marked the Russian side. Once we were across the bridge and pulled into Kerch (the first Crimean city), it was apparent to me that Crimea (whether it is Russian or Ukrainian) is something of a lost or forgotten province.

Much of the farmland along the tracks was fallow, and the stations outside of Kerch—a rundown city, at least on the edges—all looked like stops along an abandoned line.

The road link between Kerch and Simferopol, Crimea’s capital, runs directly to the west, and gets one there in a few hours. But the main train line detours north toward Dzhankoy to avoid the mountains, and it takes most of the morning to cross the peninsula.

I didn’t mind the circumnavigation of Crimea. I would see more. Besides, it was pouring rain, not exactly what I thought I would find in Crimea in June, and that put a damper on my bicycle dreams.

It was on this stretch of the journey that I wondered whether Crimea, given its depressed economy and lack of opportunities, might well be a poisoned chalice for whichever country—Russia or Ukraine—has to pay its required subsidies.

Hello, Lenine

There was a marked sense of Ostaglie about the train line between Kerch and Dzhankoy, as if Stalin himself had named some of the towns and stations. We stopped in Lenine, Kirovske, and Sovetskyi, all of which looked like footnotes of a five-year plan, although at each stop there were a few parked Ladas that had showed up to collect passengers (some carrying boxes wrapped with string) off the Moscow express.

Only when the train spent about 30 minutes in Dzhankoy did I figure out that the last stop for this train would be Sevastopol, not Simferopol.

When I bought my ticket, I had understood that the train would only go as far as the capital, and then I had spent weeks brainstorming how I might get to Bakhchysarai, the Tatar city about twenty miles to the south of Simferopol. Biking there was an option, but on maps and YouTube the main road had looked to be thick with trucks and traffic.

Many Crimean Wars

I thought too that I might detour to Yevpatoriya, a resort city with classical Greek (and Jewish) roots that is on the coast.

South of Yevpatoriya along the Black Sea are the beaches where, in the 1854 Crimean War, British and French troops came ashore on their way to the Alma River, the siege of Sevastopol, and the Charge of the Light Brigade outside Balaklava.

Near to those beaches is the airport at Saky where in 1945 Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill landed to attend the Yalta Conference. (It then took them about eight hours to drive to Yalta over potholed roads, giving the conference participants a long look at the war damage that came with three years of fighting and German occupation of Crimea.)

Part of the problem with biking from Yevpatoriya to the Alma is that I would have been riding near to the Russian military installation at Novofedorivka, where I assumed Putin was marshaling his forces to invade Ukraine.

I didn’t relish getting stopped at some roadblock and having to explain that my real interest was the first Crimean War (what the British would have called my “despatch case” was crammed with articles from the 1850s by the London Times correspondent William Russell, thought to have been the first war reporter for his coverage in Crimea).

Now, with rain coming down sideways, I was loathe to leave the comfort of my train compartment, and so I was happy when the conductor said that I could stay on board until the train reached Bakhchysarai, which is famous for the Khan’s Palace and as the capital of the Tatars in Crimea (those that Stalin deported in 1944 to Central Asia, from this land of constant tears).

Next: The Tatar city of Bakhchysarai. Earlier installments can be found here.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Matthew Stevenson.

Photograph Source: Jonathan Cutrer – CC BY 2.0

A Bridge Too Far was a 1977 World War II film, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring a bevy of A-list Hollywood actors, including Anthony Hopkins, Sean Connery, and Ryan O’Neal. In the desperately depressing and overly drawn-out epic, Hopkin’s parachute brigade tries to capture the bridge in question across a Rhine tributary at Arnhem in the Netherlands, while Connery’s airborne division dithers about after landing in the wrong area, trying to join the action before the pinned-down soldiers at the bridge are ripped to shreds by a German counterattack. As part of the wider Operation Market Garden of September 1944 to traverse the Rhine, the venture was deemed a failure, the Allies unable to secure a bridgehead at Arnhem or move on to Nijmegen and then into Germany, primarily because of bad planning, bad weather, and more than a few cock-ups, such as a lack of working radio communications.

Today, Europe is again at war, albeit a proxy war between Russia and the West after Russia crossed NATO’s red line by invading Ukraine or NATO crossed Russia’s redline after expanding to its borders depending on your allegiances. There may be a simpler explanation, however, that harkens back to the age of Standard Oil and the Nobel Brothers: the fight over the supply of petroleum and the control of imported energy to Europe. One thing for sure, Big Oil or indeed Big Gas is calling the shots, never mind the devastation in Ukraine where real people are dying and cities are being turned into rubble. Or that global warming is perilously increasing. Climate crisis? What climate crisis?

Having relied on Russia for 40% of its imported oil and gas, much of it via a tangled web of cross-border pipelines, Europe is now scrambling for fuel and warmth. Europe’s “4-corridor” policy of sourcing energy imports from Russia, MENA, central Asia, and Scandinavia is hurriedly being re-written. Russia is being given the economic boot as the global number-1 (US 21%) and number-2 (Russia 15%) natural gas producers fight it out over who controls the sale of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas per year to Europe and beyond. [1] At the same time, we’re being told the earth is heating up beyond repair, thanks to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide from ongoing fossil-fuel burning.

The main bridgehead is in northeast Germany, terminus of the $10-billion, Nord Stream 1 (NS1) natural gas pipeline that snakes its way underneath the Baltic Sea from Vyborg near Saint Petersburg to Greifswald. NS1 brings roughly a quarter of Europe’s piped energy, primarily Arctic and Siberian natural gas. The attempted certification of a parallel, $11-billion NS2 would have doubled Russian supplies to the same location, but was nixed by the United States, the first shot in the Great Russian Gas War. The US can’t sell its own fracked natural gas to Europe if Russia holds a monopoly, while NATO isn’t keen for the Kremlin to reassert its iron-handed influence in a post-Soviet world via expanded energy exports that already account for almost $200 billion in annual export revenues and 60% of the Russian budget. Most importantly, there is little point to a military alliance if your opponent is supplying the energy to your members. NATO would cease to be if Team Europe ran on Russian fuel.

Perhaps the confusion over the motivation for the latest petroleum war is an unfamiliarity with natural gas, whose main component, methane (CH₄), is a potentially worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO₂). Associated hydrocarbon gases are typically found wherever there is oil, mostly methane (70-90%), with some ethane, propane, butane, and hexane. [2] Combusting at roughly the same temperature of about 2000 °C in air, methane and ethane are sold on as natural gas, considered a better fuel than coal or coal gas. Since both are invisible, odourless gases, the foul-smelling, sulphur-based odorant mercaptan is added to warn about leaks and potential explosions.

After 70 years of interventions in the Middle East, we’re used to the black stuff gushing from the ground, but fighting over an invisible gas is new. Most of us also know about the toxicity of oil and its main refined product, gasoline, yet we readily burn natural gas in our homes for heating and cooking, unaware of the dangers from noxious by-products and leaks. Methane comes with good PR too, thanks to a Madison Avenue style makeover. Brought ashore for the first time to the United Kingdom in 1967 near Hull, North Sea gas was given the more environmentally and commercial friendly “natural gas” moniker to distinguish it from coal gas, which is much dirtier to produce and very unnatural. Customers quickly absorbed the conversion costs for heating and cooking. Celebrity cooks swear by it.

Alas, natural gas is just as dirty and unnatural as coal gas when burned, producing all sorts of toxic waste from incomplete burning, chiefly carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulphide, ammonia, volatile organic components, and particulate matter, as well as carbon dioxide and water vapour. Incomplete burning of methane is bad in the same way that burning any petroleum product is bad. We get the same toxic waste and respiratory damage from burning gasoline, plastic, vinyl, or asphalt, smells not easy to forget.

At the same time, Europe is cutting back on coal, ostensibly to aid in the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, announcing a “phase down” at the 2021 COP 26 meeting in Glasgow, rather than a “phase out” as called for by the United States and other developed countries. The British PM stated we should “consign coal to history,” while the chief EU delegate Frans Timmermans eloquently reminded everyone that “European wealth was built on coal and if we don’t get rid of coal, European death will also be built on coal.” Although curtailing coal is certainly good for the environment, the main beneficiary was natural gas, starring as the supposed “bridge fuel” to a cleaner future. One ought to be careful, however, when eliminating a plentiful local supply, albeit the dirtiest of fuels, if the tap to the substitute is being squeezed in a conflict with your main supplier.

The oil and gas (O&G) industry is also casting itself as the good guy, claiming that natural gas is less dirty and unnatural than coal, because of a supposed “cleaner” burn, since natural gas emits half the carbon dioxide as coal when combusted. That’s like saying burning less-bad stuff is good. In fact, the global warming potential (GWP) of methane is 80 times that of carbon dioxide, although not as long-lived. Worse, however, methane becomes more environmentally dangerous than burning coal if only 3.2% of the extracted gas leaks. [3] Leaks are everywhere.

To be sure, most of us don’t care about the differences between liquid fuels and gases. We just want to run our cars, plug in our appliances, and heat our homes in winter (and cook like a master chef if up to the task). Alas, we’re all in the crosshairs now as energy prices rocket and global supply chains are impacted.

But shouldn’t we be cutting down on all fossil fuels to avoid climate catastrophe? As Dieter Helm acknowledges in The Carbon Crunch, “There is no escaping the environmental impact of both methane and shale gas production. … methane may be short lived in the atmosphere, but it is potent, and many gas pipelines – notably in Russia – leak a lot.” [4] Writer, environmentalist, and 350.org founder Bill McKibben noted that transitioning to methane as a bridge fuel because of the presumed lower global warming hit is “the equivalent of losing weight by cutting your hair.” [5] Is the new fight over who supplies energy to Europe a cynical diversion, another Titanic deck-chair rearrangement?

Oil and gas wells also leak methane through the ground into the atmosphere, often overlooked when calculating the carbon budget of the fossil fuel industry. Especially damaging are the thousands of “super emitters” in the US and Russia that spew about 10% of all methane emissions in the oil and gas industry, which itself emits about one-third of global methane emissions. [6] To be sure, leaking wells can be plugged, but only if they are found. Invisible to the naked eye, methane can be imaged using infrared sensing, including high-resolution, satellite spectral monitoring.

Unfortunately, sloppy operating procedures are the norm, especially in the Permian Basin, where leakage is 60% higher than the national average. [7] Satellite monitoring of atmospheric methane with more precise spatial and temporal resolution is improving and will help detect more leakages and fugitive emissions along with drones and ground-based observation. But without effective regulations to collect methane, standard bad practice will continue.

Over 40 million natural gas stoves, cooktops, and ovens in American homes also release methane via incomplete combustion, leaks, and at ignition. Up to 1.3% is unburned methane, equivalent to the yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 500,000 cars, while over three-quarters of the methane is released even when a stove is off. [8] Health-damaging pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) are also emitted and can trigger respiratory diseases. One rarely reads about the damage caused by methane, especially when refashioned as a clean-burning fix to coal.

Flaring is also a significant problem, where the associated gas is burnt instead of stored or piped because of inadequate storage facilities and lack of natural gas pipelines in remote areas such as the Permian Basin and Bakken Formation. Since the gas is cheaper than oil, companies can’t be bothered to capture methane, under no obligation to protect the environment. Typically, the associated gas is burned onsite instead of just vented to convert methane to less-potent carbon dioxide and remove volatile organic compounds. Not all flares burn cleanly, however, especially at older wells, some that have been around since the 1920s. [7]

Shockingly, almost 150 billion cubic metres of unwanted associated gas is flared worldwide [9], led by the United States, where flaring is permitted for 10 days to help a company get its fracking house in order, yet ongoing extensions are the norm. In the Permian, 3.5% of gas is flared, greater than the entire consumption of some states, while even more is lost in the Bakken. Even Russia and the Middle East are concerned about how much American gas is flared. [10] With no financial incentive to store unwanted gas and in the absence of appropriate regulations, flaring is the most cynical of industry practices.

Given the obvious respiratory and global warming damage, methane can’t be considered as a viable coal substitution or transition fuel. Of course, the oil majors and national oil companies (NOCs) aren’t in business to clean up the environment or stop global warming. Nor, in the case of NOCs, do they care enough to spend on needed social programs. They want to sell more energy, convincing the public that natural gas is good, whether for heating, cooking, or as a transition fuel to save the world. Amid rising temperatures and war in Ukraine, O&G profits are set to reach a record of over $800 billion this year, a 70% increase on 2021. [11] Any news of a green transition clearly hasn’t made it to the boardrooms of the oil industry.

What’s more, oil and gas is easier to produce, control, and less labour-intensive than coal, helping to keep workers in line. Unchecked by national governance, unions are powerless to counter a globalized petroleum industry. After the dust settled on World War II, the United States was responsible for 60% of global industrial production, beginning the dominance of American foreign policy and the U.S. dollar as the de factoworld currency. More importantly, Soviet expansion was countered as oil became a political weapon against growing labour unions and “left-wing European workers’ movements tied to coal.” [12] Back then, the enemy was left-wingers; today it’s the oligarchs (roughly $1 billion/day in O&G revenues).

Nonetheless, Europe has decided to ban Russian energy imports, come hell or high water. As one might expect with trillions of dollars at stake, the politics are fierce. Often accused of playing by 27 sets of rules, EU member states are being forced to rethink their energy supply, i.e., to “go native” by the end of the year, starting with a now ostracized Rosneft and Gazprom. In late 2021, Belgium announced the shutdown of all 7 of its reactors by 2025, a decision postponed for 10 years after Russia invaded Ukraine. Some even want to backtrack on the declared “phase out” of coal in case the lights go out. Albeit outside of EU stricture, Britain has over 400 years of coal supply should it choose to reopen closed mines. [13] Nobody wants to be left out in the cold come winter.

Nor does one size fit all. The Scandinavian countries are better equipped to go it alone. Denmark boasts extensive wind-generated power with some days over 100%, the excess electricity sold on to its neighbours via interconnectors along a growing international smart grid. Already a world leader in nuclear power, France announced it will build more nuclear plants of the cheaper and quicker-build small modular kind. Eastern EU countries of the former Soviet Union, however, are particularly reliant on Russia. Hungary and Slovakia want more time, while Bulgaria wants an exception.

To calm the infighting and present a united front, a reworked EU declaration banned Russian energy imports by tankers, yet allows supplies to flow by pipeline via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline through Ukraine, keeping the heat on in Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic for the time being. [14] It’s one thing to counter Russian political power, another to shut off the gas.

Built in Soviet times to supply the Communist bloc, Soviet oil first reached eastern Europe in 1962 via the 4,000-km Druzhba Pipeline. Druzhba means friendship. Breaking up a cartel or bilateral price collusions doesn’t happen without a fight. For its part, Russia turned off the gas tap to Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland for not paying in rubles, covered for now by neighbouring imports, followed by the Netherlands and some firms in Denmark and Germany.

Replacing a vast, lucrative O&G infrastructure, integrated across a wide industrial base, won’t happen overnight. After their recent meeting in Berlin, G7 officials announced an ambitious goal of achieving a “highly decarbonized road sector by 2030” and “predominantly decarbonised electricity sectors by 2035.” [15] Presumably that means no coal, no gas, and no oil if the EU is serious about curtailing GHG emissions. The logic of combating global warming is strained if all one does is change suppliers.

To counter the pipeline politics, Europe’s fossil-fuel infrastructure is hastily being upgraded to supply methane via newly built import facilities at ports across Europe, fuelled in part by the vast amounts of fracked liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States. Instead of transitioning from fossil fuels, the US is ramping up its export market to keep the gas flowing as LNG exports to Europe increase month by month. [16] Albeit piecemeal, expensive, and slow to implement, Russian-controlled pipelines are being traded for non-Russian-controlled tankers.

Only 15% of Dutch natural gas comes from Russia and can be replaced by local stocks from Groningen – the once largest natural gas store in Europe, providing up to 30% of European gas since extraction began there in the 1960s – despite frequent earthquakes that have damaged hundreds of thousands of homes. [17] The UK is resurrecting a closed gas storage facility in Yorkshire, previously shut down as economically unviable, in the event that Russia stops all supplies to Europe and Norway starts sending gas to the continent to make up the shortfall. The U.K. storage facility can hold up to 12 days of supplies should the “reasonable worst case scenario” transpire. [18] Europe needs to have its inventories in place come October. Here’s hoping for a warm winter. Warm, but not too warm.

In the short term, Saudi Arabia is the main beneficiary of Russia’s isolation. The world’s largest company, Saudi Aramco, just posted $40 billion in Q1 profits. The Saudis are now shipping 10% of global oil and will likely increase the supply. Same goes for Norway despite divesting some oil stocks as well as Qatar, a country of about 3 million people, which sits atop the largest methane stock in the world, the North Dome/South Pars field underneath the Gulf that it shares with Iran. The United States is salivating over the prospect of fuelling Europe. The LNG trains are working overtime as the cryogenic tankers pass each other in the night.

No one seems overly worried about safety. Liquefied natural gas requires extra attention to ensure basic safety measures. As fuel sciences professor Harold Schobert noted, “Suppose a leak allowed some of the LNG to vaporize. Mixtures of 5-15% of natural gas in air are explosive. What if an LNG tanker blew up in Boston harbour? The loss of life and property damage would be enormous.” [19] In a hurry to join the gas game, Ghana has suffered 8 LNG explosions in 3 years. No one can afford to take stored fuel for granted whatever the hydrocarbon composition.

With the continued sale of natural gas, Europe’s Green New Deal is being scuttled, “net zero” kicked further down the target road: 2030, 2040, 2050 (when the global population is expected to reach 10 billion). Of course, net zero doesn’t mean zero gas. Running to over 2,000 pages in total, the recently proposed change to the EU’s “taxonomy of environmentally sustainable economic activities” pointedly included natural gas and nuclear power to paper over the inconsistencies and legitimize the ramp up of fossil fuels, followed by a supposed ramp down later when it becomes more convenient. Calls of greenwashing rang out as the pro-nuclear government of France squared off against the anti-nuclear government of Germany. Other countries less reliant on Russia, such as the Netherlands and Spain, objected to natural gas. The long goodbye keeps getting longer.

Despite the need to rid ourselves of an unsustainable dependence on hydrocarbons and an impressive line up of renewable-energy projects, the transition in Europe is not from fossil fuels to renewable energy but from Russia to anyone but Russia. Expanding NATO is more about maintaining strategic control over the flow of oil and gas into Europe, including securing new fields in the eastern Mediterranean. Old foes are being asked to show their allegiance. Venezuela, Iran, and Libya are our friends again. Bienvenido, Salam, Ahlan Wa Sahlan. Peace in our time, unless one is Russian.

Getting rid of fossil fuels is a tall order, but there is much we can do to reduce our reliance on old energy. A green transition ultimately means more competition and fewer monopolies, real elasticity in upstream supply, and fairer distribution for all. More wind, more sun, more storage. Conservation, insulation, heat pumps. At the very least, curtailing GHG emissions by 2050 means no more burning fossil fuels, and will require an annual investment of at least $1 trillion for the next 3 decades in Europe alone. Imagine spending $10 billion on solar and wind rather than building another pipeline or LNG port? The sooner we control our own energy the faster we cross the bridge. What’s the delay? If not now, when?

Controlling our own energy also means greater security. In the midst of yet another petroleum war, the UN secretary-general António Guterres called the renewable energy transition, “the peace project of the twenty-first century.” What’s more, as he further stated, if we want to survive we need to 1) Make renewable energy technology a global public good, 2) Improve global access to components and raw materials, 3) Level the playing field for renewable energy technologies, 4) Shift energy subsidies from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and 5) Triple investments in renewables. [20] There is a plan; it just isn’t going according to plan.

I expect that the movies are already in development for this war, scripted as ever to highlight the moral imperative of good over evil. I won’t go to The Methane Games, playing one supplier against another until we’re all dead. But I will happily pay to see Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, and Jennifer Lawrence star in the remake A Bridge Fuel Too Far, hopefully with requisite happy ending for all: the environment, our health, and Ukraine. The last battle for petroleum, the last battle for empire, the last battle for us?

Notes

[1] “Natural Gas Production by Country,” Energy, Worldometer, 2021.

[2] a.k.a. single-bond alkanes with general formula C_nH_2n+2, where n = 1 for methane and n = 2 for ethane, i.e., CH₄ and C₂H₆.

[3] “Quantum-enabled camera detect methane leaks,” Photonics Spectra, November, 2021.

[4] Helm, D., The carbon crunch: Revised and updated, p. 212, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2015.

[5] Schwartz, J., “Differences on how to fight climate change,” The New York Times, July 13, 2016.

[6] Lauvaux, T. et al., “Global assessment of oil and gas methane ultra-emitters,” Science, Volume 375, Issue 6580, pp. 557–561, February 3, 2022.

[7] Kuchment, A., “Methane hunters,” Scientific American, September 2021.

[8] Lebel, E.C. et al., “Methane and NOx emissions from natural gas stoves, cooktops, and ovens in residential homes, Environ. Sci. Technol. 56, 4, pp. 2529–2539, January 27, 2022.

[9] Schulz, R., McGlade, C., and Zeniewski, P., “Flaring emissions,” Tracking report, International Energy Agency, November 2021.

[10] Meyer, G., “Surge in gas flaring sparks controversy for US shale sector,” The Financial Times, January 5, 2019.

[11] Cavcic, C., “Oil & gas firms’ profits set to smash records reaching $834 billion in 2022, Rystad says,” Offshore Energy, May 9, 2022.

[12] Bonneuil, C. and Fressoz, J.-B. (trans. Fernbach, D.), pp. 243,244, The shock of the Anthropocene, Verso, London, 2017.

[13] “When British Coal Was King,” BBC Four, November 4, 2013.

[14] Rankin, J., “EU debates watering down Russian oil ban in face of Hungarian opposition,” The Guardian, May 29, 2022.

[15] “G7 Climate, Energy and Environment Ministers’ Communiqué” [pdf], Berlin, May 27, 2022.

[16] “U.S. Natural Gas Exports and Re-Exports by Country,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, May 31, 2022.

[17] “Industry calls for more gas from Groningen after Russia cuts supply,” DutchNews, May 31, 2022.

[18] Jack, S., “UK in talks to reopen giant gas storage facility for winter,” BBC News, May 30, 2022.

[19] Schobert, H. H., Energy and society: An introduction, p. 528, Taylor & Francis, New York, 2002.

[20] “Five ways to jump-start the renewable energy transition now,” Climate Action, United Nations, May 18, 2022.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by John K. White.

India TV also played the same video while reporting on the floods in Assam. The video appears after 29 seconds into the broadcast. (Archive link)

Apart from this, News18 Bangla, Bharat Samachar, Oriya news channel OTV News, short video platform Editorji aired the video while reporting on the Assam floods. However, Editorji added a disclaimer stating “authenticity unverified”.

The video has gone viral on Facebook and Twitter with the same claim.

Fact-check

According to a tweet by Guwahati Plus, this video is old and not from Assam.

#VIDEO | Fake News ALERT!

An old video of a bridge being carried away by floodwaters is going #viral on the Internet. The video which is said to be from #Assam is actually not so…#fakenews pic.twitter.com/pQAcJBLXLq

— G Plus (@guwahatiplus) May 17, 2022

Netherlands ambassador to Indonesia, Labert Grange, had tweeted this video on April 6, 2021. He wrote that it depicted the floods in Eastern Flores in Indonesia.

Our thoughts are with the victims of the floods in Eastern #Flores and #TimorLeste. We’d like to express our heartfelt condolences to all those affected by this enormous tragedy. pic.twitter.com/1UGXgKxhj0

— Lambert Grijns (@LambertGrijns) April 5, 2021

Australia’s ABC News reported, “Floods and landslides also hit several nearby islands in the Indonesian archipelago, including Flores, leaving at least 55 people dead.”

Through the help of Google Street View, Alt News found that this is the Old Kambaniru Bridge. It was located in Sumba Regency, which is in Indonesia. We old found pictures of the bridge on  Google Street View.

Ultimately, a one-year-old video of a bridge collapsing in the Indonesian floods was shared as the recent floods in Assam. It is noteworthy that a bamboo bridge collapsed in the Udalguri district in Assam. But several major media outlets, including Aaj Tak, shared an old video from Indonesia to report the flood situation in Assam.

The post Aaj Tak, India TV air old video from Indonesia as bridge collapsing in Assam floods appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Kinjal.

The bridge, which spans about 500 meters (1,640 feet), is situated south of a position occupied by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the north bank of the lake in Ladakh, an area that India contends China has illegally occupied since 1962. The area has been the site of clashes between the countries, as has the so-called Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory.

The bridge will cut the travel distance between the PLA position and a military base in Rutog (in Chinese, Ritu) county, Ngari prefecture, in far-western Tibet Autonomous Region by about 150 kilometers (93 miles), making it easier for Chinese troops to counter Indian forces if future flare-ups arise.

In January, geo-intelligence expert Damien Symon first used satellite imagery to show that China was building a bridge across Pangong Lake the eastern Ladakh territory it controls. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin that month said the construction would safeguard China’s security.

“China building bridge over Pangong Lake is a key area for the Indian border,” said Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. “Despite land agreements between the two, China has been carrying out military activities in the border area. The bridge will make it easier for Chinese troops to access the region.”

Sana Hashmi, a visiting fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation in Taipei whose research focuses on China’s foreign policy and territorial disputes, said that the border dispute will be at the forefront of China-India relations going forward.

“This only shows that China has no real intention of resolving the dispute and that the tensions are only going to grow,” she told RFA in a written statement.

India is responding to the bridge construction by boosting its defense capabilities and seeking cooperation with like-minded countries, Sana Hashmi said.

Kunchok Tenzin, a councilor from the Pangong Lake area, said the bridge’s construction has raised concern among locals, who fear they could be hurt if a clash between India and China breaks out.

“The Indian government should make the development of border areas a priority and ensure the safety of the local residents,” he said.

Monk Kunchok Rigchok from Pangong Monastery said that people know the bridge may pose a threat in the future.

“Though there is no fear as we have lived here our whole lives, but the Indian government must remain on alert because China has illegally occupied land in the region,” he said. “They may target our place soon.”

Tenzin Lhundup, a Pangong Lake resident who lives by the border, said he was born in the area and intends to live there until he dies.

“We are not scared of the Chinese, as they have been visiting this area even during the pandemic lockdown,” he said.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Trinley Choedon.

After two years in the court system, Greenpeace USA announced Tuesday that 22 activists who suspended themselves from a Texas bridge in a daring 2019 protest targeting key fossil fuel infrastructure reached an agreement that will allow them to be cleared of all federal charges.

"We can either take the bold actions necessary to stave off the climate crisis today or suffer the radical consequences of climate-fueled disasters."

The environmental group said the activists signed a deferred prosecution agreement under which the U.S. Attorney General's office will dismiss the case following a brief waiting period, pending payment of certain costs incurred by law enforcement.

"In Houston and around the world, Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples are on the frontlines of the climate crisis," Greenpeace USA activist Rico Sisney, who participated in the protest, said in a statement.

"For too long, fossil fuel companies have poisoned communities to line the pockets of a handful of billionaires," he added. "They've gotten away with it in the same way that corporations and politicians get away with dehumanizing migrants, disabled, low-income, and other marginalized people all too often. Working together, we can ensure that the clean energy revolution will leave no one behind."

On September 12, 2019, a group of Greenpeace activists rappelled from the Fred Hartman Bridge in Baytown, the nation's largest fossil fuel thoroughfare, for 18 hours ahead of a Democratic presidential primary debate in Houston. Local media reported the direct action forced the closure of the Port of Houston for approximately 24 hours. 

According to Greenpeace:

On average, 700,000 barrels of oil pass through the Houston Ship Channel every single day. Cancer-causing toxic air and water pollution harm local communities every day, while the continuation and expansion of fossil fuel business harm us all as we barrel towards a point of no return in the climate crisis.

The shores of the 52-mile Houston Ship Channel are home to the second-largest petrochemical complex in the world. Refineries operated by ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and more sit dangerously close to homes and schools. Every day, these facilities threaten the health of the majority Black, Brown, and low-income communities that surround them. 

"I don't want to see every single corner of this country be exploited for fossil fuels while communities are being torn apart by oil spills, chemical fires, and more extreme floods, fires, droughts, and storms," protester Piper Werle wrote at the time. "If we don't rise up and resist... the oil industry right now, we'll soon be at the point of no return."

Twenty-two demonstrators were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting obstruction of navigable waters, which could have resulted in a year in federal prison and a $2,500 fine.

Harris County prosecutors charged 31 people involved with the protest with felonies under a highly controversial fossil fuel industry-backed state law criminalizing interference with oil and gas pipelines and other "critical infrastructure;" however, a grand jury declined to indict them.

Noting that "we are in a climate emergency created by the fossil fuel industry," Greenpeace USA deputy general counsel Deepa Padmanabha warned Tuesday that "we have little more than a decade to take ambitious action to avoid the worst impacts of climate change."

"That means starting the transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy now," she continued. "We can either take the bold actions necessary to stave off the climate crisis today or suffer the radical consequences of climate-fueled disasters—more floods, more megastorms, and more fires—for years to come."

"This was a peaceful action," Padmanabha added. "The most dangerous thing about that shipping channel wasn't the activists—it was and continues to be fossil fuel executives' reckless plans to push us further towards climate chaos."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

All southbound traffic lanes on State Highway One over the Auckland Harbour Bridge have now reopened after they were closed while New Zealand anti-mandate protesters marched across the bridge.

State Highway 1 on the Northern Motorway was closed to southbound traffic between Esmonde Rd and Fanshawe St and motorists were being asked to delay non-essential travel across the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Thousands of anti-mandate protesters marched onto the bridge from the North Shore late this morning, chanting “mandates gone, first of March”.

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The protest came as the Ministry of Health reports a record 13,606 new community cases of covid-19 in New Zealand today, with 263 people in hospital — five of them in intensive care units (ICU).

In a statement, the ministry said 9262 of the new cases were in the Auckland region.

Waka Kotahi said the protesters had unlawfully entered the state highway network on foot.

This morning hundreds of people gathered at Onepoto Domain at the northern end of the bridge and then set out towards the bridge.

Māori Wardens told RNZ they were escorting the protesters for safety reasons.

Organised by Destiny Church coalition
The march had been organised by Destiny Church’s Freedoms and Rights Coalition.

In a statement, police said the safety of staff, road users and protesters was the priority.

They would actively engage with the protesters to prevent them crossing the bridge due to the significant safety risks posed.

Despite the safety concerns, protest organisers said they had worked with the police on traffic management.

The protesters support the the Parliament occupation in Wellington. Police have described that protest as “no longer safe for families”.

Meanwhile, the person who launched the “Tell the Wellington Protestors to Go Home — They are NOT the majority” petition which has gathered more than 140,000 signatures has spoken out about the development.

Named as James Black (not his real name), he said the petition had “triggered media interest and analysis and exposure [about] the elements of the protest that are dangerous.

“As the protest has unfolded, it’s become more and more obvious to everyone that there are seriously unhinged but well-funded elements at play here using innocents and the gullible, children and whanau as puppets for their agenda of destabilisation.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.