[Peace-discuss] Notes

[J.B. Nicholson]

“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this 
system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all 
others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system 
works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are 
going to have to change the system.”

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most 
shocking and inhumane.”

-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


Domestic spying: National Public Radio on "FBI Urges Universities To 
Monitor Some Chinese Students And Scholars In The U.S."

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/28/728659124/fbi-urges-universities-to-monitor-some-chinese-students-and-scholars-in-the-u-s
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=728659124

> U.S. intelligence agencies are encouraging American research
> universities to develop protocols for monitoring students and visiting
> scholars from Chinese state-affiliated research institutions, as U.S.
> suspicion toward China spreads to academia.
> 
> Since last year, FBI officials have visited at least 10 members of the
> Association of American Universities, a group of 62 research
> universities, with an unclassified list of Chinese research institutions
> and companies.
> 
> Universities have been advised to monitor students and scholars
> associated with those entities on American campuses, according to three
> administrators briefed at separate institutions. FBI officials have also
> urged universities to review ongoing research involving Chinese
> individuals that could have defense applications, the administrators
> say.
> 
> "We are being asked what processes are in place to know what labs they
> are working at or what information they are being exposed to," Fred
> Cate, vice president of research at Indiana University, tells NPR. "It's
> not a question of just looking for suspicious behavior — it's actually
> really targeting specific countries and the people from those
> countries."
> 
> In a statement responding to NPR's questions, the FBI said it "regularly
> engages with the communities we serve. As part of this continual
> outreach, we meet with a wide variety of groups, organizations,
> businesses, and academic institutions. The FBI has met with top
> officials from academia as part of our ongoing engagement on national
> security matters."
> 
> While law enforcement agents have discussed university monitoring of
> other nationalities as well, these FBI briefings addressed visitors from
> China in particular who are involved in science, technology, engineering
> and math.
> 
> Such FBI requests are advisory, not mandatory. Administrators say the
> universities briefed by the FBI have not yet implemented additional
> monitoring protocols. They say they have pushed back because of
> skepticism of the threat level and because the FBI requests lack
> specificity in implementation.



Dahr Jamail on "Over One-Tenth of Global Population Could Lack Drinking 
Water by 2030"
https://truthout.org/articles/over-one-tenth-of-global-population-could-lack-drinking-water-by-2030/

> A recent study[1] published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
> Sciences showed that sea-level rise could be twice as bad as previously
> expected, due to accelerated melting in the Antarctic and Greenland.
> Instead of the previous worst-case scenario of 1 meter by 2100, the
> study has doubled that figure. Several scientists this writer has
> interviewed believe the realistic figure of sea level rise by 2100 will
> be even higher than this recent study’s prediction.
> 
> Another report[2] showed how the state of Florida could be facing a $76
> billion bill to mitigate and adapt to climate crisis impacts by just
> 2040, mostly from rising sea levels.
> 
> To give you an idea of how far along we already are in this crisis, in
> some areas of China, fruit trees have to be pollinated by hand[3] due to
> lack of pollinators. Climate disruption is a major contributing factor
> toward the loss of insects around the planet.
> 
> The Arctic, our proverbial canary in the climate coalmine, just saw its
> hottest May ever recorded[4]. Coastal erosion of permafrost is happening at
> a rate of up to one meter every day, and the current rate of coastal
> erosion is already six times higher than the historical rate.
> 
> In Siberia, carbon-laden permafrost has warmed by 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit
> (1.6°F)[5] in just the last 10 years alone. This is an ominous sign, for as
> the permafrost thaws it releases carbon and methane, making this one of
> the most dangerous feedback loops in the climate crisis, given that
> permafrost around the globe contains twice the amount of carbon that is
> already in the atmosphere. In fact, it has now been shown that the
> permafrost is thawing 70 years sooner[6] than previously predicted.
> 
> According to a 2017 study[7], tundra in Alaska is already warming up so
> quickly that it has become a net emitter of CO2 ahead of schedule —
> rather than sequestering carbon, as it has historically done. Thawing is
> occurring so rapidly in the Arctic now, sinkholes[8] are becoming
> increasingly common across the region.
> 
> To make matters worse, Arctic sea-ice extent for early June was at a
> record low[9], and the ice could be on track now for a record melt year at
> the current trajectory.

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/116/23/11195
[2] 
https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2019/06/20/florida-could-face-76-billion-in-climate-change-costs-by-2040-report-says/
[3] 
https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9107955/china-fruit-trees-pollinated-by-hand-due-to-a-lack-of-pollinating-insects/?fbclid=IwAR3cs24Uo7mNty0SF893oUeLbUEEahNF__bKKdSeGxz32P_3dhH8RjMzRIE
[4] 
https://thinkprogress.org/arctic-death-spiral-coastal-permafrost-collapse-23d650acea99/
[5] https://thinkprogress.org/dangerous-permafrost-climate-feedback-loop/
[6] 
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/18/arctic-permafrost-canada-science-climate-crisis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
[7] https://www.pnas.org/content/114/21/5361
[8] 
https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/11/americas/thermokarst-arctic-climate-change-intl-hnk/index.html
[9] 
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2019/06/13/after-a-miserable-may-with-unusual-warmth-arctic-sea-ice-hits-a-record-low-for-early-june/#.XQ_d6NNKgdU





"Anti-war" politicians and the Democratic Party: Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) 
gets favorable press calling her "anti-war" but few note the specifics to 
back up that assessment.

https://digitalcitizen.info/2019/02/13/is-tulsi-gabbard-really-anti-war-no-shes-pro-drone-and-for-surgical-strikes/ 
-- On Rep. Gabbard being "anti-war" I point to my own essay and I'll also 
note that her 2018 interview with The Intercept in which she said she was 
down with the drone war remains undiscussed in most of the press covering 
her at all.

Apparently I'm not alone in recognizing the difference between what she 
backs and calling her "anti-war". It seems more likely that Rep. Gabbard 
presents no serious opposition to American empire because she doesn't argue 
against warmaking, she argues for changing the way in which empire 
maintenance is carried out -- her plan is apparently to use drones to keep 
American soldiers safer while they kill a lot of innocent people where the 
drone bombs land. Is that an anti-war position or is that merely changing a 
few details by which the US assassinates people, creates enemies, and earns 
the US a solid reputation for being "the greatest purveyor of violence in 
the world today" as Martin Luther King Jr. famously said on April 4, 1967 
("Beyond Vietnam", 
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/beyond-vietnam)?


https://71republic.com/tag/tulsi-gabbard-drone-strikes/ -- Ryan Lau wrote:

> One of Tulsi Gabbard’s biggest talking points so far is that she opposes
> wars. In particular, she has criticized continual actions on the part of
> the United States in Syria and Afghanistan. However, it would be foolish
> to equate these limited responses with truly opposing the practice on
> its face. There is a clear difference between opposing a particular war
> and opposing the very concept of war.
> 
> An excellent place to begin searching for Gabbard’s true position is her
> voting record. But rather than portraying the 37-year-old congresswoman
> as a dove, it suggests that she is more mixed on the matter. Admittedly,
> she did oppose[1] two key defense funding bills in 2018. Yet, the same is
> not true for the bill that would appropriate this funding.
> 
> On September 26, 2018, Tulsi Gabbard voted in favor of a key defense
> appropriations bill that, quite frankly, had some absurd elements. First
> of all, it appropriated a grand total of $670 billion for the military
> in 2019. Though she seemed to oppose gargantuan spending levels
> previously, it appears Gabbard had no problem voting for it the next
> time it came through.
> 
> Moreover, the bill prohibits any funding to be used for the release or
> transfer of individuals at Guantanamo Bay. Amnesty International has
> long since called the detention camp “The Gulag of our time[2]“, and the
> inhumane modes of torture that the base forces on its prisoners are no
> surprise. Even the United Nations, an organization in no way fervently
> dedicated to peace, has tried to get the United States to close
> Guantanamo Bay. Tulsi Gabbard, though, voted for an appropriation bill
> that would make it much more difficult to remove those detained from the
> subhuman conditions that the camp does little to hide. Such a move shows
> blatant disregard for human life, a value generally necessary to truly
> be antiwar.

[...]

> Furthermore, Tulsi Gabbard has very clearly stated that she favors the
> use of drone strikes against military opponents[3]. Admittedly, this is
> preferable to supporting an all-out ground war, but it is also a far cry
> from being anti-war. It appears that her concerns more closely are for
> the lives of exclusively Americans. This position blatantly disregards
> the lives of the many foreign civilians that American drones[4] kill every
> year.
> 
> In this way, Gabbard appears to more closely mirror the tactics of
> Presidents Trump and Obama. After all, Obama’s drone strikes have killed
> many civilians in eight countries[5]. There is absolutely nothing that
> indicates that Gabbard’s use of drones against “terrorists” (I use the
> term in quotations because they are the ones defending their homeland[6],
> while the American military ravages their cities) would produce a
> noticeably different result.
> 
> All in all, it appears that Tulsi Gabbard is not truly opposed to war.
> Though she may be slightly less hawkish than some other candidates, this
> is an easy task; it does not, in any meaningful way, show a real
> dedication to peace. Do not let her words fool you, and do not expect a
> sudden policy of peace if she wins the presidency in 2020. Tulsi
> Gabbard, through her support of wars and drone strikes, is little more
> than a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

[1] https://votesmart.org/candidate/key-votes/129306/tulsi-gabbard#.XFBzh3bYrnG
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/may/26/usa.guantanamo
[3] https://theintercept.com/2018/01/20/tulsi-gabbard-syria-isis-al-qaeda/
[4] https://71republic.com/2018/08/28/delavan-thoughts-american-bomb-victim/
[5, 6] https://71republic.com/2018/12/12/missing-morals-single-story-war/

The Jimmy Dore show endorses Rep. Gabbard's 2020 presidential run (in 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWoo90eoM58 you can hear host Jimmy Dore 
joining his audience in a "Tulsi! Tulsi!" chant). Host Jimmy Dore says the 
show will soon be in Honolulu to do some shows (he repeats this in every 
ending to every recent episode). I'd bet that these Honolulu shows will 
feature Rep. Gabbard (a former guest of that show). We'll see if Dore & Co. 
put some tough questions to her about her support for drone warfare 
(something Dore has spoken against), and her use of language like "surgical 
strikes" which repeat pro-war talking points (repeating pro-war talking 
points is also something Jimmy Dore takes others to task for) even while 
she is called "anti-war".

How are we to distinguish such "anti-war" talk about Rep. Gabbard from how 
junior Illinois Senator Barack Obama was described when he ran for US 
President? Senator Obama famously said the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was 
"a dumb war ... a rash war" and that that war was a "cynical attempt" to 
shove "ideological agendas down our throats" and would distract from 
domestic problems such as poverty and health care. President Obama 
continued the 2003 Iraq war through each year of his two terms in office, 
sharply ramped up the drone war over Pres. George W. Bush's drone warring, 
added more wars, didn't address poverty in any serious way (notably faked 
drinking Flint, Michigan water) and Obama kept the HMOs firmly in power via 
the ACA (colloquially known as "ObamaCare") while HR676 (a Medicare for All 
bill called the "gold standard" of such bills by Dr. Margaret Flowers of 
Health Over Profit for Everyone) was never brought to the floor of Congress 
for a vote even when the Democrats had a majority in both houses of Congress.

This history of choices by the Democratic Party is informative of how we 
should view that party today and tell us why we can't just trust that 
someone is anti-war even when they're repeatedly called "anti-war".




Steve Salaita on how Rep. Tulsi Gabbard's criticism of Saudi Arabia 
illuminates her support for Israel

https://stevesalaita.com/tulsi-gabbard-and-the-art-of-the-half-sentence/

> People in the Palestine solidarity community have been debating the 
> merits of Tulsi Gabbard’s presidential campaign.  Gabbard has earned the
> sympathy, or at least the interest, of some activists, while others 
> (including myself[1]) dismiss her as a Zionist.
> 
> Gabbard’s supporters point to occasional tweets and comments critical of
> Israel (most of them actually critical of Netanyahu).  The best of them
> came during the Great March of Return in 2018[2]:  “Israel needs to stop
> using live ammunition in its response to unarmed protesters in Gaza.  It
> has resulted in over 50 dead and thousands seriously wounded.”
> 
> They also cite Gabbard’s anti-war sensibility, though Gabbard likes to 
> reify the logic of imperialism, as when she mocks neocon “chicken hawks”
> or informs[3] Donald Trump that “being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not
> ‘America First.’”  Gabbard doesn’t resemble a liberal dove so much as a
> Cold War realist.
> 
> Gabbard’s career reveals a pro-Israel history.  At what point is it 
> appropriate to overlook that history, which has adversely impacted an 
> entire nation?  Conventional wisdom tells us that she’s changed and so 
> we should celebrate her current iteration.  This approach undersells the
> past and devalues the present.
> 
> Despite her rebranding, Gabbard did give a speech[4], alongside Ted 
> Cruz, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee, at a Christians United for 
> Israel conference.  She did tell CNN amid Israel’s brutalization of
> Gaza that Palestinians are “seeking to exploit the sense of morality
> that Israel has” by using children as human shields because they lack
> “care for loss of life of women and children, innocent civilians[5].”
> She did sponsor pro-Israel[6] legislation[7] in the government of the
> Zionist colony’s patron (to the tune of billions in economic aid and
> weapons). She did accept an award[8] from Sheldon Adelson’s errand boy
> Rabbi Boteach.  She did support[9] RIMPAC[10], the ecologically
> destructive rim of the Pacific military exercises, which recently added
> Israel[11] to the lineup.  All of these things happened within the past
> five years.
> 
> A few passable comments don’t make up for sending Israel the weapons it
> uses to maim and murder Palestinian civilians.  She has a long way to 
> go on that count, if absolution is possible in the first place.
> 
> Gabbard hasn’t even started the journey.  What, concretely, has she done
> to support Palestinian liberation?  In no context but US electoralism do
> we consider sporadic criticism of Netanyahu adequate, or verbal
> commitment to a two-state solution progressive.  We hold athletes and
> musicians to a higher standard.  Gabbard’s presidential goals don’t 
> justify caution; they illuminate the structural limits of her ambition.
> 
> The plain fact is that Gabbard has acted on her sympathy for Israel.
> She hasn’t lifted a finger to help Palestinians:  no organizing in 
> pro-Palestine spaces, no support for right of return, no mention of 
> ethnic cleansing, no empathy for refugee camps, no recognition of 1948 
> and its aftermath.  She hasn’t even disavowed her prior support for 
> Israel.
> 
> When asked about Israel’s human rights record in a series of questions 
> curated by the New York Times, Gabbard, visibly nervous, stammered 
> through a half-sentence about “some challenges with Israel” before going
> silent[12].  The interviewer prodded her to elaborate; Gabbard added a 
> few keywords that almost managed to comprise a platitude.  It wasn’t the
> performance of somebody inclined to courage.
> 
> Here’s Gabbard speaking about Saudi Arabia[13]:  “Saudi Arabia continues
> to spend billions of dollars funding the spread of the Wahhabi Salafist
> ideology that fuels groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda and other jihadist 
> groups around the world.  The US must stop arming Saudi Arabia, stop 
> fueling this fire and hold Saudi Arabia accountable for their actions.” 
> In contrast, she never condemns US funding of Israel, never suggests 
> cessation of arms sales to Israel, never demands accountability from 
> Israel, never deplores the global dimensions of Israeli policy, and 
> never implicates Zionism as Israel’s core ideology.
> 
> Finally, as Palestinians, do we not have an obligation to honor 
> similarly colonized communities, namely our Kanaka sisters and brothers
> who have patiently explained that from their vantage point Gabbard is 
> bad news?  Or the Kashmiris who dread what an emboldened Gabbard would 
> mean for their national aspirations?  By acting as if Gabbard’s apparent
> transition from devoted Zionist to halting peacenik is sufficient, we
> relinquish the internationalist practices that enliven decolonial
> possibilities.
[1] https://twitter.com/stevesalaita/status/1144713088693952512
[2] https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/996154499898077185
[3] https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1065289231977738240
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxXcUNct18Q
[5] https://twitter.com/SameeraKhan/status/1144729769453469697
[6] 
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-resolution/23/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22h.res.23%22%5D%7D&r=1
[7] 
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-resolution/729/cosponsors
[8] 
https://forward.com/news/israel/417510/tulsi-gabbard-zig-zags-on-israel-from-adelson-embrace-to-questions-on-gaza/
[9] 
https://www.thegardenisland.com/2018/07/28/hawaii-news/gabbard-campaigns-on-kauai/?fbclid=IwAR0Ft9feqQSu-kI7NUS_8vy3ZTQucmZFFuLIIlC39rd6Zqy5bvP41Gb4UyU
[10] 
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/4572860/hawaii-staff-delegates-visit-mcbh?fbclid=IwAR0pVu1u5kqPxFVbNrYNVsz5_RjyZ5GFp_ba2IFUsGPQt58SNYSJ2Ov1sdM
[11] 
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israel-to-join-largest-international-maritime-exercise-for-first-time-559033
[12] 
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/israel-human-rights-democratic-candidates.html
[13] 
https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Democratic-presidential-contender-Gabbard-supports-and-criticizes-Israel-577149



Elizabeth Warren on war, the "Green New Deal", and being her view of being 
"effective"

Danny Haiphong's article for Black Agenda Report 
https://www.blackagendareport.com/elizabeth-warren-wants-green-bombs-not-green-new-deal 
includes:

> Elizabeth Warren has been receiving more attention from the Democratic 
> Party establishment of late. Warren has attempted to make up for her 
> woeful confrontation with Trump around her proclaimed indigenous 
> identity by releasing a flurry of policy proposals on issues such as 
> maternal mortality and student loan forgiveness. While Elizabeth Warren 
> has voiced “strong support” for the Green New Deal, she recently
> tweeted a strange proposal that deviates from its principles. In
> mid-May, Warren announced that she would be introducing the Defense
> Climate Resiliency and Readiness Act to help the military become more
> “energy efficient.” As she stated on Twitter, “Climate change is real,
> it’s worsening by the day, and it’s undermining our military readiness.
> More and more, accomplishing the mission depends on our ability to
> continue operations in the face of floods, drought, wildfires,
> desertification, and extreme cold.”
> 
> Elizabeth Warren believes that strengthening the “effectiveness” of the 
> U.S. military is consistent with the Green New Deal. Her bill doesn’t 
> demand that the U.S. military be reduced in size or scale.Nor does it 
> mention that the U.S. military is the world’s largest polluter and user 
> of oil and fossil fuels. Instead of turning the Green New Deal into 
> concrete policy, Warren has placed her attention on renovating the one 
> thousand U.S. military bases that exist domestically and abroad. The 
> so-called “policy wonk” of the 2020 elections appears to be more 
> concerned with creating “green” bombs than a “green economy.”
> 
> The U.S. drops a bomb on another nation every twelve minutes. It is no 
> wonder that U.S. military, which serves as the armed body of the state 
> responsible for protecting the interests of Wall Street, fossil fuel 
> corporations, military contractors, and monopolies of all kinds, is 
> treated as a trophy by all sections of the U.S. political class. The 
> U.S. military embodies American exceptionalism claiming to spread 
> democracy and freedom to lands near and far. Holidays such as Memorial 
> Day and Veterans Day are designed to remind Americans of all races and 
> classes that the U.S. is exceptional because of its large military 
> footprint. Instead of seeing this footprint as bombs, sanctions, or 
> deadly raids, Democrat and Republican politicians alike believe that
> the U.S. military permanently signifies American greatness.
> 
> The U.S. military state has no real opponents in the 2020 election. For 
> the last four years, Bernie Sanders has been considered by millions as 
> the most left-wing politician in two-party duopoly. Since Sanders 
> entered the mainstream, Black Agenda Report has warned its readers that 
> the self-styled “democratic socialist” is an imperialist pig, which is 
> evidenced by his history of supporting the U.S. drone program, the 
> invasion of Afghanistan, and the U.S.-backed overthrow of Syrian 
> president Bashar Al-Assad, to name just a few instances. Still, Sanders 
> finds himself attacked by the Democrats for being too progressive on
> the issue of war and peace. Neocon and MSNBC darling William Kristol,
> leader of the #NeverSanders movement in the ruling class, has gone so
> far as to challenge Sanders to a debate on foreign policy for the sole
> purpose of shaming the Vermont Senator for voting against the invasion
> of Iraq, protesting U.S. support for the contras in Central America in
> the 1980s, and opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam.
> 
> Warren is decidedly to the right of Bernie Sanders on the issue of war 
> and peace. Warren supports U.S. sanctions against Venezuela. Sanctions 
> are estimated to have killed over 40,000 Venezuelans between the years 
> of 2017 to 2018 alone. When Trump agreed to negotiate directly with Kim 
> Jong-un in Singapore, Warren called for a more aggressive posture
> toward the DPRK. The Massachusetts Senator proclaimed that Israel
> possessed the “right to defend itself” during its invasion of Gaza in
> 2014. Israel’s Operation Protective Edge killed thousands of
> Palestinians, including hundreds of children. Warren prides herself in
> fighting for a kinder capitalism but has no problem with a nasty,
> murderous imperialism.
> 
> Warren’s proposal for a greener military only adds to her hawkish 
> record. In the proposal, she admits that hundreds of billions of
> dollars in contracts are given to private corporations such as Raytheon
> and Lockheed Martin to conduct war abroad. The admission is just a fact
> of life for Warren rather than a problem to be resolved. In fact,
> Warren wants to strengthen the U.S. military’s efficiency so it can
> continue to wreak havoc on the planet. She pretends not to know that
> strengthening the U.S. military is wholly incompatible with a Green New
> Deal, which would require a massive redistribution of resources from the
> military toward the needs of poor and working-class communities around
> the world.



South Asia: Potable water is quickly becoming scarce and portends a "water 
apocalypse" as Asia Times puts it.

https://www.firstpost.com/tech/science/indias-water-crisis-bengaluru-delhi-chennai-hyderabad-among-21-cities-to-run-out-of-groundwater-by-2020-4590221.html

> New Delhi: India is facing the worst water crisis in its history, and 21
> Indian cities will run out of groundwater by 2020, a new report from the
> NITI Aayog – a government think tank – said, highlighting the need for
> “urgent and improved” management of water resources.
> 
> With nearly 600 million Indians facing high-to-extreme water stress –
> where more than 40 percent of the annually available surface water is
> used every year – and about 200,000 people dying every year due to
> inadequate access to safe water, the situation is likely to worsen as
> the demand for water will exceed the supply by 2050, said the ‘Composite
> Water Management Index’ (CWMI) report , released on 14 June.
> 
> While Indian cities are grappling for water supply, the Aayog has called
> for “immediate action” as growing scarcity will also hit India’s food
> security.
> 
> States need to start managing their groundwater and their agriculture
> water, said the (CWMI) report – India’s first comprehensive collection
> of nationwide water data.


https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/article/india-staring-at-a-water-apocalypse/

> A combination of climate change, bad policies and political apathy is
> steadily pushing India into a catastrophic water crisis that threatens
> stability in South Asia.
> 
> Recent studies document that glaciers feeding the Indian subcontinent’s
> rivers will recede rapidly, while rapid ground water depletion poses an
> existential challenge to agriculture.
> 
> The southwest monsoons remain the biggest source of water in the
> subcontinent. The monsoons lead to a combination of water sources
> supporting human habitats that includes glaciers, surface irrigation and
> ground water. But redundancy and surplus have gone missing from this
> once abundant system. Taking their place are galloping shortages.
> 
> Even the best-case scenarios are “scary,” water researcher Aditi
> Mukherjee told Asia Times.
> 
> Mukherjee is one of the editors of a landmark study that was published
> earlier this year. It predicts a terrible loss of the glaciers that dot
> the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region. “The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment”
> says that even if urgent global action on climate change is able to
> limit global warning to 1.5 degrees centigrade, it will still lead to a
> loss of a third of the glaciers in the region by the year 2100.
> 
> If the temperatures rise by 2.7 degrees centigrade, then half the
> glaciers will be gone. And if the current rate of global warming
> continues and temperatures rise by 6 degrees centigrade, then two-thirds
> of the glaciers will melt away.
> 
> This has major implications for India, China, Pakistan, Nepal and
> Bangladesh. While the nearly 250 million who live in the Hindu
> Kush-Himalaya region will be most impacted from the outset, another 1.65
> billion people who depend on the glacier-fed rivers are primarily at
> risk.
> 
> “Even if we look at the best case scenario, which means limiting global
> warming by 1.5C, we are looking at a 36% loss of glaciers,” said
> Mukherjee, whose fellow  editors of this seminal study are Phillipus
> Wester, Arabinda Mishra and Arun Bhakta Shreshtha. The four work at the
> Integrated Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), based in
> Kathmandu, Nepal.
> 
> “We have also looked at the impact on water flows, and the Indus river
> will be the worst affected. The other two major rivers, the Ganga and
> the Brahmaputra, will have a limited impact since they are largely
> rain-fed,” she said. According to her, achieving a global target for
> reducing carbon emissions is nearly impossible. As a result, the loss of
> the glaciers is imminent and irreversible.
> 
> While the ICIMOD study used climate change data and thousands of
> reports, another study using spy satellite imagery confirms that the
> loss to the glaciers has already arrived at an alarming stage. The
> study, published in the journal Sciences Advance, says that the region
> is losing 8.3 billion tons of ice every year. The average annual loss of
> ice between 2000 and 2016 doubled due to climate change. “Himalayan
> glaciers supply meltwater to densely populated catchments in South
> Asia,” the study notes, painting a grim picture of the region’s ability
> to sustain habitats.



Injustice : "81% of 'suspects' flagged by Met's police facial recognition 
technology innocent, independent report says"

https://news.sky.com/story/met-polices-facial-recognition-tech-has-81-error-rate-independent-report-says-11755941

> Researchers found that the controversial system is 81% inaccurate -
> meaning that, in the vast majority of cases, it flagged up faces to
> police when they were not on a wanted list.
> 
> The force maintains its technology only makes a mistake in one in 1,000
> cases - but it uses a different measurement to arrive at this
> conclusion.
> 
> The report, exclusively revealed by Sky News and The Guardian, raises
> "significant concerns" about Scotland Yard's use of the technology, and
> calls for the facial recognition programme to be halted.
> 
> Citing a range of technical, operational and legal issues, the report
> concludes that it is "highly possible" the Met's usage of the system
> would be found unlawful if challenged in court.

[...]

> It is known they handle tens of billions of pounds each year,
> legitimately or otherwise, and that London covers around a fifth of the
> UK market.
> 
> Some of the laundered money is airlifted out to Dubai in the United Arab
> Emirates.

What's interesting about this case: HSBC was caught laundering money in 
2003, 2010, 2012, and 2015. HSBC was investigated by the US Senate (and 
cooperated with this investigation), but that apparently didn't stop a 
massive organized money laundering operation from continuing:

 From Wikipedia 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsbc#Money_laundering_(2003,_2010,_2012_and_2015)
> The identified problems included a once massive backlog of over 17,000 
> alerts identifying suspicious activity, failure to file timely 
> suspicious activity reports with U.S. law enforcement, failure to 
> conduct any due diligence to assess risks to HSBC affiliates before 
> opening correspondent accounts for them, a three-year failure by [HSBC's
> USA bank] from mid-2006 to mid-2009 to conduct any Anti-Money Laundering
> of $15 billion in bulk cash transactions from those same HSBC
> affiliates, failure to monitor $60 trillion in annual wire transfers by
> customers in countries rated lower risk by [HSBC's USA bank], and
> inadequate and unqualified Anti-Money Laundering staffing, resources, 
> and leadership.