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Amazon deforestation: Bolsonaro government accused of seeking to sow doubt over data

Source: The Guardian

Amazon deforestation: Bolsonaro government accused of seeking to sow doubt over data

Ministers look at setting up alternative monitoring scheme as existing system shows alarming rise in clearance rates

Jonathan Watts
@jonathanwatts
Thu 1 Aug 2019 02.59 BST Last modified on Thu 1 Aug 2019 18.30 BST

The Amazon forest is being burned and chopped down at the most alarming rate in recent memory, but the Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro is focused on reinterpreting the data rather than dealing with the culprits, monitoring groups have said.

At a clearance rate equivalent to a Manhattan island every day, deforestation in July was almost twice as fast as the worst month ever recorded by the current satellite monitoring system, which is managed by the government’s National Institute for Space Research.

Over the single month, the latest data shows destruction of more than 1,800 square kilometres, which is pushing the world’s biggest rainforest towards an irreversible tipping point and eroding a globally essential sink for carbon dioxide.

After an international outcry, the Brazilian government – which is closely aligned with the loggers, miners and farmers responsible for most of the forest loss – held a special meeting on Wednesday of ministers and senior officials from the environment ministry, the science and technology ministry, and agencies responsible for satellites and forest protection.

The primary topic, according to several sources, was a review of the data collection system, which has come under attack from Bolsonaro and other ministers who have been embarrassed by the evidence from their own government that Brazil is moving in the opposite direction from the deforestation control commitments it made as a signatory to the Paris climate treaty.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/01/amazon-deforestation-bolsonaro-government-accused-doubt-data

Doctors urge probe of child migrant deaths: 'Poor conditions' at border increase risk of spreading f

Source: Washington Post

Doctors urge probe of child migrant deaths: ‘Poor conditions’ at border increase risk of spreading flu

By Robert Moore August 1 at 7:17 AM

EL PASO — A group of doctors from Harvard and Johns Hopkins has urged Congress to investigate the deaths of six migrant children who were held in government custody after crossing the southern border in the past year, warning that “poor conditions” at U.S. facilities are increasing the risk of spreading deadly infectious diseases, especially the flu.

The doctors, who wrote to Congress on Thursday, said autopsy reports show that at least three of the children — ages 2, 6 and 16 — died in part as a result of having the flu, a far higher incidence of such deaths than across the general population. Child flu deaths are rare, the doctors said, and should be preventable.

“Poor conditions at the facilities may be amplifying the spread of influenza and other infectious diseases, increasing health risks to children,” according to the letter, submitted by Harvard pediatrics professor Jonathan Winickoff; Johns Hopkins public health professors Joshua Sharfstein and Paul Siegel and two of their master’s students; and San Francisco forensic pathologist Judy Melinek. “With so many lives at risk, these issues are worthy of congressional investigation. Another influenza season is around the corner, and there are other types of infectious diseases that pose a threat to detained populations. Timely action is critical.”

The letter, dated Thursday, alleges that the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services — which supervises longer-term custody of unaccompanied migrant minors — might not be following best practices in regard to screening, treatment, isolation and prevention of the flu.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/doctors-urge-probe-of-child-migrant-deaths-poor-conditions-at-border-increase-risk-of-spreading-flu/2019/08/01/0bf86b06-b445-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html

ACLU: U.S. has taken nearly 1,000 child migrants from their parents since judge ordered stop to bord

Source: Washington Post

ACLU: U.S. has taken nearly 1,000 child migrants from their parents since judge ordered stop to border separations

By Maria Sacchetti July 30 at 4:03 PM

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union told a federal judge Tuesday that the Trump administration has taken nearly 1,000 migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border since the judge ordered the United States government to curtail the practice more than a year ago.

In a lengthy court filing in U.S. District Court in San Diego, lawyers wrote that one migrant lost his daughter because a U.S. Border Patrol agent claimed that he had failed to change the girl’s diaper. Another migrant lost his child because of a conviction on a charge of malicious destruction of property with alleged damage of $5. One father, who lawyers say has a speech impediment, was separated from his 4-year-old son because he could not clearly answer Customs and Border Protection agents’ questions.

Acting Homeland Security secretary Kevin McAleenan has said that family separations remain “extraordinarily rare” and happen only when the adults pose a risk to the child because of their criminal record, a communicable disease, abuse or neglect. Of tens of thousands of children taken into custody at the border, 911 children were separated since the June 26, 2018, court order as of June 29, according to the ACLU, which cited statistics the organization received from the government as part of ongoing legal proceedings.

While the judge recognized that parents and children might still be separated when a parent is found to pose a risk to their child, the ACLU and others say federal immigration and border agents are splitting up families for minor alleged offenses — including traffic violations — and urged the judge Tuesday to clarify when such separations should be allowed.

Approximately 20 percent of the new separations affected children under 5 years old, the ACLU said, compared with about 4 percent last year.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/aclu-us-has-taken-nearly-1000-child-migrants-from-their-parents-since-judge-ordered-stop-to-border-separations/2019/07/30/bde452d8-b2d5-11e9-8949-5f36ff92706e_story.html

Border Patrol detains adults with no end - until lawyers sue

Source: Associated Press

The Arctic's on fire and now it's going to be hit by a heat wave

Also: Europe’s heat wave is about to bake the Arctic (Washington Post)

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Source: ThinkProgress

The Arctic’s on fire and now it’s going to be hit by a heat wave

Things aren't looking good.

E.A. CRUNDEN
JUL 27, 2019, 10:20 AM

Europe’s historic heat wave is heading north this weekend, to the relief of the continent, but its path will send it right towards the Arctic — where it could speed up the melting of sea ice and coincide with devastating wildfires.

Unprecedented wildfires are currently raging across the Arctic Circle, with some the size of 100,000 football fields — so big they can be seen from space. Arctic sea ice is moreover already running at a record low this year; scientists worry a heat wave will only further exacerbate the area’s problems.

One week after the United States saw record-shattering high temperatures, the same fate befell Europe. On Thursday, Paris saw temperatures of 108.7 degrees Fahrenheit (42.6 degrees Celsius), a record high, with Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands also facing their own record days. The sweltering weather is the result of a heat dome that has allowed hot air to come north from the Sahara Desert, all while blocking cooler air from reaching people.

July is typically a warm month in much of the northern hemisphere, but climate scientists have connected the uptick in dangerously hot temperatures to global warming, with future years set to be much worse.

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Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/arctic-fire-heat-wave-europe-climate-change-melting-bad-89735ea2c172/

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Source: Washington Post

Europe’s heat wave is about to bake the Arctic

Concerns grow regarding sea ice and Greenland’s ice sheet.

By Andrew Freedman July 26 at 12:12 PM

On Friday, more temperature records are falling in Europe as the historic heat wave that brought the hottest weather ever recorded in Paris, London, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany shifts northward. In a few days, the weather system responsible for the heat wave will stretch all the way across the top of the globe.

It’s what this system, characterized by a strong area of high pressure aloft — often referred to as a heat dome — will do to the Arctic that has some scientists increasingly concerned.

Norway, Sweden and Finland will experience unusually high temperatures through the weekend, as a potentially record strong area of high pressure in the mid-levels of the atmosphere sets up over the region, blocking any cold fronts or other storm systems from moving into the area, like a traffic light in the sky.

Temperatures in parts of Scandinavia will reach into the 90s or higher, on the heels of an intense heat wave in 2018 that led to an outbreak of damaging wildfires.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/07/26/europes-heat-wave-is-about-bake-arctic/

Hundreds of black deaths in Red Summer ignored century later

Source: Associated Press

WP Ed. Board: Trump attacks 'socialists' at home, but in Hong Kong he just sided with the Communists

Source: Washington Post

Trump attacks ‘socialists’ at home, but in Hong Kong he just sided with the Communists

By Editorial Board July 22 at 7:37 PM

CHINESE OFFICIALS and state media were in high dudgeon Monday about minor acts of vandalism following the latest mass demonstration in Hong Kong. Protesters who threw eggs at China’s liaison office and splashed ink on the state emblem “trample on the rule of law,” roared a front-page editorial in the People’s Daily.

Yet Beijing had little to say about the genuinely shocking incident that followed: an assault by an organized group of men on people returning from the demonstration. Journalists, an opposition legislator and bystanders were among at least 45 people savagely beaten with wooden canes and metal rods by thugs dressed in white — apparently to distinguish themselves from black-clad protesters. Police were slow to respond and took no action against the vigilantes.

The high-voltage rhetoric and ugly violence were signs that the regime of Xi Jinping is shedding restraints in its response to the mass movement that has emerged in Hong Kong this summer to defend the city’s autonomy and demand greater freedoms. It means that, more than ever, Hong Kong’s people need the support of established democracies.

Unfortunately, President Trump on Monday sided with the dictatorship. Asked to react to Sunday’s events, the president explicitly endorsed the Xi regime’s behavior. “I think President Xi has reacted very responsibly,” he told reporters. “He’s allowed [the protests] to go on for a long time.”

In essence, Mr. Trump all but offered Mr. Xi an invitation to crack down on a movement that is fighting for liberal values such as free speech and the rule of law. The protests began in reaction to a proposed extradition law that would have undermined Hong Kong’s independent courts and allowed China to pursue its enemies in the city. When the measure was shelved, the marches continued as opposition leaders called for an investigation of police violence.

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/hong-kong-needs-support-from-democracies-trump-sided-with-the-dictatorship/2019/07/22/bbbe2e5e-ac9d-11e9-8e77-03b30bc29f64_story.html

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This is far from the first time Trump has embraced a dictator's idea of order. He repeatedly call the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests a riot, not to mention his love affair with Kim Jong-un.

Census plaintiffs seek sanctions against Trump administration for trial 'fraud'

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Civil rights groups who successfully blocked the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 U.S. census are seeking sanctions against government officials, saying they brazenly hid the truth about the inquiry’s origins during trial.

In court papers filed on Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked New York federal Judge Jesse Furman to grant new discovery into the alleged misconduct, as well as monetary sanctions for the government’s “concerted campaign of delay and obfuscation” during trial last November.

The request follows President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that he would abandon plans to ask respondents to the 2020 census whether they are U.S. citizens, after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the question in June.

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They cited on Tuesday a laundry list of “false or misleading” testimonies that amounted to “fraud on the court,” perpetrated by U.S. Department of Commerce Deputy Chief of Staff Earl Comstock, Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore, Commerce attorney James Uthmeier, and U.S. Census Bureau official Christa Jones, among others.

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Politics
July 16, 2019 / 7:03 PM / Updated 3 hours ago
Nick Brown


Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-census-lawsuit/census-plaintiffs-seek-sanctions-against-trump-administration-for-trial-fraud-idUSKCN1UB2UB

SunTrust to stop financing companies that manage private prisons

Source: Reuters