Category Archives: News

Five reasons why cutting NASA’s climate research would be a colossal mistake

By James Dyke, University of Southampton

Will President Trump really slash funding of NASA’s “politicised” climate change science?

It certainly has been politicised, but not by the scientists conducting it. Blame instead the fossil fuel industry-funded lobby groups and politicians that have for more than a generation tried using doubt, obfuscation or straightforward untruths to argue that humans are not in fact causing significant changes to the climate.

That is what must irk Trump’s team of sceptics. NASA’s organisations such as the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Jet Propulsion Laboratory have made seminal contributions to our understanding of how humans are changing the Earth’s climate. All funded by the US taxpayer.

De-funding NASA’s climate change science is effectively sticking your fingers in your ears and whistling Dixie. The Earth’s climate is indifferent to politics and will continue to respond to human emissions of greenhouse gases. All that would happen is US leadership in this area would end, with the risk that not just America but humanity would be the loser.

Specifically, here are five reasons why de-funding (aka wilfully destroying) NASA’s climate change research would be colossally stupid.

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A message from the people of Aleppo to the world

 

CNN reports: They stand tall and proud in front of a crumbling skyline, the exhaustion of their cause written on their faces.

Some wear jeans and T-shirts and sneakers. Others wear the uniforms of their trades: hospital scrubs, or a hard hat. The men hold Syrian opposition flags and a woman clutches a baby.

They are a coalition of activists — doctors, educators and civil servants — from Aleppo’s beleaguered rebel-held areas.

In a rare video message in English, they issue a desperate plea to the international community — specifically, the US-led coalition — to airdrop humanitarian aid. [Continue reading…]

 

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Trump picks Nikki Haley, who called him ‘everything a governor doesn’t want in a president,’ for UN ambassador

Joshua Keating writes: Donald Trump has picked South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Wednesday morning to be the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and she has accepted. The nomination will have to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate before Haley replaces Samantha Power, who has held the job since 2013, but easy confirmation seems likely.

After criticism for only naming white men, including a white nationalist, to senior positions, Trump Wednesday offered positions to an Indian American woman and, reportedly, to a black man, Ben Carson, for secretary of housing and urban development.

Haley is an odd choice. Other than participating in some trade delegations as governor, she has basically no foreign policy experience. But given that names like Newt Gingrich, John Bolton, and Rudy Giuliani have been floated for senior foreign policy jobs in the administration, things could be worse.

Along with ongoing crises — from Syria to the Central African Republic to South Sudan — Haley’s new portfolio will include the ongoing global refugee crisis, an issue on which she does have a record, though a mixed one. Haley earned the ire (and a lawsuit) of some anti-refugee lawmakers and activists by backing the efforts of faith groups to settle refugees in her state as part of President Obama’s resettlement plan, but also asked the State Department not to settle any Syrians in South Carolina after the November 2015 Paris terror attacks.

U.N. member states are waiting to see if Trump will follow through on his campaign pledge to “cancel” the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. It’s not clear if Haley believes that humans cause climate change, but she has criticized Environmental Protection Agency rules limiting carbon emissions. [Continue reading…]

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Would Ben Carson ‘cripple the presidency’ and wreck HUD?

Henry Grabar writes: It was only eight days ago that Americans could heave a sigh of relief over the humility of neurosurgeon and GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson, whose business manager told The Hill: “Dr. Carson feels he has no government experience, he’s never run a federal agency. The last thing he would want to do was take a position that could cripple the presidency.”

Times change, people change. On Tuesday, it was reported that Donald Trump had offered Carson the job as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. On Wednesday, Carson hinted in a tweet that he had accepted the nomination.

Speaking with Neil Cavuto on Tuesday, Carson could not feign to be prepared. “What do you know about doing this?” Cavuto asked Carson on Fox News.

His response: He grew up in a city, spent some time in a city, and worked in one. “I know that I grew up in the inner city and spent a lot of time there and dealt with a lot of patients there,” Carson responded. “We cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities.” He alluded to “corruption, graft, and shell games,” and concluded that “we need to start operating things in an effective and efficient way.” [Continue reading…]

Reuters now reports: President-elect Donald Trump has not extended an offer to retired neurosurgeon and former presidential rival Ben Carson to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a Carson spokesman said on Wednesday, disputing a report by the Wall Street Journal.

“Trump did not make an offer,” Carson spokesman Armstrong Williams told Reuters. “He asked him to consider HUD. Nothing has been offered and no decision has been made.” [Continue reading…]

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Trump to scrap NASA climate research in crackdown on ‘politicized science’

The Guardian reports: Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said.

Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century.

This would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Nasa’s network of satellites provide a wealth of information on climate change, with the Earth science division’s budget set to grow to $2bn next year. By comparison, space exploration has been scaled back somewhat, with a proposed budget of $2.8bn in 2017.

Bob Walker, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said there was no need for Nasa to do what he has previously described as “politically correct environmental monitoring”. [Continue reading…]

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Donald Trump Jr. held talks on Syria with Russia supporters

The Wall Street Journal reports: Donald Trump’s eldest son, emerging as a potential envoy for the president-elect, held private discussions with diplomats, businessmen and politicians in Paris last month that focused in part on finding a way to cooperate with Russia to end the war in Syria, according to people who took part in the meetings.

Thirty people, including Donald Trump Jr., attended the Oct. 11 event at the Ritz Paris, which was hosted by a French think tank. The founder of the think tank, Fabien Baussart, and his wife, Randa Kassis, have worked closely with Russia to try to end the conflict.

Ms. Kassis, who was born in Syria, is a leader of a Syrian opposition group endorsed by the Kremlin. The group wants a political transition in Syria—but in cooperation with President Bashar al-Assad, Moscow’s close ally.

The disclosure of a meeting between the younger Mr. Trump and pro-Russia figures—even if not Russian government officials—poses new questions about contacts between the president-elect, his family and foreign powers. It is also likely to heighten focus on the elder Mr. Trump’s stated desire to cooperate with the Kremlin once in office. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: Syria’s army said Tuesday that it had formed a new volunteer corps to join its five-year war effort, an announcement that underscored the extent to which its once-sprawling armed forces have crumbled.

In a statement, the army encouraged men 18 and older to register for the newly minted Fifth Legion at recruitment centers across the country.

It said the volunteers would work alongside forces allied with the Syrian government, “eliminating terrorism” and returning “security and stability” to the country.

As Syria’s war grinds on, President Bashar al-Assad’s army is increasingly reliant on conscripts and even prisoners. It also receives heavy support from Russian and Iranian forces and Iran-backed Shiite militias, as well as powerful Syrian paramilitary groups. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: Almost 150 civilians have been killed in a week of intense violence in the besieged eastern half of Aleppo, activists said as violence continued to grip Syria’s former industrial capital.

The latest casualty figures cap two months of unprecedented violence in Syria’s largest city. More than 800 people have been killed since forces loyal to the regime of Bashar al-Assad announced a campaign to crush the opposition in the rebel-held eastern districts.

“This ferocious campaign is a war of extermination,” said a doctor in eastern Aleppo, who was wounded earlier this month in an airstrike. “Everything is a target, whether human or tree or rock. Everything is being exterminated with the collusion of the United Nations. They all see and hear, but they will not answer, and they cannot stop this war machine.”

He added: “We have nobody but God,.” [Continue reading…]

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Donald Trump raises prospect of keeping ties to his firms

The Wall Street Journal reports: Donald Trump indicated Tuesday he was unlikely to disentangle himself from his business empire as fully as he previously suggested, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest while president.

Mr. Trump and his representatives said during the campaign he would have nothing to do with his businesses if he became president, promising a “total and complete separation.”

But since the election, Mr. Trump has met with foreign business partners and involved daughter Ivanka Trump in such discussions, even though he has said his children will run his companies during the presidency as a way to separate their operations from the White House.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump told the New York Times that “the law’s totally on my side” and that “the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump’s chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon accepted $376,000 in pay over four years for working 30 hours a week at a tiny tax-exempt charity in Tallahassee while also serving as the hands-on executive chairman of Breitbart News Network.

During the same four-year period, the charity paid about $1.3 million in salaries to two other journalists who said they put in 40 hours a week there while also working for the politically conservative news outlet, according to publicly available documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

The salary payments are one part of a close relationship between the nonprofit Government Accountability Institute, a conservative investigative research organization, and for-profit Breitbart News. [Continue reading…]

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Turkey: Erdoğan rule could extend until 2029 under proposal

The Guardian reports: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been given a major boost in his quest to transform Turkey into a president-led republic, after nationalists in parliament signalled their support for a controversial proposal to amend the constitution and allow him to stay in office until 2029.

In a move that lays the groundwork for a possible historic national referendum in the spring, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the nationalist bloc, said on Tuesday the proposed amendments to grant more powers to Turkey’s presidency were reasonable.

Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) is likely to table a bill for a referendum on the constitution in the coming months, and nationalist support would now allow the motion to pass. According to details of the amendments leaked to media outlets in recent days, under the proposal Erdoğan would be able to continue in office until 2029. [Continue reading…]

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Experts urge Clinton campaign to challenge election results in three swing states based on evidence of hacking

New York magazine reports: Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump, New York has learned. The group, which includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, believes they’ve found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked. The group is so far not speaking on the record about their findings and is focused on lobbying the Clinton team in private.

Last Thursday, the activists held a conference call with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign general counsel Marc Elias to make their case, according to a source briefed on the call. The academics presented findings showing that in Wisconsin, Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots. Based on this statistical analysis, Clinton may have been denied as many as 30,000 votes; she lost Wisconsin by 27,000. While it’s important to note the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing to the campaign that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review — especially in light of the fact that the Obama White House has accused the Russian government of hacking the Democratic National Committee. [Continue reading…]

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Iraq after ISIS: At site of massacre, bridge-building replaces blood feud

Christian Science Monitor reports: Darkness descends upon the massacre memorial at the water’s edge, where gutted concrete buildings – the remains of a Saddam Hussein palace – are smeared with graffiti that evokes loss and calls for revenge.

The Tigris River flows wide and silent here, as it did on that June day in 2014 when it was stained with the blood and floating corpses of Iraqi Shiites, victims of the single most deadly event in Iraq since the US invasion of 2003.

Even by the high atrocity standards of the so-called Islamic State (IS), the slaughter of some 1,700 people in the Camp Speicher massacre reached a new level. It was designed, filmed, and broadcast both to shock and terrorize Iraqi security forces – which duly disintegrated as IS militants swept across northern Iraq that summer – and to hammer a permanent sectarian wedge between Sunnis and Shiites.

But instead of Tikrit being consumed by an escalating, vengeful blood feud, something very different has taken root here: Peace, for tens of thousands of Sunnis returning to their homes; and relative justice, for Shiite families from southern Iraq whose sons were killed by the jihadists. [Continue reading…]

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Syria conflict: Almost one million living under siege

BBC News reports: The number of people living under siege in Syria has doubled this year to almost one million, the UN says.

Emergency Relief Co-ordinator Stephen O’Brien said the figure had jumped from 486,700 to 974,080 in six months.

People were being “isolated, starved, bombed and denied medical attention and humanitarian assistance in order to force them to submit or flee,” he said.

Mr O’Brien noted that the “deliberate tactic of cruelty” was mostly employed by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

“Those maintaining the sieges know by now that this Council is apparently unable or unwilling to enforce its will or agree now on steps to stop them,” he told the UN Security Council. [Continue reading…]

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Michael Flynn in August: Islamism a ‘vicious cancer’ in body of all Muslims that ‘has to be excised’

CNN reports: Donald Trump’s pick to be national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, called Islamism a “vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people” that has to be “excised” during an August speech.

Flynn, who has called Islam as a whole a “cancer” in the past, made the comments during a speech to the Ahavath Torah Congregation in Stoughton, Massachusetts. Video of his speech is available on YouTube and was reviewed by CNN’s KFile.

“We are facing another ‘ism,’ just like we faced Nazism, and fascism, and imperialism and communism,” Flynn said. “This is Islamism, it is a vicious cancer inside the body of 1.7 billion people on this planet and it has to be excised.”

In the same speech, Flynn falsely claimed that Florida Democrats voted to impose Islamic shariah law at the state and local level. The claim, peddled by far-right blogs in 2014, was rated “pants on fire” by the independent fact-checking organization PolitiFact, which explained that the bill in question was about prohibiting judges from using foreign law in family law cases if the law conflicted with existing U.S. policy. Democrats voted against the bill, saying it was unnecessary and targeted Muslims in the state. [Continue reading…]

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Putin says Russia planning ‘countermeasures’ to NATO expansion

The Washington Post reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning that his forces could target NATO sites if his country feels threatened.

But it’s not so much the warning that’s important; it’s the timing.

“We are forced to take countermeasures — that is, to aim our missile systems at those facilities which we think pose a threat to us,” Putin said in an interview with American filmmaker Oliver Stone for a documentary broadcast Monday. “The situation is heating up.”

Putin’s harsh words for the Western alliance were broadcast on Russian television as ­President-elect Donald Trump, who has been critical of NATO, pulls together a team and calls for closer ties with the Kremlin. [Continue reading…]

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15,000 more public workers are fired in Turkey crackdown

The New York Times reports: The Turkish government on Tuesday expanded its crackdown on political opponents, dismissing an additional 15,000 civil servants from their jobs and shutting down 375 organizations, including nine more news outlets.

More than 100,000 public workers, including police officers, teachers, soldiers and others, had already been fired for what the authorities said were connections to a failed coup on July 15 or to terrorists.

The new wave of dismissals came on a morning when the European Parliament was scheduled to debate freezing accession talks for Turkey to join the European Union. It was one of several recent indicators that the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was abandoning hope of success in that process, which has dragged on for 11 years. [Continue reading…]

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Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard goes to Trump Tower to defend Assad

The Daily Beast reports: Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has been a rising star in progressive circles, which makes her meeting Monday with President-elect Donald Trump highly unusual, at least at first glance.

But the Hawaii congresswoman has also been a defender of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — stances that align with the incoming administration’s foreign policy.

Gabbard, a favorite of incoming White House senior counselor Steve Bannon, is the first congressional Democrat approached to have a face-to-face meeting with Trump—and the first Bernie Sanders supporter to do so as well. Sensing criticism from the left for taking a meeting with Trump, she put out a statement in which she justified her foreign policy meeting as necessary so that the left and right could find “common ground.”

But she also included pro-Assad apologia in the mix, arguing that the United States should not confront Russia because it could lead to conflict and indicating that the Assad regime should remain in place, calling any attempts to remove him as “illegal.” [Continue reading…]

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‘Hail Trump!’: White nationalists salute the president elect

The Atlantic reports: “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”

That’s how Richard B. Spencer saluted more than 200 attendees on Saturday, gathered at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., for the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, which describes itself as “an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.”

Spencer has popularized the term “alt-right” to describe the movement he leads. Spencer has said his dream is “a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans,” and has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing.”

For most of the day, a parade of speakers discussed their ideology in relatively anodyne terms, putting a presentable face on their agenda. But after dinner, when most journalists had already departed, Spencer rose and delivered a speech to his followers dripping with anti-Semitism, and leaving no doubt as to what he actually seeks. He referred to the mainstream media as “Lügenpresse,” a term he said he was borrowing from “the original German”; the Nazis used the word to attack their critics in the press.

“America was until this past generation a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity,” Spencer said. “It is our creation, it is our inheritance, and it belongs to us.”

The audience offered cheers, applause, and enthusiastic Nazi salutes. [Continue reading…]

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In Syria’s Aleppo, Shiite militias point to Iran’s unparalleled influence

The Washington Post reports: Syria’s government hopes a brutal siege will vanquish rebel holdouts in the city of Aleppo, a key battleground. But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops aren’t leading the charge.

That task has been taken up by thousands of Shiite militiamen from Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan who are loyal to Iran, a Shiite country and perhaps Assad’s most important ally.

For much of Syria’s civil war, these religiously motivated fighters have reinforced Syria’s badly weakened military. Now, they are playing an increasingly critical role in trying to seize opposition-held eastern Aleppo by coordinating their attacks with government forces and warplanes flown by Russia, another ally of Assad’s.

The government, backed by Russian aircraft, launched a major offensive across northern Syria last week that has brought further devastation to eastern Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the war.

The militias appear to be forming a sophisticated ground coalition that has further bolstered Iran’s influence in Syria, alarming even officials in Assad’s government, said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“They are building a force on the ground that, long after the war, will stay there and wield a strong military and ideological influence over Syria for Iran,” he said. “And there is not much Assad can do to curb the rising influence of these groups, even though Syrian officials are clearly concerned about this, because the militiamen are literally preventing the overthrow of his government.” [Continue reading…]

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Aleppo bombs leave quarter million ‘living in hell’ and without hospital care

The New York Times reports: The remaining hospitals on the rebel-held side of Aleppo, Syria, have been badly damaged and forced to stop providing care amid an intensifying bombardment, according to the World Health Organization.

Bombs launched by the Syrian government over the past three days seriously damaged two general hospitals that were providing trauma care in the war zone and hit the only children’s hospital, according to doctors, nurses and residents.

The destruction left more than a quarter-million people in eastern Aleppo without hospital care, the W.H.O. said. It is unclear if the hospitals will be able to reopen.

“Although some health services are still available through small clinics, residents no longer have access to trauma care, major surgeries, and other consultations for serious health conditions,” the health organization said in a statement issued Sunday. [Continue reading…]

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