ICE Agents Are Losing Patience with Trump’s Chaotic Immigration Policy | The New Yorker
hmmmm
Category: The Americas,
White House approves military to use lethal force at border
White House approves military to use lethal force at border
Wonder what the status of this order is?
Canada plans to ban ‘harmful’ single-use plastics by 2021 – CNN
Canada will ban many single-use plastic items by 2021, including bags, straws, cutlery and stirring sticks.
…It comes after the European Parliament passed a similar ban on single-use plastic items in late March, including a target to recycle 90% of plastic beverage bottles by 2029.
…”Less than 10 per cent of plastic used in Canada [is sent to be] recycled. Without a change in course, Canadians will throw away an estimated $11 billion worth of plastic materials each year by 2030.”
…A report by the European Commission found that 80% of litter in the world’s oceans is plastic.
…Plastic has been found inside marine animals including [thing we eat seems like a reasonably conclusion but somehow is not listed in the animals the quote names.]
Canada plans to ban ‘harmful’ single-use plastics by 2021 – CNN
hmmm
Why some countries are shipping back plastic waste
Many wealthy countries send their recyclable waste overseas because it’s cheap, helps meet recycling targets and reduces domestic landfill.
For developing countries taking in the rubbish, it’s a valuable source of income.
But contaminated plastic and rubbish that cannot be recycled often gets mixed in.
…Only a tiny fraction of all plastics ever produced has been recycled.
Often, materials that can’t be recycled end up being burned illegally, dumped in landfills or waterways, creating risks to the environment and public health.
….Until January 2018, China imported most of the world’s plastic waste.
But due to concerns about contamination and pollution, it declared it would no longer buy recycled plastic scrap that was not 99.5% pure.
…Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey, India and Poland all took up the slack.
…But the rubbish arriving in these countries wasn’t sufficiently recyclable, and it has caused problems.
…”What the citizens of the UK believe they send for recycling is actually dumped in our country,” said Malaysian Minister Yeo Bee Yin.
…However, there is still an overwhelming demand for locations to send plastic and other waste to for recycling, and the challenge of how to dispose of it remains.
…In 2016, 235 million tonnes of plastic waste was generated globally.
On current trends, this could reach 417 million tonnes per year by 2030.
Why some countries are shipping back plastic waste – BBC News
hmmm
Native American Women Are Being Sold into the Sex Trade on Ships Along Lake Superior
Next month, Christine Stark—a student with the University of Minnesota-Duluth, who is completing her master’s degree in social work—will complete an examination of the sex trade in Minnesota, in which she compiles anecdotal, firsthand accounts of Native women, particularly from northern reservations, being trafficked across state, provincial, and international lines to be forced into servitude in the sex industry on both sides of the border.
…Through her independent research and work with the Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, Stark interviewed hundreds of Native women who have been through the trauma of the Lake Superior sex trade. The stories she’s compiled are evidence of an underground industry that’s thriving on the suffering of First Nations women, which is seemingly going unchecked and underreported.
…“The Duluth harbor is notorious among Native people as a site for the trafficking of Native women from northern reservations.” She continues, “in an ongoing project focused on the trafficking of Native women on ships in Duluth, it was found that the activity includes international transport of Native women and teens, including First Nations women and girls brought down from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to be sold on the ships… Native women, teen girls and boys, and even babies have been sold for sex on the ships.”
Native American Women Are Being Sold into the Sex Trade on Ships Along Lake Superior – VICE
Jeezus!
Pope says indigenous people must have final say about their land | Environment | The Guardian
In the 15th century papal bulls promoted and provided legal justification for the conquest and theft of indigenous peoples’ lands and resources worldwide – the consequences of which are still being felt today. The right to conquest in one such bull, the Romanus Pontifex, issued in the 1450s when Nicholas V was the Pope, was granted in perpetuity.
How times have changed. [Pope Francis] said publicly that indigenous peoples have the right to “prior and informed consent.” In other words, nothing should happen on – or impact – their land, territories and resources unless they agree to it.
…The UN’s Declaration – non-legally-binding – was adopted 10 years ago. Article 32 says “states shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.”
Pope says indigenous people must have final say about their land | Environment | The Guardian
hmmm
‘Free Willy’ bill bans dolphin and whale captivity in Canada
Exceptions to the measure includes animals being rescued or rehabilitated, or those cleared for scientific research.
The bill reads, “A person may move a live cetacean from its immediate vicinity when the cetacean is injured or in distress and is in need of assistance.”
‘Free Willy’ bill bans dolphin and whale captivity in Canada
hmmm
Contradictory evidence casts doubt on case against jailed Venezuela opposition official
The Sebin intelligence agency, controlled by embattled socialist President Nicolas Maduro, had detailed its evidence against Marrero in two reports that agents said they had compiled six days earlier, on March 15, the court records show. The reports accused Marrero of smuggling guns and explosives from Colombia and posting social media messages that prosecutors would later call treason.
But the reports contradict themselves in ways that suggest the social media evidence was cobbled together only after the raid — not six days before, as the agents and prosecutors attested in court records. And a judge granted the warrant to search for weapons based on the word of a single Sebin agent who never detailed any evidence of smuggling in the warrant application reviewed by Reuters.
One Sebin report includes a screen shot of a Google search on the terms “Roberto Marrero Instagram” that agents said was made at 8:37 a.m. on March 15 – but was in fact conducted at least six days later, as evidenced by the three news stories included in the search results that reported the agents’ March 21 raid of Marrero’s home.
…Marrero, 49, remains detained at the Sebin’s Caracas headquarters awaiting a preliminary hearing, his lawyer said. Prosecutors have charged him with treason, conspiracy, and concealing arms and explosives. A conviction could mean up to 30 years in prison.
…The Maduro government followed Marrero’s arrest by detaining more than a dozen other Guaidó supporters.
On May 8, the Sebin arrested Guaidó’s deputy in the National Assembly, Edgar Zambrano, by using a tow truck to drag him to a detention center while inside his vehicle. The Supreme Court has accused Zambrano and 13 other opposition lawmakers of crimes including treason and conspiracy, prompting most to flee abroad or take refuge in friendly foreign embassies in Caracas.
A lawyer for Zambrano denied he committed a crime and said his detention violates his parliamentary immunity.
…Three of the six Marrero posts cited by intelligence agents were reposts of Guaidó comments, including one from Feb. 16 urging soldiers to ignore Maduro’s orders to block aid shipments: “To every member of the Armed Forces, we say it’s in your hands to fight together with the people, who suffer the same hardship as you.”
Contradictory evidence casts doubt on case against jailed Venezuela opposition official
hmmm
A promise unfulfilled: water pipeline stops short for Sioux reservation
…Historically, a dearth of water and related infrastructure have contributed to persistent poverty on the reservations.
…“You wouldn’t believe how many people are using outhouses and hauling water here,” tribal member Frank Means told the Medill News Service in 1989. “It’s like living in another country.”
…Although the project can deliver up to 20m gallons of potable water daily to an estimated 52,000 people – about one-fourth of them white, and the rest Native American – it has been beset by overspending and incompletion. The unfinished parts happen to be at the tribal ends of the pipeline and have become another example of unfulfilled promises by the federal government to indigenous people.
Despite 25 years of construction that cost nearly a half-billion dollars, only about half of the water delivered by the Mni Wiconi system to the Pine Ridge Reservation is derived from the Missouri River. The rest comes from the reservation’s own wells, which were incorporated in the project to save money.
In reservation towns and villages, the new pipeline water is fed into old community water systems – some of which date to the 1960s, with pipes made of potentially hazardous asbestos-cement. The Mni Wiconi’s builders pledged but failed to replace those antiquated systems.
…Meanwhile, the 15 predominantly white communities and scores of politically connected white ranchers who are served by the Mni Wiconi pipeline have reaped its full benefits.
…The project’s engineers found that if they designed a Missouri River pipeline big enough to serve all the participants, the cost would blow past the authorized ceiling. So, they decided to obtain some of the project’s water from the High Plains Aquifer system, including the Ogallala Aquifer, which lies underneath parts of the Pine Ridge Reservation but does not extend into the West River/Lyman-Jones service area. The Oglala Sioux people were made to replace half of their share of Missouri River water with groundwater, essentially to benefit their white neighbors.
Despite the pitfalls, Missouri River water started flowing to some project participants in the early 2000s, though it did not reach Pine Ridge reservation until 2008.
The three tribes and the West River/Lyman-Jones system were each responsible for their own bidding and contracting. Bids came in higher on the reservations, where some contractors were loth to work because of the remoteness, the complicated tribal politics and contracts requiring preferential hiring of Native Americans.
…When the last sunset date arrived in 2013, several aspects of the project remained unfinished, and prospects for further congressional support were dim.
Congress had recently banned earmarking – the practice of inserting funds for local projects into broader appropriations bills – which had provided much of Mni Wiconi’s budget.
…The proposed legislation would have funded replacements of the community water systems on the reservations, as originally authorized by the original 1988 law, which stipulated that the water systems could be purchased from the tribes, tribal members, or other residents of Pine Ridge who owned them.
But the purchase of the systems was dismissed in the 1993 engineering report, which declared, “donation of these systems is expected”.
…When asked if he thinks Native Americans were used by whites to get a water pipeline approved by Congress, Pressler said, “I would say the answer is partially yes.”
A promise unfulfilled: water pipeline stops short for Sioux reservation | US news | The Guardian
sigh…
Mexico had planned on most actions in border deal before Trump tariff threat
Mexico had already promised to take many of the actions agreed to in Friday’s immigration deal with the US — months before President Donald Trump’s tariff threat, officials from both countries who are familiar with the negotiations.
…On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Trump in a statement of having “undermined America’s preeminent leadership role in the world by recklessly threatening to impose tariffs on our close friend and neighbor to the south.”
Congress, she said, will hold the White House “accountable for its failures to address the humanitarian situation at our southern border.”
hmmmm
Border Patrol Kicked, Punched Migrant Children, Threatened Some With Sexual Abuse, ACLU Alleges
Mitra Ebadolahi, ACLU Border Litigation Project staff attorney, said the allegations describe a law enforcement system “marked by brutality and lawlessness.” The organization also accused Border Protection officials of failing to “meaningfully investigate” the allegations detailed in the public records.
…“The misconduct demonstrated in these records is breathtaking, as is the government’s complete failure to hold officials who abuse their power accountable.”
Border Patrol Kicked, Punched Migrant Children, Threatened Some With Sexual Abuse, ACLU Alleges
This was existing culture before things were ramped up….
Extending ‘Zero Tolerance’ To People Who Help Migrants Along The Border : NPR
[Warren] believes the government is violating his right to religious freedom by criminalizing his spiritual belief that mandates he help people in distress.
“For the government, it’s kind of been an expansion of the interpretation of what it means to harbor,” he suggested.
…Thousands have died of dehydration and exposure in the Arizona borderlands.
“It is life or death here. And a decision not to give somebody food or or water could lead to that person dying,” Warren said.
*****
…Under current law, once a migrant steps onto U.S. soil, he or she can request asylum. [But….]
Extending ‘Zero Tolerance’ To People Who Help Migrants Along The Border : NPR
sigh…
Cree leader Poundmaker is getting an apology from Trudeau.
“The whole portrayal of what happened during the Northwest Resistance, or rebellion, was one in which the government painted First Nations as if they were supporters of Riel and the Métis,” Stonechild said. “The whole thing was just a total fabrication. And it’s been proven to be so.”
…The Cree weren’t the aggressors that day, Waiser said. “They were attacked and so they counter-attacked.” In fact, things would have been much worse for the Canadian had Poundmaker not intervened. “He was a peacemaker,” said Tootoosis. “He was a diplomat.”
…When the Cree arrived at Battleford, however, they found the town abandoned. The locals, ginned up by press reports of angry savages bent on slaughter, had all holed up in the fort, the Indian agent alongside them.
Poundmaker’s people, hungry from the journey and a lean winter, spent the day waiting around, hoping for a meeting. Eventually, Waiser said, they helped themselves to the food and stores in the abandoned homes.
…Otter had been ordered to Battleford to secure the fort and protect the locals. He arrived to find a local populace terrified and furious at what they viewed as a siege and near sacking of their town.
…Poundmaker, who was both victorious and merciful, was put on trial in a Canadian court, convicted and sentenced, along with two other chiefs, to three years in the Stony Mountain Penitentiary. It was a brutal place. All three men would die within months of their release.
What happened? Enough for the Cree to be owed an apology and not anything that is implied in that headline…
Justice Neil Gorsuch Again Provides Decisive Vote In Native American Rights Case
The court held that hunting rights for the Crow tribe under a 19th-century treaty did not expire when Wyoming became a state.
…Gorsuch, who was a judge in Colorado and dealt with his share of Native American rights cases before joining the Supreme Court, also provided the fifth vote in another American Indian treaty case dealing with the “Yakama Tribe and its right under an 1855 treaty to travel the public roads without being taxed on the goods brought to the reservation.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch Again Provides Decisive Vote In Native American Rights Case : NPR
nice
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