‘Round-up Ready’ Crops Pushing Monarch Butterfly to ‘Verge of Extinction’

butterfly

‘The alarming decline of monarchs is driven in large part’ by Roundup Ready crops, Center for Food Safety finds’

Monsanto Crops Pushing Monarch Butterfly to ‘Verge of Extinction’
Deirdre Fulton – CommonDreams – 5 Feb.15

Herbicide-resistant genetically modified crops have brought the iconic monarch butterfly to the brink of extinction, according to a new report presented by the Center for Food Safety to Congress on Thursday.

The report, Monarchs in Peril (pdf), is the most comprehensive look yet at how Monsanto’s ‘Roundup Ready’ crops have helped decimate the monarch population, which has declined by 90 percent in the past 20 years.

“This report is a wake-up call. This iconic species is on the verge of extinction because of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crop system,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director at Center for Food Safety. “To let the monarch butterfly die out in order to allow Monsanto to sell its signature herbicide for a few more years is simply shameful.”

As Common Dreams has reported before, and the new study makes abundantly clear, a critical factor in the orange-and-white butterflies’ decline is the loss of host plants for larvae in their main breeding habitat, the Midwestern Corn Belt. Monarchs lay eggs exclusively on plants in the milkweed family, the only food their larvae will eat.

And the loss of milkweed can be blamed on the proliferation of glyphosate, one of the very few herbicides that kills the perennial plant and a primary ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup. While glyphosate was little used two decades ago, it has become by far the most heavily used herbicide in the U.S. thanks to glyphosate-resistant Roundup Ready corn and soybean crops. According to the Center for Food Safety, corn and soybean fields in the Corn Belt have lost 99 percent of their milkweed since 1999.

“The alarming decline of monarchs is driven in large part by the massive spraying of glyphosate herbicide on genetically engineered crops, which has virtually eliminated monarch habitat in the corn and soybean fields that dominates the Midwest landscape,” said Bill Freese, Center for Food Safety science policy analyst and co-author of the report. “Glyphosate is the monarch’s enemy number one.”

At the end of 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Endangered Species Act protection may be warranted for monarch butterflies. The agency is now conducting a one-year status review on monarchs.

While CFS said endangered species protection is “paramount,” the report lists numerous interim and additional policy recommendations, including that the “U.S. Department of Agriculture should reject applications to approve new herbicide-resistant crops, and EPA should deny registration of herbicides for use on them, unless or until appropriate restrictions are enacted to ameliorate their harms to milkweeds, monarchs and pollinators.”

ISIS – US-Saudi Chickens Come Home to Roost

freesyria

Freedom Rider: ISIS – A US-Saudi Chicken Come Home to Roost
Black Agenda Rport -Margaret Kimberley – 4 Feb.15

“The Saudis are natural allies because they don’t want democracy in their own country or anywhere else in the region.”

Saudi Arabia is clearly of great importance to the government of the United States. President Obama not only cut short his India trip to visit with newly installed king Salman, but brought along a who’s who of administration officials and congressional leaders for the ride. Secretary of State John Kerry, former secretaries Condoleezza Rice and James Baker, Vice President Joseph Biden, Senator John McCain, Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and CIA director John Brennan were all part on the entourage. All that fire power was devoted to a visit which lasted for just a few hours. The show of force was not coincidental.

The reaction of the corporate media to the death of the late Saudi king Abdullah tells us everything we need to know about the United States/Saudi axis of evil. It is one thing for the president to call Abdullah his friend and for the secretary of state to claim that the absolute monarch was a “man of wisdom and vision” but it is another for the media to parrot the same words. The New York Times called Abdullah a “shrewd force” and a “cautious reformer.” He didn’t reform the policies of beheading and flogging his citizens or creating instability in other countries. Those facts don’t count when our government makes it clear that he was a partner in America’s imperial designs.

It is easy to tell who is and isn’t an American ally just by reading the newspaper. Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela three times but the most positive description from his New York Times obituary referred to him as “a polarizing figure.” Unlike the Saudi royals, Chavez didn’t intervene in the affairs of other nations. In fact he used his nation’s oil wealth to aid neighboring countries. You wouldn’t know any of that from the media which get and obey marching orders that come straight from the White House.

Saudi Arabia gets the kid glove approach from the press because it works hand in hand with Washington. It is now more than thirty years since the Saudis joined the United States in backing jihadists in Afghanistan to drive out a left wing government. The blowback resulted in past allies like Osama bin Laden attacking the United States on September 11, 2001. Similarly, ISIS wouldn’t exist without collusion between the west and the gulf monarchs. Now ISIS makes clear that it wants to rid the region of the same kingdoms that brought it into existence. ISIS is a United States/Saudi chicken that inconveniently came home to roost.

The Saudis backed jihadists in Libya to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and in the process created an ongoing civil war and the destruction of a once prosperous country. They did the same in the as yet unsuccessful effort to dispatch Bashar al-Assad in Syria and now nine million people are refugees. They committed those crimes in full accord and cooperation with the United States.

Saudi Arabia is able to create so much damage because it has the world’s largest oil reserves and decides what everyone else on the planet will pay for energy. It may produce a lot of oil or a little and thus determines whether prices are low or high. Recent Saudi and American machinations have brought prices down very precipitously and caused considerable damage to other oil producers such as Venezuela, Iran and Russia. Because these governments demand their rights as sovereign states they have been declared enemies. The two bad actor nations are willing to forego temporary profits if they think they can rid themselves of troublesome countries that won’t obey their dictates.

The Saudis and the American government are locked in a loveless marriage of convenience. The Americans have military and economic dominance and want to keep it. That means working against the aspirations of any nation that refuses to toe the line. The Saudis are natural allies because they don’t want democracy in their own country or anywhere else in the region. They have become useful in providing support to the jihadists du jour who do their bidding for a brief moment in time but eventually wind up being very ungrateful. ….more

Genocide continues – 150 years after Diné “long walk” US shame remains, Diné strength endures

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Young Navajos Stage 200-Mile Journey for Existence
31 Jan.15 – By Lyla Johnston -Truthout

At dawn on January 6, 2015, a group of young Diné (Navajo) women and their supporters gathered at sunrise near the fire department at the base of Dził Na’oodiłii (Huerfano Mountain). From there the group embarked on a 200-mile trek through eastern New Mexico—a tribute to the 150th anniversary of the tragic “Long Walk.” Throughout this journey they have been raising awareness about the historical and present day challenges faced by Diné people and inspiring hopeful solutions to address these issues.

Idle No More Communications volunteers have been in contact with some of the walkers and will feature images and reflections from their powerful walk in the next grassroots newsletter. Keep reading to learn more about the beginning of their journey.

Organizers are calling out for community support in the form of walking, hosting or helping to garner basic materials. This first journey will end at Tsoodził (Mount Taylor), their southern sacred mountain. Three more walks are scheduled for spring, summer and fall so that each of their four sacred mountains is visited. The walkers intend to cover more than 1,000 miles in 2015.

The commemorated event occurred in 1864 that Colonel Christopher “Kit” Carson – under the command of General James Carleton – enforced a merciless, scorched earth policy to bring Diné people into submission. During this time nearly 9,000 Diné and 500 Mescalero Apache men, women, children, and elderlies were marched at gunpoint for 300 miles to a small patch of arid land known as Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. Many perished along the way.

During their four-year internment at this reservation “experiment”—known in Diné as Hwééldi or “the place of suffering”—hundreds died due to starvation, illness and physical violence. In 1868, high costs of rations and soldier commissions caused the federal government to disband the experiment and release them back to Diné Tah, the Navajo homeland.

“We are walking to honor the resiliency of our ancestors who 150 years ago were forced to march hundreds of miles in the dead of winter on a genocidal death march,” says Dana Eldridge, one of several female organizers of the walk. “They sacrificed and suffered so much so that we could live within these four sacred mountains. So we’re walking to honor them.”

According to the organizers, the walk is not simply a re-enactment of The Long Walk, but their return to a traditional lifestyle.

“It’s something that people don’t do anymore. We have the convenience of vehicles. But walking an entire journey is something that’s revolutionary in a way,” says young organizer Nick Ashley of Gallup, New Mexico.

“Our ancestors walked so that we could be here on our homeland singing, dancing and praying the songs they did. But now everyone is chasing the American Dream and neglecting our homeland, our language and way of life,” says Kimberly Smith of St. Michaels, Arizona.

Several Diné elders, including Larry W. Emerson, think present day problems might be due to an abandonment of self: “One purpose of the walk might be for us to come back into ourselves via our traditional knowledge—into our homes, families, relations, communities and earth-sky knowing. Ké and k’é hwiindzin—to be conscious of our interdependent relationships based on compassion, love, and nurturing—are vital to our survival and we cannot come home to ourselves without these vital teachings. [We] offered several teachings [to the walkers] that might address the practice of coming home to ourselves, including some prayer songs.”

According to organizers, land-based prayer is an important part of their journey. “Everything we do is a prayer to return to our original selves,” says Laura Red Elk of Pueblo Pintado, New Mexico. “The mountains were our original naat’áanii [leaders] before IRA governments or the tribal council. Since our government is failing to protect us, we are returning to our original leadership by letting the mountains determine how we walk on the land.”

Organizers and their elders have chosen to name their movement as “Nihígaal Bee Iiná” or “Our Journey for Existence.” Due to the widespread presence of uranium, coal and gas extraction throughout Diné Tah, organizers feel that their environmental situation has reached a boiling point.

“One hundred and fifty years ago our ancestors stared their extinction in the face. And today, we young people are staring our extinction in the face. Our home will become an unlivable toxic wasteland if nothing is done,” Eldridge said.

According to the EPA, nearly 4 million tons of uranium have been extracted from Diné Tah since 1944. With over 500 abandoned uranium mines throughout the region, both homes and water sources are contaminated with high levels of radiation.

Additionally, over 20,000 tons of coal are strip-mined from Diné and Hopi lands every day by Peabody Coal Company alone. This coal feeds Navajo Generating Station, rated by the EPA as the highest emitter of toxic nitrous oxide in the country.

Organizers forecast that the next major threat is the onset of a boom in natural gas extraction through hydraulic fracturing—a process now banned in the state of New York.

Erin Konsmo of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network in Alberta, Canada, says that resource extraction is not only a threat to the environment: “Some of the highest rates of missing and murdered women are in the tar-sands extraction areas. This is related to worker’s camps and the lack of jurisdictional protection for women on tribal lands.” Organizers state that the heavy presence of extractive industries is having a similar effect on Diné women.

“We give life and we nurture life just like the land does. Our traditional leadership structure is matrilineal because we are the spinal chord of society, the first teachers of the children. We are journeying back to our original selves including our responsibility as women to protect the land and take care of it,” says Red Elk.

“It’s all the more reason for this walk to be led by majority women. As traditional caretakers of the land, their physical presence is in and of itself a resistance to resource extraction,” comments Konsmo.

Weekly paychecks for Diné miners and generator operators are a constant reminder of their economic dependence on the fossil fuel industry. Walkers hope to raise awareness about self-sufficiency as an alternative to the extraction economy. They will disperse heirloom corn seeds to communities along the way and speak on the importance of food sovereignty and self-reliance.

“We are being told to invest in our own destruction in the name of the economy,” says Eldridge. “People say we need these jobs, but we don’t. To take care of ourselves it will take a tremendous amount of work, but it is a beautiful dream and it is so possible.”

Organizers are urging others to join them, especially Diné people, for all or part of the walk.

Smith encapsulates the spirit of the walk by saying, “We have to go back to where the wisdom is embedded. We have to reintroduce ourselves to those places. It is our inherent right and responsibility. The uplifting that our people need is there. We want to bring it back for our people, we want to honor our elders, our children and most importantly, we want to honor the earth.”

For more information on “Our Journey for Existence,” contact nihigaalbeeiina@gmail.com.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source. …more

United States, United Kingdom fully back Bahrain as an Apartheid Regime

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Bahrain is an apartheid regime: Rajab
23 Jan.15 – PressTV

Prominent Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab says the Manama regime has created an apartheid system in the Persian Gulf country, Press TV reports.

Rajab told Press TV in an interview on Thursday that the Bahraini government has built an apartheid system by separating Shias and Sunnis.

“Almost half of the country – Shias – can’t… live,” he said.

He also noted that the Manama regime is trying to present the conflict in Bahrain as a “Shia-Sunni” one, while, in fact, the revolution has “got nothing to do with religion.”

The problem is with the violation of rights in the country, Rajab said.

He also criticized the West for turning a blind eye to the rights violations in Bahrain.

He said the Western governments, specifically the UK, “speak two languages,” one about human rights and justice for their own people and one for other countries.

He added that the West considers Shias a “threat because Iran is not in line with the Western governments, [and] Hezbollah [is] fighting Israel.” …more

Uprising anniversary – Bahrain Police unleash murderous scourge against Protesters

mohammed-birdhsot-duraz

Bahrain: security forces shoot boy to the face
AlWefaq – 1 Feb.14

Bahrain’s claims of investigations into police human rights abuses are yet again smashed as a picture of a boy’s face, which was covered in blood, emerged last Friday.

Just days after the Interior Ministry’s announcement to open an investigation into a police shooting at a protester, security police opened fire again on protesters calling for the release of opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman in Duraz, west of the capital Manama. This time, the victim was 13 year old Mohammed who sustained severe wounds from buckshot in the face. Mohammed’s condition is worrying and he is still under medical observation to save his life.

Such crimes can only indicate that the security forces are following a systematic approach to target the safety and lives of the protesters.

Many teenagers and children were killed by security forces on streets, however, the injustice system in Bahrain has failed to bring perpetrators to justice. …source

Street Misery – Bahrain Security forces attempt murder of yet another protester

Bahrain security forces shoot directly at protester’s face
Hussain Radhi – BCHR – 21 Jan.15

A video has emerged showing Bahrain security forces appearing to shoot a protester in the face at close range, using birdshots. According to activists, the video was filmed Tuesday in the capital Manama’s suburb of Bilad al-Qadeem, which has seen daily protests ever since opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman was arrested in late December.

In the video, a man holding up a poster of Salman is standing on a street corner, just a few metres away from an armoured police vehicle. The vehicle is covered in splats of paint, which local residents have taken to throwing from their windows when these vehicles roll through their streets. For a while, nothing happens. But suddenly, a slot opens in the side of the vehicle, and the barrel of a gun emerges. Shots are fired directly at the protester.

He then starts to run and collapses in the street. He can be seen bleeding profusely from his face. Several protesters rush to carry him away, and the camera cuts off. In another scene – which France 24 has decided not to show here, as it is quite graphic – the same man is being treated at an unknown location. His face is riddled with what appear to be small birdshot wounds. Birdshots are commonly used by Bahraini security forces against protesters.

“The man was not taken to a hospital – protesters never are, because they know they would end up straight in jail”

Tensions have been very high in Bilad al-Qadeem since Salman’s arrest, because it is his hometown. Security forces have all sorts of tactics to quell protests, often using copious amounts of tear gas and shooting birdshots. This man was quite brave to go up to the vehicle like he did because, unfortunately, this is not the first time security forces have shot protesters at close range. Several other such incidents have been reported in the past.

The man was not taken to a hospital – protesters never are, because they know they would end up straight in jail. But our contacts in the neighbourhood say his wounds are being treated.

Salman, who is expected to stand trial at the end of the month, is a Shiite cleric accused of attempting to overthrow the government. He is also the head of the Al Wefaq movement, a Shiite political party that is highly critical of the country’s rulers. On Tuesday, another opposition activist, Nabeel Rajab, was sentenced to six months in prison for a tweet that allegedly insulted the army.

Bahrain is a Shiite-majority country (about 75 percent of the population), ruled by an exclusively Sunni monarchy and government. Since February 2011, members of the Shiite community who feel discriminated against have regularly gone into the streets in protest. Dozens of protesters have been killed since then. …source

Delays meet WIPP reopening as trail of DOE Inc. lies, deception, double-talk obfuscate facts

steampunkgog

Cold War Waste Disposal Stalled Around U.S. as WIPP Reopening Delayed by Months
ICTMN Staff – 19 Jan.15

As the Department of Energy challenges the fines levied against it by New Mexico, new revelations are coming to light on safety lapses and a delay in reopening the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), closed since a radiation leak compromised the nation’s only underground disposal facility for Cold War–related nuclear waste last February.

Originally scheduled to reopen in 2016, the site will be unable to take new shipments of waste until at least 2018, said the Energy Department and Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor running the federal repository, last week. Limited operations can resume in 2016, the Associated Press reported on January 15, but officials said the facility needs a new ventilation system and exhaust shaft before it can accept new material. In fact, officials have not even been able to close a storage bunker that was affected by the leak, AP said, even though the deadline was January 1.

“The initial closure of Panel 6 was supposed to be one of the quick and easy things to be done,” said nuclear-waste watchdog Don Hancock to AP after a meeting in Carlsbad to discuss the cleanup efforts from the accident, in which a waste drum from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) that was stored underground ruptured and leaked, contaminating 22 workers and closing the facility. “It’s not done. It’s not quick. It’s not easy. There are going to be risks to workers just to do that.”

The initial leak was followed by revelations that the WIPP and LANL had not followed their own safety precautions and rules, and then had covered up those very lapses. Along the way, kitty litter (organic versus inorganic) and a possible typo were highlighted as potential turning points in the chronicle of the leak.

He spoke after the Wednesday January 14 meeting between DOE officials, the contractor and others working on the cleanup.

“It’s more of a problem than they thought it would be because there’s a significant amount of contamination in the area,” said Hancock, who monitors WIPP for the Southwest Information and Research Center, a watchdog group, to the Santa Fe New Mexican. “They’re behind schedule on that, and they’re going to remain behind schedule.”

Now it has come to light that LANL had changed a procedure without first examining it for safety, the Albuquerque Journal reported on January 16. Moving the focus from whether organic or inorganic kitty litter should have been used in processing waste containing oxidizing nitrates (organic is one of the potential culprits in the explosion that caused the fire and subsequent leak), a December report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board indicates that nitrates should not have been part of the waste stream at all, with or without organic matter.

“Investigators believe the radiation leak at WIPP resulted when organic, wheat-based cat litter provided fuel for a chemical reaction with oxidizing nitrate salts that were part of the waste stream packaged at Los Alamos. The nitrates were left over from a process used to extract plutonium,” the Albuquerque Journal reported. “But the new disclosure is the first suggestion that oxidizing nitrates—even without the addition of organic material—should have been a cause for concern as waste was packaged for WIPP.”

On December 6 the New Mexico Environment Department fined LANL and the WIPP $54 million for the various breaches, with indications that more could follow, in the biggest civil penalty ever levied by state authorities against the federal government.

A month later, on January 8, the DOE filed a legal response challenging the fines, the Albuquerque Journal reported. The New Mexico Environment Department stood its ground on the fines—$36.6 million against Los Alamos and copy7.7 million against WIPP.

The DOE disputes some of the state’s findings and said the fines were excessive, according to the newspaper. New Mexico’s environmental department said its conclusions were based on the DOE’s own data and that “we will not agree to back down on any of the problematic issues we identified in the compliance orders,” the Albuquerque Journal said. …more

Idaho added to short list of Spent Nuke Fuel Sites

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Former Idaho governors blast Otter’s nuclear waste deal
Karen Zatkulak – KTVB – 15 Jan.15

BOISE — Two former Idaho governors are furious and say their work keeping nuclear waste out of Idaho could be erased by a recent deal backed by Gov. Butch Otter.

Cecil Andrus and Phil Batt were so upset over the recent deal with the Department of Energy that they held a press conference Thursday morning.

They say the deal goes against an agreement made back in 1995, concerning spent nuclear waste at the Idaho National Laboratory.

“It’s a travesty as to what has taken place under their watch,” said Andrus.

Back in 1995, the spent nuclear fuel coming in to the Idaho National Laboratory was huge concern for many and a highly debated issue that crossed party lines.

It was that year that former Gov. Cecil Andrus’ work to keep the waste out came together in an agreement drafted by then Gov. Phil Batt, and passed by voters.

The one-of-a-kind deal between Idaho and several federal agencies said commercial nuclear waste could not be shipped into the Idaho National Laboratory.

“That agreement was designed specifically to keep nuclear waste from coming in to Idaho, they want to bring more in, it’s a total revocation of what we were trying to do in this agreement,” said Andrus.

Batt and Andrus were emotional about the letter, sent last week from Gov. Otter and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden to the Department of Energy. It expressed support for a new research project that would bring two shipments of spent fuel rods into Idaho.

“It’s going to be that they’ve created a Yucca Mountain in Idaho. That the two of them have done to this state what every other state has opposed and what we have opposed to this date,” said Batt. …more

Unsafe above, unsafe below WIPP engineers have broke-down ventilation system

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WIPP ventilation system is unsafe, needs improvements
By Sarah Matott – 7 Jan.15 – Carlsbad Argus

CARLSBAD>> Two reports about inadequate safety conditions at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant criticized the facilities contractor for insufficient information in the plans it created to control the decisions that are made during an emergency.

Both reports were conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments starting in June and focused on WIPP’s recovery plan for operating diesel equipment with restricted airflows, and on the deficiencies found in the facility’s safety maintenance assessments.

The contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership, has already started to revise its plans to improve the ventilation system and further ensure the safety conditions of their workers.

Donovan Mager, communications manager at Nuclear Waste Partnership, said that improving the air filtration in the underground was already a part of the WIPP recovery plan, and that it is something that WIPP will continue to improve.

One report focused on the facilities use of diesel-powered equipment underground.

The report said that the current conditions at WIPP present a challenge for conducting safe operations with the underground diesel equipment due to the air filters currently being used, which restrict the total airflows in the underground working areas.

According to the DOE review, Nuclear Waste Partnership must resolve issues with underground ventilation to protect workers from the diesel-filled air.
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Diesel fuel powers equipment at WIPP, such as generators, forklifts and machinery used for roof-bolting.

“The most significant concern is that NWP does not have a sound engineering approach for determining the minimum ventilation rates that will ensure safe conditions for underground workers,” the Office of Enterprise Assessments report said.

The second report released by the Office of Enterprise Assessments Review found that WIPP did not follow safety rules the Department of Energy had set. Among the rules not followed in 2014 was a requirement that the facility undergo safety self- assessments every three years. …more