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Tag: disaster
#Endorse This: John Oliver Rips DeSantis Over Disney -- And Explains Why

#Endorse This: John Oliver Rips DeSantis Over Disney -- And Explains Why

John Oliver has slammed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over his knee-jerk repeal of Walt Disney Company's special district and tax breaks over the “Don’t Say Gay” law.

“Yeah, it’s true: In the part of central Florida where Disney World is, the company technically functions as a self-contained government, providing essential services — except, crucially, a morgue,” Oliver joked, before noting that the new law repealing its district may violate the contract clause in the Florida constitution. The new Florida law also requires that the surrounding county assume the district’s debt, which is estimated to be upwards of $1 billion for Orange and Osceola counties where Disney World is located.

Previously, DeSantis accused Disney of going “woke” after denouncing “Don’t Say Gay.”

Watch The Entire Segment Below:

America Has Been Silent On A Human Rights Tragedy

America Has Been Silent On A Human Rights Tragedy

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.
By Jack Healey

In Myanmar today, the thugs have won. Any moral leadership we thought Aung San Suu Kyi possessed has been badly damaged. Her former supporters have made a vocal call for her to give back her Nobel Peace Prize. The word “genocide” is now used, with some justification, for the brutal treatment of the Rohingya people at the hands of the Burmese military. Expelling the Rohingya from Myanmar has been supported by nationalist, Buddhist monks who wield political power despite vows of compassion and renunciation and is further enabled by weak leadership in the National League.

The Rohingya fled to Bangladesh as fast as they could after they were raped or beaten or caught in their own houses set ablaze by Burmese soldiers. Presently and slowly, Myanmar and Bangladesh have worked out a plan for those who can prove their bona fides, offering a return to Myanmar to the displaced. It seems a false choice given so many villages have been razed and the Rohingya who do remain in Myanmar are being systematically rendered into second-class citizens, deprived of education, the right to vote and even basic government-issued identification documents.

The American response has been muted to say the least. The lack of words and actions from the White House and Ambassador Haley at the United Nations has been appalling. The absence of any official American censure of the violence in Myanmar may come as no surprise because the Rohingya are predominantly Muslim. Our sitting president here in the United States is not noted for his sympathies toward Muslims or, indeed, people of colors or faiths different from his own.

It is now a well-established matter of record that the Burmese army has inflicted great and systematic harm on every ethnic minority within the borders of Myanmar. Simply put, the nationalistic Burmese are deeply troubled by “others” who do not share their blood.

Into this mess, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest and subsequently elected with great hope, especially by those who worked long and hard for her. Feryal Gharahi and I visited her when she was under house arrest; later to be reunited in Los Angeles at an event we arranged to celebrate her release. Now, many of us who undertake human rights work take a dim view of her. Being “right” in the current situation is easy in light of all the press appropriately criticizing Aung San Suu Kyi for allowing this to happen and not taking a firm stand.

I have some doubts as to the use of the word genocide being used to describe the current situation in Myanmar. Often human rights groups, in order to raise finances (badly needed really), can throw the term out into the public discourse rather than actually investigating and uncovering the facts, but the latest reports issued by NGOs like Human Rights Watch are enough to terrify any reader.

My view is this: Aung San Suu Kyi could still be the heroine for this human rights disaster and the immense pain suffered by the Rohingya. Worry about pain inflicted on Islamic communities is not all that common in the United States. Aung San Suu Kyi knows that. The Burmese military know that. Trump proves it to date as the United States turns what seems to be a blind eye to the goings on in western Myanmar.

So how can Aung San Suu Kyi still be a heroine?

Those of us who worked for her return to normal life in Myanmar also fought for civilian rule. Ousting the military was the principal goal; her release was a part of a greater cause. Human rights groups needed her as a symbol. It worked. She won, and then turned around to say that she was not a human rights activist but a politician. I took that comment to heart because I felt it was a shift, an important shift. Things were going to get dirty in Myanmar and she knew it.

The Burmese majority is super-nationalistic, from the Buddhist monks to the military to the average person in the street. If Aung San Suu Kyi spoke out clearly and forcibly in support of the Rohingya, her military and her people, yes, her people, would turn on her in an instant. The Burmese military would take over and any semblance of representative democracy would vanish. That future is a dim one and to be avoided, if possible. Aung San Suu Kyi could be calculating her chances of survival daily. That survival would end if she listened to the voices in the Western media. There really is no other politician available to win the nation against the military. Aung San Suu Kyi might be the only voice of reason regarding the Rohingya in Myanmar, but she is facing a nation full of anger and hostility to all the minority peoples in Myanmar.

Given that situation, my advice from 5,000 miles away is that Aung San Suu Kyi should champion a long-term policy of issuing passports for all the people in Myanmar, including the Rohingya. Just repatriating those who fled to Bangladesh back does not really cure the ill of oppression and violence inflicted on that community. Yes, getting food, medical care and protection for the returning Rohingya are terribly needed, but it is a community that also should be conferred official recognition by the country in which they live. An international narrative must be started, and can be led in part by Aung San Suu Kyi, regarding full citizenship for all minorities within Myanmar. According to the UNHCR, there are between 12 to 15 million stateless people around the world – many displaced by internal strife. Aung San Suu Kyi could and should help lower that number by moving the Rohingya out of that category. The United States ought to stop all military support for the Burmese military and come to grips with helping a fledging democracy in Asia to remain one.

Jack Healey is the founder and director of Human Rights Action Center.


Heated Exchanges Over Claim Of A Link Between Global Warming And Terrorism

Heated Exchanges Over Claim Of A Link Between Global Warming And Terrorism

By Evan Halper, Tribune Washington Bureau (TNS)

As world leaders convene in Paris this week to confront the long-term threat of global warming, the fact that their talks are taking place in a city still recovering from a deadly terrorist attack has amped up a long-running debate about how much climate change contributes to extremist violence.

The question is playing prominently in the U.S. presidential race. The bitter disagreement it has spawned underscores the challenge climate activists face in selling their broader message to the public.

Activists consider climate change an existential crisis that demands immediate attention. But its link to any specific occurrence, whether an individual storm or an act of terrorism, is tough to pin down. That makes the activists’ case harder to sell to the public.

On the other side, conservative critics of climate activism have ridiculed suggestions that global warming is a prime security issue.

In Britain last week, Sky News aired an interview with Prince Charles in which he declared that a clear link existed between climate change and the emergence of the Islamic State.

“There is very good evidence indeed that one of the major reasons for this horror in Syria was a drought that lasted for five or six years,” he said.

“Heir brained,” the tabloid Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, harrumphed in a front-page editorial.

Similarly heated exchanges have marked the U.S. political scene. As a result, Tom Steyer, the California billionaire who has spent tens of millions of dollars on campaigns aimed at making climate change an election issue, chose his words carefully when the question of linkage came up during a recent meeting with reporters in Washington.

But he insisted the link exists.

“It isn’t us who are saying that climate matters for national security,” Steyer said. “It is the CIA … the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The national security apparatus believes that climate is a destabilizer and a creator of national security concern. Talk to any service. The services are all over this.”

Indeed, a week earlier, the CIA had made its most recent foray on the issue. The agency’s director, John Brennan, told a forum in Washington that extreme weather related to global warming is exacerbating food and water shortages that make populations vulnerable to extremism.

“Mankind’s relationship with the natural world is aggravating these problems and is a potential source of crisis itself,” he said. “Last year was the warmest on record, and this year is on track to be even warmer.”

That linkage, however, was considerably more cautious than the language used by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who said in a Democratic presidential debate the day after the Paris attacks that “climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism.”

Nonpartisan fact-checking groups dinged Sanders for overstating his case. They did not take issue when another candidate, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, declared that the “cascading effects” of global warming had created a humanitarian crisis in Syria that helped give rise to Islamic State.

America’s intelligence agencies and armed forces have been tracking the potential effects of climate change on national security for years. Such efforts have been stepped up lately, as President Barack Obama has increased his focus on the issue.

The risks that intelligence and military officials have identified range from instability caused by drought to the threat of naval bases being submerged by rising sea levels. The latest “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” maps out how climate change can exacerbate the spread of health-security risks such as the Ebola virus.

The report most often cited when climate activists seek to directly tie global warming to the rise of the Islamic State is one published this year by the National Academy of Sciences. It examined the conditions that existed in Syria in the run-up to the civil war there.

In the years leading up to the outbreak of fighting in the spring of 2011, a severe drought in the Mideast had forced the migration of 1.5 million people out of farming areas. That helped trigger civil unrest. The international team of scientists who produced the study, led by Colin Kelley, a climatologist from UC Santa Barbara, concluded global warming had exacerbated that drought.

“We conclude that human influences on the climate system are implicated in the current Syrian conflict,” the authors wrote. That’s the conclusion Prince Charles appears to have been referring to.

But in the backdrop of the debate are environmental groups growing increasingly frustrated with the low priority voters place on confronting climate change. The groups are searching for messages that might more readily stir voters to action.

“We have a mission,” Steyer said, “which is to prevent climate disaster.”

©2015 Tribune Co. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: A French police officer patrols in front of the entrance of the venue for the COP21 World Climate Summit at Le Bourget, near Paris, France, November 26, 2015. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

China Boat Disaster Death Toll Likely In Hundreds

China Boat Disaster Death Toll Likely In Hundreds

By Stuart Leavenworth, McClatchy Foreign Staff (TNS)

BEIJING — More than 400 Chinese tourists, many of them thought to be elderly, were still missing late Tuesday after a tour boat sank in the Yangtze River after being hit by a strong storm, possibly a tornado.

Thousands of rescuers worked all day to find survivors, including several reported to be trapped alive in the overturned boat. But by 7 p.m., only 14 to 18 people had been confirmed as safely rescued, with five confirmed dead, according to Hubei province officials and state media.

With a second night falling on the rescue site, the number of dead is certain to rise significantly in what could end up becoming China’s worst maritime disaster since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The boat, the 251-foot-long Eastern Star, was carrying 458 people when it went down — 406 Chinese passengers, five travel agency employees and 47 crew members, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Two of the rescued included the boat’s captain and chief engineer, who were taken into custody, according to CCTV, for reasons not immediately clear.
Cruising the Yangtze is a popular pastime for foreign and Chinese tourists, with many wanting to see China’s massive Three Gorges Dam and what is left of the gorges that were flooded when the dam was constructed.

The Eastern Star had started its trip Thursday from the eastern city of Nanjing and was traveling to the southwestern city of Chongqing. It sank at about 9:30 p.m. Monday near Jingzhou in Hubei province.

The boat’s captain and its chief engineer reportedly told authorities the ship had been hit by a tornado and had sunk quickly. At least one survivor confirmed that the boat had gone down fast.

“It capsized within a minute,” tour guide Zhang Zhui told China’s Xinhua news service from a hospital bed. Zhang said he survived by jumping through a window of the boat and holding onto debris in the water for several hours.

Government meteorologists confirmed there had been strong thunderstorms in the area, but could not immediately confirm a tornado had formed. Zhang Zuqiang, head of the emergency relief and public service office of China Meteorological Administration, said an expert team was heading to the accident site to evaluate reports of a tornado, according to a report in Caixin, an online Chinese magazine.

According to state media, there was no sign the tour boat was overloaded or had any record of trouble. China News Service reported the ship had been in service for nearly 20 years and could carry up to 534 people. It is one of five vessels operated by the state-owned Chongqing Wanzhou Dongfang Shipping Company.

As news of the sinking spread across China, relatives of those on board scrambled to learn of their loved ones. Chinese TV showed anguish scenes of tearful and exhausted relatives awaiting news in a Nanjing hotel.

Many in Shanghai gathered outside of the closed office of the Shanghai Xiehe Travel Agency, which had reportedly handled reservations for many on board. A sign on the office — which was posted on Twitter and Chinese social media — gave notice that the company’s president had traveled to the accident scene and urged people with questions to contact government authorities.

China News Service interviewed one woman, Cai Bin, who said her 67-year-old mother was on the boat but that she had been unable to find out anything from the travel agency or local officials. “We are very anxious and we still have slim hope in our heart. We need authorities’ response,” CNS reported Cai as saying.

Maritime disasters in Asia are not uncommon, and some of the biggest can have political ramifications. After the MW Sewol ferry sank last year in South Korea, killing 304 passengers, many of them young students, the country’s prime minister, Jong Hong-won, accepted responsibility and resigned.
On Tuesday morning, state media quickly reported that Chinese President Xi Jinping had called for “all-out efforts in rescue work.”

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang quickly arrived at the site and was photographed all day instructing rescue crews on operations. CCTV reported that Li specifically instructed crews to cut into the hull of the overturned boat to find survivors.

Despite such instructions, initial rescue work seemed to go slowly Tuesday, partly because of bad weather and also because of strong currents in the Yangtze. By the afternoon, People’s Daily had reported that three bodies — presumably from the shipwreck — had been found more than 30 miles downstream in Hunan province.

At the upstream Three Gorges Dam, operators held back water to assist in the rescue efforts.

Initial local media reports suggested that as many as 30 people had been successfully rescued, but those numbers were revised later in the day.

Cruising the Yangtze is a relatively inexpensive holiday. On Tuesday, the website of the Shanghai Xiexie travel agency advertised a 13-day cruise up the Yangtze for a basic price of 1,298 yuan, or about $209.

According to People’s Daily, half of those on board the Eastern Star were over 60 years old. One of the women rescued alive Tuesday was 65.
While thunderstorms and tornados are uncommon in northern China, they’ve been known to strike with deadly force in southern sections of the country.

In March 2013, at least 24 people died from a reported tornado and associated thunderstorm that dropped egg-sized hailstones in Guangdong and other provinces. The storm system overturned a ferry in the southeastern province of Fujian, killing at least 11 people, according to state media.

(c)2015 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Rescuers save a survivor from the overturned passenger ship in the Jianli section of the Yangtze River in central China’s Hubei Province on Tuesday, June 2, 2015. The ship, named Dongfangzhixing, or Eastern Star, sank at around 9:28 p.m. (1328 GMT) on Monday after being caught in a cyclone in the Jianli section of the Yangtze River. (Xiao Yijiu/Xinhua/Zuma Press/TNS)