The Evening Blues - 6-15-15

by joe shikspack for DFH writers group

Community

(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday, Jun. 15, 2015 Monday, Jun. 15, 2015 at 5:00:06pm PDT

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Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.

Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.

Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer Bertha "Chippie" Hill who frequently recorded with Louis Armstrong and Tampa Red. Enjoy!

^{Chippie Hill - Around The Clock Blues}

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
-- Edward L. Bernays

News and Opinion

When a Government Declares Memories Classified
“The government,” the Huffington Post’s Nick Baumann wrote on Twitter on Thursday, “ is giving former CIA detainees their memories back.”

Baumann was referring to a Huffington Post report that U.S. authorities are relaxing sweeping rules that prohibited prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay facility from publicly telling their stories of CIA detention and interrogation, since disclosing those experiences could reveal the agency’s secret sources and methods for combatting terrorism. The report included these jarring opening lines:

For years, Guantanamo Bay prisoners’ memories of their time in CIA custody have been considered classified state secrets. Abu Zubaydah's lawyers can’t talk publicly about how he lost his left eye. Lawyers for Mustafa al Hawsawi, who can now only sit on a pillow, can’t tell the press or the public about anal feedings that left him with a rectal prolapse. And until recently, Majid Khan's lawyers couldn’t bring up the time he was hung from a pole for two days, naked and hooded, while interrogators threw ice water on him.
But all that is changing, albeit gradually, following the release in December of a Senate Intelligence Committee report detailing extensive abuses in the CIA’s detention and interrogation program during the Bush administration. The revelations thrust many of the intelligence agency’s techniques into the open, prompting the government to rethink its classification rules for detainees remaining at Guantanamo.
“Under the new rules, the torture methods used in CIA prisons are no longer subject to classification, although any information that could reveal the locations where torture took place or the people who helped facilitate it remains secret,” the Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly and Jessica Schulberg reported on Thursday. Lawyers for detainees must still petition the government to declassify their clients’ memories on a case-by-case basis.

CIA torture appears to have broken spy agency rule on human experimentation
Watchdogs shocked at ‘disconnect’ between doctors who oversaw interrogation and guidelines that gave CIA director power over medical ethics

The Central Intelligence Agency had explicit guidelines for “human experimentation” before, during and after its post-9/11 torture of terrorism detainees, the Guardian has learned, which raise new questions about the limits on internal oversight over the agency’s in-house and contracted medical research.

Sections of a previously classified CIA document, made public by the Guardian on Monday, empower the agency’s director to “approve, modify, or disapprove all proposals pertaining to human subject research”. The leeway provides the director, who has never in the agency’s history been a medical doctor, with significant influence over limitations the US government sets to preserve safe, humane and ethical procedures on people.

CIA director George Tenet approved abusive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, designed by CIA contractor psychologists. He further instructed the agency’s health personnel to oversee the brutal interrogations – the beginning of years of controversy, still ongoing, about US torture as a violation of medical ethics.

But the revelation of the guidelines has prompted critics of CIA torture to question how the agency could have ever implemented what it calls “enhanced interrogation techniques” – despite apparently having rules against “research on human subjects” without their informed consent.

The agency confirmed to the Guardian that the document was still in effect during the lifespan of the controversial rendition, detention and interrogation program.

After reviewing the document, one watchdog said the timeline suggested the CIA manipulated basic definitions of human experimentation to ensure the torture program proceeded.

“Crime one was torture. The second crime was research without consent in order to say it wasn’t torture,” said Nathaniel Raymond, a former war-crimes investigator with Physicians for Human Rights and now a researcher with Harvard University’s Humanitarian Initiative.

World leaders accused of shameful failure over refugee crisis
Millions of refugees have been condemned to a life of misery in the worst displacement crisis since the second world war, a leading human rights organisation has said in a scathing report (pdf) that blames world leaders’ neglect for the deaths of thousands of civilians fleeing wars in the Middle East and Africa.

“We are witnessing the worst refugee crisis of our era, with millions of women, men and children struggling to survive amidst brutal wars, networks of people traffickers and governments who pursue selfish political interests instead of showing basic human compassion,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s secretary general, in a statement. ...

Almost 4 million people displaced from Syria have registered with the UN high commissioner for refugees. The burden has fallen almost entirely on the shoulders of neighbouring states, who host 95% of the refugees. In Lebanon, one in five people is a Syrian refugee, the equivalent per capita of the UK hosting nearly 13 million refugees. ...

The report concluded that the countries hosting Syrian refugees have received “almost no meaningful international support”, with the UN’s humanitarian appeal to cover the costs of caring for the refugees receiving less than a quarter of the necessary funds. In Turkey, border guards used water cannon over the weekend to push back a fresh influx of refugees fleeing the fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish militias near the long border with Syria.

Amnesty criticised the international community for similarly failing to respond to massive displacement crises in sub-Saharan Africa, where there are an estimated 3 million refugees, including hundreds of thousands who have fled conflicts in Nigeria, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Burundi in recent years.

Italy threatens EU with 'plan B that would hurt' if no solidarity in migrant crisis

Jabhat al-Nusra Is Just as Nasty as Isis
'_trackEvent','outbound-article',');">Last week fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, entered a village in Idlib province in the north-west of the country and shot dead at least 20 villagers from the Druze community. They had earlier forcibly converted hundreds of Druze to their fundamentalist variant of Sunni Islam

The incident happened in the Druze village of Qalb Lawzeh in the Jabal al-Summaq region, a place where al-Nusra fighters have dug up historic graves and destroyed shrines in recent months, according to the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It says Nusra first tried to confiscate the house of a Druze government official and shot one villager dead. Another villager then seized a fighter’s weapon and killed him. Nusra then sent reinforcements into the village and they opened fire.

It was just one more massacre in a land that has seen thousands of atrocities by government and rebels over the past four years. But what gives the Qalb Lawzeh killings peculiar significance is that they happened at a moment when Nusra, and the rebel coalition it leads, had inflicted a series of defeats on the Syrian army in the north, leading to speculation that the regime of President Bashar al-Assad might be starting to crumble under multiple pressures. It has recently lost Idlib province in the north, Palmyra in the east, and is on the retreat in the south.

A reason why Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, another hard-line jihadi group, were able to break the military stalemate is the greater support they are getting from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Since succeeding to the throne in January, Saudi King Salman, along with other Sunni leaders, has pursued a more aggressive policy in backing extreme jihadi rebels in Syria.

Alongside this military offensive is an effort by Nusra and its supporters to rebrand itself as a completely different and more moderate entity than Islamic State (Isis). This is not easy to do. Nusra was created by Isis in 2012 and split from it in 2013, since then the two movements have been fierce rivals who share the same fanatical beliefs and hatreds. The US regards both as terrorist organisations and periodically bombs Nusra, though not with the same intensity as it attacks Isis. The Saudis and the others are not looking for the US to end its hostility to Nusra, but they do want Washington to continue to turn a blind eye to support for it from America’s main Sunni allies.

Sudan president Omar al-Bashir leaves South Africa as court considers arrest
The Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, has flown out of South Africa in defiance of the country’s high court, which was considering whether to enforce an international warrant for his arrest.

The abrupt departure, announced by a Sudanese official, came amid urgent calls from the United Nations general secretary, Ban Ki-moon, the EU and the US for Bashir to be detained.

His flight is a severe setback to the authority of the international criminal court. The ICC has issued two warrants seeking the Sudanese leader’s arrest and accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed in the Darfur conflict. ...

Bashir had travelled to South Africa for a summit of African Union leaders that was chaired by Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, who has urged African leaders to pull out of the ICC.

African states accuse the court, which is based in The Hague, of only targeting political leaders on their continent and failing to bring those responsible for war crimes in the Middle East and elsewhere to justice.

Heh, NPR accidentally allows one of it's reporters (Ofeibea Quist-Arcton) to say aloud on the air that African leaders feel that George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Netanyahu are war criminals. Listen to it here:
Court In South Africa Detains Sudan's President On War Cimes

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Even if you lead a country, you are not immune from charges of crimes against humanity - at least so says the International Criminal Court. But in a case involving Sudan's president, the court's power is being tested. His name is Omar al-Bashir, and he's accused of leading a genocidal war in Darfur. Yesterday, Bashir appeared in legal trouble. Because of the international arrest warrant, a court was blocking him from leaving South Africa, where he was attending a summit of African leaders. Reports now suggest he has flown out of South Africa. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton is in Johannesburg and joins us on the line. ...

GREENE: Ofeibea, in just a few seconds we have left, I mean, if he did indeed fly out of a military base, presumably the South African government allowed that to happen, what does that say about the South African government's level of respect for the International Criminal Court and its work?

QUIST-ARCTON: That South Africa seems to have changed its mind. And it's not just South Africa. I have to tell you that the African Union - the leaders of the African Union have instructed member states not to cooperate with the ICC, which they say is anti-African, anti-poor, singling out African leaders. And why hasn't it gone after the likes of George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Netanyahu in Israel because they are war criminals, say many Africans.

US to Store Heavy Weapons in Poland, Baltic States
US officials say they are in talks with Poland and Lithuania, among other former Soviet bloc countries, on a plan to stash heavy weaponry, include US battle tanks and Bradley IFVs, in those countries for future use in the region.

The deals aren’t finalized, but the Pentagon says they plan to “pre-position significant equipment” along the Russian frontier, with at least a battalion’s worth of gear in Poland, and potentially Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary, with additional gear to be sent to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Russia says will retaliate if U.S. weapons stationed on its borders
A plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia's border would be the most aggressive U.S. act since the Cold War, and Moscow would retaliate by beefing up its own forces, a Russian defense official said on Monday.

The United States is offering to store military equipment on allies' territory in eastern Europe, a proposal aimed at reassuring governments worried that after the conflict in Ukraine, they could be the Kremlin's next target.

Poland and the Baltic states, where officials say privately they have been frustrated the NATO alliance has not taken more decisive steps to deter Russia, welcomed the decision by Washington to take the lead.

But others in the region were more cautious, fearing their countries could be caught in the middle of a new arms race between Russia and the United States.

U.S. House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine
Last February, when ethnic Russian rebels were closing in on the Ukrainian port of Mariupol, the New York Times rhapsodically described the heroes defending the city and indeed Western civilization – the courageous Azov battalion facing down barbarians at the gate. What the Times didn’t tell its readers was that these “heroes” were Nazis, some of them even wearing Swastikas and SS symbols.

The long Times article by Rick Lyman fit with the sorry performance of America’s “paper of record” as it has descended into outright propaganda – hiding the dark side of the post-coup regime in Kiev. But what makes Lyman’s sadly typical story noteworthy today is that the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has just voted unanimously to bar U.S. assistance going to the Azov battalion because of its Nazi ties.

When even the hawkish House of Representatives can’t stomach these Nazi storm troopers who have served as Kiev’s tip of the spear against the ethnic Russian population of eastern Ukraine, what does that say about the honesty and integrity of the New York Times when it finds these same Nazis so admirable?

And it wasn’t like the Times didn’t have space to mention the Nazi taint. The article provided much color and detail – quoting an Azov leader prominently – but just couldn’t find room to mention the inconvenient truth about how these Nazis had played a key role in the ongoing civil war on the U.S. side. The Times simply referred to Azov as a “volunteer unit.”

Yet, on June 10, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bipartisan amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act – from Reps. John Conyers Jr., D-Michigan, and Ted Yoho, R-Florida – that would block U.S. training of the Azov battalion and would prevent transfer of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to fighters in Iraq and Ukraine.

“I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions,” said Conyers on Thursday.

The Forgotten Costs of War in the Middle East
I’m sure that you’ve heard about the three bare-bones “staging outposts” or, in the lingo of the trade, “cooperative security locations” that the U.S. Marines have established in Senegal, Ghana, and Gabon. We’re talking about personnel from Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response-Africa, a unit at present garrisoned at Morón, Spain. It would, however, like to have some bases – though that’s not a word in use at U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), which oversees all such expansion – ready to receive them in a future in which anything might happen in an Africa exploding with new or expanding terror outfits.

Really? You haven’t noticed anything on the subject? Admittedly, the story wasn’t on the nightly news, nor did it make the front page of your local paper, or undoubtedly its inside pages either, but honestly it was right there in plain sight in Military Times! Of course, three largely unoccupied cooperative security locations in countries that aren’t exactly on the tip of the American tongue would be easy enough to miss under the best of circumstances, but what about the other eight “staging facilities” that AFRICOM now admits to having established across Africa. The command had previously denied that it had any “bases” on the continent other than the ever-expanding one it established in the tiny nation of Djibouti in the horn of Africa and into which it has already sunk three-quarters of a billion dollars with at least $1.2 billion in upgrades still to go. However, AFRICOM’S commander, General David Rodriguez, now proudly insists that the 11 bare-bones outposts will leave U.S. forces “within four hours of all the high-risk, high-threat [diplomatic] posts” on the continent.

Hmmm, that might be truly strange if anyone in this country (outside the Pentagon) paid the slightest attention to the issue of U.S. global garrisons. Of course they don’t. They never have, which should qualify as one of the great mysteries of American life and yet somehow doesn’t. U.S. bases abroad are just about never in the news. Few are the journalists who write stories about them, though they often spend time on them. Pundits rarely discuss them. Candidates don’t debate them. Editorialists don’t write about them. ... Almost no one, including a Congress generally eager to cut funds on just about anything, discusses the costs of preserving the hundreds and hundreds of bases of every size and shape that the Pentagon maintains globally in a fashion that is historically unprecedented. Back in 2012, TomDispatchregular David Vine estimated that those costs ran to about $170 billion a year, conservatively speaking, and since 9/11 had added up to a total of perhaps a couple of trillion dollars.

If you don’t get the way this country has garrisoned the planet, if you never notice its empire of bases, there is no way to grasp its imperial nature, which perhaps is the point.

University of Illinois Slammed with Censure Over Salaita Firing
In a decision that may have long-lasting repercussions for the university's reputation, a leading university group on Saturday votedto censure the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for firing Professor Steven Salaita after he made comments critical of Israel's attack on Gaza last summer.

The university rescindedSalaita's tenured faculty appointment at school's the American Indian studies program after he issued a series of Tweets condemning those who defended Israel's military actions against Palestinians in Gaza.

After its own internalinvestigation, at the annual meeting on Saturday, the American Association of University Professors elected to censure the institution on the grounds that the dismissal "violated Professor Salaita’s academic freedom and cast a pall of uncertainty over the degree to which academic freedom is understood and respected at UIUC."

Such a censure "informs the academic community that the administration of an institution has not adhered to generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure," the group explains.

Israel Insists Only 56% of Those Killed in Gaza War Were Civilians
Expecting a UN report in the next few days that will tell a similar story but in much less glowing terms, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has rushed the release of its own report on last summer’s Gaza War, defending it as a “moral war” by a “moral country with values.”

The report’s attempts to water down the casualty figures in their month-long war appears to have been ill-considered, however, with claims that 44% of the slain were combatantsputting the civilian figure at 56%, much lower than international estimates but not exactly a figure to be proud of.

Israeli Report Finds 2014 Gaza War "Lawful" and "Legitimate" Ahead of Critical U.N. Investigation

Netanyahu Calls UN Investigation of Alleged Gaza War Crimes a 'Waste of Time'
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed an upcoming report by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on alleged war crimes committed during last summer's war in Gaza, branding it "a baseless political attack aimed at sullying Israel."

Addressing his cabinet at a meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu derided the investigation, which will be published later this week. He called it a "waste of time," and said the UNHRC is a "hostile body" that is "not objective." ...

Investigations into alleged war crimes during the bloody conflict that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and 73 Israelis, mainly soldiers, have created a storm of controversy, with neither side accepting responsibility for any wrongdoing.

Reports by Amnesty International have accused both Hamas and Israel of attacks that killed civilians, while Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence has cited the accounts of more than 60 soldiers to accuse Israel of widespread abuses, including orders to "open fire everywhere."

Tamir Rice Report Finds No Hard Evidence Cop Gave Warning to Raise Hands Before Shooting
A lengthy investigative report on the fatal shooting of Tamir Rice found no hard evidence that the Cleveland police officer who pulled the trigger gave the 12-year-old boy a warning to raise his hands before firing.

The report, released by the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department this week, will likely lead to further questions about officer Timothy Loehmann's actions in the moments before Rice was shot while holding a toy airsoft pellet gun.

According to witness statements, it was unclear if Loehmann told Rice to raise his hands before firing. One witness said in the report that the she heard two gunshots before the warning was given. The witness reportedly "described hearing two gunshots 'Bang, Bang,' then hearing someone yell, 'Freeze… show me your hands!' then she heard a third and final 'Bang.'"

Cleveland police said previously that the officer warned Rice three times to raise his hands, and that he fired after Rice attempted to reach for his waistband where he had placed the pellet gun. Investigators said in the new report that it was unclear if Loehmann had given any instructions to Rice before exiting his car and firing twice.

The report estimated that Loehmann fired when he was between seven and four and a half feet away from Rice.

Denis Reyes' grieving family demands answers a month after death during NYPD encounter
On 14 May, Denis Reyes, who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had not been feeling well. That evening, he began behaving erratically, throwing furniture. His mother, Blanca Sierra, called 911 and asked for an ambulance. Police arrived first. One hour later, at a nearby hospital, Reyes was pronounced dead. ...

“I can’t believe this happened to us,” one woman, who identified herself only as a family friend, whispered to the woman next to her. “It’s like what happened in Boston.”

“Baltimore,” the other woman corrected her.

Family and neighbors who witnessed the arrival of police on 14 May say the officers removed Sierra from the home and pulled down the living room shade. Wilfredo Bracero, Reyes’ brother who was inside the apartment during the encounter, said he saw officers restrain Reyes, and handcuff him. Bracero also said he saw officers on top of his brother, who he said vomited several times.

In an incident report provided to the Guardian, police said Reyes went into cardiac arrest inside an ambulance. But the family believes he was already dead when he was carried out of the apartment. Reyes was pronounced dead at St Barnabas hospital in the Bronx. An autopsy report is pending.

What Do 800-Year-Old Magna Carta & Black Lives Matter Have in Common? A People’s Historian Explains

Podemos-Backed, Anti-Austerity Leftist Becomes Madrid's New Mayor
Manuela Carmena, a 71-year-old retired judge who ran on an anti-austerity, anti-corruption, anti-eviction platform, is set to become the next mayor of Spain's capital, Madrid, after her leftist Ahora Madrid protest party on Thursday agreed to an alliance with the Socialist party.

According to Reuters, "The victory of her left-wing alliance in the national capital is another blow to the [Popular Party] after its rout in municipal and regional elections last month when austerity-weary Spaniards abandoned the party in droves."

Greece, creditors dig in after debt talks founder
Greece and its creditors stuck to their positions on Monday after the collapse of talks aimed at preventing a default and possible euro exit, while Germany's EU commissioner said it was time to prepare for a "state of emergency".

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ignored pleas from European leaders to act fast. Instead he blamed creditors for the collapse of the cash-for-reform talks on Sunday, the biggest setback in long-running negotiations to secure more aid for Greece.

Germany and other major creditor countries demanded that the Athens government come to its senses and offer new proposals. ...

The European Commission said it would only resume mediation efforts if Greece put forward new proposals, while the Greek government spokesman said Athens would stick to its rejection of wage and pension cuts and higher taxes on basic goods. ...

Despite the deepening crisis, Sakellaridis said Tsipras was going ahead with a planned visit to Russia from Thursday, the day euro zone finance ministers hold a crucial meeting in Luxembourg to review the standoff with Greece. He is due to stay till Saturday, attend an economic forum in Saint Petersburg and meet President Vladimir Putin.

Hellraiser Preview

Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature from the Montana News: the speech of Mother Jones given in Helena at the celebration of Miners' Union Day.

Tune in at 2pm!

Boehner and Obama have four days to twist arms for TPP
Despite last minute pressure from President Obama this morning, Democratic lawmakers voted down Trade Adjustment Assistance, part of the package of bills necessary to advance Trade Promotion Authority, which authorizes the administration to move forward with the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other trade agreements.

After TAA failed, Republicans quickly brought up a stand-alone trade promotion authority bill. The measure passed by a two-vote margin. But observers note the vote was a test to see where members stand. For a stand-alone trade promotion bill to advance on its own, the Senate would have to take up the entire package again.

House Republican leaders have scheduled another vote for TAA on Tuesday. Speaker of the House John Boehner and Obama therefore have four days to persuade members of their parties to swallow their objections to TAA and TPA, respectively.

the horse race

As Democrats Walk Out on Obama’s TPP Deal, Where Does Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton Stand?

Dark Money Under Fire as Election 2016 Heats Up
Despite her own relationship with big-money donors, Clinton says she will work to undo Citizens United "if necessary"

While Democratic candidates are lining up to denounce the huge influence that dark money is having on politics in the U.S., a new report says that 2016 presidential candidates are relying on such secret contributions "like never before."

In a speech before thousands, likely watched by millions more, Hillary Clinton formally launchedher presidential bid on Saturday. During the address given on New York's Roosevelt Island, the Democratic frontrunner railed against the "endless flow of secret, endless money" in politics, saying that she would support a Constitutional amendment to undo the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United "if necessary."

For his part, hopeful Democratic nominee Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) has sworn off Super PACs and has introduced legislation to dismantle Citizens United.

Alternately, Clinton has come under fire for her long-time association with billionaire donors as well as for the campaign Super PACs backing her bid. Critics were skeptical that the candidate's "vague" nod towards a constitutional amendment would amount to much.

"Clinton appears to think rhetoric alone can mislead American voters justifiably fed up with shadowy super PAC spending," Kurt Walters, campaign manager with the money in politics reform group Rootstrikers, said in an email statement. "In fact, far from offering concrete plans for reform, Clinton has actively pried open more ways for big money to flow into the political system, like her unprecedented coordination with a super PAC, Correct the Record."

The Evening Greens

Coal crash: how pension funds face huge risk from climate change
The pension funds of millions of people across the world, including teachers, public sector workers, health staff and academics in the UK and US, are heavily exposed to the plummeting coal sector, a Guardian analysis has revealed.

It has also found that just a dozen people, including the owner of Chelsea FC, Roman Abramovich, own coal reserves equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of China, the world’s biggest polluter. The UN, which advocates a shift to clean energy, has more than $100m (£65m) invested in coal through its own pension fund. ...

“The coal sector is falling into a financial death spiral,” said Mark Campanale, founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, which has pioneered analysis of the financial risks of fossil fuels. “The members of university, healthcare and UN pension funds are smart and informed people; they will be shocked to discover just how far exposed their funds are to coal investment risk.”

Other pension funds with significant coal stakes include: APG ($1.7bn), which provides pensions for one in five families in the Netherlands; TIAA-CREF ($838), the US pensions giant which serves 5 million teachers and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB - $590m), which provide the country’s state pension for 18 million people.

Tiny tuna crabs wash up on California beaches by the thousands
Tiny tuna crabs have been washing up by the thousands on some Orange County beaches.

Experts say the 1- to 3-in long crabs, which normally live off Mexico’s Baja peninsula, are going farther north because of the warm water that has lingered off southern California for the past year.