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The Evening Blues Weekend Edition 07-12-15 Matt Schofield

by Johnny the Conqueroo for DFH writers group

Community

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

Sunday, Jul. 12, 2015 Sunday, Jul. 12, 2015 at 5:01:08pm PDT

Welcome! "The Evening Blues - Weekend Edition" is a casual community diary (published Saturday & Sunday, 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 is brought to you by guest VJ NCTim and features English blues guitarist and singer Matt Schofield. Enjoy!

Matt Schofield Trio - Uncle Junior

Note: We here at the Evening Blues Weekend Edition often step beyond the boundries of traditional blues music. Joe shikspack so adeptly covers the blues genre in his weekday series that we at the Weekend Edition would find most trad blues offerings we could serve up as being redundant. Therefore Joe, in magnanimous manner has allowed us to color outside of the lines and we appreciate and thank him for that. Almost all modern American music has it's roots in traditional blues music anyway, so ultimately we do not stray far from the mother language. As Muddy Waters sang: The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock and Roll, let us add to that list (jazz, country, bluegrass, ragtime, folk, gospel, soul, swing and rhythm and blues) and all subsets thereof. -- JtC

When we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up.
When we dig roots, we make little holes.
When we build houses, we make little holes.
When we burn grass for grasshoppers, we don’t ruin things.
We shake down acorns and pine nuts.
We don’t chop down the trees. We only use dead wood.
But the white people plow up the ground, pull down the trees, kill everything . . .
How can the spirit of the Earth like the white man?
Everywhere the white man has touched it, it is sore.
Wintu woman

News and Opinion

The Evening Blues
We dig up what the MSM buries.

Contributors:
enhydra lutris
NCTim
Funkygal

Greek crisis: surrender fiscal sovereignty in return for bailout, Merkel tells Tsipras
German and French leaders press Greek leader for guarantees over austerity measures in what an EU official describes as ‘extensive mental waterboarding’
European leaders have confronted the Greek government with a draconian package of austerity measures entailing a surrender of fiscal sovereignty as the price of avoiding financial collapse and being ejected from the single currency bloc.

A weekend of high tension that threatened to break Europe in two climaxed on Sunday night at a summit of eurozone leaders in Brussels where the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and President François Hollande of France presented Greece’s radical prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, with an ultimatum.

In what a senior EU official described as an “exercise in extensive mental waterboarding” to secure Greek acquiescence to talks on a third bailout in five years worth up to €86bn (£62bn), the two leaders pressed for absolute certainty from Tsipras that he would honour what was on offer.

Two days of high-stakes negotiations between the finance ministers of the currency bloc resulted in a four-page document that included controversial German elements leaked on Saturday. Those measures included Greece leaving the euro temporarily by taking a “time-out” from the currency bloc if it refuses terms for talks on the new bailout or, in the event of agreement, that Greece sets aside €50bn worth of assets as collateral for new loans and for eventual privatisation. Both passages, however, did not enjoy a consensus among eurozone leaders.

Germany Showing 'Lack of Solidarity' Over Greece: Stiglitz
'It is time for the U.S. to be generous with our friends in Greece'
Prominent economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz accused Germany on Sunday of displaying a "lack of solidarity" with debt-laden Greece that has badly undermined the vision of Europe.

"What has been demonstrated is a lack of solidarity by Germany. You cannot run a eurozone without a basic modicum of solidarity. It is really undermining the common sense of vision, the sense of common solidarity in Europe," the Columbia University professor and former World Bank chief economist told Agence France Presse.

"I think it's been a disaster. Clearly Germany has done a serious blow, undermining Europe," he said. "Asking even more from Greece would be unconscionable. If the ECB allows Greek banks to open up and they renegotiate whatever agreement, then wounds can heal. But if they succeed in using this as a trick to get Greece out, I think the damage is going to be very very deep."

Greece debt crisis: EU summit cancelled as talks continue
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
A summit of all European Union members planned for Sunday has been cancelled as "very difficult" talks over a third bailout deal for Greece continue.

Eurozone finance ministers resumed talks that began on Saturday afternoon.

Leaders of the Eurogroup countries are now gathering in Brussels. European Council president Donald Tusk said the meeting would "last until we conclude talks on Greece".

Without a deal, it is feared Greece could crash out of the euro.

Could euro survive temporary exit of Greece?
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Unsurprisingly there is tremendous nervousness among politicians and bankers in Athens about the failure of the Eurogroup to make announceable progress on a rescue deal for Greece - and also among influential investors in London.

Here are just a few of their concerns - focused in particular on the idea, put forward by the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, that there perhaps could and should be a temporary exit of Greece from the euro.

So the first rather chilling thing I've learned, from well-placed bankers, is there have been no conversations between the Bank of Greece, the government or regulators and Greece's commercial banks about the technicalities of leaving the euro and adopting a new currency.

This is astonishing - and some would say pretty close to criminal - given that on Wednesday night the president of the European Council, former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, was explicit that this weekend's negotiations were all about whether Greece would stay in the eurozone.

How Fascist Capitalism Functions: The Case of Greece
There is democratic capitalism, and there is fascist capitalism. What we have today is fascist capitalism; and the following will explain how it works, using as an example the case of Greece.

Mark Whitehouse at Bloomberg headlined on 27 June 2015, “If Greece Defaults, Europe’s Taxpayers Lose,” and presented his ‘news’ report, which simply assumed that, perhaps someday, Greece will be able to get out of debt without defaulting on it. Other than his unfounded assumption there (which assumption is even in his headline), his report was accurate. Here is what he reported that’s accurate:

He presented two graphs, the first of which shows Greece’s governmental debt to private investors (bondholders) as of, first, December 2009; and, then, five years later, December 2014. This graph shows that, in almost all countries, private investors either eliminated or steeply reduced their holdings of Greek government bonds during that 5-year period. (Overall, it was reduced by 83%; but, in countries such as France, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, and Belgium, it was reduced closer to 100% — all of it.) In other words: by the time of December 2009, word was out, amongst the aristocracy, that only suckers would want to buy it from them, so they needed suckers and took advantage of the system that the aristocracy had set up for governments to buy aristocrats’ bad bets — for governments to be suckers when private individuals won’t. Not all of it was sold directly to governments; much of it went instead indirectly, to agencies that the aristocracy has set up as basically transfer-agencies for passing junk to governments; in other words, as middlemen, to transfer unpayable debt-obligations to various governments’ taxpayers. Whitehouse presented no indication as to whom those investors sold that debt to, but almost all of it was sold, either directly or indirectly, to Western governments, via those middlemen-agencies, so that, when Greece will default (which it inevitably will), the taxpayers of those Western governments will suffer the losses. The aristocracy will already have wrung what they could out of it.

Who were these governments and middlemen-agencies? As of January 2015, they were: 62% Euro-member governments (including the European Financial Stability Facility); 10% International Monetyary Fund (IMF), and 8% European Central Bank; then, 17% still remained with private investors; and 3% was owned by “other.”

Bernie Sanders Introduces Bill To Provide Solar Energy To The Poor
Link Submitted by: NCTim

On July 7, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders introduced a bill that would provide many low-income families the means to obtain solar energy.

Senator Sander’s bill, titled “The Low Income Solar Act,” or LISA, seeks to establish a loan and grant program through the U.S. Department of Energy that would dedicate $200 million a year toward solar energy programs. Sander’s bill seeks to make solar energy obtainable for those who need it most in the United States.

The legislation would also decrease installation costs for home owners with sustainable roofing. It would provide loans to solar developers, encouraging them to connect low-income families without sustainable roofing to solar power, through the construction of community solar facilities.

In addition to requiring the Department of Energy to prioritize loans for women and minority owned businesses, Sander’s bill would set aside funds to develop solar arrays in Appalachia, one of the country’s most impoverished regions. Other funds would help establish solar arrays on tribal lands and in Alaskan native communities.

Bernie Sanders isn’t going away: What his surprising poll numbers really mean
The Vermont senator is riding a wave of popularity, but key challenges await after Iowa and New Hampshire
How long will the Bernie bubble last?

Right now, Bernie Sanders is drawing bigger crowds than any other presidential candidate. His economic populism is bringing in millions in contributions that will carry him into next year’s opening caucuses and primaries. In short, Bernie has been campaigning in a way that has served him well for years—as a blunt retail politician whose calls for economic fairness and a people-centered uprising have endeared him to working people across the political spectrum.

There are many surprising facets to Sanders’ appeal that are not widely known outside of Vermont that account for his campaign’s better-than-expected opening and likely staying power. But while some longtime Vermont Sanders watchers are not surprised by his success—they know his emphatic, intense, almost-explosive demeanor and his reputation as a resilient campaigner, they’re also acutely aware of the challenges he faces as the race transitions from its heady start-up phase to a very competitive contest.

“I think Bernie can do well,” said Eric Davis, Middlebury College political science professor specializing in Vermont politics. “I told someone, half-jokingly, if the presidential election were held in Vermont, Massachusetts, northern California and New York City, Bernie could win. But there are 46 other states that vote too… That’s Bernie’s challenge.”

Iran nuclear deal will be reached today, say inside sources
Speaking anonymously, two diplomats involved with the talks say that a provisional agreement will be announced on Monday.
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
VIENNA — Negotiators at the Iran nuclear talks are expected to reach a provisional agreement Sunday on a historic deal that would curb the country's atomic program in return for sanctions relief, diplomats told The Associated Press.

The two diplomats cautioned that final details of the pact were still being worked out Sunday afternoon and a formal agreement still awaits a review from the capitals of the seven nations at the talks. They said plans now are for the deal to be announced on Monday.

The diplomats, who are at the talks, demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiations publicly.

The agreement would cap nearly a decade of diplomacy, including the current round in Vienna that has run more than two weeks and blown through three deadlines.

War with Iran is the Only Alternative to An Iran P5+1 Nuclear Deal, US Congressman
Link Submitted by: NCTim
Washington, DC – Congress must “come to grips” with the reality that failing to seal an Iran nuclear deal would mean war, according to the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

As Secretary of State John Kerry announced that negotiations with Iran would continue past today’s deadline, Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY) put the prospect of diplomatic failure into stark context at a hearing in the House of Representatives.

“The alternative to a deal would surely mean some kind of military strikes on Iran’s nuclear plant,” said Engel, who has given the Obama administration room to negotiate but has also been skeptical of the negotiations and a strong supporter of Israel.

Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-NY) questions Secretary of State John Kerry during a hearing about the tentative deal for Iran to halt their nuclear weapons program and end sanctions against Iran on December 10, 2013. John Shinkle/POLITICO

Israel Proposes Law Allowing Execution of Palestinian Prisoners
Link Submitted by: NCTim
According to a report broadcast on the second Hebrew channel on Thursday, the proposed law raises many disagreements in the Israeli political arena.

The channel quoted Naftali Bennett, the leader of the Jewish Home Party, as saying that all the members of the parliamentary blocs would support the proposed law.

Islamist threat to Russia looms large at Central Asia security summit
The Kremlin is increasingly concerned about an Islamist uprising in one of the weak autocracies along its southern flank, most of which will be attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit today in Ufa, Russia.
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Moscow — For all Washington's intense focus on the self-declared Islamic State and other Islamist militants, the threat such groups pose is largely a distant one. The danger is real, but it is one where the risks are primarily to US interests and allies thousands of miles away, not the homeland itself.

But for Russia, just a few hundred miles from Islamist territory in Afghanistan, the danger really could emerge right next door.

The threat of Islamist takeover in one or more of the three weak, authoritarian post-Soviet states — Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan — that border Afghanistan is a long-standing fear in Moscow. And it will be a major topic of discussion as Russia hosts a summit of the Central Asia-oriented Shanghai Cooperation Organization [SCO] in the Urals city of Ufa today.

All members of the group, which is led by Russia and China, have an intense interest in stability in Central Asia. But efforts to forge a security component for the SCO have foundered on sharp differences among its six members.

Russia’s Putin scores points at Ufa BRICS summit
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be having more success hosting the seventh annual BRICS summit than he did hosting the Olympics.

Leaders of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are meeting this week in Ufa, Russia. Already, the group can count two successes, its largest initiatives to date.

It launched the BRICS New Development Bank, which has taken three years of negotiations to bring to fruition. With about $50 billion in starting capital, the bank is expected to start issuing debt to fund infrastructure projects next year. They also launched a foreign-exchange currency fund of $100 billion.

The two new endeavors are statements that the five largest emerging markets are both looking out for each other and, simultaneously, moving away from the western financing institutions of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Ukraine’s ultranationalist Right Sector in standoff with authorities LIVE UPDATES
Ukraine’s ultranationalist movement Right Sector has launched a nationwide mobilization and is withdrawing from the Donbass conflict zone following deadly clashes with police near the southwestern town of Mukachevo on Saturday.
Sunday, July 12
20:54 GMT:

Right Sector fighters, who were blockaded by security forces near the town of Mukachevo, have managed to escape, Vasily Guban, the governor of the Zakarpattia Region, said.

“The armed Right Sector members will be tracked down. At the moment, their whereabouts is unknown. They never gave up their weapons and didn’t contact the police,” Guban said, as cited by Ukraine’s 24 channel.

20:47 GMT:

Right Sector activists are holding rallies in 17 cities across Ukraine in support of the radicals blockaded by authorities after the shootout in Mukachevo, the organization’s website said.

“The protests have been announced in Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Zaporozhye, Ternopol, Mariupol, Kherson, Kramatorsk, Poltava and other cities of Ukraine,” the statement reads.

Hacking Team Emails Expose Proposed Death Squad Deal, Secret U.K. Sales Push and Much More
Link Submitted by: NCTim

Late Sunday, hackers dumped online a massive trove of emails and other documents obtained from the systems of Italian surveillance firm Hacking Team. The company’s controversial technology is sold to governments around the world, enabling them to infect smartphones and computers with malware to covertly record conversations and steal data.

For years, Hacking Team has been the subject of scrutiny from journalists and activists due to its suspected sales to despotic regimes. But the company has successfully managed to hide most of its dealings behind a wall of secrecy – until now.

For the last few days, I have been reading through the hacked files, which give remarkable insight into Hacking Team, its blasé attitude toward human rights concerns, and the extent of its spyware sales to government agencies on every continent. Adding to the work of my colleagues to analyze the 400 gigabyte trove of hacked data, here’s a selection of the notable details I have found so far:

How US can remain in Afghanistan without being seen as permanent occupier
The challenges of being an occupying force are different from those of strategic war-fighting, as a riot in Afghanistan shows.
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Washington — As a bomb aimed at a US military convoy ripped through a crowd in Kabul, Afghanistan, late last month, the American soldiers survived but civilians were wounded.

Afghans gathered en masse to help their fellow countrymen, but they turned their ire toward the US troops, one of whom fired into an empty, bombed-out car to disperse the crowd.

Rumors quickly spread, however, that the Americans had fired upon unarmed civilians. In the midst of chants of “death to Americans” and being pelted with rocks, one US soldier was stabbed.

In the aftermath of the outpouring of anger toward the Americans, a Pentagon report released last week concluded that the soldiers acted with “admirable restraint.”

Turkey inches closer to a grand coalition
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris

A month after the Turkish general election on June 7, which resulted in a “hung” parliament with no political party securing an absolute majority, the formation of a coalition government has run into difficulty. Many permutations and combinations have come into the consideration zone and duly exited for one reason or another.

Now comes a breath of fresh wind with the ruling Justice & Development Party (AKP) and the main regional party of the Kurdish population People’s Democratic Party (HDP) signaling that there could be a co-habitation involving them in a new coalition government.

The co-chair of the HDP, Figen Yuksekdag put it nicely when she said, “During the government formation process, if playing a role – whether direct or indirect – falls on our shoulders, we wouldn’t hesitate to fulfill this duty … Our only frontier (sic) is our principles and program. Those are peace, democracy and justice.”

The AKP leader who headed the last government as prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu has since held out an olive branch to the HDP that his party would be open to continuing with the Kurdish peace process that it had initiated through the past 4-5 years. Put differently, the AKP is willing to reach a political accommodation with the HDP.

TIME Admits ISIS Bringing Arms, Fighters in From NATO Territory
Late last year, Germany’s broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) investigated what turned out to be hundreds of trucks a day carrying billions of dollars in supplies, flowing across the Turkish border into Syria and directly into the hands of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS).

The border crossing near the Turkish city of Oncupinar, approximately 100km west of the Syrian city of Kobani, is apparently only one of many such crossings where ISIS fighters, weapons, and materiel move directly under the watch and apparent assistance of NATO.

TIME in their recent article titled, "ISIS Fighters Kill 200 Civilians in Syrian Town," reported that:

The attacks also came after the group [ISIS] suffered a series of setbacks over the past two weeks, including the loss last week of the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad — one of the group’s main points for bringing in foreign fighters and supplies.

US, Turkey discuss fight against ISIS
Despite concerns over its Kurdish population, Turkey has decided to take more steps as part a coalition to fight the Islamic State group.
Link Submitted by: NCTim

In the past few days, Turkey has been stepping up its efforts to combat the Islamic State (IS) group.

Turkish police carried out raids in Istanbul and three other cities early Friday, detaining 21 people suspected of being members of Islamic State, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Anadolu adds that three of the suspects were foreign nationals who were planning to cross into Syria and join the jihadists.

Three days ago, Turkey’s Army said it had detained 768 people who were trying to cross the border illegally from Syria, including three suspected Islamic State militants, Reuters reported.

Islamic State group: Turkey arrests 21 in dawn raids
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
Turkish authorities have arrested 21 suspected members of the Islamic State group, according to state media.

They were picked up early on Friday in a series of raids in Istanbul and the nearby town of Kocaeli, as well as locations near the Syrian border.

Three of those detained are foreigners who were allegedly planning to cross into Syria.

Turkey has been accused of not doing enough to stop the flow of foreign fighters across its long Syrian border.

“Somebody’s Going to Own This Government. It Ought to Be Us, Not Wall Street”
Link Submitted by: NCTim

Below, in part two of my recent interview with Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., about his Government by the People Act, Sarbanes describes how he markets this idea, why it could not just change campaign financing but plausibly diminish the impact of big-money lobbying, and how it would keep incumbents like himself on their toes.

For specifics about his bill, go here. For part one of the interview, in which Sarbanes explains the rationale for his bill, how it would change politicians’ behavior and how similar systems are already having an impact on a state and local level, is here.

Whenever’s there’s any discussion of public financing of elections, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell likes to call it “welfare for politicians.” How much thought have you put into marketing this?

SARBANES: A lot.

I say to the public: “Somebody’s going to own your government. It’s not going to just sit there unattended. It’s either going to be owned by special interests and big money, in which case when it comes to making policy that’s who we’ll work for. Or it’s going to be owned by you. And in America, if you want to own something, you’ve got to pay for it.”

Donald Trump expects 9,000 people at his immigration rally in Arizona
Link Submitted by: NCTim

Donald Trump is holding a rally on Saturday in Phoenix, Arizonawhere he expects 9,000 people to show up. He's focusing on immigration and crime — which has gone from an offhand comment during his presidential campaign launch last month to the central theme of his run.

Accordingly, Trump's going to be introduced by Jamiel Shaw Sr., whose son was killed by an unauthorized immigrant in 2008. Shaw's become a visible figure among conservative opponents of unauthorized immigration (he's testified before Congress multiple times about the death of his son).

Arizona isn't an early primary state. But it's been the epicenter of populist, anti-immigration sentiment for Republicans for several years now. Trump's going to appear with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — who's become nationally famous for his emphasis on rounding up unauthorized immigrants (as well as the conditions of the "tent cities" he's put them in). And the rally is sponsored by the Maricopa County Republican Party.

But Arizona's GOP is also a microcosm for the deeper split in the Republican Party. Both the state's senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, were original cosponsors of the comprehensive immigration reform bill the Senate passed in 2013 — and both have criticized Trump for the inflammatory comments about immigrants that have become a hallmark of his presidential campaign (repeatedly calling them rapists and murderers, and saying that Mexico and other countries aren't "sending their best people").

The global coal renaissance is the most important climate story today
Link Submitted by: Funkygal

If you only focused on the United States, you might think coal's days were numbered.

The dirtiest of all fossil fuels once provided more than half of America's electricity. That has since dropped to 39 percent, thanks to competition from cheap natural gas, a tireless campaign by the Sierra Club to shutter old coal plants, and strict new air pollution regulations. Add in the Obama administration's upcoming crackdown on carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants, and US coal will keep waning in the future.

But that's not true globally. Far from it. According to data from BP's Statistical Review of Energy, coal consumption has actually been accelerating worldwide since the end of the 1990s:

It's tempting to think this global coal boom is mainly a one-time blip due to China, where coal use has surged since 2000 amid frenetic economic growth but has since leveled off as the country tries to transition away from heavy industry. But as it turns out, that's not true either.

Marie Curie’s Research Papers Are Still Radioactive 100+ Years Later
Link Submitted by: Funkygal
When researching a famous historical figure, access to their work and materials usually proves to be one of the biggest obstacles. But things are much more difficult for those writing about the life of Marie Curie, the scientist who, along her with husband Pierre, discovered polonium and radium and birthed the idea of particle physics. Her notebooks, her clothing, her furniture, pretty much everything surviving from her Parisian suburban house, is radioactive, and will be for 1,500 years or more.

If you want to look at her manuscripts, you have to sign a liability waiver at France’s Bibliotheque Nationale, and then you can access the notes that are sealed in a lead-lined box. The Curies didn’t know about the dangers of radioactive materials, though they did know about radioactivity. Their research attempted to find out which substances were radioactive and why, and so many dangerous elements–thorium, uranium, plutonium–were just sitting there in their home laboratory, glowing at night, which Curie thought beautiful, “like faint, fairy lights,” she wrote in her autobiography. Marie Curie carried these glowing objects around in her pockets. She and her husband wore standard lab clothing, nothing more.

Marie Curie died at age 66 in 1934, from aplastic anemia, attributed to her radioactive research. The house, however, continued to be used up until 1978 by the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Paris Faculty of Science and the Curie Foundation. After that it was kept under surveillance, authorities finally aware of the dangers inside. When many people in the neighborhood noticed high cancer rates among them, as reported in Le Parisien, they blamed the Curie’s home.

The laboratory and the building were decontaminated in 1991, a year after the Curie estate began allowing access to Curie’s notes and materials, which had been removed from the house. A flood of biographies appeared soon after: Marie Curie: A Life by Susan Quinn in 1995, Pierre Curie by Anna Hurwic in 1998, Curie: Le rêve scientifique by Loïc Barbo in 1999, Marie Curie et son laboratoire by Soraya Boudia in 2001, and Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie by Barbara Goldsmith in 2005, and Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss in 2011.

El Chapo escape: notorious drug lord tops list of world's most-wanted – again
Drug kingpin’s penchant for tunnels is well-documented as latest escape and manhunt is an embarrassment for Mexican and prison officials
Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has gone, again. On Saturday night, Mexico’s most infamous drug trafficker slipped out of a high-security prison for a second time, humiliating a government that said it could never happen.

The middle-aged drug lord’s spectacular escape through a one-mile tunnel under the Altiplano prison, about 60 miles west of Mexico City, came 16 months after his arrest was lauded as proof of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s notable success in capturing top traffickers.

The so-called kingpin strategy is at the centre of efforts to contain rampant organised crime and the associated bloodbath. Chapo became the country’s most wanted man after building the Sinaloa cartel into arguably the most powerful drug-trafficking organisation in the world, operating sophisticated global networks to move locally produced marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine, as well as South American cocaine.

He did this after an earlier escape from another high-security prison, in 2001. The news of this weekend’s shocking repeat prompted a flurry of black humour on social media. Early memes included one showing a picture of Chapo under arrest in February 2014, with the words: “It’s so embarrassing when you don’t go out on a Saturday night and Chapo does.”

Hellraiser Preview

Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal, which will feature from the Chicago Day Book: monster mass meeting protests against conviction of John R Lawson. Mother Jones and Frank Walsh speak.

Tune in at 2pm!

N. Korea’s pesticide institute capable of producing anthrax: US expert
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
A bio-pesticides research center that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited last month is believed to be capable of producing military-sized batches of biological weapons, including anthrax, a U.S. expert said Thursday.

Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), said she reached the conclusion after analyzing photos the North’s state media released of Kim’s June 6 visit to the Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute.

Hanham also said that the visit may have been intended as a “veiled threat” to South Korea and the United States because it came days after revelations that the U.S. inadvertently shipped live anthrax to South Korea, a case that the North claimed shows the U.S. is trying to use biological weapons against it.

New political battle over the BBC's future to begin next week
Concerns timing of appointment of panel to advise on charter review suggests ministers have already decided to mount ‘fundamental attack on scope of BBC’
Link Submitted by: enhydra lutris
The government will publish a green paper this week setting out the details of a fundamental review of the BBC, signalling the next stage in the political battle over the broadcaster’s future size and funding.

The “root and branch” review of the BBC charter, which will be unveiled by the culture secretary, John Whittingdale, examines whether the BBC has been chasing mass ratings at the expense of its original public service brief. Whittingdale believes the BBC is breaching its charter principles by claiming it needs to go after 90% of viewers.

Whittingdale will be advised by a panel of experts, including former Channel 5 chair and chief executive Dawn Airey, some of whom have been critical of the corporation in the past.

The review comes after the BBC last week won a commitment in principle to retain the licence fee as the chief means of funding the corporation for at least another five years.

Spotted face of distant Pluto coming into focus
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is closing fast on an unexpectedly spotted Pluto, the most distant planetary body ever explored.

From New Horizon’s position more than 3 billion miles (4.88 billion km) from Earth, radio signals, traveling at the speed of light, take nearly four and a half hours to reach the ground.

Not that the probe, which has been traveling toward Pluto for more than nine years, is currently spending much time relaying back pictures and data from its seven science instruments.

With its closest approach to Pluto slated for 7:49 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, New Horizons is running on auto-pilot to gather as much scientific information as possible leading up to its one-shot punch past Pluto and its entourage of five known moons. Data will be radioed back to Earth over the next 16 months.

Natural World Feels the Heat as Temperatures Soar
LONDON—Extremes of heat—and an extra helping of drought—have begun to change the planet in small, subtle ways, and will almost certainly continue the process of change, according to new research.

Bird species such as the Elegant Tern have begun to move north from the Gulf of California in Mexico, a species of ant that lives underground has shown it cannot take the heat, and the giant trees of the world’s forests may be at risk.

The link between any single extreme of heat and drought, and global warming as a consequence of the emissions of greenhouse gases from human burning of fossil fuels, is almost impossible to prove, but climate science has begun to show that, in general, heatwaves and drought become more likely as global average temperatures soar.

Atmospheric circulation

But the argument is not conclusive. Daniel Horton, research fellow in Earth system science at Stanford University, California, and colleagues show in the journal Nature that extremes of temperature in Europe and North America could be linked to changes in atmospheric circulation and to the distribution of heat and water vapour in the atmosphere.

Airbnb for Water
Link Submitted by: Funkygal
Could the sharing economy help solve California's water woes? Don't laugh. A new tech startup has come up with a way to let farmers lease their extra water, much in the same way Airbnb enables homeowners to rent out their spare bedrooms. It's being tested statewide this month in a joint venture with Western Growers, a trade group whose farmer-members produce half the nation's fruits and vegetables.

"It is scarily similar to the sharing economy we've seen in other areas," says Kevin France, CEO of Sustainable Water and Innovative Irrigation Management (SWIIM), the startup behind it all. "You are in essence quoting the availability of water and providing it to someone who needs it."

By allowing farmers to sell their water more easily, SWIIM may have found a way to fix one of the most vexing problems with the California water crisis: Even as urbanites and some farmers have been forced to severely cut back, many other farmers, typically those who hold the most senior water rights, flood their fields with little regard for efficiency. SWIIM estimates that farmers in California and Colorado on average waste 25 percent of their water, enough to supply all of the city-dwellers, and then some.

Some farmers already sell their water during droughts, but they usually face a choice between completely fallowing a field while leasing out the water it would have needed, or continuing to farm it and leasing out no water at all. Using proprietary software and a network of soil moisture sensors, SWIIM offers farmers an attractive third option: They can keep farming while implementing efficiency measures such as drip irrigation or deprivation growing, and then lease out the water they save for profit—or, as SWIIM's promotional video puts it, they can boost income "by farming their water, as opposed to just farming their land."

The Evening Greens
The Evening Greens Weekend Editor: enhydra lutris

Indian farmer harvests a climate-smart crop – sunshine
A pilot project offers farmers in India the opportunity to sell the excess energy generated by the solar panels that drive their water pumps.
LONDON — A pioneering project in one of India's sunniest states has led to one farmer harvesting what could become the country's most climate-smart cash crop yet – sunshine.

A pilot project by Sri Lanka-based nonprofit International Water Management Institute (IWMI) offered farmers the opportunity to sell excess energy generated by solar panels that drive their water pumps, and one farmer did just that.

Instead of using the excess energy to pump more groundwater to irrigate wheat and banana crops, Ramanbhai Parmar from Gujarat state sold the extra energy he generated over four months back to the power grid.

He received 7,500 Indian rupees ($120) for 1,500 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity which, if used to run his water pump, would have extracted extra 8 million liters of groundwater.

Farmers fight over water as Thailand suffers worst drought in 10 years
SUPHAN BURI, Thailand (Reuters) – Farmers in Thailand’s rice-growing Suphan Buri province are becoming increasingly desperate for water to irrigate their parched fields as the nation, a leading producer of the staple food, suffers its worst drought in more than a decade.

The wet season is under way, but Thailand is contending with drought conditions in seven out of 67 provinces, according to the National Disaster Warning Center, and water rationing is taking place in almost a third of the country.

Farmers have been asked to delay planting their main rice crop until August.

As a result of the drought, the Thai government lowered its forecast for this year’s main-crop rice output by more than 2 million tonnes, according to a report this month by the Office of Agricultural Economics.

Court ruling is a potential blow to state water-saving efforts
A Sacramento judge on Friday blocked the state from enforcing the rigid water restrictions it imposed on a handful of Central Valley water agencies, a potential blow to California’s broader push for conservation.

Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang ruled that notices sent by the state, directing water agencies to stop pumping from rivers and creeks, violate the water agencies’ due process rights. The court issued a temporary restraining order barring the state from enforcing the directives until further proceedings.

While the action affects only a few dozen farmers — those served by four delta water agencies suing the state — several other water agencies are taking up the same legal fight.

“This seems to subtly change the relationship between the regulated and the regulator,” said attorney Steve Herum, who represents the West Side Irrigation District in Tracy, one of the agencies affected by Friday’s decision. “The court has said that state regulators can’t threaten to take property rights in the manner that the state has attempted to do. … It’s really a win for all property interests in California.”

Why are Bay Area ocean temperatures 5 degrees warmer?
Nate Wells, 40, has surfed San Francisco’s Ocean Beach for 26 years and braved waters so cold his skin tingled and hurt. Surfing in Northern California typically requires a thick wetsuit, a hood and booties, but riding the waves last Friday, Wells wore a lightweight 3/2-millimeter suit and was hot and uncomfortable.

“The guy surfing next to me was wearing a heavy-weight 4/3 suit and he was flushed, red and sweating,” Wells, who grew up in the city and now lives in Lafayette, told SFGate. “I didn’t even need to wear my booties.”

Local surfers aren’t the only ones noticing the warmer ocean waters along the Bay Area coastline. Meteorologist Steve Anderson says his team at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Monterey office has recorded temperatures that are on average 5 degrees higher than usual for this time of year over the past week.

This temperature pattern is extending from San Francisco to Monterey, while ocean temperatures throughout the rest of the state remain normal.

Slight global warming causes six meter sea level rise
A new review analyzing three decades of research on the historic effects of melting polar ice sheets found that global sea levels have risen at least six meters, or about 20 feet, above present levels on multiple occasions over the past three million years.

What is most concerning, scientists say, is that amount of melting was caused by an increase of only 1-2 degrees (Celsius) in global mean temperatures.

Results of the study are being published this week in the journal Science.

“Studies have shown that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributed significantly to this sea level rise above modern levels,” said Anders Carlson, an Oregon State University glacial geologist and paleoclimatologist, and co-author on the study. “Modern atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are today equivalent to those about three million years ago, when sea level was at least six meters higher because the ice sheets were greatly reduced.

Feds to decide whether state’s last nuclear plant stays or goes
Federal regulators have restarted the process of deciding whether California’s last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, will remain open for decades.

And like most everything else in Diablo’s long, contentious history, the move is sure to provoke a fight.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has reported that it would once again begin processing a request from plant owner Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to renew Diablo’s operating licenses, set to expire in 2024 and 2025. That request has been on hold since shortly after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster rekindled fears of nuclear danger.

PG&E applied in 2009 to renew Diablo’s licenses for 20 years, arguing that California would need the plant near San Luis Obispo to combat climate change. The commission’s license extension process takes years to complete — hence, PG&E’s early application.

Thousands of birds abandon eggs, nests on Florida island
SEAHORSE KEY, Fla. (AP) — The din created by thousands of nesting birds is usually the first thing you notice about Seahorse Key, a 150-acre mangrove-covered dune off Florida's Gulf Coast.

But in May, the key fell eerily quiet all at once.

Thousands of little blue herons, roseate spoonbills, snowy egrets, pelicans and other chattering birds were gone. Nests sat empty in trees; eggs broken and scattered on the muddy ground.

"It's a dead zone now," said Vic Doig, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. "This is where the largest bird colony on the Gulf Coast of Florida used to be."

Seabird Populations on the Decline
UBC research shows world’s monitored seabird populations have dropped 70 per cent since the 1950s, a stark indication that marine ecosystems are not doing well.

Michelle Paleczny, a UBC master’s student and researcher with the Sea Around Us project, and co-authors compiled information on more than 500 seabird populations from around the world, representing 19 per cent of the global seabird population. They found overall populations had declined by 69.6 per cent, equivalent to a loss of about 230 million birds in 60 years.

“Seabirds are particularly good indicators of the health of marine ecosystems,” said Paleczny. ”When we see this magnitude of seabird decline, we can see there is something wrong with marine ecosystems. It gives us an idea of the overall impact we’re having.”

The dramatic decline is caused by a variety of factors including overfishing of the fish seabirds rely on for food, birds getting tangled in fishing gear, plastic and oil pollution, introduction of non-native predators to seabird colonies, destruction and changes to seabird habitat, and environmental and ecological changes caused by climate change.

China pumps up production of electric cars, plug-in hybrids vehicles in June
China's electric car market continues to grow: the country's carmakers built 25,000 electric cars in June, making up nearly a third of all electric vehicles built this year.
The Chinese vehicle market is now the world's largest, and has been for a few years now.

And the country's government-industrial complex has ambitious plans to dominate global production of plug-in electric vehicles, both for reasons of competitiveness and as one effort to start to reduce its endemic and hazardous air pollution.

In the last few months, the country's carmakers have apparently started to build plug-in electric cars--known in China as "New Energy Vehicles"--at rates that exceed those of Japan and the U.S.

According to news site Gasgoo, citing statistics from the Ministry of Industry published in the Beijing Daily, the country's automakers collectively built 25,000 new-energy vehicles in June alone.