China and Solomon Islands Draft Secret Security Pact, Raising Alarm in the Pacific

The New York Times

China and Solomon Islands Draft Secret Security Pact, Raising Alarm in the Pacific

Damien Cave – March 25, 2022

Li Keqiang, left, the Chinese premier, and Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of the Solomon Islands reviewing an honor guard during a ceremony in Beijing in 2019. (AP)

SYDNEY — A leaked document has revealed that China and the Solomon Islands are close to signing a security agreement that could open the door to Chinese troops and naval warships flowing into a Pacific Island nation that played a pivotal role in World War II.

The agreement, kept secret until now, was shared online Thursday night by opponents of the deal and verified as legitimate by the Australian government. Although it is marked as a draft and cites a need for “social order” as a justification for sending Chinese forces, it has set off alarms throughout the Pacific, where concerns about China’s intentions have been growing for years.

“This is deeply problematic for the United States and a real cause of concern for our allies and partners,” Charles Edel, the inaugural Australia chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Friday. “The establishment of a base in the Solomon Islands by a strategic adversary would significantly degrade Australia and New Zealand’s security, increase the chances of local corruption and heighten the chances of resource exploitation.”

It is not clear which side initiated the agreement, but if signed, the deal would give Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of the Solomon Islands the ability to call on China for protection of his own government while granting China a base of operations between the United States and Australia that could be used to block shipping traffic across the South Pacific.

Five months ago, protesters unhappy with Beijing’s secretive influence attacked the prime minister’s residence, burned businesses in the capital’s Chinatown and left three people dead. Now the worst-case scenario some Solomon Islanders envision would be a breakdown of democracy before or during next year’s election, with more unrest and the threat of China moving in to maintain the status quo.

The leaked document states that “Solomon Islands may, according to its own needs, request China to send police, armed police, military personnel and other law enforcement and armed forces to Solomon Islands to assist in maintaining social order, protecting people’s lives and property.”

It allows China to provide “assistance on other tasks” and requires secrecy, noting, “Neither party shall disclose the cooperation information to a third party.”

Matthew Wale, leader of the opposition party in the Solomon Islands’ parliament, said he feared that the “very general, overarching, vague” agreement could be used for anything.

“The crux of it is that this is all about political survival for the prime minister,” he said. “It has nothing to do with the national security of Solomon Islands.”

For Beijing, the deal could offer its own potential reward. “China may, according to its own needs and with the consent of Solomon Islands, make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in and have stopover and transition in the Solomon Islands,” the draft states.

It also says the Solomons will provide “all necessary facilities.”

The Chinese Embassy in the Solomon Islands did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.

Australia, which has traditionally been the islands’ main security partner — also sending police officers to quell the unrest in November at the government’s request — responded swiftly to the leaked document.

“We would be concerned by any actions that destabilize the security of our region,” Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Members of the Pacific family are best placed to respond to situations affecting Pacific regional security.”

Despite such affirmations, Australia has been losing influence in the Solomons for years. The larger country has a history of condescending to the region, downplaying its concerns about climate change and often describing it as its own “backyard.”

Sogavare has made no secret of his desire to draw China closer. In 2019, soon after he was elected, he announced that the island would end its 36-year diplomatic relationship with Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as its own, in order to establish official ties with Beijing. He argued that Beijing would deliver the infrastructure and support that the country needed.

The Sogavare government quickly signed agreements giving Chinese companies the right to build roads and bridges and to reopen one of the country’s gold mines. A Chinese company even tried to lease the entire island of Tulagi.

That deal was eventually deemed illegal, after critics rose up in anger. Residents of Tulagi and Malaita, an island province where local leaders expressed strong opposition to China, have said that bribes are constantly being paid by proxies of Beijing with bags of cash and promises of kickbacks for senior leaders often made during all-expenses-paid trips to China.

The violent protests in November in the Solomon Islands reflected those frustrations. They erupted on the island of Guadalcanal, in the capital, Honiara, where U.S. troops fought a brutal battle against the Japanese starting in 1942. And the clashes were sparked by anger over allegations of China-fueled corruption and a perceived unequal distribution of resources, which has left Malaita less developed despite having the country’s largest population.

Malaita’s premier, Daniel Suidani — who has banned Chinese companies from Malaita while accepting U.S. aid — said that the anger stemmed from “the national government’s leadership.”

“They are provoking the people to do something that is not good,” he said in November.

Wale said he has encouraged the prime minister to negotiate with Malaita, with little success.

“The political discourse over these things is nonexistent,” he said, adding that the proposed agreement with China would make the relationship more volatile.

Anna Powles, a senior lecturer at the Center for Defense and Security Studies at Massey University in New Zealand, said the recent upheaval and continued insecurity point to high levels of stress on the government over the pandemic, the economy and “long-standing concerns about the capturing of the state and political elites by foreign interests.”

“Some of the biggest implications here are about how strategic competition is disrupting local government,” Powles said.

U.S. officials have also become increasingly concerned. In interviews over the past few years, they have often cited the Solomons as a grave example of China’s approach throughout the Pacific, which involves cultivating decision-makers to open the door for Chinese businesses, migration and access to strategic resources and locations — most likely, the Americans believe, for civilian and military uses, at sea, and for satellite communications.

Many Pacific islands, including Kiribati and Fiji, have seen a sharp increase in Chinese diplomats, construction deals and Chinese migration over the past five years. Disputes and tensions have been growing over Beijing’s role in a region that has often either been ignored or been seen as little more than dots on the map for great powers to toy with.

Last month, during a visit to Fiji that focused heavily on competition with China, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the United States would soon open an embassy in the Solomon Islands after closing one in the 1990s. It is still many months from being operational and on Friday, U.S. officials did not initially respond to requests for comment.

“They certainly can do more and faster,” Wale said. “They just seem to be dragging their feet.”

Scoop: Ukrainians flock to U.S.-Mexico border

Axios

Scoop: Ukrainians flock to U.S.-Mexico border

Stef W. Kight – March 25, 2022

Nearly 1,000 Ukrainians have shown up at the U.S.-Mexico border so far this month — a jump from the 272 encounters in February, according to Department of Homeland Security documents obtained by Axios.

Why it matters: The numbers are low compared to other nationalities arriving at the border in droves — such as the nearly 17,000 Cubans last month. But Russian and Ukrainian migrants present new challenges for border officials, and highlight the desperation of some fleeing Russia’s invasion.

Between the lines: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently told reporters border officials have been instructed to consider using exemptions for Ukrainians rather than kicking them back to Mexico under a COVID-19-linked policy known as Title 42.

This would allow them to apply for asylum in the U.S. The documents indicate at least some Ukrainians have been allowed in to seek asylum.
The administration has already paused deportations to Ukraine and other countries in the region, as CBS News has reported.
Border officials under President Biden have used Title 42 — a Trump-era policy — to quickly expel migrants more than 1 million times.

What to watch: Recent documents reviewed by Axios highlight local concerns that Russians and Eastern European migrants may be forming a make-shift camp in Tijuana.

A similar camp in Del Rio, Texas, hosting mostly Haitian migrants drove national news in September, and forced the administration to quickly take action.
The number of Russians arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has been declining from a high of more than 2,000 in December, to roughly 750 so far this month.
It’s still an unusual number, and reflects a broader shift in the demographics of people arriving at the southwest border. During the past year, there have been far more people from places outside of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — including such far-flung departure points as Turkey and India.

What they’re saying: “Consistent with the CDC Order, DHS continues to grant Title 42 exceptions to particularly vulnerable individuals of all nationalities for humanitarian reasons,” a DHS spokesperson told Axios.

”All exceptions are made on a case-by-case basis.”
The order is still in place for single adults and family units, the spokesperson added.

The big picture: Russia’s invasion has now forced more than 3.7 million people to flee Ukraine, according to U.N. statistics.

There’s been growing pressure for the U.S. to do more to aid these refugees.
On Thursday, the government announced it would welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainians and others fleeing Russia’s aggression through various pathways.

Meanwhile, U.S. border officials are already struggling with overall large numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

They’re on track to reach 200,000 encounters total for March, the Washington Post reported — the highest monthly total since August.

The administration has been preparing for the potential of a mass migration event this spring — especially if policies aimed at inhibiting the spread of the coronavirus are ended in the coming weeks.

German farmers in Ukraine press ahead in defiance of war

AFP

German farmers in Ukraine press ahead in defiance of war

Sophie Makris – March 25, 2022

German farmers Tim Nandelstädt (centre) and Torben Reelfs (right) push ahead with their crop planting in Ukraine despite Russia’s invasion (AFP/Tim NANDELSTAEDT)
War has come to Ukraine but German farmers Torben Reelfs and Tim Nandelstaedt are planting the first sugar beets of the season on their plot of land in western Ukraine (AFP/Tim NANDELSTAEDT)

Every year in early spring, German farmers Torben Reelfs and Tim Nandelstaedt turn the soil and plant the first sugar beets of the season on their plot of land in western Ukraine.

But this year, the ritual has taken on a new meaning.

“It’s very symbolic. When the machine turns over the land, it’s a different feeling than in previous years,” said Reelfs, 41, speaking to AFP by phone from the farm about 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Lviv.

When Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, Reelfs and Nandelstaedt immediately fled to Germany to “get away from the missiles, to be on the territory of the EU, of NATO”, according to Nandelstaedt, 43.

“At first I thought that Russia would get to the Polish border very quickly,” he said.

But three weeks later, both of them were back in Derzhiv, their adopted home for the last 10 years.

“What we are seeing here, the solidarity on a military and a humanitarian level, is inspiring and gives you hope,” said Reelfs.

– ‘Poker game’ –

With the west of Ukraine so far largely spared from the deadly fighting raging in the south and east, the two men decided to go ahead and start sowing their crops.

The pair had already managed to secure the fuel, fertiliser and seeds they needed.

They began by sowing the sugar beets, which will be followed by corn in around two weeks’ time and soybeans in around two months.

It’s too early to tell whether the crops will ever be harvested, but for now, Reelfs is sure it was “the right decision”.

He also feels “a certain responsibility” to “reduce the risk of catastrophic famines” around the world as a result of the war.

Before the Russian invasion, Ukraine was the world’s fourth largest exporter of corn and was on its way to becoming the third largest exporter of wheat behind Russia and the United States.

Corn, wheat and sunflower oil prices have already soared in recent weeks and the situation looks set to worsen if the “breadbasket of Europe” is unable to keep up with the usual supplies.

The two German farmers know that going ahead with the harvest is a huge risk — a “poker game”, according to Reelfs.

“What will happen in six months, when we harvest, I honestly have no idea,” said Nandelstaedt. “Some farms have already been hit by missiles or attacked by ground troops. Fields are burning. If that happens here, it will be over.”

– ‘Adventure’ –

Reelfs and Nandelstaedt have spent the last decade building up their farm in Ukraine, which covers 1,900 hectares of land and employs 25 people.

The business partners, who have been friends for over a decade, were among a wave of farmers who took up leases on land in Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union, attracted by the cheap prices and fertile soil.

They liked the idea of an “adventure” and the chance to build everything from scratch, according to Reelfs.

Between 2008 and 2009, “we visited almost 50 villages and there was still available land everywhere”, he said.

“When we started out, you could rent a hectare of land for 17 euros ($18.70) and could even pay in kind, with wheat or sugar. Today, we pay well over 100 euros here and it is more than 200 euros in many regions.”

It’s a sign of how much Ukraine has changed over the years, he said: “Corruption has greatly decreased… and the standard of living has got better and better.”

Reelfs believes it has been a surprise to the Russian forces to see that “people are not at all unhappy with their government, they want to support the army and defend their country”.

During their stay in Germany, Reelfs and Nandelstaedt collected 130,000 euros in donations for Ukraine and helped to arrange accommodation for around about 170 people in villages around Berlin.

“Even though they all feel welcome there, they want to return to Ukraine as soon as possible,” said Reelfs.

Rumors of ‘filtration camps’ and mass deportation in Ukraine raise old USSR fears

NBC News

Rumors of ‘filtration camps’ and mass deportation in Ukraine raise old USSR fears

Cassandra Vinograd – March 25, 2022

The reports have filtered out for days: Mass kidnappings, forced deportations, Ukrainians spirited across the border to Russia.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry said Thursday that 6,000 residents of the besieged city of Mariupol had been “forcibly deported” by Russian forces — stripped of their passports and identity documents — and taken to Russia as “hostages.”

Like much in this war, the claims have been impossible to independently verify. A statement from the foreign ministry Thursday echoed allegations and details released by Mariupol’s city council in recent days, stating that “several thousand” of its residents had been taken to “filtration camps” in Russia before being “redirected to remote cities.”

Russia, in turn, has cited the “evacuations” of more than 380,000 people from Ukraine to its territory.

Communications are sporadic or down, and no foreign journalists are left in the city. That’s meant relying on the rare videos that have emerged from the city — and on the testimony of those who’ve managed to escape.

Yet the language — “filtration camps” — and the imagery of mass deportations are particularly resonant, evoking a dark chapter in Russian history.

The trauma and memory of mass deportations inflicted by the then-Soviet Union are still fresh. An estimated 3 million people on the USSR’s borders were rounded up and forcibly deported to remote parts of Siberia and Central Asia between 1936 and 1952, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Some 60,000 were Poles and Ukrainians.

The echoes of history — and their power — have not been lost on Mariupol’s city council.

“What the occupiers are doing today is familiar to the older generation, who saw the horrific events of World War II, when the Nazis forcibly captured people,” it said in a statement March 19. “It is hard to imagine that in the 21st century people will be forcibly deported to another country.”

Some escapees from Mariupol have described Russian soldiers encouraging them to go to Russia “for their own safety.” Others have spoken of friends being interrogated by Russian forces, then disappearing.

Service members of pro-Russian troops are seen atop of an armoured vehicle (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)

With verifiable information limited and access to Mariupol impossible, the claims could be true. They also could be enhanced by the fog of war — or elements of a parallel information war, in which messaging is key to enforcing each side’s narrative.

Regardless, the reports have caught the attention of Ukraine’s supporters, humanitarians and even the White House. Department of State spokesman Ned Price said the United States was trying to corroborate the “very concerning” accounts, “which have in fact continued to mount.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that his government was trying to verify the exact number of citizens who had been forcibly deported, alleging that Russia was trying to forcibly conscript many into its army. That followed a March 22 statement from Ukraine’s defense minister stating that Russia was forcing men in occupied territories of Ukraine to conscript as “cannon fodder.”

On Thursday, Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman said prosecutors were investigating the “illegal deportation” of more than 2,000 children to Russia.

She said Ukrainians have been taken to different cities across Russia, citing the case of a family from the left bank of Mariupol who were taken out of a bomb shelter, loaded onto buses and taken to the Russian city of Taganrog. After being interrogated by Russian intelligence, she said, they were put on another train.

“They last got in touch with us on March 20,” she added.

Moscow ‘plotting to seal off Crimea’ to stop ‘panicking Russians’ from fleeing

Yahoo! News

Moscow ‘plotting to seal off Crimea’ to stop ‘panicking Russians’ from fleeing

Kate Buck – March 24, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a concert marking the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on March 18, 2022. (Photo by Sergei GUNEYEV / POOL / AFP) (Photo by SERGEI GUNEYEV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) — Vladimir Putin is prepare to seal off Crimea and block the exit of Russias fleeing the invasion, Ukrainian intelligence officials have claimed. (Getty)

Ukrainian intelligence officials have claimed the Kremlin is preparing to seal off Crimea in order to block the exit of any “panicked” Russians trying to flee.

In 2014, Russia seized Ukraine’s southern peninsula of Crimea, an area of significant strategic importance in an invasion which marked what one Western intelligence official described as the “creeping militarisation” of the Black Sea.

While Nato and the international community deemed the annexation illegal, they failed to stop it and Moscow has since established two federal “subjects” in the area – the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol.

View on the globe zoomed on Ukraine(light blue) and western part of Russia (red)

Eight years on and Putin mounted a full scale invasion of Ukraine, in an apparent attempt to annex more land in the east of the country, specifically the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk.

However, Western officials believe the invasion is not going to plan, with Moscow frustrated by the lack of progress. The war has sparked numerous protests across Russia.

On Wednesday, the intelligence department of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence claimed in a Facebook post that the Kremlin plans to block bridges, ferries and air connections from the mainland to Crimea in order to prevented panicking Russians from fleeing the region.

The post said Russia is now holding 600,000 Russian citizens “hostage” who are “illegally on the peninsula”.

The statement said: “Putin’s authorities are trying to react to panic moods among Russian citizens who illegally moved to Ukrainian Crimea after February 2014.

TOPSHOT - This picture taken on March 22, 2022 shows debris in the mental hospital hit by the Russian shelling in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine. - The southern city is a key obstacle for Russian forces trying to move west from Crimea to take Odessa, Ukraine's major port on the Black Sea. (Photo by BULENT KILIC / AFP) (Photo by BULENT KILIC/AFP via Getty Images) — A mental hospital hit by the Russian shelling in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine (Getty)

“The occupants seek to stop the flow of refugees from the peninsula.”

It added that families of Russian officers and officials in Sevastopol have “urgently” sold real estate and are removing assets from the peninsula.

These claims have not been verified, however it is clear that there is some anger aimed at Putin’s invasion in the Russian homeland.

On 4 March, Moscow enacted two laws that criminalised independent war reporting and protesting the war, with penalties of up to 15 years in prison.

Three days after those laws came into force police reportedly detained more than 4,300 protesters in 56 different cities, according to the OVD-Info independent protest monitoring group.

Some Russian state-controlled media carried short reports about the protests but they did not feature high in news bulletins.

Russia’s RIA news agency said the Manezhnaya Square in Moscow, adjoining the Kremlin, had been “liberated” by police, who had arrested some participants of an unsanctioned protest against the military operation in Ukraine.

The last Russian protests with a similar number of arrests were in January 2021, when thousands demanded the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny after he was arrested on returning from Germany where he had been recovering from a nerve agent poisoning.

In recent days, there has been mounting speculation as to the scale of Russian troop losses, with one Nato source estimating that up to 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in the past month.

The anonymous officer said that battlefield casualties suffered by Russia are thought to total between 30,000 and 40,000 since Putin launched his invasion on February 24.

On Thursday, British military intelligence said that “Russian forces have almost certainly suffered thousands of casualties during their invasion of Ukraine.”

In an effort to bolster their troops, Russia is likely looking at bringing reservists and conscription, further intelligence has suggested.

An update added: “Russia is likely now looking to mobilize its reservist and conscript manpower, as well as private military companies and foreign mercenaries, to replace these considerable losses.”

Putin’s ‘Achilles heel’ in Ukraine is Russians believing their ‘soldiers are dying unnecessarily,’

The Week

Putin’s ‘Achilles heel’ in Ukraine is Russians believing their ‘soldiers are dying unnecessarily,’ CNN says

Peter Weber, Senior editor – March 24, 2022

Soviet Russia finally pulled out of Afghanistan because fierce Afghan resistance, fueled by U.S.-provided Stinger missiles, was eating away at Russian forces, eventually resulting in 15,000 Russian deaths. “Today the death toll of Russian troops in Ukraine could already match those killed over 10 years in Afghanistan,” CNN’s Nic Robertson reported early Thursday, citing NATO estimates.

“Afghan parallels with today’s war in Ukraine are clear,” Robertson said. “Russia’s enemies, if not Russia, have learned the lessons of the Afghan war.”

“Across dozens of Russian cities, more than 15,000 people have been arrested for protesting the war,” Robertson said. “Recently, anxious parents of troops have begun showing up. Putin’s Achilles heel is the perception soldiers are dying unnecessarily. It’s why he’s tightened reporting laws and swamped Russia with Kremlin propaganda, and it’s why the Ukrainian military shows off battlefield gains — like knocking out Russian tanks or captured Russian soldiers — because they know bad press back home is what the Red Army out of Afghanistan.”

Thus far, Kremlin-friendly media has rarely strayed from the party line. So, for example, this drone footage of Mariupol after weeks of relentless Russian bombing and airstrikes is “shocking” proof on CNN of Russia’s scorched-earth campaign of punishing and killing Ukrainian civilians to achieve otherwise unattainable territorial gains.

On Russian state TV, it is portrayed as Ukrainian forces burning down their own house to thwart the Russians.

But there are signs of low morale among Russian forces in Ukraine, reported to be suffering from frostbite and hunger, not just stalemate and high casualties. And the morale problems aren’t just among Russian ground troops and field officers in Ukraine, CNN says, pointing to a report it obtained by U.S. military attachés in Moscow who “casually inquired” about a Russian major general’s Ukrainian family roots and were shocked when the general’s “stoic demeanor suddenly became flushed and agitated.”

Microplastics have been found in air, water, food and now … human blood

USA Today

Microplastics have been found in air, water, food and now … human blood

Mike Snider – March 25, 2022

Powerful magnification allowed researchers to count and identify microplastic beads and fragments that were collected in 11 western national parks and wilderness areas over 14 months of sampling in a 2020 study.

Plastic – it’s in your blood. And we know so because researchers have just found microscopic plastic particles flowing in our bloodstream for the first time.

Previous research had found we inhale and ingest enough microscopic pieces of plastic to create a credit card each week. But until now, scientists didn’t know whether those particles were entering the bloodstream.

“It’s the first step for proper risk assessment … (of) the internal concentrations of plastic particles,” Dick Vethaak, professor of ecotoxicology, water quality and health at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Hague, the Netherlands, told USA TODAY. Vethaak is among the authors of a study published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Environment International.

Plastic particles were found in the blood of more than three-fourths (17 out of 22) of the Netherlands-based donors who participated in the study. Of course, knowing there is plastic in the blood of many people just leads to more questions for researchers to tackle.

“We have to find out where are these particles traveling. Do they accumulate in certain organs?” Vethaak said. “Are (accumulations) sufficiently high enough to trigger responses leading to diseases?”

Plastic particles can enter the body through your food and drink, the air you breathe – there are microscopic plastic bits flying around in the air – and even from the rain.

Finding signs of plastic in the blood

Researchers analyzed subjects’ blood samples for traces of the presence of different polymers, which are the building blocks of plastics. Most prominent was polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a common type of plastic used in making drink bottles, food packaging and fabrics, and even lip gloss.

The second most commonly found plastic in the samples: polystyrene, used to make a wide variety of common household products including disposable bowls, plates and food containers, and what we call styrofoam.

The third most likely plastic found in subjects’ blood was polyethylene, a material regularly used in the production of paints, sandwich bags, shopping bags, plastic wrap and detergent bottles, and in toothpaste.

Polypropylene, used in making food containers and rugs, was also found in subjects’ blood, but at concentrations too low for an accurate measurement.

Did you know?

Humans have produced 18.2 trillion pounds of plastics – the equivalent to 1 billion elephants – since large-scale plastic production began in the early 1950s. Nearly 80% of that plastic is now in landfills, researchers say. By 2050, another 26.5 trillion pounds will be produced worldwide.
Plastic flowing into the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes will increase from 11 million metric tons in 2016 to 29 million metric tons annually in 2040, the equivalent of dumping 70 pounds of plastic waste along every foot of the world’s coastline, according to research from The Pew Charitable Trusts.
You eat or breathe in about 2,000 tiny plastic particles each week, the World Wildlife Federation found in a 2019 study. Most are ingested from bottled water and tap water.

The overall concentration of plastic particles in the donor’s blood averaged 1.6 micrograms, or one-millionth of a gram – the equivalent to one teaspoon of plastic per the amount of water in ten large bathtubs, researchers say.

That’s not much, but researchers only searched for a few plastic polymers. And plastic particles may be in different concentrations in different parts of the body.

Researchers particularly wonder whether microplastics – or even smaller particles called nanoplastics – could affect the brain, digestive system and other parts of the body. Could they help cancers develop or grow?

“More detailed research … is urgently needed,” Vethaak and other researchers say in a separate article published this week in the peer-reviewed journal Exposure and Health. “The problem is becoming more urgent with each day.”

Microplastics: A problem that’s not going away

That’s because microplastics, a type of pollution, are literally everywhere, having been found from the bottom of the ocean to Mount Everest. We’ve known that fish have been ingesting them.

More foods including fruits and vegetables may contain microplastics, too. Previous research found that infants may ingest 10 times the amount of microplastics that adults do, based on a 2021 study comparing adult and infant feces. Babies could have higher microplastics exposures from bottles and baby toys, researchers suggest.

Microplastics will continue to spread because plastic production is only increasing, said Jo Royle, CEO of Common Seas, an organization targeting plastic pollution in the oceans. Common Seas, along with the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development, commissioned the research. “We need to hurry up and invest in the research to be able to understand what threats plastics pose to human health,” Royle told USA TODAY.

She said her blood, and that of Vethaak’s, was analyzed and found to have plastics in the bloodstream but was not included in the published research. “To find this plastic in my blood, it is concerning,” Royle said.

With research, “we can make informed choices,” she said. “But there’s a lot of steps that we can take each day to reduce our exposure to single-use plastics and particularly food and beverage packaging.”

After Ukraine, Vladimir Putin Is Beyond Redemption

The Recount

After Ukraine, Vladimir Putin Is Beyond Redemption

March 25, 2022

Continuing from Part 1, John Heilemann talks with international affairs and national security guru Tom Nichols about the debate over whether Russian President Vladimir Putin’s behavior and rhetoric suggest that he is losing touch with reality and becoming unhinged. Nichols argues that Putin has reached a “point of no return” given the mounting civilian casualties in Ukraine, President’s Biden’s recent characterization of Putin as a war criminal, and Russia’s increasing isolation on the world stage. They also discuss Biden’s successful rallying of NATO allies – as the president meets with European leaders in Brussels this week about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – as well as the difficult decisions facing Biden and the NATO alliance as Zelenskyy warns that we may already have entered World War III. Tune in to the full episode to hear about Nichols’s proud status as a five-time, undefeated Jeopardy champion, and his well-known – and well-deserved – reputation for having indefensibly and inexplicably bad taste in music.

Yahoo! News

What is the punishment for a war criminal?

James Morris, Freelance news writer, Yahoo UK – March 25, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a meeting with winners of state culture prizes via a video link at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on March 25, 2022. - President Putin on March 25 slammed the West for discriminating against Russian culture, saying it was like the ceremonial burning of books by Nazi supporters in the 1930s. (Photo by Mikhail KLIMENTYEV / SPUTNIK / AFP) (Photo by MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/AFP via Getty Images) — Vladimir Putin, pictured holding a meeting on Friday, has been accused of war crimes. (Getty Images)

The UK government has said “all options are on the table” when it comes to seeking to prosecute Russian president Vladimir Putin’s regime for war crimes amid the Ukraine crisis.

Preliminary international probes have already begun following Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which has seen more than 1,000 civilians killed and millions of people displaced from their homes.

But what is a war crime, how are they prosecuted and what is the punishment? Here, Yahoo News UK explains.

What is a war crime?

There is not actually an agreed definition. As the United Nations points out, “there is no one single document in international law that codifies all war crimes”.

But the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), where war crimes can be prosecuted (see further information below), follows the definition set out by the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which were ratified by 196 states.

This definition includes acts of:

wilful killing
torture or inhuman treatment
wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury
extensive destruction and appropriation of property which is not justified by military necessity
compelling a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of a hostile state
wilfully depriving a prisoner of war of the rights of fair and regular trial
unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement
taking of hostages

However, the Rome Statute also includes an extensive list of further specific violations, such as intentionally directing attacks against civilian populations, using child soldiers, forced pregnancy and intentionally directing attacks against hospitals.

How are war crimes prosecuted?

War crimes can be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in the Netherlands. This court is governed by the Rome Statute outlined above.

The ICC, which began operations in 2002, “investigates and, where warranted, tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community”. This includes war crimes as well as genocide, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

It is a “court of last resort” and a case will only be heard there when a national court is not in a position to address it.

After gathering evidence and identifying a suspect, ICC prosecutors can request judges to issue arrest warrants. It relies on countries to carry out the arrest and a trial cannot begin until a suspect is detained and transferred to the court.

Twenty-seven defendants have been accused of war crimes by the ICC, with three – Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, Germain Katanga and Thomas Lubanga Dylio – convicted. A further eight are currently in ICC custody awaiting trial or appealing proceedings.

What is the punishment for war crimes?

At the trial, the prosecution “must prove beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the accused” before three judges.

If found guilty, the judges can issue sentences of up to 30 years’ imprisonment, or a life sentence “under exceptional circumstances”.

An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw — The International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Netherlands. (Reuters)

Sentences are served in countries that have agreed to enforce ICC prison terms.

Verdicts are subject to appeal by the defence of the accused, as well as by the prosecution.

Has Putin committed war crimes in Ukraine?

Putin hasn’t been formally accused of war crimes by the ICC, though it launched an investigation earlier this month following referrals from 41 countries.

But Putin’s bombardment of major cities including Kyiv and Mariupol, including strikes on hospitals and civilian evacuation routes, have seen leaders around the world accuse Putin of having committed war crimes.

Boris Johnson said on Thursday: “It is right that Russia should now be called before the International Court of Justice and right that President Putin should appear before the International Criminal Court. There is no question that what they are doing is war crimes.”

Boris Johnson gives a press conference during a Nato summit in Brussels, Belgium. He says the UK is bolstering support for Nato and the UK will ramp up legal aid for Ukraine.

Joe Biden has also labelled Putin a war criminal, and the US formally accused Russia of war crimes on Wednesday.

In his most recent statement on the probe on 10 March, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan said: “I note, in particular, that if attacks are intentionally directed against the civilian population: that is a crime. If attacks are intentionally directed against civilian objects: that is a crime. I strongly urge parties to the conflict to avoid the use of heavy explosive weapons in populated areas.

“There is no legal justification, there is no excuse, for attacks which are indiscriminate, or which are disproportionate in their effects on the civilian population.”

Could Putin be prosecuted for alleged war crimes in Ukraine?

David Scheffer, who was the first US ambassador-at-large for war crimes under the Clinton administration, told Foreign Policy on Thursday it is “inevitable” Putin will be indicted at the ICC. “He is at the very top of the command chain in Russia.

“He has obviously failed as top commander to stop those crimes from being committed on a daily basis. He has the power to do it.”

However, as outlined above, hearings cannot begin until a suspect is arrested and transferred to the ICC.

And while the court could well accuse Putin of war crimes, asking Russia to arrest its all-powerful dictator is another matter altogether.

Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine – A War Expert’s Analysis

John Heilemann talks with international affairs and national security guru Tom Nichols, contributing writer at The Atlantic, longtime senior faculty member at the U.S. Naval War College, and author of eight books on foreign policy and politics, including, most recently, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy. Heilemann and Nichols assess Vladimir Putin’s calculations in the face of the Russian military’s inability to win a swift and decisive victory, how President Zelenskyy has wielded a masterful media strategy to galvanize support around the world and dominate the information battlefield; and the difficult decisions facing Joe Biden and the NATO alliance as Zelenskyy warns that we may already have entered World War III. Nichols also discusses his proud status as a five-time, undefeated Jeopardy champion, and his well-known – and well-deserved – reputation for having inexplicably bad taste in music.

The Recount

Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine – A War Expert’s Analysis

March 24, 2022

John Heilemann talks with international affairs and national security guru Tom Nichols, contributing writer at The Atlantic, longtime senior faculty member at the U.S. Naval War College, and author of eight books on foreign policy and politics, including, most recently, Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy. Heilemann and Nichols assess the state of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s calculations in the face of the Russian military’s inability to win a swift and decisive victory, and the emerging consensus in the West that war has reached what could prove to be a protracted and bloody stalemate; how President Zelenskyy has wielded a masterful media strategy to galvanize support around the world and dominate the information battlefield; and the difficult decisions facing Joe Biden and the NATO alliance as Zelenskyy warns that we may already have entered World War III. Nichols also discusses his proud status as a five-time, undefeated Jeopardy champion, and his well-known – and well-deserved – reputation for having indefensibly and inexplicably bad taste in music.

Mariupol officials say 300 dead in Russian airstrike on theater

Yahoo! News

Mariupol officials say 300 dead in Russian airstrike on theater

Dylan Stableford, Senior Writer – March 25, 2022

Ukrainian officials said Friday that they now believe as many as 300 people may have been killed in the bombing of a theater in Mariupol on March 16.

The Mariupol City Council said it relied on witness accounts to estimate the death toll from the attack, which has been difficult to gather due to constant bombardment of the besieged city.

“From witnesses comes information that about 300 people died in the Mariupol Drama Theatre as a result of the bombing by a Russian plane,” the City Council said in a statement. “Up until the very last moment, one does not want to believe this horror. But the words of those who were inside the building at the time of this terrorist act says the opposite.”

City officials had said that about 130 people were rescued from the rubble. Video footage taken in the wake of the attack showed massive devastation inside the theater as people covered in dust and debris tried to escape.

The theater was being used as one of the main shelters in Mariupol, which has been pummeled by airstrikes in recent weeks.

A view of the destroyed theater. — The destroyed theater, which was being used as a shelter by civilians, in Mariupol, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Interior Ministry/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

According to the United Nations human rights office, at least 1,081 civilians have been killed and another 1,707 wounded in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, though the agency believes the actual death toll is likely much higher.

Russia has denied targeting civilians.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that the United States has officially determined that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine.

“Since launching his unprovoked and unjust war of choice, Russian President Vladimir Putin has unleashed unrelenting violence that has caused death and destruction across Ukraine,” Blinken said Wednesday. “We’ve seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks deliberately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities.

“The deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime,” he said.

Marie Yovanovitch says it will take a ‘concentrated effort over a number of years’ to undo the ‘damage’ that Mike Pompeo did to the State Department

Insider Marie Yovanovitch says it will take a ‘concentrated effort over a number of years’ to undo the ‘damage’ that Mike Pompeo did to the State Department

Sonam Sheth,Nicole Gaudiano – March 25, 2022

Yovanovitch told Insider that it will take “years” to undo the “damage” Pompeo did to the State Department.
He “presided over the hollowing out of a great institution,” she said.
The former ambassador accused Pompeo of being a hypocrite in her memoir and wondered if the State Department would “survive the betrayals of the Pompeo years.”

Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador told Ukraine, told Insider in a wide-ranging interview that it will take “years” to reverse the damage that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did to the State Department.

Pompeo “presided over the hollowing out of a great institution,” Yovanovitch told Insider. She added that Donald Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, “started it and Pompeo continued it, so there’s is lasting damage.”

President Joe Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, made a commitment to following the rule of law, protecting diplomats and foreign service officers, and promoting US policy abroad when he took the helm at the department.

But “it takes a concentrated effort over a number of years not only to knit the fabric of the State Department back together again, but to give it the kinds of resources that are necessary for our diplomacy,” Yovanovitch told Insider.

The former ambassador didn’t mince words about her view of Pompeo in her new memoir, “Lessons From The Edge.” She struck a blunt tone when she said that Pompeo’s “hypocrisy was galling” and wondered if the State Department would “survive the betrayals of the Pompeo years.”

Yovanovitch was abruptly recalled from her post in Ukraine in April 2019 following a concerted smear campaign against her by Trump’s allies, led by his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. In her book, Yovanovitch discussed her pleas for the State Department, and Pompeo himself, to publicly support her against Giuliani’s efforts to discredit her work in Ukraine and bogus allegations that she was a partisan Obama holdover.

But Pompeo failed to protect her from the White House, Yovanovitch later testified to Congress. She was one of more than a dozen witnesses to testify at Trump’s first impeachment inquiry in late 2019. It centered around his efforts to strongarm the Ukrainian government into launching bogus political investigations into the Biden family while withholding vital security assistance and a White House meeting.

When congressional staffers began contacting her in mid-August 2019 — shortly before the impeachment inquiry was launched — to discuss “Ukraine-related” matters, Yovanovitch started thinking about hiring a lawyer.

“Although the department lawyers usually tried to watch out for State personnel, their job was to protect State’s interests, not mine,” she wrote. “I was a team player, but the past six months had shown me that I could no longer trust the coach.”

She also wrote that it was ironic that Pompeo pledged to work with “uncompromising personal and professional integrity” after being unable to guard her against Giuliani and Trump’s attacks on her. She recalled, in particular, the day that she flew back to Washington, DC, from Kyiv after being abruptly fired without cause.

The same day, Pompeo unveiled an “ethos statement” at the State Department “with great fanfare,” the memoir says. In addition to promising to work with “uncompromising personal and professional integrity,” the statement also promised to “show ‘unstinting respect in word and deed for my colleagues,'” Yovanovitch writes.

“Every Foreign Service officer I knew agreed with these points, but coming from Pompeo, the irony was too much to handle,” the book says. “We were all tired of Pompeo’s talk. We just wanted him to walk the walk. He didn’t need to swagger.”

Looking forward, the former ambassador told Insider that the way the US conducts diplomacy needs to be overhauled, in the same way that the US military reformed after the Vietnam War and intelligence services did after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Diplomacy in 2022 needs to “meet the challenges of the 21st century in a way that reflects many of the tools that we’ve got now that we didn’t have back in the day,” she said. One example she highlighted is the advent of social media and how journalists, activists, and governments use it to spread awareness about key issues of the day.

“When we respond on social media, we don’t have to have it approved by, you know, 20 different people in Washington, but we can be more nimble and more effective,” Yovanovitch said.

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Related:

Yahoo! News

What is the punishment for a war criminal?

What is a war crime?

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What is the punishment for war crimes?

Has Putin committed war crimes in Ukraine?

Could Putin be prosecuted for alleged war crimes in Ukraine?

Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine – A War Expert’s Analysis

Related:

The Recount

Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine – A War Expert’s Analysis

Yahoo! News

Mariupol officials say 300 dead in Russian airstrike on theater

Insider Marie Yovanovitch says it will take a ‘concentrated effort over a number of years’ to undo the ‘damage’ that Mike Pompeo did to the State Department