#but the way the population of Japan seems to be about 30% human traffickers and/or ruthless killers

[missdreamgirl32]

Show/Movie: Depicts the world as always being cruel, dangerous and unfeeling. Treating human life as cheaply as dirt under their heel. Every rando the protagonists meet turning out to be selfish, apathetic, or secretly sadistic.

Me:

[newstfionline]

Saturday, June 19, 2021

UN: Millions driven from homes in 2020 (AP) The U.N. refugee agency says war, violence, persecution and human rights violations caused nearly 3 million people to flee their homes last year, even though the COVID-19 crisis restricted movement worldwide as countries shut borders and ordered lockdowns. In its latest Global Trends report released on Friday, UNHCR says the cumulative total of displaced people has risen to 82.4 million—roughly the population of Germany. It marks the ninth straight annual increase in the number of people forcibly displaced. Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said conflict and the impact of climate change in places such as Mozambique, Ethiopia’s Tigray region and Africa’s broad Sahel area were among the leading sources of new movements of refugees and internally displaced people in 2020.

The pandemic and your teeth (Washington Post) Beyond its psychological toll, the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on our bodies: Many people have put on pounds, picked at their skin, broken their toes—and, according to dentists, damaged their teeth. As more Americans return to dental offices, practitioners say they’re seeing a significant rise in tooth-grinding and jaw-clenching likely brought on by pandemic-related stress and anxiety. They’re also seeing an increase in cavities and gum disease that may be due to a combination of lapsed appointments, pandemic eating and drinking habits, and less-than-stellar brushing and flossing. In a February survey conducted by the American Dental Association, 76 percent of general practice dentists said the prevalence of teeth-grinding, or bruxism, among their patients had increased compared to pre-pandemic times. About two-thirds reported seeing a rise in associated problems of chipped and cracked teeth as well as headache and jaw pain symptoms, the survey found. Meanwhile, about 30 percent of respondents said they observed more tooth decay and periodontal disease, an infection of the tissues surrounding teeth, in their patients.

Tropical system to bring heavy rain, flooding to Gulf Coast (AP) Forecasters predict a tropical system will bring heavy rain, storm surge and coastal flooding to the northern Gulf Coast as early as Friday and throughout the weekend. A tropical storm warning was in effect for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida—extending from Intracoastal City, Louisiana, to the Okaloosa-Walton County line in the Florida Panhandle, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The system is expected to produce up to 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain across the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, and up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) through the weekend along the central U.S. Gulf Coast.

‘El Chapo’ has been locked up for 5 years, but business has never been better for the Sinaloa cartel (Business Insider) It’s been five years since Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán was arrested for the last time. He’s been in a US “supermax” prison since 2017, serving a life sentence after being found guilty of all 10 federal charges he faced. But according to official US data, security analysts, and some of his own lawyers, business has never been better for his cartel. At the time, US authorities said Guzmán’s arrest was “a significant victory and a milestone” in combating violence and drug trafficking. Richard Donoghue, former US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Guzmán would never again “pour poison into our country or make millions as innocent lives are lost.” While El Chapo has been portrayed as a guiding force for the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, his organization and other criminal groups don’t seem to miss him.      According to official US figures, since Guzmán’s arrest the influx of drugs into the US and the violence in Mexico have never been worse. Cocaine seizures in the US jumped from more than 52,000 pounds in 2016 to more than 62,000 pounds the following year. The total for 2021, as of April, is 62,324 pounds. In 2015, with Guzmán still at large, 29,000 pounds of meth were recovered in the US. Five years later, with El Chapo locked up, seizures inside the US jumped to 117,600 pounds. So if El Chapo is locked up for 23 hours a day in a 7-foot-by-12-food soundproof cell but drug busts are at an all-time high, what exactly was the point in arresting him? Guzmán’s arrest has also failed to reduce bloodshed in Mexico. Homicides there have steadily risen in recent years, jumping from about 10,000 a year in 2014 to almost 20,000 in 2020, the highest annual total in Mexican history. Criminal organizations in Mexico have proliferated, from 20 in 2000 to more than 200 in 2021. That growth is due in large part to the fragmentation of larger cartels after their leaders have been captured or killed.

After Pandemic and Brexit, U.K. Begins to See Gaps Left by European Workers (NYT) Agnieszka Bleka has had to work hard in past years to find companies that need workers, spending much of her day reaching out to local businesses in the northern English city of Preston where she is based. But now, Ms. Bleka, who owns Workforce Consultants, a company that finds jobs in Britain for mostly Eastern and Central Europeans, said that she was fielding several calls a day from companies looking for temporary staff, and that she can’t keep up with the demand. “The fish pond is getting smaller,” she said. “And people are picking and choosing the jobs, or leaving as well, going to their home countries.” Free movement between Britain and Europe technically ended at the start of 2021 because of Brexit, but the effects were masked by strict pandemic travel restrictions. Only lately, as the economy picks up steam, is the new reality beginning to be fully felt. And there is little question that many companies are having considerable trouble filling jobs.

It’s Not Too Late to Avert a Historic Shame (The Atlantic) In the past few weeks, the outlook for Afghans who helped the United States in Afghanistan has gone from worrying to critical. As U.S. and NATO troops leave the country with breathtaking speed, the Taliban are attacking districts that had long been in the Afghan government’s hands, setting up checkpoints on major roads, and threatening provincial capitals. Many of the 18,000 Afghans who, along with their families, have applied for Special Immigrant Visas will soon have nowhere to hide, no armed force standing between them and their pursuers. The unfolding disaster has seized the attention of international organizations, American news outlets, veterans’ groups, and members of Congress. On June 4, a bipartisan coalition of House members (many of them veterans), called the Honoring Our Promises Working Group, released a passionate statement that urged the Biden administration to skip the cumbersome ordeal of reviewing thousands of visa applications and instead evacuate these Afghans and their families to the U.S. territory of Guam, where they can be processed in safety. (The governor of Guam has declared that the island is prepared to accept them.)      The Association of Wartime Allies, a veterans’ group, keeps a tracker of how many flights a day will be needed to get these endangered Afghans out if all U.S. forces leave Afghanistan by September 11, as President Joe Biden has promised, or July 4, as now seems a likelier end point. Between this past Tuesday and July 4, 17 flights carrying 3,737 people would have to take off daily. With every passing day, of course, the number of flights goes up, and the logistics get harder. Right now, there are zero daily flights to save Afghans who helped Americans. As far as I can tell, the administration does not intend to evacuate Afghans anytime soon, if ever. That U.S. officials don’t want to take the extreme step of organizing flights out of Afghanistan is understandable, but at this point, nothing else will keep our Afghan allies safe. If we leave without them, they will be killed one at a time. Their deaths will be obscure, and the news might not reach us for weeks or years, if it ever does at all, but they will haunt our memory.

Myanmar Fire Kills Two (CNN) Myanmar’s security forces reportedly set fire to the village of Kin Ma, in the central part of the country, after clashing with opponents of the ruling junta. Two elderly people in the village of 800 burned to death when they were unable to flee. About 200 homes were reduced to piles of ash and bricks by the blaze that was large enough to be recorded by NASA’s satellite fire-tracking system at 9:52 pm local time Tuesday. Most of the village’s residents continued hiding in nearby forests, but those who returned Wednesday said only about 25 homes remained. Myanmar has been gripped by violence and protests since the military overthrew elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1. Western condemnation of the junta has grown due to the military’s use of force against its opponents. One human rights group said security forces have killed more than 860 civilians.

Bear goes on rampage in Japan, storms military base, airport (Washington Post) A wild bear went on a rampage in the northern Japanese city of Sapporo on Friday, storming a Japanese military base, forcing its way into an airport and injuring four people, before being shot. Dangerous encounters between bears and humans have risen sharply in Japan in recent years, with the animals increasingly coming down from their mountain habitats in search of food. Last year, experts blamed a shortage of acorns in the mountains for a surge in sightings, but there is a deeper reason: Japan’s shrinking rural population. The trend has led to the abandonment of farmlands in the foothills that once formed buffer zones between the bears’ mountain homes and the populous flatlands. As a result, the bears’ habitat has expanded into these flatter lands and closer to human populations.

Iran votes in presidential poll tipped in hard-liner’s favor (AP) Iran voted Friday in a presidential election tipped in the favor of a hard-line protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, fueling public apathy and sparking calls for a boycott in the Islamic Republic. State-linked opinion polling and analysts put hard-line judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi as the dominant front-runner in a field of just four candidates. If elected, Raisi would be the first serving Iranian president sanctioned by the U.S. government even before entering office over his involvement in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988, as well as his time as the head of Iran’s internationally criticized judiciary—one of the world’s top executioners. It also would firmly put hard-liners in control across the Iranian government as negotiations in Vienna continue over trying to save Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers, as it enriches uranium to the closest point yet to weapons-grade levels.

More Gaza airstrikes (Foreign Policy) Israel bombed Gaza late Thursday night, the second time it has struck the territory since agreeing a cease-fire with Hamas following an 11-day conflict in May. The strikes came in response to incendiary balloons launched from Gaza, itself a reaction to an Israeli far-right march through Jerusalem’s Old City deemed provocative by Palestinian groups. The Israeli military said it had struck “military compounds and a rocket launch site” and was ready for a “variety of scenarios including a resumption of hostilities.”

Policeman killed, more than 80 students abducted in attack on Nigerian school (Reuters) Gunmen killed a police officer and kidnapped at least 80 students and five teachers from a school in the Nigerian state of Kebbi, police, residents and a teacher said. The attack is the third mass kidnapping in three weeks in northwest Nigeria, which have authorities have attributed to armed bandits seeking ransom payments.

[xtruss]

Global Cactus Traffickers Are Cleaning Out the Deserts

A recent raid in Italy involving rare Chilean species highlights the growing scale of a black market in the thorny plants.

— By Rachel Nuwer | May 20, 2021 | The New York Times

Copiapoa cinerascens, a cactus, in Pan de Azúcar National Park in the Atacama Desert of Chile. Credit...Gretchen Mattison/Alamy

Andrea Cattabriga has seen a lot of cactuses where they didn’t belong. But he’d never seen anything like Operation Atacama, a bust carried out last year in Italy. A cactus expert and president of the Association for Biodiversity and Conservation, Mr. Cattabriga often helps the police identify the odd specimen seized from tourists or intercepted in the post.

This time, however, Mr. Cattabriga was confronted by a stunning display: more than 1,000 of some of the world’s rarest cactuses, valued at over $1.2 million on the black market.

Almost all of the protected plants had come from Chile, which does not legally export them, and some were well over a century old. The operation — which occurred in February 2020, but is being made public now because of the cactuses’ recent return to Chile — was most likely the biggest international cactus seizure in nearly three decades. It also highlights how much money traffickers may be earning from the trade.

Seeing the collected cactuses brought a profound sadness to Mr. Cattabriga.

“Here is an organism that has evolved over millions of years to be able to survive in the harshest conditions you can find on the planet, but that finishes its life in this way — just as an object to be sold,” he said.

As with the market for tiger bones, ivory, pangolin scales and rhino horn, a flourishing illegal global trade exists for plants. “Just about every plant you can probably think of is trafficked in some way,” said Eric Jumper, a special agent with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Cactuses and other succulents are among the most sought after, along with orchids and, increasingly, carnivorous species.

Trafficking can take a serious toll. Over 30 percent of the world’s nearly 1,500 cactus species are threatened with extinction. Unscrupulous collection is the primary driver of that decline, affecting almost half of imperiled species. Yet this realm of illegal trade is typically overlooked, a prime example of “plant blindness,” or the human tendency to broadly ignore this important branch on the tree of life.

“The basic functioning of the planet would effectively grind to a halt without plants, but people care more about animals,” said Jared Margulies, a geographer at the University of Alabama who studies plant trafficking. “A lot of plant species are not receiving the amount of attention they would be if they had eyes and faces.”

Yet the size of Operation Atacama could be a notable exception. It is also the largest known example of cactuses stolen from the wild being repatriated for reintroduction into their native habitat.

Experts also hope the case can be a turning point for how countries, collectors, conservationists and the industry deal with the thorny issue of international cactus trafficking.

“Society as a whole can no longer continue to have a naïve view of this problem,” said Pablo Guerrero, a botanist at the University of Concepción in Chile.

Passion For Rarity

Italian investigators with Operation Atacama prepared a specimen of Copiapoa solaris for shipment back to Chile from a greenhouse in Milan, Italy. Credit...Andrea Cattabriga

Cactuses and other succulents are hot business today. They have become the darlings of social media, promoted by indoor plant influencers for their outlandish looks and minimal care requirements. The pandemic only increased their popularity, with shops struggling to keep some species in stock.

The average hipster’s cactus collection will include only common species propagated in nurseries. But for some specialist collectors — who tend to be middle-aged or older men — the hobby is much more serious.

“A lot of what drives the interest and passion for these plants is their uniqueness and rarity,” said Bárbara Goettsch, co-chair of the Cactus and Succulent Plant Specialist Group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Many cactus species are highly localized, found, for example, only on certain steep limestone cliffs in Mexico, or a single sandy patch of less than one square mile on Peru’s coast. They also tend to be extremely slow-growing. Larger specimens, which are more highly sought after, can be decades or even hundreds of years old. These features make cactuses particularly sensitive to over-harvesting, but also particularly attractive to collectors interested in exclusivity.

Purchasing rare species legally, however, can be difficult to impossible. All cactuses and many other types of succulents require permits to be traded internationally, if they can be legally traded at all. Most countries also prohibit collection of some or all of these species from the wild, including the United States.

“For all cactuses, you cannot collect them off public land, period,” Mr. Jumper said. “Catching people in the field actually collecting cactuses takes quite a bit of luck, though, because they collect in some vast areas.”

Once cactuses are poached from the wild, illicit trade often happens in the open. High-end plant shops in Japan display protected, wild-harvested species, while sellers around the world advertise them on eBay, Instagram, Etsy and Facebook. Online ads are often accompanied by disclaimers that the cactuses do not come with necessary permits for legal trade, and poachers sometimes livestream videos from the field, asking customers which plants they want. Traffickers are rarely caught or prosecuted. While American, British, European and Japanese collectors have traditionally driven the illegal trade, more recently, interest has also spread to China, Korea and Thailand.

Although no estimates exist for the scope of the illegal cactus trade, many experts believe it is increasing. “It was a much smaller issue 20 years ago, but now, it is major,” said Jeff Pavlat, president of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America. “Entire populations are being stripped.”

A Poacher’s Playbook

Copiapoa Cinerea. Credit...Andrea Cattabriga

In February 2020, the Italian police, responding to a tip, visited the home of Andrea Piombetti, a well-known cactus collector and seller in Senigallia, a town on the Adriatic coast. In a makeshift greenhouse, officers discovered around 1,000 protected Chilean Copiapoa and Eriosyce species, ranging from the size of a baseball to a beach ball. Police officers seized the plants, along with Mr. Piombetti’s cellphone and passport.

It was not the first time Mr. Piombetti, who did not respond to interview requests, and who is now awaiting trial, had been accused of cactus trafficking. The police also seized a shipment of 600 Chilean cactuses from him in 2013. But the case was never prosecuted because of bureaucratic delays, and the statute of limitations passed.

“Many environmental crimes in Italy have this problem — they can’t be punished after four or five years,” said Lt. Col. Simone Cecchini, chief of the wildlife division of the local police department, who led the 2013 and 2020 investigations. “This time, our prosecutor said we’ll try to be very fast, because he wants to avoid what happened in 2013.”

Mr. Piombetti has not yet entered a plea in court.

Mr. Cattabriga and other experts carried out a number of analytical tests to confirm that the plants had not been homegrown, but instead were collected from the wild in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Mr. Cecchini and his colleagues found that Mr. Piombetti had made seven trips to Chile, most recently in December 2019, where they say he poached the cactuses in the Atacama Desert, near Pan de Azúcar National Park.

After collecting the cactuses, Mr. Cecchini’s investigation revealed that Mr. Piombetti allegedly mailed the plants to addresses in Greece and Romania, where international customs are more lax than in Italy. Because of their hardiness, cactuses can survive long journeys by post without soil, water or light.

Mr. Cecchini found many records of illegal cactus sales in Mr. Piombetti’s phone, including receipts from a Japanese company that seemed to place large monthly orders. Based on the prices quoted by text, the police calculated that the seized cactuses were worth over one million euros.

“We need bigger penalties in Italy for this type of environmental crime,” Mr. Cecchini said.

A First-of-its-kind Homecoming

A specimen of Capiapoa conglomerata recovered by Operation Atacama. Credit...Andrea Cattabriga

After the seizure, Mr. Cattabriga arranged for the plants, many of which were in very poor health, to be transferred to the Città Studi Botanical Garden of Milan for temporary care. As the investigation progressed, the question of what to do with them became more urgent.

Cactuses confiscated by the Italian authorities are normally destroyed or, if they are rare species, sent to botanical gardens. But with Operation Atacama, “it was very different,” Mr. Cattabriga said. The number of cactuses was so large, and some were critically endangered species found in areas of Chile spanning just a few square miles with very specialized needs. Keeping the cactuses at the garden was a likely death sentence.

At first, there was discussion of sending the plants to other botanical gardens in Italy and broader Europe. But Mr. Cattabriga, Mr. Cecchini and Dr. Guerrero were adamant they be returned to Chile for both conservation and symbolic purposes.

Working with Dr. Goettsch and several others, they spent much of 2020 navigating Italian, Chilean and international bureaucracy to secure permission to send the plants home. “It’s the first time this has happened, so no one was really clear on how to do this,” Dr. Guerrero said.

The authorities finally agreed to the transfer in late 2020. But neither Chile nor Italy would pay the approximately $3,600 shipping cost.

Dr. Goettsch managed to secure about three-quarters of the funds from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the botanical garden in Milan pitched in as well. The rest was provided by Liz Vayda, owner of B. Willow, a plant shop in Baltimore that regularly donates to environmental groups.

Finally, in late April, 844 cactuses made the return journey to Chile. Around 100 others had died, and 84 stayed in Milan for study.

Mr. Cattabriga has been making daily video calls to try to ensure the plants are being properly cared for while they are in quarantine. According to Bernardo Martínez Aguilera, head of the forest inspection department at Chile’s National Forest Corporation, the final goal “is that the majority of these individuals return to their natural environment, which they never should have left.”

Carrots and Sticks

Cacti of the Copiapoa genus in Pan de Azúcar National Park. Credit...Erlantz Pérez Rodriguez/Alamy

Operation Atacama is by far the biggest bust in recent history, but there are other signs that law enforcement is beginning to take note of cactuses. Six men were sentenced to a number of penalties after recent federal convictions involving a cactus trafficking ring that poached thousands of living rocks in southwest Texas for smuggling to Europe and Asia. Additional cactus-related prosecutions have taken place in California and Arizona.

But while stronger law enforcement is welcome, a variety of experts believe prohibition, on its own, will not stop trafficking. Instead, they favor meeting demand through sustainably managed collection of seeds or cuttings of wild plants, which could be used for artificial propagation by certified greenhouses.

Sales of these legally sourced plants could help offset illegal trade. Preferably, the proceeds would go directly to communities living alongside the species, the experts say, creating incentives to protect them. The cactus and succulent trade is “big business, but the majority of that money is not centered in countries of origin,” Dr. Margulies said. “I think there should be a push to engage in this more from a social justice lens.”

Many countries’ domestic legislation prohibits these types of activities, however, as do strict international trade laws and bureaucracy. The result, Mr. Cattabriga said, is a system that “discourages the reproduction of rare plants in captivity, and has the side effect of exacerbating the illicit trade.”

Dr. Guerrero hopes that Operation Atacama will ignite discussions of how to reform legislation to make it more amenable to solutions.

In the meantime, some plant enthusiasts are going out of their way to change cactus collecting culture. Ms. Vayda at B. Willow, for example, is in conversation with the International Union for Conservation of Nature about potentially establishing houseplant industry standards for certifying that greenhouses use legally sourced plants, similar to organic or fair-trade food labels. “Right now, I have to specifically ask a grower, ‘Where do your plants from?’” she said.

The Cactus and Succulent Society of America is trying to steer members away from the temptation of poached plants through educational talks, articles it publishes and other means. The society also banned growers from entering specimens into specialty shows and competitions that members would have no way of legally acquiring today.

“You can’t have a Copiapoa collected in Chile in the 1970s get the ribbon, and then tell members, ‘No, you can’t have that plant, you have to start from seed and in 200 years you can have it,’” Mr. Pavlat said. “We have to reset what people’s goals and expectations are.”