Colin Staub, - Resource Reccycling
Stephan: Here is the story on one aspect of the end of recycling.
Port of Oakland shipping container of plastics bound for India.
The Indian government says it will ban scrap plastic imports, a move that threatens to further disrupt the U.S. recycling industry by closing a growing market.
India’s environment ministry issued a release March 6, laying out a handful of changes to the country’s hazardous waste rules, some of which cover scrap plastic movement.
“Solid plastic waste has been prohibited from import into the country,” the release stated, specifying that the ban closes exemptions to existing import restrictions. The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) shared the information in an alert to members.
India banned scrap plastic imports in 2016, but later that year the country opened up certain exceptions, allowing companies in designated economic development areas to legally import plastic. The new rule appears to reverse those exceptions, specifying that the order bans imports “including in Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and by Export Oriented Units (EOU).”
The release doesn’t note a date of implementation, but ISRI indicated the policy took effect March 1.
India’s release also doesn’t get into detail on resins that will […]
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Simon Clark, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress - THINK
Stephan: Although a massacre of Muslims committed by one man took place in New Zealand, across the world it is being traced back to Trump and America. I have seen dozens of articles in the publications of a dozen countries, and that's just what has come out over the past 24 hours in English. The blood of this event so far away is washing up on our shores, and we are besmirched by it. The way people see us, think about us, is changing radically, and not for the better. America over the past two and a half years has been severely diminished. I have to go to France and the Netherlands this summer and will be paying close attention to what I see, read, and hear. But I would appreciate now, in the moment, the comments from any SR readers in other countries giving insight into how they and their friends, and their country are absorbing what is happening.
White supremacist mass murderer
In the immediate aftermath of last week’s white nationalist terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand that took the lives of 49 people, U.S. president minimized the scale of the problem, proclaiming that there is no systematic issue: “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”
This, however, is exactly the kind of denial and deflection that the West had criticized so forcefully when it came from Sunni Arab countries after 9/11.
Ever since the early [aughts] 2000s, the U.S. and Europe have rightly pressed a number of Sunni Arab countries to crack down on the internal sources of Islamist terrorism, arguing that their inaction on domestic extremism was putting both their own societies and people around the world at risk. We emphasized, again and again, that only a determined focus on the preachers and financiers of terrorism could staunch the threat.
After yet another massacre apparently inspired by white nationalism, it is long past time for […]
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Stephan: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” For 144 years, since the Statue of Liberty was erected on Bedloe's Island in September 1875 that has been America's pledge. For many of you who read SR, and for tens of millions more, that statement is what made you an American. No more. Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and the racists that support them have ended that.
USCIS maintains 22 field offices in Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa and Asia, according to an official website. The agency already has closed its field office in Cuba. Credit: Wilfredo Lee/AP
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services plans to close all its international field offices, according to three people familiar with the decision.
The offices — which are located in embassies and consulates around the world — handle everything from immigration applications and fraud detection. In addition, the offices provide expertise to other U.S. government agencies and partner with foreign governments.
While President Donald Trump frequently highlights his opposition to illegal immigration, his administration also has taken steps to make the legal immigration process more difficult. The latest move could affect everyone from members of the U.S. military applying for citizenship to foreigners seeking to join their relatives in the U.S., according to those familiar with the plan.
USCIS Director Francis Cissna said in an email to staff that the agency was in preliminary discussions to transfer the international workload to domestic offices […]
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Irene S. Levine, Contributing Writer - Forbes
Stephan: The world is changing, and not in a happy way. If you are planning to travel to Europe this summer you need to know this.
Credit: Getty
U.S. citizens are currently permitted to visit 26 countries in the European Union for up to three months for the purpose of business or tourism without any visa requirements.
Beginning July 1, 2021, the rules will change. Visiting any of these Schengen-member countries for tourism, business, medical or transit will require approval from the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS)—which will be considered an additional check on security rather than a visa.
The intent of this new requirement is to better address the challenges posed by terrorism and to raise revenue for the EU.
The application and approval process
- The ETIAS application process will take place online and should take less than 10 minutes to complete.
- Applicants will be asked to provide three types of information: 1) a valid passport (with an expiration date that is at least three months longer than the intended stay; 2) a credit or debit card, and 3) an email address.
- Application must take place at least 96 hours before travel.
- Applications need to be made for infants […]
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IGOR DERYSH, Political Writer - Salon
Stephan: The rich christofascists for whom Trump fronts, and with whom he surrounds himself, are trying to remake America into a christofascist White supremacist enclave, trying to stop the country from becoming a majority-minority nation, and trying to maintain male dominance of women. Their efforts are explicit and open. Here is what is happening in public education.
President Donald Trump stands with Betsy DeVos
Credit: Mike Segar/Reuters
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced Monday she will allow religious groups to provide taxpayer-funded services in private schools, in a move education advocates called an affront to the separation of church and state.
Under federal law, private schools are granted “equitable-services provisions,” which entitle private schools to taxpayer-funded services provided to public schools, The Washington Post reported. The rules allow public school funds to go toward training private school teachers or even helping to staff classes. But the rules bar private schools from contracting religious groups for these purposes.
DeVos announced Monday that she will no longer enforce a rule prohibiting religious institutions from providing these taxpayer-funded services in private schools, claiming that the restriction runs counter to a recent Supreme Court decision that said “otherwise eligible recipients cannot be disqualified from a public benefit solely because of their religious character.”
DeVos cited the court’s ruling in favor of Missouri’s Trinity Lutheran Church, which ruled that the state discriminated against the church […]
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