Some people really don't like facts, preferring to be swayed by feeling, hearsay, assumption, and whatever comes along to affirm their own world view. It would be interesting if it didn't have so much capacity to do damage.

Friends of the Earth were called racist and all sorts of things yesterday by the keyboard warrior contingent for supporting the Black Lives Matter protest at City Airport.

Facts may not be very good at changing people's minds but we are not yet so deeply into a post-factual society that we shouldn't at least consider them. Here's an honest to God, straight up and down fact:

We have just witnessed a record-breaking 14 consecutive months of the hottest global temperatures since records began, with vanishing Arctic sea ice and the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef just the latest reality we have to face. Scientists say we have to go back 120,000 years before we find hotter temperatures than those currently recorded and are now predicting sea level rises of 10 feet by 2065. Think of some of the largest cities in the world and where they are—Rio, Mumbai, Hong Kong, and Shanghai—to realize what sea level rises will mean.

Climate scientists, governments, civil society and anyone else thinking rationally recognize that the impact of our carbon pollution will mean failing agriculture, greater food insecurity, more intense droughts and floods, record-breaking super typhoons and hurricanes, increased water shortages, more extreme weather. These elements lead to the forced displacement of people, and an increase in conflicts, and this is happening now.

Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013, left 7,000 dead and 2 million homeless. Floods in Pakistan in 2010 affected 20 million people. This year's heatwave in India and Pakistan hit 51°C, while in the Sahel (the sub-Saharan region of Africa) drought has affected 23 million, and left 3.5 million displaced. Just one tropical storm, Erika, which hit the Caribbean island of Dominica last year, put back development gains by 20 years. And all this is happening at an average temperature of increase of 1°C.

It's hard to put an accurate estimate on how many lives are lost each year to climate change, or how many communities destroyed. Some figures suggest up to700,000 additional deaths per year, although climate change fans every existing inequality in the world.

Who are these people who are dying, and who is responsible? It's the greatest injustice of climate change, that those who are the least responsible for causing the climate crisis, are the first to suffer. The poor, the marginalized, the indigenous communities are on the frontline—and they are overwhelmingly people of color in developing countries. And where it is richer, more developed countries dealing with wildfires, such as those in Australia, the U.S. or the floods in Europe, they invariably have more resources to deal with the impact.

Here are some more facts—just 10 percent of the world's population are responsible for 50 percent of emissions, while the poorest 50 percent are responsible for only 10 percent of emissions. No guessing where most of that first 10 percent live. The reality is that rich countries in the West have grown wealthy from burning fossil fuels, and now other countries are using the same dirty development pathway to do the same. An average citizen in the U.S., with just 5 percent of the world's population, still has a per capita income of $41,064 and pollutes 17.3 tonnes of CO 2 . India, with 18 percent of the global population have average of $3,148 per capita income and its citizens are responsible for 1.4 tonnes. The world's poorest countries—the so-called least developed countries—constitute 11 percent of the global population but have only a per capita income of $1,461, and the average CO 2 output across Africa is 0.9 tonnes.

Political decisions are being made for those whose voices are listened to, and it takes protesters such as those in Black Lives Matter to advocate for those whose voices are ignored.

The ink on the Paris Agreement isn't dry, but politicians agreed to keep temperature increases to below the critical 1.5°C guardrail. To prevent a breach of that, we can only pollute at the same rate as we are doing for another six to 10 years. In a fair world, rich countries in the West would have decarbonized decades ago. But the harsh truth is that it's incompatible with preventing a breach of 1.5°C and even the 2°C guardrail to build new airports, or to progress more dirty energy sources such as fracking.

So the Black Lives Matter protestors were absolutely right to say that climate change is killing black people. They are absolutely right to put the spotlight on airport expansion. Globally aviation emissions increased by 71.6 percent between 1990 and 2012, the same volume as the CO 2 emitted by Germany. If aviation was a country, it would be the world's seventh largest emitter. That's why the protest happened, and that's why we need to listen to their message.

Asad Rehman is a climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth.

(Newsweek)

A blistering new report blasts the U.S. government's pouring of billions of dollars into projects in Afghanistan with inadequate oversight that in many cases fueled corruption on unprecedented levels and ultimately undermined America's mission there.

The 164-page report, published online today by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), is the first in the agency's "Lessons Learned" series, which takes a broader look at the U.S. government's shortcomings in the 15 years since the 2001 invasion. SIGAR previously released report after report about the waste of millions of dollars in failed individual projects.

This report, titled "Corruption in Conflict," says that at early on, the U.S. government did not "fully appreciate the potential for corruption to threaten the security and state-building mission in Afghanistan," where some form of regular corruption has existed for centuries.

"The U.S. government also failed to recognize that billions of dollars injected into a small, underdeveloped country, with limited oversight and strong pressures to spend, contributed to the growth of corruption," the report says.

In its dogged pursuit of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the U.S. threw its lot in with local "warlords" and their militias — men who later rose to prominence in the Afghan government and used their positions engage in "rampant corruption activities," the report says.

In 2005 the U.S. began to realize the extent of corruption but did relatively little about it, the report says. The Afghan government made "halfhearted" attempts to respond.

By 2009, "U.S. civilian and military leaders became increasingly concerned that corruption was fueling the insurgency by financing insurgent groups and stoking grievances that increased popular support for these groups," the report says. The U.S. shifted its focus to fighting corruption, but by then there were "entrenched criminal patronage networks" to contend with — and an incredible amount of money. The report notes that in fiscal year 2012, the U.S. military contract obligations for services in Afghanistan, "including transportation, construction, base support, translation/interpretation," was approximately $19 billion. That year Afghanistan's entire gross domestic product was estimated to be $20.5 billion.

The U.S. launched projects and organized joint teams to combat corruption in Afghanistan but not as aggressively as SIGAR believes it should have. "What we do know is, the Taliban continue to pose a security threat, corruption remains a source of profound frustration among the population, and the national unity government has struggled to make headway against corruption," SIGAR says.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker is quoted in the report as saying, "The ultimate failure of our efforts ... wasn't an insurgency. It was the weight of endemic corruption."

The head of SIGAR, John Sopko, said today that the report is not meant to be a "critique or criticism of the many brave men and women who worked in Afghanistan over the last 15 years" but a "learning experience, drawing together evidence and analysis into findings that underpin key lessons." The major lesson, according to him, is that corruption cannot and should not be ignored or deprioritized, because it could undermine everything else the U.S. has worked for.

"Corruption, in other words, is a corrosive acid — partly of our making — that eats away the base of every pillar of Afghan reconstruction, including security and political stability," Sopko said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, according to prepared remarks.

Afghanistan's Ambassador to the U.S., Hamdullah Mohib, told ABC News that while his government is not taking a position on the SIGAR report itself, like SIGAR the Afghan government "has an unapologetic zero-tolerance policy towards corruption, in all its forms."

"In the two years since the National Unity Government came into office, it has taken unprecedented steps to introduce transparency and accountability across government as a way to eliminate opportunities for corruption, and several hundred public employees found guilty of corruption have been fired and/or prosecuted," Mohib said, adding that the anti-corruption efforts have increased national revenue some 22 percent.

Mohib also noted that Global Witness, an international anti-corruption organization, recently praised the Afghan government for taking concrete steps towards ending corruption. Mohib pointed to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's comments on domestic corruption this time last year, when he called it a "cancerous lesion" that "threatens the very being of a nation" and declared a "national jihad" against it.

Russell Courtier, left, was re-indicted with a hate crime charge in the death of 19-year-old Larnell Bruce. (Gresham Police Department)

A white Oregon couple already charged with murder in the death of a black teenager are facing new hate crime charges.

Russell Courtier, who is associated with a white supremacist group operating within Oregon prisons, and his girlfriend, Colleen Hunt, are now accused of mowing down Larnell Bruce outside a convenience store last month because he was black.

Courtier, 38, and Hunt, 35, were charged with murder and failure to perform duties of a driver to injured persons after a grand jury indicted them last month. They were re-indicted Monday.

According to the indictment, Courtier and Hunt intentionally harmed Bruce “because of their perception” of the 19-year-old’s “race and color.”

Under Oregon’s hate crime statute, defendants can be charged with intimidation if they harm someone because of that person’s race, color, religion, national origin or sexual orientation.

Bruce was killed Aug. 10 outside a 7-Eleven in Gresham, east of Portland.

Courtier intentionally ran over Bruce with his red Jeep Wrangler, while Hunt, who was in the passenger seat, encouraged her boyfriend to do so, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

Surveillance video showed Courtier and Bruce, 19, getting into a fight in the parking lot, the affidavit said. At some point, Bruce pulled out a machete before walking away.

[Man accused of mowing down black teen has ties to white supremacist prison gang, authorities say]

Courtier then hopped into his vehicle and drove toward Bruce, following him as the teen ran into oncoming traffic, then onto a sidewalk, the affidavit said.

“Get him baby, get him baby,” Hunt told Courtier, according to the affidavit.

Colleen Hunt

Witnesses told police that Courtier narrowly missed striking Bruce with the vehicle. But he circled around and chased the teen again, according to the affidavit.

Courtier told detectives that he intentionally struck Bruce and that he heard the impact when the teen hit the front of his Jeep, the affidavit said. Bruce suffered a traumatic brain injury and died at a hospital three days later.

Courtier’s attorney, Kami White, did not return a call from The Washington Post.

Hunt’s attorney, Jonathan Sarre, said he isn’t especially concerned about the additional intimidation charge because it isn’t the most serious crime his client is facing. Sarre declined to comment further.

If convicted of murder, Courtier and Hunt could face life imprisonment.

After being re-indicted, each now faces a first-degree intimidation charge, a Class C felony that carries up to five years in prison. Courtier is facing an additional second-degree intimidation charge, punishable by up to a year in prison.

Courtier’s criminal history stretches back to at least 2001. Betty Bernt, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Corrections, said he had been in and out of prison for assault and weapon charges. He was released in January 2015.

Courtier pleaded not guilty Tuesday to first- and second-degree intimidation, the Associated Press reported. Hunt pleaded not guilty to a charge of first-degree intimidation. The couple previously pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.

Records obtained by the Portland Mercury indicate that while in prison, Courtier identified as a member of the European Kindred, a group described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “the most feared white supremacist gang in the Pacific Northwest.”

At one point, he was caught in prison with a drawing of the group’s logo, a shield with the letters “EK” on it, according to Courtier’s disciplinary records. Later, he was disciplined for getting the logo tattooed on his calf.

In 2005, he was again punished after prison staff intercepted a letter he sent to another European Kindred member in prison.

The Oregon Department of Justice considers the gang a security threat group operating within the state’s prison system, along with the Supreme White Aryan Knights and Aryan Soldiers.

David Kennedy, a known white supremacist, founded European Kindred in 1998, while he was serving time for burglary in the Snake River Correctional Institute in Ontario, Ore., according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group has at least 300 members in prison and about 125 on the streets of Portland and surrounding cities and towns.

Courtier and Hunt are being held without bail.

(The Washington Post)

The U.S. has agreed to supply the Israeli military with $38 billion in aid over the next decade in what will be the biggest package of military assistance in the two countries’ history, the BBC reported.

The deal, due to be finalized in Washington on Wednesday, follows ten months of discussions and will include an estimated $5 billion for missile defense alone.

The previous ten-year deal agreed between the U.S. and Israel is scheduled to end in 2018 and was initially set at $30 billion, although Israel sought several billion from Congress for additional spending.

The new agreement will not have that option and requires Israel to spend the money within the U.S. defense industry, not on Israeli contractors as it has done in the past.

Discussions around the deal were protracted due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to freeze talks in 2015 after the U.S. and other states struck a nuclear deal with Iran against Israel’s wishes.

Netanyahu initially asked for a total of $45 billion, hinting that he may wait until the end of U.S. President Barack Obama’s final term in office this year, to agree a more lucrative aid package.

(Newsweek)