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Why the US Army tried to exterminate the bison

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In 1894, notorious poacher Ed Howell was caught in Yellowstone National Park slaughtering bison, which were on the brink of extinction. US Army soldiers patrolling the park brought him into custody, and the story led to the first US federal law protecting wildlife. The soldiers were thought of as heroes for stopping the killer. But in reality, it was the US Army that had been responsible for driving bison to near-extinction in the first place.
In the mid-1800s, a cultural belief known as “manifest destiny” dictated that white settlers were the rightful owners of the entire North American continent — even though Native Americans had inhabited the land for centuries. In order to clear that land for white settlers, the US Army engaged in violent scorched-earth tactics against the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains. One big part of that campaign was to eliminate their crucial food source: the bison.
By the end of the 1800s, a combination of commercial and recreational hunting, plus the actions of the US Army, had depleted the bison population to under 1,000, down from tens of millions at the beginning of the century. Around the same time, the US government set aside some of the land once inhabited by the Plains Indians as a national park, and in 1872 Yellowstone was established.
A key mission of Yellowstone was to conserve the land and the animals that roamed there, including the bison. Today, the soldiers who once patrolled the park are celebrated for having “saved” the bison in Yellowstone, obscuring their own violent contribution to the animal’s near-extinction.
You can find this video and all of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLXo7UDZvByw2ixzpQCufnA">Vox’s videos on YouTube</a>. And if you’re interested in supporting our video journalism, you can <a href="https://www.vox.com/join">become a member of the Vox Video Lab on YouTube</a>.
Darkroom is a history and photography series that anchors each episode around a single image. Analyzing what the photo shows (or doesn’t show) provides context that helps unravel a wider story. Watch previous episodes <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ8cMiYb3G5ce8J4P5j5qOEtYR94Z3DQs">here</a>.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/2/22605868/us-army-exterminate-bison-buffalo">https://www.vox.com/2021/8/2/22605868/us-army-exterminate-bison-buffalo</a>

vox Why the US Army tried to exterminate the bison

In 1894, notorious poacher Ed Howell was caught in Yellowstone National Park slaughtering bison, which were on the brink of extinction. US ...

Why the “wolf turn” is such a big deal

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Every Summer Olympics, gymnasts amaze viewers by performing incredibly complex and dangerous skills. As these routines get more and more complicated, they become harder to top. The latest way to add value and distinguish a routine is a tricky skill called the wolf turn.
The wolf turn has been around for decades, but recently it’s become a favorite in balance beam and floor routines. A gymnast will get into a squat position with one leg stretched out. She’ll then stretch out her arms and wind them up. Once she finds her balance, she’ll start spinning. Finally, she’ll stop and return to her original stance.
Seems pretty simple, but the movement relies on a delicate balance of mass and inertia. One wobble and things fall apart. Of course, there’s a reason gymnasts perform this delicate balance: points. The turn is used strategically because its relatively high difficulty level means judges value it more than a regular turn.
To read more about how judges score gymnasts, check out this article from <a href="https://usagym.org/pages/events/pages/fig_scoring.html">USA Gymnastics</a> and this one from <a href="https://balancebeamsituation.com/elite-skill-database/wolf-turn-double-balance-beam/">The Balance Beam Situation</a>.
You can find this video and all of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLXo7UDZvByw2ixzpQCufnA">Vox’s videos on YouTube</a>. And if you’re interested in supporting our video journalism, you can <a href="https://www.vox.com/join">become a member of the Vox Video Lab on YouTube</a>.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/8/2/22602726/why-the-wolf-turn-is-such-a-big-deal">https://www.vox.com/2021/8/2/22602726/why-the-wolf-turn-is-such-a-big-deal</a>

vox Why the “wolf turn” is such a big deal

Every Summer Olympics, gymnasts amaze viewers by performing incredibly complex and dangerous skills. As these routines get more and more co...

Congress wants to make going to the airport less miserable

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If you’re flying out of Singapore Changi, which aviation survey and research group <a href="https://www.worldairportawards.com/worlds-top-10-airports-2020/">Skytrax</a> ranks as the world’s best airport, you can spend time before your flight in the airport’s tropical butterfly garden.
At second-ranked Tokyo Haneda, you can enjoy one of several open-air rooftop restaurants and a rapid transit monorail system that links terminals. At Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, rated ninth, you can go to a free art museum annex before heading to one of 223 gates spread around a single-terminal concept.
If you’re flying out of the US, however, the best part of a trip to the airport is probably getting to leave. After standing in long lines, waiting in overcrowded gates, and managing delays, wanting to get out of the airport as soon as possible is understandable. And it certainly doesn’t help that the features that push other airports to the top of the rankings would be unrecognizable to someone flying in the US.
No American airport cracks Skytax’s top 30; George Bush Intercontinental Airport, in Houston, is the highest-ranked American airport at No. 31, and only Houston, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky, Denver, and Atlanta’s airports show up in the top 50.
Not only are few US airports among the world’s best, but overall, they are in bad shape: In 2021, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave America’s aviation system a D+, largely because airports’ basic inefficiencies and lack of space lead to problems like delays and overcrowding. The airport grade was worse than those of other, oft-maligned parts of US transportation infrastructure, like bridges, which earned a C, and roads, which were given a D.
However, federal help for airports may be on the way. The White House and a bipartisan group of senators are working on a plan for a roughly $1 trillion investment in US <a href="https://www.vox.com/22598883/infrastructure-deal-bipartisan-bill-biden-manchin">infrastructure</a>, a number that includes $25 billion for airports.
That <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-support-for-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-framework/">bipartisan infrastructure framework</a> (known as the BIF) still has a long runway ahead of it before passage, although an initial agreement has been reached in the Senate. The deal still faces potential challenges in the House, where progressive Democrats have signaled a wariness to back it without guaranteed moderate support for a separate budget package, which includes investments like universal pre-K and green card reforms. But the prognosis is positive overall — a welcome sign for airports needing funding for long-awaited improvements.
If the bipartisan framework does become law, airports’ budgetary needs are so severe — and their spatial challenges so significant — that $25 billion is likely not enough to be a cure-all for their infrastructure challenges. Still, that money would be of help — not necessarily to make US airports more luxurious, but to increase efficiency during check-in, security screenings, and boarding; make air travel a little greener; and to ensure that airports built before television was a thing can meet the needs of 21st-century travel.
American airports’ problems are familiar to travelers. In nearly every US airport, the physical space is insufficient to accommodate modern needs, from security checks to health protocols. There are more flights than there are gates, causing delays. And not every airport can afford the latest air traffic control technology, affecting their ability to manage their airspace efficiently.
The growing number of passengers could exacerbate these issues: Over the past two years, ASCE found that air travel growth has outpaced growth in the number of flights, and while the number of passengers obviously took a huge hit during the pandemic, travel is poised to rebound this summer. And even during the pandemic, cargo — another critical factor in the aviation infrastructure equation — took off.
At Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport, CEO Candace McGraw said cargo volumes increased 25 percent year to date in 2021, and passenger volumes are beginning to return to normal levels. The US just doesn’t have the infrastructural capacity to meet that type of demand.
We’ve already seen what happens when sudden changes squeeze airports for space: longer lines, more crowds, and delays. New regulations after 9/11 meant that airports needed to adjust for the creation of Transportation Security Administration checkpoints and make room for new baggage screening systems in terminals.
For older airports, in particular, it became a challenge to make everything fit and to accommodate the extra lines they created. Now, with the pandemic, there’s a need for health screening checkpoints, further complicating airports’ spatial geometry, and pressure to renovate HVAC systems and expand cleaning procedures, both of which require additional funding.
The ASCE found that flight delay minutes rose from just over 60 million in 2017 to nearly 100 million in 2019. The <a href="https://infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Aviation-2021.pdf">Bureau of Transportation Statistics</a> found that weather only accounts for 3 percent of those delays; the biggest culprits are the aircraft arriving late (33 percent), a national aviation system delay (29 percent), and an air carrier delay (25 percent). Tor Anderzen, the author of ASCE’s infrastructure report card, said infrastructure challenges can be blamed for a majority of delays because capacity issues snowball.
For example, let’s say a plane is late arriving in New York because of an air carrier delay — passengers cannot board yet because the plane hasn’t docked at the gate. The plane is at the airport, but because demand is so close to terminal capacity, it has to taxi on the runway for a while before coming in. Now, boarding for that plane’s next flight is delayed 10 minutes. When the plane flies to its next destination, it’s bringing that delay with it, creating a dilemma for air traffic control when it lands in Atlanta. That leads to more delays. By the time it takes off again, to go to Las Vegas, passengers are now looking at a 30-minute delay.
“People are getting frustrated with the system because of the delays,” Anderzen said. “The cost of underinvesting in our aviation infrastructure is not only measured in minutes of delay, in the cost in dollars for lost income. It also ... does impact our mental health as travelers.”
Many of the problems US airports face can be traced back to the fact that most of them were planned and built in a completely different era of travel.
US airport construction really accelerated after World War II, after the Federal Airport Act of 1946 provided grants that could finance up to half of the cost of an airport project. Investments in maintenance and expansion remained relatively low until 1970, when the law was repealed in favor of the Airport and Airway Development Act, which authorized the Airport Improvement Program (AIP), a $3 billion per year (on average) federal grant program, to provide predictable annual funding to airports. That money is helpful, but it only goes so far, especially because it’s limited to areas of the airport terminal meant for public use, meaning it can’t, for instance, improve gate areas in their totality.
More money with fewer restrictions is needed because, as frustrating as things are now, with new coronavirus procedures and a potential spike in travel demand, without further construction and investment they may soon be worse.
The only major US airport to open in the last 30 years is Denver International Airport, a mega project in which the Denver Regional Council of Governments had the luxury of selecting a space in the 1980s rather than the 1940s. The result, which cost $8.2 billion by today’s standards, was North America’s largest airport by land area, with far more space for terminals and concourses than is typical.
Other airports have not been as fortunate. In the years since their initial construction, they have undergone remodeling and expansion, but they’re often limited in how far they can go. At Reagan National Airport, for example, experts say there’s simply no more room to build; at this point, it is what it is.
Most airports, even if far from the city center, are surrounded by residential and commercial development. Localities are stuck with the plots of land they chose for their airports so many decades ago, and there’s very little room for expansion. Even in areas where new land could be acquired, it can prove nearly impossible to buy or build given environmental impact regulations and, critically, community resistance — like airport noise complaints from homeowners.
“They generally have to operate within the footprint they have at this point,” said Janet Bednarek, an aviation history professor at the University of Dayton. “Whatever expansion they had came in the ’50s and ’60s, and that pretty much set the limits to where they could be.”
Ideally, cities with aging airports would be given federal money to start from scratch, as Denver did. That would allow municipalities to design spaces with modern security, health, and capacity considerations in mind. That would mean massive new terminals, plenty of runways, check-in areas with ample space for TSA checkpoints, and maybe even a butterfly garden or two.
But the price tag of the Denver airport shows why that’s not possible. Instead, cities will have to work with the $25 billion that may be coming, which, at best, will allow for remodeling. That comes with far more challenges than simply building from scratch, ranging from utilizing creative architectural choices to maximize existing space (as Reagan would need to do); finding ways to divert passengers and planes around construction without overly worsening the travel experience; and, of course, being restricted to the airport’s current footprint.
Overall, building a new airport is just easier than doing renovations — and more likely to solve US airports’ most common problems. But a renovation is cheaper than new construction, and though arguably unable to completely eliminate all issues, is certainly better than doing nothing at all.
The aforementioned federal programs aside, Congress has seen airports as state and local responsibilities since 1926, when federal law established state and local governments as the sole proprietors and operators of airports. With the exception of the two airports serving the District of Columbia — Dulles International Airport and Reagan National Airport — American airports are still owned and managed at the local level.
That’s not the case internationally: In China, the government chooses sites and finances the planning and construction of airports, with particular attention paid toward international gateway airports like the new Beijing Daxing International Airport. Bednarek notes this difference makes it hard to directly compare even the largest US airports with those considered the world’s best.
“When [flyers are] comparing some of these international airports to American airports, generally, they’re talking about airports that are consciously designed by national governments in these countries as international gateways,” Bednarek said. “They’re usually the airport that foreigners fly into when they come into the country.”
The US didn’t design its infrastructure to have one showstopping airport that all international travelers come into — in fact, when some of its oldest airports were built, international travel was still done primarily by sea. And no state or local government has the space or money to try to build one.
“In the US ... it would be up to the local authorities to decide what to do,” she continued. “We’re a very big country, and there’s lots of international airports. So it’s a much more diffuse airport market.”
American airports are funded with a mix of revenue they generate, federal grants, and financing through options like selling bonds.
Federally, each of the roughly 400 US airports with 10,000 or more passengers automatically receives an entitlement from the AIP each year. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the US, typically gets an entitlement of around $130 million. Otherwise, airports generate revenue mostly by charging rents to hotels, restaurants, rental car companies, parking lot operators, and, of course, to airlines for landing fees and terminal space. They also pocket the passenger facility charge (PFC), a collection fee of up to $4.50 on ticket prices, capped by the federal government, essentially a tax on travelers.
These funding sources are enormous revenue generators — parking and rental cars alone generated over $6 billion in 2018 for the 30 large hub airports, Dave NewMyer, a professor emeritus of aviation management and flight at Southern Illinois University, said — but a lot of it goes toward the daily costs of operation, like salaries and wages, contractual services like snow removal or engineering, and repairs and maintenance. That leaves little, if anything, for big construction projects, meaning when large projects are approved, state and local airport authorities have to sell bonds — that is, take on debt — to finance them.
“A lot of people wonder why we don’t rank as high, as far as some of the surveys are done,” NewMyer said. “There’s not a lot of spare money to do that.”
Details of the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/28/fact-sheet-historic-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal/">BIF’s proposed $25 billion</a> in FAA funding aren’t finalized, but the current plan focuses on addressing repair backlogs and investing in emission-reduction technologies. So far, it seems travelers can be optimistic about seeing some improvements — lawmakers in particular seem dedicated to terminal upgrades, which ASCE identified as the top investment need.
Grants to airports to address their aging terminal infrastructure would allow them to potentially expand terminals, or at least get creative in airports where there is no room for expansion.
“Many airports have booming demand, more aircraft coming in than they have gates for,” Greg Pecoraro, the president of the National Association of State Aviation Officials, said. “We need more gates, bigger terminals, and more capacity to be able to park aircraft.”
New York City’s LaGuardia Airport — which is surrounded by development — is an example of what a successful BIF might be able to help fund.
This year, the airport, commonly regarded as the worst in the US, <a href="https://abc7ny.com/laguardia-airport-terminal-b-lga-covid-testing-is-open/9258471/">renovated its Terminal B</a> through a public-private partnership — a new trend in aviation. The $8 billion project is the largest public-private partnership in American aviation history, and led to the creation of 72 new gates, a new garage, new concourse, renovated roadway, new taxiway, an enormous mosaic wall, an enlarged departures hall, and free Covid-19 tests. The terminal is <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2020/06/10/laguardia-terminal-b-opening-part-of-8b-project.html">50 percent larger</a> than the one it replaced.
To get around space constraints, LaGuardia reconfigured its airfield layout, rebuilding previously separate terminals as one contiguous building through new construction and moving the entire facility to use more of its land. Overall, the new construction better utilized the existing space in a manner not necessarily replicable at all US airports, but with a creativity that could be repeated with the help of federal funding.
As a public-private partnership, two-thirds of the tab is being paid for through the existing passenger and rental fees and funding from LaGuardia Gateway Partners, in exchange for a lease to operate and maintain Terminal B, and collect its revenue, through 2050. The cost of the project, and the amount of private financing necessary, provides a look into just how expensive a successful terminal modernization project can be.
Airport advocates say BIF funding is a step in the right direction, but insufficient given the enormity of the challenges — especially considering possible short-term and long-term needs, like the ability for travelers to park and charge electric vehicles, funding for research into eco-friendly fuel sources, and terminal accommodations for the air travel of the future, such as air taxis and uncrewed aircraft systems.
Still, should the BIF pass, “people can hopefully expect a more seamless experience,” Pecoraro said. “When they check in, they have an easier time going through security, an easier time checking their baggage and picking up their baggage on the other end. They have easy access to a flight that will arrive and take off in a timely manner because of an improved aviation management system. The route that the aircraft takes will be more direct to its destination, which means lower fuel costs, which means ticket prices remain as low as possible. When people arrive at their destination airport, there’s a gate waiting for them, so that the aircraft pulls right up to the gate.”
Successful passage of the BIF does not mean US travelers will be seeing butterfly gardens or museum annexes in their local airports. But it does mean that about half of needed capital projects can get funded over the next five years, according to estimates by the Airports Council International — and passengers will be able to tell. The flight experience at a BIF-renovated airport won’t be exactly fun, but it should be far less stressful.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22577659/bipartisan-infrastructure-framework-airports-biden-travel">https://www.vox.com/22577659/bipartisan-infrastructure-framework-airports-biden-travel</a>

vox Congress wants to make going to the airport less miserable

If you’re flying out of Singapore Changi, which aviation survey and research group Skytrax ranks as the world’s best airport, you can spen...

The $5,000 quest for the perfect butt

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When she woke up from surgery, Kayla Malveaux found herself alone in the clinic recovery room, slumped over in a wheelchair. She felt sharp pain around her face and swollen eyes, but she wasn’t sure why. The operation she’d just had involved fat taken from her abdomen and transplanted into her bottom, an increasingly common procedure called the Brazilian butt lift. Though she can’t say for sure what really happened between the time the surgery was over and the time she woke up, she has a guess. “It’s like they threw me in the wheelchair and then I must have hit my head,” she says.
As the 22-year-old was wheeled out of the Miami cosmetic surgery clinic, she understood. In the waiting room was “a herd of girls,” she says, all waiting for their own procedures with a single surgeon. “I couldn’t see how a doctor can do that many patients a day without overworking themselves, you know?” she says.
Kayla is one of thousands of women who’ve flown to South Florida — or Turkey or Mexico or Thailand — for questionably cheap operations, where a complex, multi-hour surgery not covered by health insurance can run as low as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txrlyeBJC5E">$3,000</a>, although most clinics advertise BBL packages for around $5,500 (not including aftercare, which can double the cost). These procedures often take place in small clinics, where doctors who might have been trained as dermatologists or pediatricians are legally allowed to advertise themselves as “board certified” physicians even though the extent of their plastic surgery training might have consisted of a single weekend course. To make up for the high cost of running an operating room, they squeeze in as many as eight patients every day.
You can see where the Brazilian butt lift — a physically taxing surgery for the doctor as well as the patient — might start to get dangerous. But this hasn’t stopped the thousands of women who’ve undergone it over the past few years; the number of BBLs globally since 2015 has risen 77.6 percent, according to a <a href="https://www.isaps.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/ISAPS-Global-Survey-2019-Press-Release-English.pdf">survey</a> by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, and it is now the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/19/millennials-fuel-plastic-surgery-boom-record-butt-procedures.html">fastest-growing cosmetic procedure</a> in the world.
As Kayla arrived at the airport after her surgery, she was told the terminal didn’t have any wheelchairs left. On her flight back to California, she realized she was one of several BBL patients on the plane.
<hr class="p-entry-hr" />
You spend enough time on TikTok and Instagram, and it can start to feel like you’re the only person in the world who hasn’t had their butt done. The BBL silhouette is omnipresent and unmissable, an impossibly tiny middle resting atop a plump bottom and thick thighs; at its most extreme it presents a cartoonish version of a fertile woman, a cross between the Venus of Willendorf and Jessica Rabbit. At its most subtle, a BBL just looks like good genes, the kind of golden ratio associated with the most iconic sex symbols of the last 100 years.
The BBL aesthetic of the 2010s and the present day, however, is most often associated with the Instagram influencer, whose body exists to be consumed by the most people possible (whether or not it has been photoshopped is almost beside the point). After Kim Kardashian, one of the ur-examples of the modern influencer, <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/kim-kardashian-gets-a-butt-x-ray-2011236/">proved with an X-ray</a> that she hadn’t had butt implants, the next logical question was, “Well, how?” The answer, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-kardashians-changed-the-face-of-plastic-surgery">many have speculated</a>, is that she and some of her sisters had gotten Brazilian butt lifts, which wouldn’t have shown up on an X-ray because the procedure involves the removal and retransplant of one’s own fat.
The platforms that provided the foundation for the rise of influencers are also the reason why the BBL has penetrated the mainstream. Consider “Instagram face,” the button-nosed, cat-eyed, pouty-lipped look popularized by professionally sexy models like Emily Ratajkowski and Bella Hadid, that for the vast majority of the population is only achievable through skillful makeup or, more often than not, a click of a button. <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/7/16/20689832/instagram-photo-editing-app-facetune">Apps like Facetune</a> bring that same kind of one-touch wizardry to bodies, which can be stretched, slimmed, and smoothed to infinity — and can do it convincingly. The BBL, just like any of the fastest-growing cosmetic surgery procedures, attempts to recreate the way we look when our bodies are filtered through the internet.
Until the last decade or so, the BBL was not common practice in the US. Its origins, as its name suggests, are in Brazil, where cosmetic surgery has a storied background, largely due to the country’s history of eugenics. In 1918, Dr. Renato Kehl founded the Eugenics Society of São Paulo, which aimed to <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/35992/in-brazil-plastic-surgery-is-about-power-not-culture/">erase all signs of Black and Indigenous physical appearance</a> in Brazil. In 1960, a surgeon named Ivo Pitanguy founded the world’s first plastic surgery training center in Brazil, where he pioneered what became known <a href="https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/body/article/46497/1/brazilian-butt-lift-plastic-surgery-kim-kardashian-west-cardi-b-jennifer-lopez">as the Brazilian butt lift</a> and taught surgeons all over the globe how to perform his techniques.
From there, the practice traveled north and exploded once pop culture began to shed its preference for the “tits on a stick” silhouette and started to revere stars like Jennifer Lopez and Nicki Minaj. As the mainstream media began to incorporate the beauty standards that have long been held by Black and Latinx cultures — e.g., that big butts are hot — it continued to idealize the white women who conformed to these standards and, furthermore, allowed them to profit over Black and Latina women whose bodies the fashion establishment had previously critiqued. The idea that certain body types can be considered trendy at all, of course, has a history that has always been laden with classism, racism, and sexism, and it’s easy to argue that the media only began to celebrate big butts when it <a href="https://jezebel.com/vogue-discovers-big-booties-1633025051">became financially beneficial to do so</a>.
South Florida quickly emerged as the plastic surgery capital of America, in part because of its huge Latinx population and the fact that Floridians can comfortably wear bikinis year round. By 1999, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=XgPAzXxGGE4C&pg=PA190&lpg=PA190&dq=why+is+florida+the+plastic+surgery+capital+of+america&source=bl&ots=_TmItkPofJ&sig=ACfU3U2o7m6ggG_RbLUS0rjOU54b6QTt8Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjyofbtt_nxAhWFmeAKHc0AC-4Q6AEwEHoECCYQAw#v=onepage&q=why%20is%20florida%20the%20plastic%20surgery%20capital%20of%20america&f=false">more than one in 10</a> plastic surgery procedures performed by board-certified plastic surgeons took place in Florida, and the history of malpractice goes <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1998-11-30-9811250800-story.html">back just as far</a>. Florida, just like every other state in the country, allows <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/health/non-specialists-expand-into-lucrative-cosmetic-surgery-procedures.html?_r=2">medical doctors to practice and treat patients in any field</a>, as long as they obtain consent from the patient.
“You can set up your own clinic and you could be doing liposuction tomorrow with no training in liposuction whatsoever, and it’s perfectly legal,” explains Adam Rubinstein, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Miami. Though these doctors wouldn’t be able to perform plastic surgery in a hospital or legitimate surgery center, where regulations are stricter and have far more oversight, there’s nothing stopping them from opening a clinic of their own, and no higher board they must answer to.
The field of medicine largely relies on the industry policing itself, which makes it difficult for legislators to address the issues. “We have the expertise to do that, but we don’t have the legal authority,” explains Arthur Perry, a plastic surgeon who spent 10 years on the New Jersey State Board of Medical Examiners and who <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2019/01/31/plastic-surgery-brazilian-butt-lifts-florida-death-column/2374585002/">refuses to perform BBLs</a>. “So yeah, I could call myself a cardiac surgeon today, set up an operating room, and do cardiac surgery in my office. You can sue me for malpractice, but that’s a civil penalty as opposed to criminal.”
Helly Larson, a 26-year-old podcaster in Georgia, got her BBL in 2019 at a Miami clinic. Though she’d known plenty of women who’d had BBLs through her work as a stripper, she was making enough money with the body she already had. “Then literally, one day I just was like, ‘Okay, I’m doing it,’” she says. “I scheduled a consultation with a doctor who had done a YouTuber that I was watching, they approved me and I paid my deposit, all within a week.” She’d done further research on the <a href="https://www.racked.com/2018/5/3/17308654/realself-cosmetic-procedures-funding">website RealSelf</a>, which acts almost like a Yelp for cosmetic surgeons, where former patients can post reviews and photos.
Like Kayla, she didn’t get the sense that something was off until she was in the bed waiting to start the surgery. Four hours after she was supposed to be anesthetized, she says the doctor came in and complained about the lack of professionalism by the anesthesiologist. “As I’m sitting in the gown, all of the red flags start to come through and I was just like, ‘You’re gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay,’” she says. “I didn’t even know about the death rates.”
The death rates for BBLs have been, historically, not good. One <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28369293/">2017 study</a> placed the worldwide mortality rate at a whopping one in 3,000; 25 of those deaths occurred in the US in the five years prior. Thanks to more widespread education and better safety techniques, that ratio is widening: In 2019, one survey estimated the mortality risk at one in 14,921, and as of 2020 it is one in 20,117. That’s still higher than the mortality rate from liposuction (1.3 in 50,000) or for outpatient surgery (0.25-0.5 in 100,000). (All figures via the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7572219/">International Open Access Journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons</a>.)
BBL deaths have, for the most part, occurred because of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5846701/">improper technique</a>. The problem with inserting fat into the buttock is that your butt contains a lot of very large blood vessels — “as big as drinking straws,” one doctor put it — which, if accidentally injected with fat, can result in that fat traveling to your lungs and cause a deadly pulmonary embolism. That’s part of the reason why most reputable surgeons have a limit to the amount of fat they’ll insert — there’s less likelihood of dead fat, which creates lumps and lopsidedness. (In popular BBL <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/feb/09/brazilian-butt-lift-worlds-most-dangerous-cosmetic-surgery">destinations like Turkey</a>, doctors are willing to insert much more fat.)
These issues are compounded when doctors are pumping out clients as fast as they can. At a <a href="https://www.naplesnews.com/in-depth/news/special-reports/2019/01/30/miami-doctors-plastic-surgery-empire-becomes-floridas-deadliest-clinics/2462068002/">single plastic surgery clinic</a>, eight women died over the course of six years, seven of them working-class Black and Latina women who reportedly were targets of the clinic’s advertising campaigns. In 2018, a patient <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article212958009.html">died three days after getting a BBL</a> at New Life Cosmetic Surgery; the cause of death was determined to be from <a href="https://cdn2.uvnimg.com/a0/d2/ad8782764983a5f97b8cdec35abd/autopsia-galvan.pdf">liposuction and fat transfer procedure complications</a>. “Miami is the chop shop of plastic surgery,” Helly says. “I think the doctor had, like, five BBLs the day I had mine.” In the lead-up to her surgery, the clinic had been emailing and checking in regularly, but once it was over, she says, “It’s crickets.”
One aspect that many clinics don’t always fully explain is what happens after you get a new butt. Many aren’t upfront about the fact that there are limits to how much fat surgeons can remove and implant, and therefore what a single BBL procedure can accomplish. For many women to achieve their desired look, they must come back for two or three procedures. What’s more, not all of the fat inserted into the butt will stay alive — it’s a common complaint among BBL patients to fall in love with their post-surgery butt, only to watch it shrink over the next few months.
Aftercare guidance depends on the patient’s existing body type, but all of them must wear a faja, a corset-like garment that keeps the body shape in place, for about three months as the new fat learns to connect with the existing fat. Sleeping must be done face-down for at least six weeks, and sitting requires a special pillow. To help with circulation, patients must schedule regular post-op massages, which are often painful. Peeing, by the way, is its own hurdle. “I’ve seen people where they’ll keep [the garment] on while they go to the bathroom, they’ll literally just pee all over themselves and live like that,” Helly says.
Outside of the network of cheap clinics, Miami has also seen a spate of surgery recovery centers that offer pickup and dropoff, massages, and other post-op assistance, with names like Prima Dollhouse, Barbie Dolls Recovery House, and Sassy Queen, though it’s also typical to rent an Airbnb and use trusted loved ones as temporary nurses. Sites like YouTube are filled with women’s experiences with their own post-operative care, some decent, some awful; vlogger Latausha Denn chronicled her terrible recovery process in a video titled “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTOBM4KiIcs">THE WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE</a>.” For Helly, the first week was “absolute hell;” she described walking around a coffee table like running a mile. Long-term effects are common as well; both Kayla, who got her procedure last fall, and Helly, who got hers in 2019, still experience abdominal numbness. Helly also has lingering circulation issues when sitting down, back pain, and trouble sleeping.
These aftereffects are rarely present in the many Instagram and TikTok accounts run by doctors advertising their prowess in creating sculpted hourglass figures. Some have built huge audiences with cheeky sketches on how a BBL means <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@therealdrmiami/video/6961502567989841157?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">freedom from the gym</a> or how <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@doctorroxy/video/6982559899968457989?lang=en&is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1">all their patients are having hot girl summers</a>. They field dozens of DMs a day from women hoping to recreate the bodies they’ve seen online.
Edward Chamata, a doctor who works under <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@realdrjungmoney?">popular TikToker Dr. Jung</a> at Premiere Surgical Arts in Houston, Texas, sees this as a boon to prospective patients, who enter the consultation room with far more knowledge about different procedures than they would have access to otherwise. “Every kind of plastic surgeon is on Instagram, and it’s a massive reach on those platforms,” he says. “It’s a big part of empowering the patients and informing them on their care, so they almost have a lot of education already at hand.”
Other doctors see it differently. Perry believes that “as doctors, we’re not supposed to be salesmen.” On the rash of self-described BBL experts, Perry quotes Willie Sutton, a famous robber from the 1950s who was asked why he robbed banks and replied, “Because that’s where the money is.”
“Why do these doctors do these procedures? Because that’s where the money is,” Perry says. “But that doesn’t mean it’s right.”
The best — and only, really — way a patient can make an educated choice about where to get any kind of cosmetic surgery is to research as much as they possibly can. Resources like <a href="https://www.certificationmatters.org/">certificationmatters.org</a> and the <a href="https://www.abplasticsurgery.org/">American Board of Plastic Surgery</a> allow people to look up doctors’ certifications in particular areas. Rubinstein also warns against any surgery that sounds too good to be true: $5,000 isn’t enough to cover the costs of running an operating room, he says, without cutting some serious corners. “I’d say you probably shouldn’t pay much less than $8,000 for a BBL in Miami,” he says. Often, he’ll operate on women who’ve had a botched operation from a less educated doctor.
<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
BBL fashion has defo taken over. No style or quality, just cut out everything and vibes.
— Stella. (@ajle_) <a href="https://twitter.com/ajle_/status/1418214285101076482?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 22, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>
Ethical guidelines state that <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2890136/">doctors should use rigorous screening processes</a> that weed out people who aren’t optimal patients for a BBL — people who are severely under- or overweight, people with a history of eating disorders or body dysmorphia, people who maybe haven’t thought through the enormous decision they’re about to make. “I always ask my patients to bring in wish pics, and many times, they’ll bring in pics from Instagram,” says Chamata. “And a lot of times those photos are photoshopped, with obviously unnatural proportions that just aren’t achievable in the real world.” He says around 30 percent of the patients he sees aren’t appropriate candidates.
Yet looking “unnatural” has often been one of the goals for many people who’ve undergone plastic surgery. “It’s an interesting sociological phenomenon,” says Perry. “It started with breast implants in the 1960s, where there were so many bad breast implants — too big, too high — that women began to think that that was normal. I’ve actually had people request me to put implants up a little high, so that the bulge is visible under the collarbone. I try to explain to people, this is not normal. It’s the same thing with brows.” (He mentions a certain powerful politician as a particularly bad example of a brow lift done wrong.) “My goal as a plastic surgeon is to help people look normal, and sometimes we forget about that as plastic surgeons who are very interested in just getting everyone and their sister operated on. My job is not to do whatever you ask me to do. It’s to use my aesthetic and ethical judgment, and do what’s right.”
Unsurprisingly, Perry believes the BBL boom will fade out, and perhaps is already starting to. “The people coming in are no longer saying, ‘I want it as big as possible.’ Now they’re saying, ‘I just want it to be round,’” says Rubinstein.
That specific bodies can be “trendy” is, again, an ugly concept with an uglier history. The BBL, however, has an even more complex one. As Sophie Elmhirst put it in her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/feb/09/brazilian-butt-lift-worlds-most-dangerous-cosmetic-surgery">thorough investigation on BBLs at the Guardian</a>:
<blockquote>
Following the chain of cultural appropriation that has led to this point is bewildering. The notion of the idealised Brazilian bottom, which some rich white Brazilian women disdain because of its stereotypical associations with biracial women, has become the desired shape among certain white women in the US and Europe, who are in turn emulating a body shape artificially constructed and popularised by an Armenian-American woman, who is often accused of appropriating a Black aesthetic, which some Black women then feel compelled to copy, not having the idealised body shape they believe they’re supposed to have naturally. “You steal a version of what a Black woman’s body should be, repackage it, sell it to the masses, and then if I’m Black and I don’t look like that? That’s a mindfuck,” summarised [Alisha] Gaines, [professor of English at Florida State University].
</blockquote>
The stereotype of the Instagram-faced, BBL-bodied influencer is now almost bigger than a person’s physical appearance. On TikTok, where advertisements for and real-life stories about BBLs proliferate, so too does a meme known as “the BBL effect.” Twenty-three-year-old Antoni Bumba came up with the idea for the character, which they call “Miss BBL,” after idolizing a certain type of influencer who weaved seamlessly between the ranks of Hollywood and Instagram baddies — Amber Rose, Kylie Jenner, the Real Kyle Sisters.
“We have 20-something seasons of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, where you see these girls taking 45, 60 seconds just to get out of the car and into the restaurant because they have to serve every single angle for the paparazzi,” says Antoni. Miss BBL is recognizable not with the way she looks but in the little motions that let others know she’s a bad bitch — taking ample time to flick her hair behind her shoulders, eating slowly and carefully, and wearing a constant camera-ready smize. “People who get work done essentially have no problem holding up people’s time to be able to cater to their needs,” they explain. “And it’s so fire because it gives all of these people, especially women, this sort of edge, invoking confidence and self-sufficiency into their day-to-day lives.”
While Kayla and Helly ultimately ended up happy with their results, both wish they’d done more research before going under the knife. “If I were to do anything else again, it would probably be in California,” Kayla says. “Most places in Miami, after they take your money, they don’t really care.”
Helly described how her body dysmorphia got worse after she had the surgery; for about a year, she could barely look at herself in the mirror. “I would say to anybody looking into getting procedures, you’re not just going to magically be a brand new person that has this work ethic and great motivation. You need to find that before you go in and change your whole body.” she says. “If I had seen a girl on TikTok or YouTube talking about the reality behind it, I don’t even know if I would have gone through with it.”
It’s certainly possible that within a decade, the BBL will continue to fade out, just as body types have risen and fallen in popularity throughout history. “Think about the way that nobody has these huge watermelon titties anymore,” Helly says. “Working in the dancer industry, I had a lot of clubs that wouldn’t hire me because I had thick thighs and their mindset was still stuck in the ’90s. All these women are going to start getting their hips and butt reduced because it’s going to go out of fashion.”
Whatever the next most desirable silhouette looks like, what will remain is the cosmetic surgery industry’s willingness to follow aesthetic trends at any cost, offering “pioneering” procedures that haven’t been properly vetted, or doctors who’ve decided they could make more money jumping from podiatry to plastic surgery. Until lawmakers catch up with the reality of the field, over time the BBL could just be one of any number of dangerous operations that promises to build the perfect body.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22598377/bbl-brazilian-butt-lift-miami-cost-tiktok">https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22598377/bbl-brazilian-butt-lift-miami-cost-tiktok</a>

vox The $5,000 quest for the perfect butt

When she woke up from surgery, Kayla Malveaux found herself alone in the clinic recovery room, slumped over in a wheelchair. She felt sharp...

How kidnap-for-ransom became the “most lucrative industry in Nigeria”

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Since December, more than <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cdle91nd2w9t/nigeria-school-attack">1,000 Nigerian students and staff</a> have been abducted and held for ransom by criminal gangs in the dense forests of the country’s remote northwest.
These gangs, locally called bandits, have been operating in northwestern Nigeria for more than a decade, but when they were infiltrated by members of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in December, the abductions and violence escalated. There are still <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-night-inside-nigerias-kidnapping-emergency-abducted-babies-schoolchildren-and-hospital-workers-11625743365">300 students</a> who have not been returned to their families.
Earlier this month, officials in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna took the drastic step of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/northern-nigeria-state-suspends-schools-due-insecurity-2021-07-26/">suspending all schooling</a> out of concern for students’ safety.
So why do these mass abductions keep happening? Well, for starters, “kidnap-for-ransom is the most lucrative industry in Nigeria today,” <a href="https://institute.global/contributors/audu-bulama-bukarti">Bulama Bukarti</a>, senior analyst in the extremism policy unit of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, said.
Not only has Bukarti studied violent extremist groups in sub-Saharan Africa, including Boko Haram, for over a decade, he also hails from the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, just a mile away from where Boko Haram originated.
So I called him up to find out more about why the Nigerian government has failed to rein in these bandits and stop the kidnappings and what, if anything, the international community can do to end the crisis.
Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.
<hr class="p-entry-hr" />
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
How are the more recent mass kidnappings in Nigeria different from Boko Haram’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2014/04/15/world/africa/nigeria-girls-abducted/index.html">2014 abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls</a>?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
These particular abductions are being carried out by economically motivated groups, locally referred to as bandits, which have recently been infiltrated by some elements of Boko Haram. The bandit groups have been operating in the northwestern part of Nigeria for over a decade. But they have grown in strength and sophistication in the last few years, especially during the previous eight months.
In December 2020, they started a string of mass abductions of students. These are different criminal gangs without any central leadership. Official estimates from affected states indicate there are about <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/matawalle-there-are-over-30000-bandits-in-the-north">30,000 members</a>. They operate primarily in the northwestern and central parts of Nigeria, where there are vast mountainous forests that have been mismanaged for years.
There’s no access roads or government presence there. So what these gangs do is get out of the forest on motorbikes and abduct students or anyone they can find and take them into the woods and hold them for ransom.
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
So what influence did Boko Haram’s abduct-for-ransom plots have on the bandits?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
Everybody in Nigeria, including the criminal gangs in the northwest, saw Boko Haram receive a ransom payment of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-bags-of-cash-for-boko-haram-the-untold-story-of-how-nigeria-freed-its-kidnapped-girls-1513957354?mod=article_inline">€3 million (about $3.7 million</a>) [to free some of the Chibok schoolgirls]. In 2018, there was another mass abduction in which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/world/africa/boko-haram-dapchi-girls-nigeria.html">110 girls were taken</a>. Reports surfaced about how the hostages were released, and there were rumors of money being paid, <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/nigeria-paid-large-ransom-to-free-dapchi-girls-un-says/">including in a UN report</a>. And in the last two years, at least one of the criminal gangs was infiltrated by Boko Haram.
As I said, since December [2020], there have been eight mass kidnappings affecting six different states of Nigeria, in which over 1,000 students and teachers were taken. As we speak, three different gangs are holding more than 300 students.
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
So does that mean that the other 700 students have either escaped or been released?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
The 700 were released after providing proof of paying the ransom. After the first kidnapping last December, the state government negotiated with the criminals, ultimately delivering the ransom but denying it publicly. Shortly afterward, audio circulated over WhatsApp in northern Nigeria, in which one of the middlemen who took the ransom from the government to the criminals tells the gang leaders: “This is the amount they gave you.” That audio has never been published, but the released boys <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/kidnappednigerianschoolboys-say-ransom-was-paid-tell-of-beatings-11608747119">told the Wall Street Journal</a> they were also told the ransom had been paid.
A couple of months ago, the Nigerian president <a href="https://witnessngr.com/stop-paying-ransom-to-bandits-buhari-tells-governors/">asked</a> governors to stop paying ransoms to avoid making matters worse — further evidence that ransoms were being paid. In some cases, they were paid by the [state] governments. But many governments have stopped paying now, so the burden falls on the parents of abducted students.
Over <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/nigerians-living-in-extreme-poverty-now-105-million/">100 million Nigerians</a> live below the poverty line, so parents struggle to raise enough money to save loved ones. Some end up selling their homes or land. Some incur colossal debt that they can never repay. Others go to markets, mosques, and churches to crowdfund the money.
This tells you about the level of poverty, but it also reveals how brazen the transactions are. It’s not a secret anymore. If people are raising money in markets by saying, “Please help us pay a ransom,” the security agencies are definitely aware that ransoms are being paid. <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/426589-12-nigerian-police-officers-kidnapped-report.html">Police officers themselves have been kidnapped</a>, and their families have been forced to pay ransoms for their release.
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
Why is this happening?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
Kidnap-for-ransom is the most lucrative industry in Nigeria today. Two weeks ago, I made a Zoom presentation with the deputy director of Nigeria’s intelligence agency, the Department of State Services. In the first six months of this year alone, he said, kidnappers have extorted 2 billion naira ($4.9 million) from ordinary Nigerians.
First, because kidnapping pays, it continues to grow. Secondly, there are no consequences to crime. In the eight mass kidnappings since December, none of the gang leaders responsible have been arrested. None of them have been brought to justice for their crimes.
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
Why are the abductors not prosecuted? Why are there no consequences?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
That’s a bit of a difficult question. For starters, prosecuting these criminal gangs requires arresting them, which requires robust security to track them and stop them. That’s just not happening right now.
The second factor is the Nigerian government. In a national TV interview last month, President Muhammadu Buhari said he has become <a href="https://dailytrust.com/buhari-overwhelmed-by-security-situation-in-north-west">overwhelmed by the situation in the northwest</a>. Nigerian security forces are stretched too thin because at least six different violent hot spots are creating crisis situations in Nigeria today.
In the northeast, there’s Boko Haram, while in the northwest, there are these criminal bandits. In the north-central region, there’s <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/nigeria/302-ending-nigerias-herder-farmer-crisis-livestock-reform-plan">a cropland crisis</a> [with the amount of arable cropland shrinking and conflicts between herders and farmers erupting over resources]. To the southeast, there’s a separatist movement. And in the Niger Delta, there are <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/multimedia/photos/damage-done-by-nigerias-oil-pirates">oil-pipe pirates</a>. At the same time, in the southwest, kidnap-for-ransom, a cropland crisis, and separatist tensions are all raising concerns.
In addition, Nigeria’s military is now deployed to over 90 percent of the country on active duty, so Nigeria is currently a country at war with itself. The only thing missing is a formal declaration.
There are also fundamental logistical challenges, like not enough access to communication equipment. Villagers often speak of how they could spot an attack before it happened, but the closest military formation said that they didn’t have the means to confront the criminals who end up attacking.
Along with the mass kidnapping of students, hundreds of villages have been razed. Security forces are spread thin. Nigeria is a country of 200 million people, but there are less than 350,000 police officers. Officially, <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/150-000-policemen-attached-to-vips-unauthorised-persons/">virtually 50 percent</a> of these officers are attached to VIPs like governors, private citizens, and companies. Another 20 percent of police do administrative work. So you can say that only 30 percent of Nigerian’s 350,000 police are fighting crime in the country.
Moreover, their budget and capacity for fighting crime are meager, and they lack basic technology. The police are also poorly paid. So, as a result of all this, you’ll find a local government responsible for 2 million people with only 30 police officers. For example, in Katsina state, where the president is from, the governor said there were only <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/masari-only-30-police-officers-providing-security-for-100-villages-in-katsina">30 police officers for 100 villages</a> in August last year. That’s a preview of the entire country.
But there are also theories that the abduction situation in the northwest is getting worse because of political choices. Many Nigerians feel that since most criminal gangs are from the president’s tribe, he’s treating them softly. This theory may not be accurate, but it is passionately held in many communities in Nigeria, further exacerbating tensions and stoking social divisions.
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
To recap, the kidnappings continue happening because they pay well, there are no consequences to crime, and security forces are ill-equipped and overburdened?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
Yes, but I’d also mention the geography of the northwestern part of Nigeria, where there are dense, mountainous forests that have been mismanaged for years. The northwest also borders Niger. So, it’s close to jihadist groups operating in the Sahel. Because of porous borders and corruption, weapons are easily smuggled from Libya through Niger to Nigeria.
The official estimate is that there are now over <a href="https://dailytrust.com/abdulsalami-over-6-million-illegal-weapons-in-circulation-across-nigeria">6 million</a> illegal weapons, primarily AK-47s, in a country where possessing any weapon is prohibited.
So the geography of the area and openness of the border is exacerbating the issue, but also <a href="https://enactafrica.org/enact-observer/tramadol-smugglers-transnational-network-from-nigeria-to-niger">the availability of opioid drugs</a>, which <a href="https://thewhistler.ng/nigeria-becoming-somaliabandits-now-parade-markets-with-ak-47-in-north-ex-nhis-boss/">help the criminal groups continue wreaking havoc</a>. They need to be energetic during operation, so they get high.
The last thing I would mention is that by arrangement, Nigeria’s public boarding schools are located on the outskirts of towns. Most of these schools are vulnerable because they lack even basic fencing.
Even though the government declared the <a href="https://protectingeducation.org/news/report-the-safe-schools-initiative/">Safe Schools Initiative in 2014</a>, following the Chibok abduction, there are still many vulnerable schools that criminal gangs can easily break into. Students are then used as a bargaining chip to get governments and politicians on their knees, praying for their release, while the criminal gangs make millions.
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
Okay, so how do we end the crisis of mass abductions in Nigeria?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
The first thing is to step up military and intelligence efforts, which requires building up the capacity of the Nigerian military and intelligence agencies to contain the criminal groups. It’s tough to avoid [having to use] violence against groups committing massacres of students and civilians every week or taking mass numbers of people into the bush for ransom.
The capacity of the Nigerian police also needs to be built up. Police need more manpower, equipment, and, most importantly, better leadership, which also requires tackling corruption. When it comes to the situation in the northwest, there’s also a need for transnational cooperation, especially with Niger, which shares a 1,600-kilometer border with Nigeria. About three of the six most-impacted states border Niger.
And we now know that the criminal gangs operate in Nigeria and slip into Niger to hide and vice-versa. One clear example of this is when an American, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/american-hostage-philip-walton-rescued-dramatic-military-operation/story?id=73940195">Philip Walton</a>, was abducted in southern Niger last October; he was rescued in the northwestern part of Nigeria.
So the criminal gangs are already operating transnationally. Unless the Nigeria-Niger border is secured, the bandits will continue working transnationally. Weapons and ammunition will be smuggled from Libya to Niger and from Niger to Nigeria.
As we speak, there are lots of military operations going on in the northwest. But there is no emergency number [for citizens to call] the military to inform them when attacks are underway. Right now, they must get in touch with a politician who knows someone in the police, who knows someone in the military, for help. Not having basic phone numbers for contacting the military indicates that even basic technology isn’t used to its full advantage.
Even deploying basic technology to track the numbers the gangs use to communicate with parents isn’t being done. It would be easy to find their location. Criminal gangs have now started accepting ransom payments through bank transfers.
<h4>Jariel Arvin:</h4>
So they could easily track down these criminals?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti:</h4>
Yes, but Nigerian banks are so archaic that they need a court order to freeze the accounts. And while that happens, the delay in the legal system means that the criminals have time to withdraw the money and disappear. Since I <a href="https://twitter.com/bulamabukarti/status/1420076047807172614?s=20">tweeted</a> reports of criminals using bank transfers for ransom earlier this week, several victims have shared with me, and publicly, that they were stopped and forced to swipe their bank cards and empty their accounts to the gangs.
This shows how normalized paying ransom to bandits is becoming in the country and that basic technology is not being used to track and crack down on the criminals.
And that goes back to this question of political choice, and that’s why some Nigerians believe that maybe it is because the federal government doesn’t want to tackle this problem. This feeling is partly fueling separatist groups in southern Nigeria.
More broadly, there are 17 security and law enforcement institutions in Nigeria — all of them under the federal government and directly answering to the president. Since state governors have minimal powers to do anything about physical security, the problem lies in the federal government’s hands. But the government isn’t doing enough to tackle the situation.
The last thing I would mention is that there’s no central body for coordinating these security groups. In some cases, there’s a rivalry between the police and the military. The military doesn’t want the police to succeed because then that means the police will have more public goodwill.
The security architecture is in complete disarray because there is no coordinated policy among security agencies or governors in affected states. This weakness is exploited by criminal gangs. Ending the crisis requires leadership from the federal government, which means developing a clear policy on the northwest and the criminal gangs. It also means getting state governors on the same page to pursue a single policy that can work.
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
Is dealing with security concerns going to be enough to help Nigeria recover from years of mass kidnappings?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
Thanks for asking that question, because a critical point I wanted to mention is that security efforts can help contain the situation, but they will not solve the underlying causes. There are deeply-seated socioeconomic and political grievances pushing young people to criminality and violent extremism in Nigeria’s northwest and central parts.
We know that the overwhelming majority of these criminal gangs, if not all, have never gone to school. So they’ve never had the opportunity to get an education — and that’s one of the grievances they’ve expressed in their messages. Without proper education, many of these groups can’t find employment in the Nigerian system — so they resort to crime.
So investing in quality education is one of the ways to get at the root causes. Today there are 10 million Nigerian children who are out of school. Over 70 percent are located in the northern part of Nigeria, where this crisis is going on. The more children we leave out of school today, the more candidates for committing crimes and terrorism we will see tomorrow.
Besides quality education, we need to invest in the economy and develop infrastructure in these rural areas, including in the remotest areas. Building essential access roads will stop many of these criminals because security forces can then pursue them into the forest. Investing in infrastructure can help create good-paying jobs that will take people away from criminality and extremism.
Another important thing that must be done is to add other initiatives to strengthen the social contract between ordinary Nigerians and the state. The average Nigerian doesn’t see the worth of democracy in the country because it hasn’t worked for them. Nigeria’s democracy works for the few in Abuja, the federal capital, and those in government in the states, so there is this widespread frustration with democracy.
The lack of good governance must be addressed through investment in the economy, education, infrastructure, and other initiatives to take people out of abject poverty and strengthen the social contract.
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
I spend most of my time reporting on climate change. Do you see any connection between environmental issues and the current violence plaguing the country?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
Climate change is a key driver of this conflict. Most of these criminals were once pastoralists (animal herders). They feel their grazing reserves have been taken over by climate change impacts, if not taken for further urbanization of big foreign companies. So Nigeria must tackle environmental issues too.
There is also increasing desertification, turning fertile agricultural land barren, and increasing rainfall, leading to floods or prolonged droughts, which take a toll on subsistence farms. Competition over scarce land and water resources, exacerbated by the impact of climate change, is leading to communal tensions, complicating the security situation in the northwestern region and across Nigeria.
<h4>Jariel Arvin</h4>
We’ve spoken a lot about what Nigeria must do to end the kidnapping crisis. So what can the US and the rest of the international community do to support the effort?
<h4>Bulama Bukarti</h4>
Money alone won’t be enough to help. Simply too many militants have made what I call a “great discovery”: They can become rich by abducting people. So it will be tough to take them back to pastoralism. Getting them to return back to their old ways of life is almost impossible.
But I think the West can help in two significant ways. The first is to help with capacity-building for the Nigerian security forces with weapons and ammunition. The US recently <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/nigeria-receives-us-planes-for-boko-haram-fight/a-58612268">delivered six jets</a> to help the military fight extremism and criminality, which was welcomed across the country.
I know that there are human rights concerns regarding the military and the police. Some of those are valid concerns, but the way out is not [for the US and other Western countries] to stop helping, but to use the assistance to get the army and the authorities to respect human rights and the rule of law.
Second, the US can support the Nigerian government, civil society organizations, and companies to help create jobs and educate young people in Nigeria. The US is currently doing a lot of work in Nigeria; unfortunately, its military assistance is not yet taking place in its northwest region.
Last August, the US Africa commander <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/08/al-qaeda-penetrating-north-west-us-alerts-nigeria/">told the media</a> that al-Qaeda has infiltrated the northwest and criminal gangs. Unless we do something to tackle criminality through security and treat the root causes in the medium and long term, we allow a fertile soil for extremism to develop.
For example, suppose extremist groups like Boko Haram [which is located in the northeast] were to consolidate in the northwest. In that case, they will quickly make the situation worse, furthering a vicious cycle where you have criminal groups working with violent extremists. So the US and other countries have a solid impetus to intervene to help the Nigerian government in the security sector and with long-term development.
The best way forward is for the Nigerian government to build its security capabilities with international support, address underlying root causes, and stop paying lip service to these issues by saying they are doing their best. Because, unfortunately, their best is nowhere near enough.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22596198/students-nigeria-profit-kidnapping">https://www.vox.com/22596198/students-nigeria-profit-kidnapping</a>

vox How kidnap-for-ransom became the “most lucrative industry in Nigeria”

Since December, more than 1,000 Nigerian students and staff have been abducted and held for ransom by criminal gangs in the dense forests ...

Congressional Report Questions “Unusual” Activity At Wuhan Lab Involving “Air Disinfection, Hazardous Waste Systems”

A video out of the UK shows NHS nurses demanding to COVID test a newborn baby, claiming it’s not the mother’s property once outside the womb and then threatening to report her to social services for refusing.
The shocking video, which was posted to Twitter, shows a heavily pregnant mother in a hospital bed being lectured by nurses about how it’s mandatory for the baby to be given a COVID test immediately after birth.
“It is my property,” states the mother, to which one of the nurses responds, “so you will…while the baby’s in your abdomen.”
“So you’re saying once the baby comes out it’s not my property no more, yes it is, I gave birth to it, it’s got my blood running through it,” the mother asserts.
The nurse then continued to insist she “explain” why the baby needs a COVID test, which only serves to stress out the pregnant woman.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true" readability="11.65873015873">
VIDEO.
NHS Nurses tell high risk expectant mother that they WILL be P C R Testing the baby once born, that the baby isn't "The mothers property" once out of the abdomen & that the Safeguarding team (Social Services) are being notified because of their refusal.
Heroes folks …. <a href="https://t.co/oPSVuWiGRo">pic.twitter.com/oPSVuWiGRo</a>
— Dissent Media (Official Account) ♿ (@DisabledJourno) <a href="https://twitter.com/DisabledJourno/status/1420295019441819651?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 28, 2021</a>
</blockquote>
“Do you really think I need this bullshit about COVID when I’ve got a risk of losing my baby?” the woman asks.
The father of the baby then suggests the pair leave the hospital, stating, “They’re not COVID testing my baby – end of.”
“You can’t tell me that you get to give me the say of what happens once my baby’s born – I don’t think so, you can’t do nothing to my baby without my permission,” says the mother.
The nurse then responds by saying the mother’s refusal to have her baby COVID tested will be documented and passed on to social services (the Safeguarding team), essentially meaning that the mother will be investigated for neglect and possibly face authorities trying to remove the baby from her care.
“You’re so good aren’t you, you people?” the mother sardonically states at the end of the clip, perhaps in reference to how nurses in the UK have been deified as a result of the pandemic, with people at one point being asked to participate in weekly applause sessions to show gratitude to the NHS.
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source <a href="https://summit.news/2021/08/02/congressional-report-questions-unusual-activity-at-wuhan-lab-involving-air-disinfection-hazardous-waste-systems/">https://summit.news/2021/08/02/congressional-report-questions-unusual-activity-at-wuhan-lab-involving-air-disinfection-hazardous-waste-systems/</a>

revolution summit Congressional Report Questions “Unusual” Activity At Wuhan Lab Involving “Air Disinfection, Hazardous Waste Systems”

A video out of the UK shows NHS nurses demanding to COVID test a newborn baby, claiming it’s not the mother’s property once outside the womb...