Greenland extends detention of anti-whaling activist Watson for three more weeks

A court in Greenland has once again extended the detention of Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson while Denmark decides whether to extradite the prominent activist to Japan. Watson's next hearing is scheduled for December 2.


Issued on: 13/11/2024 - 
By:  NEWS WIRES
Protesters in France have demanded Paul Watson's release. © Grégoire Campione, AFP


A Greenland court on Wednesday extended the detention of US-Canadian anti-whaling activist Paul Watson for three more weeks, pending a decision on his possible extradition to Japan, police said.

It was the fifth extension of Watson's detention since he was arrested in July in Nuuk, capital of the Danish autonomous territory.

"The court in Greenland has today decided that Paul Watson shall continue to be detained until December 4, 2024 in order to ensure his presence in connection with the decision on extradition," Greenland police said in a statement.

For "practical reasons", Watson's next hearing would be held on December 2, it said.
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The 73-year-old activist was detained on July 21 on a 2012 Japanese arrest warrant, which accuses him of causing damage to a whaling ship in the Antarctic in 2010 and injuring a whaler.

Watson, who featured in the reality TV series "Whale Wars", founded Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) and is known for radical tactics including confrontations with whaling ships at sea.

He was arrested when his ship, the John Paul DeJoria, docked to refuel in Nuuk on its way to "intercept" a new Japanese whaling factory vessel in the North Pacific, according to the CPWF.

Watson's lawyer Julie Stage had told AFP before the hearing that she did not expect the Greenland court to order his release.

She and the defence team appealed Wednesday's ruling to Denmark's supreme court, as it has done for all of the previous rulings.

"The more time that passes, the greater the sense of injustice," Lamya Essemlali, the head of Sea Shepherd France, told AFP ahead of the hearing.

"In 10 days, it will be four months since he was jailed, which corresponds to the maximum sentence he would have been handed if he had been convicted," she said.
Danish decision pending

The Danish justice ministry has not said when it will announce its decision on the extradition request.

It recently received two reports it had been waiting for – from the Greenland police and the Danish prosecutor general – before making a decision.

If Denmark refuses his extradition, "there would no longer be any reason for detention and (Paul Watson) would be released as soon as possible," Mariam Khalil, the prosecutor in charge of the case, told AFP.

If Denmark agrees to Japan's extradition request, Watson's lawyers would lodge an appeal.

Tokyo accuses Watson of injuring a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt the whalers' activities during a Sea Shepherd clash with the Shonan Maru 2 vessel on February 11, 2010.

Watson's lawyers insist he is innocent and say they have video footage proving the crew member was not on deck when the stink bomb was thrown. The Nuuk court has refused to view the video.


06:42PERSPECTIVE © FRANCE 24

In September, Watson's lawyers contacted the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, claiming that he could be "subjected to inhumane treatment" in Japanese prisons.

In a rare public comment on the case, Japan's Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya recently said the extradition request was "an issue of law enforcement at sea rather than a whaling issue".

Watson hopes to be freed to return to France, where he had been living since July 2023 and where his two young children go to school.

He requested French citizenship last month.

Watson's legal woes have attracted support from members of the public and activists, including prominent British conservationist Jane Goodall, who has urged French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum.

Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only three countries that still allow commercial whaling.

(AFP)

Fifth Greenland hearing for anti-whaling activist Watson

By AFP
November 13, 2024

Camille BAS-WOHLERT

A Greenland court will decide Wednesday whether to further extend US-Canadian anti-whaling activist Paul Watson’s time in custody pending a decision on his extradition to Japan, where he is wanted over an altercation with whalers.

“The public prosecutor has requested an extension of the custody period,” the prosecutor in charge of the case, Mariam Khalil, told AFP in an email.

Wednesday’s hearing will be Watson’s fifth since his arrest in July in Nuuk, capital of the Danish autonomous territory.

The 73-year-old activist was detained on a 2012 Japanese arrest warrant, which accuses him of causing damage to a whaling ship in the Antarctic in 2010 and injuring a whaler.

Watson, who featured in the reality TV series “Whale Wars”, founded Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) and is known for radical tactics including confrontations with whaling ships at sea.

He was arrested on July 21 when his ship, the John Paul DeJoria, docked to refuel in Nuuk on its way to “intercept” a new Japanese whaling factory vessel in the North Pacific, according to the CPWF.

Watson’s lawyers said they expected the court to keep him in custody.

“We don’t expect the Greenland court to change direction,” said one of Watson’s lawyers, Julie Stage.

She and the defence team have appealed the Nuuk court’s previous rulings to Denmark’s supreme court.

“The more time that passes, the greater the sense of injustice,” said Lamya Essemlali, the head of Sea Shepherd France, who has travelled to Nuuk for each of Watson’s hearings.

“In 10 days, it will be four months since he was jailed, which corresponds to the maximum sentence he would have been handed if he had been convicted,” she said.

– Danish decision pending –

The Danish justice ministry has not said when it will announce its decision on the extradition request.

It recently received two reports it had been waiting for — from the Greenland police and the Danish prosecutor general — before making a decision.

“The ministry of justice is reviewing the extradition request and the two statements, and the ministry will, on that basis, make a decision in the case,” it said in a statement to AFP.

If Denmark refuses his extradition, “there would no longer be any reason for detention and (Paul Watson) would be released as soon as possible after this decision was brought to the attention of the Greenland police,” Khalil, the prosecutor in charge of the case, told AFP.

If Denmark were to agree to Japan’s extradition request, Watson’s lawyers would lodge an appeal.

Tokyo accuses Watson of injuring a Japanese crew member with a stink bomb intended to disrupt the whalers’ activities during a Sea Shepherd clash with the Shonan Maru 2 vessel on February 11, 2010.

Watson’s lawyers insist he is innocent and say they have video footage proving the crew member was not on deck when the stink bomb was thrown. The Nuuk court has refused to view the video.

In September, Watson’s lawyers contacted the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders, claiming that he could be “subjected to inhumane treatment” in Japanese prisons.

The defence team has argued that the crime of which Japan accuses him does not even carry a jail sentence in Greenland, a point on which the prosecution disagrees.

In a rare public comment on the case, Japan’s Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya recently said the extradition request was “an issue of law enforcement at sea rather than a whaling issue”.

Watson hopes to be freed to return to France, where he had been living since July 2023 and where his two young children go to school.

He requested French citizenship last month.

Watson’s legal woes have attracted support from members of the public and activists, including prominent British conservationist Jane Goodall, who has urged French President Emmanuel Macron to grant him political asylum.

Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only three countries that still allow commercial whaling.

ISLAMOPHOBIC ZIONIST DEMS

No Thanks to These 52 Dems, House Defeats Bill Enabling Trump Assault on Nonprofits

"Every single Democrat who voted for this is not taking the threat of Trump remotely seriously and should be disqualified from any leadership positions moving forward," said Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) arrives for a House hearing on September 20, 2023.
(Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Nov 13, 2024
COMMON DREAMS  


Legislation that would have handed President-elect Donald Trump sweeping power to investigate and shutter news outlets, government watchdogs, humanitarian organizations, and other nonprofits was defeated in the House of Representatives on Tuesday after a coalition of progressive advocacy groups and lawmakers mobilized against it, warning of the bill's dire implications for the right to dissent.

But 52 Democratic lawmakers—including Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), and Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)—apparently did not share the grave concerns expressed by the ACLU and other leading rights groups, opting to vote alongside 204 Republicans in favor of the bill.

One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, joined 144 Democrats in voting no.

The measure ultimately fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to approve legislation under the fast-track procedure used by the bill's supporters, but progressives wasted no time spotlighting the Democrats who supported the measure.

"If you're looking for a handy list of Democrats who have no fucking clue what is about to hit and need their spines stiffened ASAP, this is a good place to start," wrote Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of the advocacy group Indivisible.


Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who vocally opposed the legislation, wrote that "these 52 Democrats voted to give Trump the power to shut down any nonprofit he wants."


"The NAACP, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, no organization would be safe," Tlaib added. "Shameful."





If passed, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act would grant the Treasury Department—soon to be under the control of a Trump nominee—the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by deeming them supporters of terrorism.

The bill could be revived in the next Congress, which is likely to be under full Republican control.

Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel with the ACLU, toldThe Intercept late Tuesday that "we will continue our sustained opposition."

It is already illegal under U.S. law to provide material backing for terrorism, and the executive branch has significant authority to target groups it considers terrorist-supporting.

"This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."


The ACLU noted ahead of Tuesday's vote that while the bill contains "a 90-day 'cure' period in which a designated nonprofit can mount a defense, it is a mere illusion of due process."


"The government may deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations," the group said. "This means that a nonprofit could be left entirely in the dark about what conduct the government believes qualifies as 'support,' making it virtually impossible to clear its name."

Opponents of the bill warned that Palestinian rights organizations would be uniquely imperiled if it passed.

"This bill dangerously weaponizes the Treasury against nonprofit organizations and houses of worship—Christian, Jewish, or Muslim—that dare to support Palestinian and Lebanese human rights or criticize Israel's genocidal actions," said Robert McCaw, director of government affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"Allowing such sweeping, unchecked power would set a chilling precedent, enabling the government to selectively target and suppress voices of dissent under the guise of national security," McCaw added. "This isn't just an attack on our communities; it's a fundamental threat to free speech and democracy."

Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97), a Palestinian American, echoed that sentiment following Tuesday's vote and condemned the legislation's 52 Democratic supporters.

"Every single Democrat who voted for this is not taking the threat of Trump remotely seriously and should be disqualified from any leadership positions moving forward," Romman wrote on social media. "This is no longer business as usual. To agree to give him this kind of power is beyond egregious."

Cori Bush Calls On Biden to Protect Reproductive Rights With ERA

"President Biden has two months," said the congresswoman.


Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) speaks to reporters on October 22, 2021 in Washington, D.C.
(Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Nov 13, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

With just over two months to go until U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush on Wednesday urged President Joe Biden to take all the action he can to protect reproductive rights from Republican leader who has bragged about his role in ensuring Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Biden "must immediately direct the archivist of the United States to certify and publish the Equal Rights Amendment which can protect access to abortion care and contraception," said the Missouri Democrat, who co-chairs the Congressional Caucus for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Bush's call comes more than a year after the congresswoman and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) introduced the ERA Now Resolution, urging Colleen Shogan, the archivist of the United States, to certify state ratifications of the amendment and publish it in the Federal Register, which would formally cement it as part of the U.S. Constitution.

First introduced 101 years ago, the ERA would guarantee legal equality for women and men in the U.S. It could push judges to overturn anti-abortion rights laws on the basis that they violate a constitutional right to gender equality. In Utah, a state-level ERA has successfully blocked an abortion ban.

Since first being proposed, the ERA was passed by Congress in 1972 and sent to the states for ratification. Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it in 2020, meeting the threshold for it to become law.

"Today the ERA has met all the constitutional requirements to become the 28th Amendment—all that's standing in the way is some paperwork," said Bush in July on the anniversary of the ERA's introduction. "As Republicans and the Supreme Court's extremist majority continue to attack access to abortion care, contraception, and LGBTQ+ rights, the ERA is needed now more than ever to protect our communities. I'm urging the archivist to fulfill her ministerial duty by certifying and publishing the Equal Rights Amendment and affirming it as the 28th Amendment."



The overturning of Roe in 2022 paved the way for at least 21 states to ban or restrict abortion care. Republicans in Congress have proposed a nationwide 15-week abortion ban. Trump has claimed he would not sign a national ban but Vice President-elect JD Vance has expressed support for one.

"There is always the possibility of a national ban," Brittany Fonteno, president of the National Abortion Federation, toldThe Cut on Wednesday.


In her July statement, Bush said that "one hundred and one years of advocacy have brought us to this moment, and we refuse to wait a minute longer to cement constitutional gender equality as the law of the land in St. Louis, Missouri, and across the nation."

As Trump Forfeits US Climate Leadership, We the People Still Have a Role to Play

Many of us can join in a genuinely global citizens’ fight for rapid action.

Tony Chang (L) and Sal Miranda install no-cost solar panels on the rooftop of a low-income household on October 19, 2023 in Pomona, California.
(Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Bill Mckibben
Nov 13, 2024

The Crucial Years

Those of us of a certain age grew up believing that America was the central nation on this planet—because, in the decades after World War II, it clearly was. We also believed that the course of history would move others in our direction, and that what did or didn’t happen in Washington would determine what did or didn’t happen on planet Earth. We believed, I think, that America had hit on the formula for political and economic success, that somehow our constitution had marked us out for leadership.

Most of those beliefs seem a little silly now. Clearly our political architecture—our Electoral College, our filibusters, and so on—has some deep flaws. Clearly we are not magically resistant to authoritarianism—indeed we’ve now embraced a flavor of it. And clearly America is not going to play the commanding role in helping solve the climate crisis, the greatest dilemma humans have ever encountered. For the next few years the best we can hope is that Washington won’t manage to wreck the efforts of others—and that some parts of this big nation will demonstrate what’s still possible. And that many of us can join in a genuinely global citizens’ fight for rapid action.

That Donald Trump lost in 2020 was, it turns out, of great importance: it gave the U.S. four years to help break renewable energy out of its “alternative energy” niche.

This all seems quite clear as the world’s nations gather these next two weeks in Baku, the oil-soaked capital of Azerbaijan, for 2024’s edition of the global climate talks. America is represented by John Podesta, the stalwart representative of the Democratic political structure that came crashing down on election day. (I mean, he was chief of staff to Bill Clinton). Podesta put on a brave face at a press conference as the talks began:
“Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable,” he said. “This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet. Facts are still facts. Science is still science. The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country. This fight is bigger, still, because we are all living through a year defined by the climate crisis in every country of the world.”


More specifically, he promised that the U.S. would not “revert back to the energy system of the 1950s. No way.”

Which is true—but we also, clearly, won’t be leading the charge into this century’s clean energy transition. As the leading climate scientist Michael Mann put it in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists the day after the election, “the United States is now poised to become an authoritarian state ruled by plutocrats and fossil fuel interests. It is now, in short, a petrostate.” (Not unlike the petrostate of Azerbaijan, whose lead climate negotiator was discovered last week to be using his role as host of the climate talks to negotiate new fossil fuel deals).

But—and here’s the interesting and good news—this fight for oil and gas and coal will be a rearguard action. That Donald Trump lost in 2020 was, it turns out, of great importance: it gave the U.S. four years to help break renewable energy out of its “alternative energy” niche. In those years the price of solar power and wind power dropped below the price of energy from coal and gas and oil, and as a result everything has begun to change.

If you want a fact to cheer you up—and I sure do—here’s one. It took humanity 68 years from the invention of the solar cell in 1954 to reach one terawatt of installed solar capacity. We passed that mark in 2022—and then we installed the second terawatt in two years since. To meet the goals set by climate scientists we need to roughly double the pace of solar installation again through the end of the decade: so, a terrawatt a year. Is that doable? We currently have the factory capacity to produce 1.1 terrawatts a year worth of panels. It’s a matter of finance and execution.

Most of that factory capacity, of course, is in China, and it is China that will now unambiguously be in the lead. There will be other players (here’s a good account of how India is trying to build its solar capacity) but the action shifts pretty powerfully from Washington to Beijing, which has bet big on this energy transition. One imagines that its diplomats are now the unrivaled key players in climate talks like the one in Baku, though the phalanx of other big, growing nations (Brazil, South Africa, India, Indonesia, and so on) will play important roles. Crucially, most of these are fossil fuel importers, and have every reason to move speedily in the direction of sun and wind; it’s possible that in terms of international negotiations things may get somewhat easier without the drag of the U.S. on the proceedings. (Which is why, comically, Exxon is asking the Trump administration to stay in the Paris talks).

And what of the U.S.?

Well, it’s a big country, and much of it is still in rational hands. As the World Resources Institute put it
Both Republican-led and Democratic-led states are seeing the benefits of wind, solar, and battery manufacturing and deployment thanks to the billions of dollars of investments unleashed by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act. Governors and representatives in Congress on both sides of the aisle have come to recognize that clean energy is a huge moneymaker and a job creator. President Trump will face a bipartisan wall of opposition if he attempts to rip away clean energy incentives now.


That fight over the fate of the IRA will be a huge battle, but perhaps more important globally is the fact that America—because of those decades after WWII—has most of the world’s capital. It rests, above all, in pension funds, and it could be the thing that finances that terrawatt-a-year build out. I imagine the Trump administration will cut back sharply on American contributions to the International Monetary Fund and other global financial institutions—and that may mean that as other nations gain more influence, those institutions will have more ability to use their relatively small amounts of money to “de-risk” those crucial investments. That could be critically important in helping, say, retired schoolteachers in Seattle build the solar farms that Senegal requires and that will help us all.

And America remains the world center of zeitgeist. Which means that the fact that California and Texas (the twin capitals of American dynamism, and the fifth and eight largest economies on earth) are rapidly moving toward clean energy will help. Maybe even New York—10th largest economy on earth—might show some spunk; Gov. Kathy Hochul is apparently trying to revive the congestion-pricing scheme for Manhattan that she killed eight months ago. The genie will keep trying to climb out of the bottle, even as MAGA does it best to drag it back by its heels.

And it means that there’s lots of work for the rest of us, as we try to build a global movement behind speeding up this energy transition. That will be the chief work of this newsletter in the months and years ahead. There’s real global momentum, and we can, and will, figure out ways to add to it.

America, after all, is where the solar cell was born. It was mostly in America’s labs that we came to understand the science of climate change. And, crucially, it was America that really gave birth to the environmental movement. We—American people, if not our national government—still have a key role to play.

US Labor Board Bans Captive Audience Meetings to Ensure 'Truly Free' Worker Choice

"Today's decision better protects workers' freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights," said the chair of the National Labor Relations Board.


Workers attend an office meeting in this stock photo.
(Photo: Luis Alvarez/DigitalVision via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Nov 13, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

In a decision that advocates say will likely be reversed during the second administration of Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday ruled that employers cannot force workers to attend anti-union speeches.

The NLRB's 3-1 decision in Amazon.com Services, LLCmeans that workers will no longer have to take part in so-called "captive audience meetings," which employers often use as a union-busting tool and a form of coercion. The agency explained that such meetings violate Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act "because they have a reasonable tendency to interfere with and coerce employees."

"However, the board made clear that an employer may lawfully hold meetings with workers to express its views on unionization so long as workers are provided reasonable advance notice of: the subject of any such meeting, that attendance is voluntary with no adverse consequences for failure to attend, and that no attendance records of the meeting will be kept," the NLRB added.

NLRB Chairperson Lauren McFerran, a Democrat, said in a statement that "ensuring that workers can make a truly free choice about whether they want union representation is one of the fundamental goals of the National Labor Relations Act."

"Captive audience meetings—which give employers near-unfettered freedom to force their message about unionization on workers under threat of discipline or discharge—undermine this important goal," McFerran added. "Today's decision better protects workers' freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights under the act, while ensuring that employers can convey their views about unionization in a noncoercive manner."

In April 2022, the NLRB's general counsel office issued a memo asserting that captive audience meetings are illegal. At least 11 states have banned such meetings. Other states are in various stages of considering or enacting bans or restrictions on them.

Workers' rights advocates hailed Wednesday's decision, although labor journalist Hamilton Nolan quipped on social media that employees should "enjoy this brief shining period before the Trump NLRB reverses this decision."

However, More Perfect Union producer Jordan Zakarin argued that Democrats can protect this "monumental win for labor" for "the next few years" if "they finally confirm" President Joe Biden's nomination of Joshua Ditelberg—a Republican lawyer who has represented companies including Amazon, Airbnb, and UnitedHealth—to fill the fifth NLRB seat.

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)—a Washington, D.C.-based, pro-union think tank—U.S. employers spend an estimated $433 million per year on union-busting consultants.

"This reality makes it harder for workers to fight for their collective bargaining rights because they do not know the extent of their companies' investments in union-busting, a figure that could empower them at the negotiating table when employers claim they can't afford to increase pay and benefits," EPI said last year.

Is AI dominance inevitable? A technology ethicist says no

The Conversation
November 13, 2024 

AI (Shutterstock)

Anyone following the rhetoric around artificial intelligence in recent years has heard one version or another of the claim that AI is inevitable. Common themes are that AI is already here, it is indispensable, and people who are bearish on it harm themselves.

In the business world, AI advocates tell companies and workers that they will fall behind if they fail to integrate generative AI into their operations. In the sciences, AI advocates promise that AI will aid in curing hitherto intractable diseases.

In higher education, AI promoters admonish teachers that students must learn how to use AI or risk becoming uncompetitive when the time comes to find a job.


And, in national security, AI’s champions say that either the nation invests heavily in AI weaponry, or it will be at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the Chinese and the Russians, who are already doing so.

The argument across these different domains is essentially the same: The time for AI skepticism has come and gone. The technology will shape the future, whether you like it or not. You have the choice to learn how to use it or be left out of that future. Anyone trying to stand in the technology’s way is as hopeless as the manual weavers who resisted the mechanical looms in the early 19th century.

In the past few years, my colleagues and I at UMass Boston’s Applied Ethics Center have been studying the ethical questions raised by the widespread adoption of AI, and I believe the inevitability argument is misleading.

History and hindsight

In fact, this claim is the most recent version of a deterministic view of technological development. It’s the belief that innovations are unstoppable once people start working on them. In other words, some genies don’t go back in their bottles. The best you can do is harness them to your good purposes.

This deterministic approach to tech has a long history. It’s been applied to the influence of the printing press, as well as to the rise of automobiles and the infrastructure they require, among other developments.




The dominance of automobiles and the infrastructure that supports them over many decades only seems inevitable in hindsight. Bbeachy2001/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

But I believe that when it comes to AI, the technological determinism argument is both exaggerated and oversimplified.

AI in the field(s)

Consider the contention that businesses can’t afford to stay out of the AI game. In fact, the case has yet to be made that AI is delivering significant productivity gains to the firms that use it. A report in The Economist in July 2024 suggests that so far, the technology has had almost no economic impact.

AI’s role in higher education is also still very much an open question. Though universities have, in the past two years, invested heavily in AI-related initiatives, evidence suggests they may have jumped the gun.


The technology can serve as an interesting pedagogical tool. For example, creating a Plato chatbot that lets students have a text conversation with a bot posing as Plato is a cool gimmick.

But AI is already starting to displace some of the best tools teachers have for assessment and for developing critical thinking, such as writing assignments. The college essay is going the way of the dinosaurs as more teachers give up on the ability to tell whether their students are writing their papers themselves. What’s the cost-benefit argument for giving up on writing, an important and useful traditional skill?

In the sciences and in medicine, the use of AI seems promising. Its role in understanding the structure of proteins, for example, will likely be significant for curing diseases. The technology is also transforming medical imaging and has been helpful in accelerating the drug discovery process.


But the excitement can become exaggerated. AI-based predictions about which cases of COVID-19 would become severe have roundly failed, and doctors rely excessively on the technology’s diagnostic ability, often against their own better clinical judgment. And so, even in this area, where the potential is great, AI’s ultimate impact is unclear.

In retrospect, using AI to help diagnose COVID-19 patients was problematic.


In national security, the argument for investing in AI development is compelling. Since the stakes can be high, the argument that if the Chinese and the Russians are developing AI-driven autonomous weapons, the United States can’t afford to fall behind, has real purchase.

But a complete surrender to this form of reasoning, though tempting, is likely to lead the U.S. to overlook the disproportionate impact of these systems on nations that are too poor to participate in the AI arms race. The major powers could deploy the technology in conflicts in these nations. And, just as significantly, this argument de-emphasizes the possibility of collaborating with adversaries on limiting military AI systems, favoring arms race over arms control.

One step at a time

Surveying the potential significance and risks of AI in these different domains merits some skepticism about the technology. I believe that AI should be adopted piecemeal and with a nuanced approach rather than subject to sweeping claims of inevitability. In developing this careful take, there are two things to keep in mind:

First, companies and entrepreneurs working on artificial intelligence have an obvious interest in the technology being perceived as inevitable and necessary, since they make a living from its adoption. It’s important to pay attention to who is making claims of inevitability, and why.

Second, it’s worth taking a lesson from recent history. Over the past 15 years, smartphones and the social media apps that run on them came to be seen as a fact of life – a technology as transformative as it is inevitable. Then data started emerging about the mental health harms they cause teens, especially young girls. School districts across the United States started to ban phones to protect the attention spans and mental health of their students. And some people have reverted to using flip phones as a quality of life change to avoid smartphones.

After a long experiment with the mental health of kids, facilitated by claims of technological determinism, Americans changed course. What seemed fixed turned out to be alterable. There is still time to avoid repeating the same mistake with artificial intelligence, which potentially could have larger consequences for society.


Nir Eisikovits, Professor of Philosophy and Director, Applied Ethics Center, UMass Boston

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

'The Earth is flat': Lauren Boebert taunts Defense Department experts at UFO hearing

David Edwards

RAW STORY
November 13, 2024 
 
Lauren Boebert (House Oversight Committee/screen grab)

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) taunted Defense Department officials by declaring "the Earth is flat" at a hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

During Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing, Boebert said she had been cautioned not to discuss the Defense Department's Immaculate Constellation program, which collects information about UAP encounters.

"Now that we have all been cautioned in this committee hearing that the mention of Pentagon's Immaculate Constellation program could put us on a list," Boebert said. "Well, I already find myself on many lists, I'm sure, as I speak my mind often. So why not just keep going with it?"

"May as well just go all out and say it. The Earth is flat, birds are government drones, and we've never set foot on the moon, and Joe Biden received 81 million votes in the 2020 election," she continued.

"So, let's just see how many lists we could get on here today."

The lawmaker went on to ask author Michael Shellenberger, a supporter of Donald Trump, if he agreed that classifying UAPs "is not in the best interest of the people."

"You know, President-elect Trump has repeatedly committed to greater transparency both on the UAP issue, on JFK files, on covert origins and many other things so I think that we need to make sure that the next administration is held accountable for that," Shellenberger said.

Watch the video below from the House Oversight Committee.

'Going to get worse': Expert says Trump's homeless plan could unleash 'hell on Earth'

Brad Reed

RAW STORY
November 13, 2024 

NPR on Thursday examined one of President-elect Donald Trump's recent policy ideas that one expert say is highly unlikely to succeed if ever implemented.

Specifically, NPR writes that experts generally are skeptical of Trump's solution of bringing back mental institutions as an all-purpose elixir for treating homelessness, drug addiction, and mental illness.

Should there be no available mental health facilities, Trump proposes shipping homeless people to government-sanctioned tent cities that one expert say could prove really disastrous.

"It may make everyone else feel comfortable, but for the people who are in that one place, it turns into hell on earth," said Keith Humphreys, a psychology professor at Stanford University.

What's more, says Humphreys, Trump likely lacks the power to actually implement the policies he says he wants to implement.

"From Washington, you actually don't have many law enforcement tools to affect street disorder in cities," he said, noting that federal agents "don't do things like grab a homeless person off a street corner in Chicago who's causing trouble because they're mentally ill or they're addicted or both."

Added to this, Humphreys warned that problems with homelessness and mental health could grow even worse should Trump revive his efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and he said that "these problems are going to get worse" if that happens.

'Disturbing scenario': Top economist sees apocalyptic future that MAGA doesn't understand

Sarah K. Burris
November 13, 2024

RAW STORY

A view shows a golden MAGA hat, ahead of a Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump campaign rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, U.S. November 2, 2024. 

REUTERS/Megan Varner

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predicts that Donald Trump will take credit for all of President Joe Biden's economic successes over the past four years — and anticipates that the President-elect's fans have no idea of the damage his policies could cause.
Krugman began a conversation with The New Republic's Greg Sargent by saying that Americans don't understand how essential immigrants are to the U.S. economy.

"It is something like maybe 8 million undocumented workers in the United States, something like 5 percent of the workforce," he said. "You say, OK, that would be pretty bad if we lose that, but how bad could it be? And the answer is that they are not evenly distributed.

"The whole food supply chain is reliant on people who are going to be rounded up and put in camps."

He said that many people don't understand how food gets to their table, from planting to picking, processing, transporting and stocking. Slogans and absolutist ideas like throwing out immigrants are going to cause "a pretty big shock to people’s cost of living and the way they live," he added.

What became clear this election, he said, is that Americans have very little information about the basics of what Trump was proposing and how it will impact them. After the election was over, Americans searching for information on what a tariff is and how it will impact them spiked over 1,650%, according to Google Trends.

"I’ve been seeing now repeated focus groups after the election with Trump voters who are shocked to find out that tariffs are taxes. And they’ve been deliberately misinformed by Trump people," said Krugman.

One such claim, he said, came from Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who told voters that once immigrants are gone, more jobs will be available to Americans.

But that currently redundant workforce doesn't exist, said Krugman.

"We have essentially full employment among native-born Americans. There is no reserve of Americans to take these jobs, by and large jobs that native-born Americans would be very reluctant to take," he said. "People have absolutely no idea — a quorum of people who voted in this election have absolutely no idea of what’s coming down the pike."

He went on to say Stephen Miller, a top campaign adviser who will become the deputy chief of staff for policy, "doesn’t just want to go after low-wage migrants from Latin America.

"He wants to go after high-skilled executives in Silicon Valley because this idea is that there are these jobs and they should be going to Americans. I would be surprised if they actually back off on this. They’ll go quite a ways, and the business community will scream."

Sargent asked about Biden's investments in green manufacturing and rebuilding American infrastructure, anticipating that Trump would take credit for all of them. Krugman agreed, saying that it's happened before. He said Trump took credit for what President Barack Obama did after the economic crash in 2007-2008.

"Disturbing scenario," Sargent summarized. "Trump will take credit for the recovery that is being handed to him, then say his anti-immigrant agenda is driving it."

Read the full interview here.

Surfboards with bright lights could deter shark attacks - researchers

Agence France-Presse
November 12, 2024

Surfers ride and paddle their boards at Maroubra Beach in Sydney last month (DAVID GRAY/AFP)

Covering your surfboard in bright lights sounds like an open invitation to great white sharks, but research released Tuesday by Australian scientists found it might actually stave off attacks.

Biologist Laura Ryan said the predator often attacked its prey from underneath, occasionally mistaking a surfer's silhouette for the outline of a seal.

Ryan and her fellow researchers showed that seal-shaped boards decked with bright horizontal lights were less likely to be attacked by great white sharks.

This appeared to be because the lights distorted the silhouette on the ocean's surface, making it appear less appetizing.

"There is this longstanding fear of white sharks and part of that fear is that we don't understand them that well," said Ryan, from Australia's Macquarie University.

The study, published in the journal Current Biology, was conducted in the waters of South Africa's Mossel Bay, a popular great white feeding ground.


Seal-shaped decoys were strung with different configurations of LED lights and towed behind a boat to see which attracted the most attention.

Brighter lights were better at deterring sharks, the research found, while vertical lights were less effective than horizontal.

Ryan said the results were better than expected and is now in the process of building prototypes for use on the underside of kayaks and surfboards.


Australia has some of the world's most comprehensive shark management measures, including monitoring drones, shark nets and a tagging system that alerts authorities when a shark is near a crowded beach.

Ryan said her research could allow less invasive mitigation methods to be used.

More research was needed to see if bull and tiger sharks -- which have different predatory behaviour -- responded to the lights in a similar way, the authors said.


There have been more than 1,200 shark incidents in Australia since 1791, of which 255 resulted in death, official data shows.

Great white sharks were responsible for 94 of those deaths.

Tiny gold radiators ‘fry’ bacteria on medical implants

ByDr. Tim Sandle

DIGITAL JOURNAL
November 12, 2024

A team of surgeons transplanting a pig kidney into a brain dead patient, part of a growing field of research aimed at advancing cross-species transplants and closing the organ donor gap

 - Copyright NYU Langone Health/AFP Joe Carrotta

Aiming to discover an alternative method to help overcome antibiotic resistance, a new technology from Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) offers an important medical application. This is for when hip and knee implants are surgically inserted.

Scientists have shown that by heating up small nanorods of gold with near-infrared light (NIR), bacteria are killed, and the surface of the implant becomes decontaminated.

The technology with NIR-heated gold nanorods had previously been studied in cancer research. The application for surgical implants represents an alternative use in seeking to create the antibacterial surface on the implants.

There is a risk infections can occur during surgical procedures. The risk is elevated when foreign materials, such as knee prostheses, are implanted into the body. This is because the presence of the material weakens the body’s immune system. To help counter this, antibiotic treatments are commonly used.

Yet, the use of antimicrobials entails a risk of increased antibiotic resistance.

The new technology uses nanometre-sized rods of gold. These are attached to the implant surface. When NIR light hits the surface of the implant, the rods heat up and act as tiny heating elements.

The gold nanorods are completely passive on the surface before the NIR light heats them. Since the heating elements are so small, there is only ‘local heating’, which kills any bacteria on the surface of the implant without affecting the surrounding tissue.

This occurs as the gold rods absorb the light which causes the electrons in the gold to be set in motion. At a given threshold, the nanorods emit heat. NIR light is invisible to the human eye; however, it has the ability to penetrate human tissue. This means the gold nanorods can be heated on the surface of the implant inside the body by illuminating the skin.

The most important factor is getting the size of the rods exact. If they are too small or too big they will absorb light of the wrong wavelengths. The size of the gold nanorods is 20 by 70 nanometres and they absorb light in the NIR region around 800 nanometres.

The researchers are working on an additional study that increases their understanding of how the gold rods are affected by light and which assesses how the temperature in them can be measured.

Due to their tiny size the rods cannot be measured with a regular thermometer. Instead the researchers resorted to X-rays in order to study how the gold atoms move. This method enables precise measurement of the temperature of the gold rods and how the temperature can be regulated using the intensity of the NIR light.

The temperature needs to be carefully controlled. If it is too high this will cause the nanorods to lose their shape and transform into spheres. This means they lose their optical properties and can no longer absorb NIR light effectively.

The research appears in the journal Nano Letters. It is titled “Photothermal properties of solid-supported gold nanorods.”

Global diabetes rate has doubled in last 30 years: study


By AFP
November 13, 2024


More than 800 million people are now diabetic, compared to less than 200 million in 1990, researchers say

 - Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB

The percentage of adults suffering from diabetes across the world has doubled over the past three decades, the biggest rises coming in developing countries, a study said Wednesday.

The serious health condition affected around 14 percent of all adults worldwide in 2022, compared to seven percent in 1990, according to the new analysis in The Lancet journal.

Taking into account the growing global population, the team of researchers estimated that more than 800 million people are now diabetic, compared to less than 200 million in 1990.

These figures include both main types of diabetes. Type 1 affects patients from a young age and is more difficult to treat because it is caused by an insulin deficiency.

Type 2 mainly affects middle-aged or older people who lose their sensitivity to insulin.

Behind the global numbers, national figures varied widely.

The rate of diabetes stayed the same or even fell in some wealthier countries, such as Japan, Canada or Western European nations such as France and Denmark, the study said.

“The burden of diabetes and untreated diabetes is increasingly borne by low-income and middle-income countries,” it added.

For example, nearly a third of women in Pakistan are now diabetic, compared to less than a tenth in 1990.

The researchers emphasised that obesity is an “important driver” of type 2 diabetes — as is an unhealthy diet.

The gap between how diabetes is treated in richer and poorer countries is also widening.

Three out of five people aged over 30 with diabetes — 445 million adults — did not receive treatment for diabetes in 2022, the researchers estimated.

India alone was home to almost a third of that number.

In sub-Saharan Africa, only five to 10 percent of adults with diabetes received treatment in 2022.

Some developing countries such as Mexico are doing well in treating their population — but overall the global gap is widening, they said.

“This is especially concerning as people with diabetes tend to be younger in low-income countries and, in the absence of effective treatment, are at risk of life-long complications,” said senior study author Majid Ezzati of Imperial College London.

Those complications include “amputation, heart disease, kidney damage or vision loss — or in some cases, premature death,” he said in a statement.

Electrician finds frescoes behind false ceiling in Rome


By AFP
November 13, 2024

The frescoes in the Villa Farnesina palace in Rome, visit courtesy of the Accademia dei Lincei

 - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Cliff Hawkins

Rosy-cheeked cherubs surrounded by blues, reds and golds have lost none of their brilliance in 17th-century frescoes discovered behind a false ceiling at the Villa Farnesina palace in Rome.

The three paintings were hidden above the vaulted ceiling of what was once the living room of Agostino Chigi, a wealthy banker and Renaissance patron who had the villa built at the start of the 16th century.

Electrician Davide Renzoni stumbled upon them by chance a year ago, after climbing through a trapdoor into the long-forgotten space during maintenance work on the villa, which sits on the banks of the river Tiber.

“I went to get a lamp and when I turned it on, everything appeared: it was a marvel,” he told AFP on a visit this week.

Several cherubs hold up a green festoon, while another brandishes a golden helmet.

The frescoes, by a little-known artist, include the coat of arms of the noble Farnese family.

Cardinal Alessandro Farnese bought the villa in 1579 with the idea of connecting it to the Farnese Palace on the other side of the Tiber, though the plan fell through.

The villa, bought by the state in 1927, underwent major restoration work and the frescoes fell into oblivion, curator Virginia Lapenta told AFP.

Their rediscovery last year inspired an exhibition on the 17th century in the grounds of the villa, which has long been renowned for its frescoes by Renaissance master Raphael.

Although they are not accessible to the public for security reasons, visitors can see the newly found frescoes through pictures and videos included in the exhibition, which runs until January 12.

The displays also allow the villa to monitor the frescoes’ conservation, Lapenta said.

Kurdish activist fled Iran into Italy nightmare


By AFP
November 13, 2024

Amnesty International is among those who have taken up Maysoon Majidi's cause 

- Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Cliff Hawkins

Judith RENOULT

After fleeing Iran and making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean, Kurdish activist Maysoon Majidi did not expect to be jailed in Italy for people smuggling.

But the day after arriving on a boat last December, she was arrested and held for 10 months — a victim, her supporters say, of a migration clampdown by Giorgia Meloni’s government.

“I tried to say who I was, that I am a political refugee, that I have done nothing wrong,” the 28-year-old told AFP by telephone from Calabria, in southern Italy, where she was recently released.

Speaking in Farsi through a translator, she added: “None of us would want to leave our own country and face all these dangers to get here.

“I had to leave Iran not just to stay alive, but also to be able to continue my work as an activist.”

Majidi arrived in Calabria on December 31, 2023, one of almost 80 migrants on a boat from Turkey — among the last of nearly 158,000 people who landed on Italy’s shores that year.

The next day, she was arrested for aiding illegal immigration, a crime that risks six to 16 years in prison.

She spent the next 10 months in prison, held on the basis of testimonies from two fellow migrants that were later withdrawn.

Amnesty International is among those who have taken up her cause, joining a local campaign group and the mayor of Riace, Domenico Lucano.

Lucano, now a member of the European Parliament, was himself convicted for his help for refugees. He made Majidi an honorary citizen.

She was finally released on October 22 after others on board — including the captain, currently facing prosecution — testified in her favour.

She is awaiting a dismissal of her case on November 27, after which she hopes to join her brother in Germany, and continue her life.

– A long exile –

Born in 1996 in the Iranian province of Kurdistan, Majidi studied theatre and sociology at university.

She wrote several articles under a pseudonym denouncing misogyny in society, and made a short film with Kurds who risk their lives transporting goods in the mountains between Iran and Iraq.

The NGO Hana, which documents human rights abuses in Majidi’s region, confirmed she was one of its active members.

“I was always under observation when I was at university,” she recalled.

“In 2019, they arrested me and then released me, but I knew that they were following me and that they released me to have access to my contacts.”

She and her brother went into exile.

Taking refuge in Irbil, in the autonomous Kurdistan region of Iraq, she became a journalist and helped organise demonstrations in the wake of the 2022 death in Iranian police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd.

New threats pushed her to flee to Turkey, from where she managed to raise the money needed to get a boat to Italy.


– ‘What am I doing here?’ –

During Majidi’s time in prison, she staged several hunger strikes against her detention, and to ask for an interpreter.

Parisa Nazari, an Iranian feminist activist living in Italy, supported her during that time.

“I could feel her ribs as I held her in my arms. She kept asking me: ‘What am I doing here?'” Nazari recalled at a screening in Rome last month of Majidi’s film.

For NGOs and groups backing her, Majidi is a victim of a clampdown on irregular migration by Meloni’s hard-right government.

Meloni, whose far-right Brothers of Italy party won 2022 national elections, has vowed to stop the boat arrivals, including taking a tough line on the traffickers who organise crossings from North Africa.

Riccardo Noury, spokesman for Amnesty International Italia, told AFP that “too often, there is an impression that people on board migrant boats are arrested to show that the fight against so-called illegal immigration works.”

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for KURDISTAN

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for KURDS

Nearly half of tropical coral species face extinction: report


By AFP
November 13, 2024

Rising temperatures due to global warming has led to mass bleaching events striking coral across the world

 - Copyright POOL/AFP/File Michael Nagle

Almost half of all warm-water species of coral are threatened with extinction — and climate change is the chief culprit, a new report said on Wednesday.

The updated risk assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was announced at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, which is being skipped by the leaders of many top polluting nations.

Oceans have absorbed around 90 percent of the excess heat in the atmosphere due to the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Rising ocean temperatures have spurred mass bleaching events at coral reefs across the world, threatening crucial ecosystems for marine life as well as the livelihoods of people who rely on them.

The updated assessment of the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species looked at reef-building corals, which live in warm, shallow waters in tropical areas.

Its analysis found that 892 reef-building coral species are now considered threatened, representing 44 percent of the total.

This marked a significant increase from the last assessment in 2008, when a third of all species was listed as threatened.

The organisation is still assessing the extinction risk for cold-water coral, which lives in deeper, darker ocean waters, making it difficult to study.

The IUCN called on negotiators at the COP29 conference to act quickly to reduce planet-heating fossil fuel emissions.

“Healthy ecosystems like coral reefs are essential for human livelihoods — providing food, stabilising coastlines, and storing carbon,” IUCN chief Grethel Aguilar said in a statement.

“Climate change remains the leading threat to reef-building corals and is devastating the natural systems we depend on.”

As well as global warming, pollution, disease, unsustainable fishing and agricultural runoff also threaten the world’s coral.

Most reef-building coral is found across the Indo-Pacific region, such as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef which suffered one its worst-ever bleaching events this year.

The IUCN’s updated assessment included results from a study about reef-building coral in the Atlantic Ocean, which was published in the PLOS One journal on Wednesday.

That study found that almost one in three — or 23 out of 85 — species of Atlantic coral is critically endangered, more than previously thought.

Staghorn coral and elkhorn coral were given as examples of two critically endangered species in the Caribbean that have been hit hard by warming waters, pollution — and hurricanes.

“Without relevant decisions from those with the power to change this trajectory, we will see the further loss of reefs, and progressive disappearance of coral species at larger and larger scales,” warned IUCN coral specialist David Obura.