GENDER APARTHEID

Taliban order Afghan women banned from medical training, crushing hopes for future

“Everything has been taken away from us for the crime of being a girl.”

AFP
9 Dec, 2024 


Pregnant women waiting at the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) corridor-run maternity hospital in Khost. Photo / AFP

For Saja, studying nursing at a healthcare institute in Kabul was her last lifeline to make something of herself after women were banned from universities in Afghanistan two years ago.

But the Taliban-run regime has crushed this ambition by ordering, according to multiple sources, the exclusion of Afghan women from medical training, sparking panic across institutions.

When she heard the news, Saja, who had been at university before women were barred, said it felt like “reliving the same nightmare”.

“This was my last hope to do something, to become something,” said Saja, not her real name.

“Everything has been taken away from us for the crime of being a girl.”

The authorities have made no official comment or confirmation, nor have they responded to the numerous condemnations and calls to reverse a decision that further blocks women’s access to education.

Since their 2021 return to power, the Taliban militants have imposed reams of restrictions on women, making Afghanistan the only country to ban girls from education after primary school.

Directors and employees of health training centres have told AFP they were informed in recent days of the order, issued by the Taliban supreme leader and passed down verbally by the Health Ministry, to expel women students until further notice.

Institutes across the country – which many women had turned to after the university ban – were given a few days to organise final exams.

But without an explicit announcement or document clarifying the rules, confusion reigns.

Some institutions told AFP they would operate as normal until they received written orders, while others closed immediately or scrambled to hold exams before shutting down.

“Everyone is confused, and no one is sharing what is really happening,” said Saja, who was in her first year at a private institute.

“We have been given two or three exams each day ... even though we already finished our exams a few months back,” said the 22-year-old, adding they had to pay fees to sit the exams.

Ministry has 35,000 women students

“We received a lot of concerned messages from students and teachers wanting to know what is going on and asking ‘is there any hope?’” said the director of a Kabul private institute with 1100 students, of which 700 were women.

“No one is happy,” he told AFP from his office steps away from women’s classrooms, where the last lesson on the board advised how to manage stress and depression in patients.

According to a source within the Health Ministry, 35,000 women are currently students in some 10 public and more than 150 private institutes offering two-year diplomas in subjects including nursing, midwifery, dentistry and laboratory work.

The Norwegian Afghanistan Committee non-governmental organisation, which trains 588 women in institutes managed in collaboration with the ministry, was verbally informed classes were “temporarily suspended”.

This has to be taken “equally seriously as a written document”, said the committee’s country director Terje Magnusson Watterdal, adding that “there are a lot of people high up within the current Government that are quite opposed to this decision”.


He hopes, at the minimum, public institutes will reopen to women.

International organisations such as the United Nations, which has said Afghan women are victims of a “gender apartheid”, have already warned of devastating consequences of the plan, in a country where maternal and infant mortality are among the world’s highest.

If implemented, the reported new ban by the Taliban Islamic extremists, “will undoubtedly lead to unnecessary suffering, illness, and possibly deaths of Afghan women and children, now and in future generations, which could amount to femicide”, UN experts warned.

‘Taken everything from us’

Midwifery students are especially passionate about their studies, according to Magnusson Watterdal.

“So many of these young women have been motivated to become a midwife because they have lost a mother or an aunt or a sister in childbirth,” he said.

“It’s not just a profession that you choose, it’s a vocation. So, of course, there’s great desperation” among students and staff.

Small protests have been held in parts of Afghanistan, according to sources and images circulated on social media.

Assal, another student using a pseudonym, received an expedited diploma last week but has little hope of finding a job in a country where unemployment is widespread and opportunities for women are increasingly limited.

“I wanted to practise medicine and study further,” the 20-year-old told AFP.

“They had already taken everything from us. Next thing we won’t even be allowed to breathe.”

- Agence France-Presse

THE SOLUTION TO  TALIBAN OPPRESSION

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

NYC ad agencies Omnicom, Interpublic to form $30bn marketing powerhouse

The advertising titans, behind campaigns like ‘Got Milk’ and ‘Priceless’, aim to create the world’s largest ad agency.

The deal needs the approval of the Omnicom and Interpublic shareholders 

[File: Richard Drew/AP Photo]

Published On 9 Dec 2024

Omnicom is buying Interpublic Group in a stock-for-stock deal that will create the largest ad agency in the world with combined annual revenue of almost $26bn.

The deal, announced on Monday, could attract regulatory scrutiny as it seeks to merge the world’s third-largest ad buyer, Omnicom, with the fourth-largest – Interpublic.

The names may be unfamiliar to many Americans, but some of their marketing campaigns are iconic. Those include “Got Milk” for the California Milk Processor Board, “Priceless” for Mastercard, “Because I’m Worth It” for L’Oreal and “Think Different” for Apple.

The combined company will be worth more than $30bn.

“Through this combination, we are poised to accelerate innovation and harness the significant opportunities created by new technologies in this era of exponential change, said John Wren, chairman and CEO of Omnicom. “Now is the perfect time to bring together our technologies, capabilities, talent and geographic footprints to bring clients superior, data-driven outcomes.”
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The company will keep the Omnicom name and trade under the “OMC” ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Competing for ad dollars

Tech giants such as Alphabet-owned Google and Amazon.com have in recent years attracted marketing dollars away from traditional agencies by offering both advertising tools and marketplaces to buy and sell them.

Soaring use of AI tools that allow businesses to create ads cheaper and faster has squeezed traditional agencies, forcing them to scramble to develop similar in-house tools to retain clients.

“This move allows us to take control of our own future rather than wait for technology to impact it in ways that you can’t anticipate today,” Wren said.

The size of and reach of the new marketing giant will have multiple advantages, including the use of new technologies like artificial intelligence.

“We estimate both companies have an approximately 50/50 split between advertising and marketing services, setting up a strong position not only in creative and media, but also across areas like specialty healthcare, experiential, and PR,” wrote JPMorgan analyst David Karnovsky.

“For the industry, some amount of consolidation is a positive following a couple years of divergent growth among agencies and ahead of an investment cycle for Gen-AI,” Karnovsky added.

Shareholders of the Interpublic Group of Companies Inc will receive 0.344 Omnicom shares for each share of Interpublic common stock that they own. Omnicom shareholders will own 60.6 percent of the combined company and Interpublic shareholders will own 39.4 percent after the transaction is complete.
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Wren will be chairman and CEO of Omnicom, while Phil Angelastro will continue as executive vice president and chief financial officer. Interpublic CEO Philippe Krakowsky and COO Daryl Simm will be co-presidents and chief operating officers at Omnicom.

Three current members of Interpublic’s board, including Krakowsky, will join the board of Omnicom.

The deal is expected to have annual cost savings of $750m and is expected to close during the second half of next year. It still needs the approval of Omnicom and Interpublic shareholders.

Regulatory roadblocks had forced Omnicom and France’s Publicis Groupe SA to call off their $35bn merger in 2013.

Shares of Interpublic jumped 10 percent Monday, while Omnicom’s stock fell more than 6 percent.
Source: News Agencies

They thwarted martial law. But South Koreans say the fight for democracy is not over.

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor
A protest by teachers at Seoul's Gwanghwamun Square on Dec. 6, 2024, calls for the impeachment of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol after his short-lived effort to impose martial law on Dec. 3.

By Ann Scott Tyson 

Staff writer

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Dec. 09, 2024 

Seoul, South Korea

At Seoul’s traditional Namdaemun market, vendor Jang Chang Suk closely guards her knife-cut noodle recipe – but freely dishes out her views on South Korea’s current political crisis.

“It’s embarrassing,” she says of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived imposition of martial law Dec. 3, which has plunged the country into turmoil. But Ms. Jang’s dismay is matched by confidence that her fellow citizens will uphold South Korea’s democracy.

“South Koreans are good people. They have it together – they’re on it,” she says, slicing fresh wheat dough with quick strokes of a cleaver and wiping her hands on her flower-print apron. In contrast, she says, “the government is lagging behind.”

Why We Wrote This

South Korea’s relatively young democracy proved its resilience last week when lawmakers shut down the president’s attempt to impose martial law. But he remains in power – at least on paper – revealing the challenges still facing the country.

Indeed, across South Korea, people of all ages have poured into the streets in massive numbers in recent days to send the message that there is no going back to military rule and its dark legacy of repression from the 1980s. Even Mr. Yoon’s backers – less than 20% of South Koreans now, polls show – stress he must protect democratic institutions.

“These incidents tell us that people are internalizing democratic norms,” says Myunghee Lee, an assistant professor at James Madison College of Michigan State University. “The absolute red line is using the military to suppress the opposition. That is not acceptable.”

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor
Jang Chang Suk, a noodle shop worker at Seoul's Namdaemun market, believes there was no justification for President Yoon Suk Yeol's decision to impose martial law on the country.

Still, Dr. Lee, a political scientist focused on East Asia, says the country’s democratic system has a long way to go. While buoyed by their success in drawing that line, many South Koreans are also expressing frustration over political gridlock that preceded the martial law attempt. And the crisis of legitimacy unleashed by Mr. Yoon must still be resolved, with the embattled president surviving an impeachment vote this weekend.

“South Korean democracy is at a ceiling,” she says. So far, “it’s not breaking that ceiling.”
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Swift political fallout

In a bustling, concrete-and-glass coffee shop in downtown Seoul, IT professional Je Min Hwang pauses when asked who he’d favor to lead South Korea.

He backs the opposition center-left Democratic Party, but its leader, Lee Jae-myung, is “not 100% clean” either, Mr. Hwang says.

Mr. Lee was convicted last month by a Seoul court for violating election laws, a ruling he says he’ll appeal. An even bigger concern for Mr. Hwang is the polarizing, acrimonious campaign led by Mr. Lee since his party expanded its parliamentary majority in April to discredit Mr. Yoon and his ruling People Power Party (PPP).

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor
IT professional Je Min Hwang supports the opposition center-left Democratic Party, led by Lee Jae-myung, but has concerns about Mr. Lee's polarizing tactics.

“They are butting heads,” Mr. Hwang says of South Korea’s two leading political parties. “There should be compromise.”

The desire for less contentious politics is widespread among South Koreans.

An Jung Min, a clothing importer, says he dislikes both Mr. Lee and Mr. Yoon, and voted for neither of them in the 2022 presidential election, which Mr. Yoon won by a razor-thin margin.

“The current president doesn’t know how to negotiate or collaborate – he’s very stubborn,” says Mr. Min.

As both sides dug in, Mr. Yoon drastically escalated the showdown on Dec. 3 by declaring martial law – banning all political activities and threatening violators with arrest, putting all media under military control, and prohibiting rallies.

Mr. Lee immediately rushed to the National Assembly building – climbing a wall to get in as troops tried to seal off the parliament – and led a vote to oppose military rule. A few hours later, Mr. Yoon backed down and lifted the order.

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor
Park Jung Min, a shipping company worker from the southern city of Geoje, traveled five hours to participate in a huge protest outside the country’s National Assembly on Dec. 7, 2024, calling for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.

The public backlash and political fallout have been swift and catastrophic for Mr. Yoon. Last Thursday, then-Defense Minister Kim Jong-Hyun resigned, only to be arrested on Sunday for his role in the martial law decision.


Military commanders distanced themselves from Mr. Yoon, testifying that the martial law attempt was rushed and disorganized, and military veterans – many of whom had supported the president – turned out to condemn him.

South Korea’s stock market hit a one-year low, and its currency slid to a 15-year low against the dollar on Monday, matching the political fortunes of Mr. Yoon, whose popularity rating sank into the teens.

“I voted for the wrong person,” says Seoul taxi driver Mr. Shin, withholding his first name to protect his privacy.

Mr. Yoon’s martial law fiasco shocked him.

“This is not the 1980s – it’s 2024!” he says, referring to the 1980-to-1987 dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan, who imposed martial law and ordered the brutal crushing of a democratic uprising in May 1980. “In the old days, you could block the media and the roads. But these days, every citizen is a reporter. These days, if a soldier was ordered to shoot civilians, he would disobey.”

On Saturday, facing an impeachment vote by parliament, Mr. Yoon offered a televised apology, followed by a deep bow. But many South Koreans rejected the mea culpa as too little, too late. “It lacked sincerity,” says Mr. Hwang.
President evades impeachment

Ki-Soo Lee, a Seoul kindergarten staff person, was putting her 10-year-old son to bed last Tuesday when the phone rang. A friend frantically told her the president had declared martial law.

“We were all asking, ‘What should we do?’” Ms. Lee recalls. Thoughts raced through her head. Her husband was in the hospital – should she leave her son at home? Overhearing, her son chimed in.

Ann Scott Tyson/The Christian Science Monitor
An estimated 100,000 people rally around South Korea's parliament in Seoul, South Korea, on Dec. 7, 2024, awaiting an anticipated vote on the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol. The vote failed after most members of Mr. Yoon's party, the conservative People Power Party, boycotted the vote.

“Umma,” he told her, “under the bed is the best place to hide!”

Ms. Lee says she’s grateful the decree was overturned so quickly, amid large-scale protests. “I believe in the strength of the South Korean people,” she says, clasping her hands together in a sign of solidarity. Now, she says, Mr. Yoon should resign.

“I want the president to realize what he did and step down. If that is not possible, the citizens of South Korea will help him step down,” she says.

The next day, Ms. Lee joined more than 100,000 people from all over South Korea who thronged to the National Assembly to call for impeachment. Chanting and singing, they huddled together, lighting candles as dark descended and it grew bitterly cold. A few hundred Yoon supporters rallied nearby.

As the vote neared, however, Mr. Yoon’s ruling PPP members stood up and filed out – their boycott making the vote impossible. “Go back,” the protesters chanted, calling the boycotting PPP members by name.

Later, in what experts called a highly unorthodox arrangement, PPP leader Han Dong-hoon said the party, together with Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, were taking over responsibility for “state affairs.” Mr. Yoon would no longer be involved in governance or foreign affairs, essentially losing legitimacy while remaining president. On Monday, South Korea’s justice ministry reportedly barred Mr. Yoon from leaving the country.

“The party should not be ruling, because that’s not what the Constitution says,” Dr. Lee says. “This is not great for South Korean democracy.”

Many South Koreans like Park Jung Min believe Mr. Yoon must go. “Our national character is we never give up,” says Ms. Park, a shipping company worker from the southern city of Geoje who traveled by bus for five hours to come to Saturday’s rally – her first political protest.

“It’s in our instinct and our blood,” she says. “I will come back [to protest] next week.”

TRAIN STATION ROOF COLLAPSE

Serbia students intensify anti-government protests

Published09/12/2024

Belgrade, 09 December 2024, dtt-net.com – 

Serbia students today have intensified further protests and blockades of faculties and roads in the country, upping the number of faculties blocked up to thirty-three, seeking more resignations and transparency from authorities over the tragic accident of November 1 at railway station in northern town of Novi Sad which killed 15 people, including a student.

Cambodian journalist who reported on illegal logging dies from gunshot wound

Veteran reporter Chhoeung Chheng was shot last week as he traveled by motorbike to a wildlife sanctuary.

By RFA Khmer

2024.12.09

Chhoeung Chheung, 63, is seen Aug. 19, 2022. (Chhoeung Chheung via Facebook)

A Cambodian reporter who was shot last week while investigating a forest-clearing operation in a wildlife sanctuary has died from his wounds, his wife told Radio Free Asia.

Chhoeung Chheng, 63, was shot on Dec. 4 as he rode on a motorbike toward the Boeung Per Wildlife Sanctuary in Siem Reap province.

He was taken to Siem Reap Provincial Hospital, where doctors removed a bullet from his abdomen, according to his wife, Chiev Chap. However, doctors were unable to stop the bleeding and he died early Saturday, she told Radio Free Asia.

Chhoeung Chheung, who worked as a journalist for online news outlet Kampuchea Aphivath, had previously reported on the destruction of natural resources in a community forest in the sanctuary.

He was shot by unknown persons believed to have been hiding along the road, Chiev Chap told RFA last week, citing a conversation with her husband.

Police have arrested a suspect on attempted murder charges and have said they believe the shooting stemmed from a personal dispute.

Siem Reap provincial court spokesperson Yin Srang told RFA on Saturday that the suspect has been placed under pre-trial detention.

Journalists killed in Cambodia

It’s been several years since a journalist has been shot in Cambodia, Nop Vy, executive director for the Cambodian Journalists Alliance Association, or Camboja, told RFA Khmer last week.

Since 1994, at least 15 journalists have been killed in the country, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights said in a statement in October. Twelve of them were working on stories that could have posed a direct threat to powerful Cambodians, the center said.

In 2014, journalist Traing Try was fatally shot in northeastern Kratie province as he was traveling with other reporters to investigate illegal logging in the region.

“This murder is appalling and demands a strong response,” said Cédric Alviani, the Asia-Pacific bureau director of Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.

“We call on Cambodian authorities to ensure that all parties responsible for the attack are severely punished,” he said in a statement. “We also urge the Cambodian government to take concrete actions to end violence against journalists.”

Chhoeung Chheng was a person with sound character who always maintained good relations with his neighbors, Chiev Chap said. She urged authorities to sentence the offender to the fullest extent.

“How can I accept this murder case? I saw him walking daily in front of me,” she said. “It is really unfair. I don’t know what else to do except to depend on competent authorities.”

Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

OUTLAW DEEP SEA MINING

Mining the Pacific – future proofing or fool's gold?

Katy Watson

BBC
Pacific correspondent
Reporting from Cook Islands

BBC/Lindle Markwell
Plans to mine the Cook Islands' seabed have drawn condemnation from activists who fear damage to the environment


"They look like chocolate truffles, just don't eat them," jokes Jean Mason, the curator of the Cook Islands Library and Museum as she reaches into a display cabinet and pulls out a black, knobbly rock.

The "rock" she is holding may well determine the future of this Pacific nation.

It is what scientists call a polymetallic nodule, created over millennia as minerals accumulate on the seabed.

Packed full of cobalt, nickel and manganese, these ancient formations are now valuable: the metals go into batteries that power modern life, from electric cars to mobile phones.

They have become a source of friction in the low-lying Pacific Islands, which are among the nations most vulnerable to climate change.

With rising sea levels, the ocean - or Moana, as it's called in Māori and many other Polynesian languages - remains their greatest threat, but it is also their biggest provider.

They fish in it and they live off the tourists drawn to their turquoise waters, but now the Cook Islands wants to dig deeper, up to 6,000m (19,685 ft), where the nodules lie.

It's a pet project for Prime Minister Mark Brown, who believes it will reshape this country of 15 volcanic islands in the southern Pacific.
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BBC/Lindle Markwell
Jean Mason believes her country should mine the polymetallic nodules lying at the bottom of its territorial waters


The hope is that the income from these metals could lead to more prosperity than the islanders had ever imagined.

Except the promise of deep sea mining may carry an environmental price.

Proponents say that harvesting these nodules for use in renewables will help the world transition from fossil fuels. They also believe that it is less invasive than mining on land.

But critics argue so much is still unknown about the impact of extracting what is one of the last untouched parts of the planet. They say there should be a pause on deep sea mining until there is more research on its effects on marine life and the oceanic ecosystem.

When Jean was growing up, she says, the nodules were only thought to be useful for making knife blades.

"We had no idea that cell phones were going to come, and wind turbines and electric cars."

Nodules are a family conversation here and Jean is firmly in favour of mining them. Her husband is a lawyer for one of the companies given exploration licences by the government.

The library where she works is stacked full of holiday reads left or donated by tourists – tourism is the country's biggest earner, accounting for more than 70% of its GDP.

It includes a newspaper archive.

Jean shoves a photocopy of an article from the Cook Islands News into my hand. It's from 1974 and the headline reads "100% concentration of manganese nodules".

"My point is, we've been talking about this for 50-plus years - I think the moratorium time is over."
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The gold in the oceans


The Pacific Ocean covers close to a third of the planet. And the nodules buried in it have been known about since the 19th Century.

But in the 1960s, American geologist John L Mero published a book setting out the case that the seabed could provide many of the world's mineral needs.

It's not an easy process – nor a cheap one. But when prices of metals like nickel soared in 2008, it looked more appealing.

Then Covid hit. Tourists left and the money dried up.

Together with the impact of climate change - rising sea levels and unpredictable weather patterns - the country quickly realised it needed something else to rely on.

The Cook Islands' Seabeds Minerals Authority estimates there are 12 billion wet tonnes of polymetallic nodules in their waters.

Some people argue mining the seabed is not financially viable. With technology moving so fast, these metals may not even be in demand by the time it gets going.

But there are takers. And in 2022, the Cook Islands gave out three licences to companies to start exploring the possibility of deep-sea mining.

They're now working with scientists in researching the environmental impact.
BBC/Lindle Markwell
The government has given three licences to mining companies to start exploring the possibility of deep-sea mining
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"Nothing we do in life is risk-free. So, if you want zero risk you need to go and sit in a little room with cotton wool around you," says Hans Smit, who runs Moana Minerals, one of the firms that has an exploration licence.

"We have this lifestyle, this lifestyle has a price. If we don't want mining and we don't want to get all these metals, we need to stop doing just about everything we're doing."

Hans is from South Africa and moved here to be part of the community. To him, the deep-sea metals are an "incredible resource" that could benefit the islanders.

While there's a growing call to delay deep-sea mining until regulations by the International Seabed Authority are drawn up, this only applies to international waters.

The Cook Islands still have huge reserves of their own in their national waters - their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) - so, they can crack on regardless.

"We're known as small-island developing states, but we like to call ourselves large ocean states," says Rima Brown, a young Cook Islander with a geography degree who jokingly calls herself the poster child for deep-sea mining.

Rima works for the Seabed Minerals Authority and much of her time is spent mapping the sea bed.

"While we're only about 200 square kilometers in land mass, we have an exclusive economic zone of almost 2 million square kilometres," she says.

That's the equivalent of Mexico.

"It's the only resource we've got," Jean says.

"[Industrialised nations] destroy our atmosphere and then they've got a nerve to tell us, let's leave your stuff in the seabed. How dare they tell us we can't touch our resources?"

But it's not just outsiders who are opposed to deep-sea mining in the Cook Islands.

Future proofing or a fatal error?


Off the coast of Rarotonga, the largest and most populous of the Cook Islands, a crowd of surfers, kayakers and swimmers gather around a large vaka, a traditional Polynesian catamaran.

"Te Moana, Te Moana, Paruru ia ra, Paruru ia ra," the people on board repeat - "Protect our ocean", they are chanting in Māori.

"We are asking for more time for robust independent research, more time for our people to be made better aware of what potential risk might look like," says Alanah Matamaru Smith from the Te Ipukarea Society, an environmental organisation based in Rarotonga.

"We're seeing infrastructure being put up here on Rarotonga, accommodation for offshore mining companies to reside here, we've got draft mining regulations already in place. Actions are speaking a lot louder than words at the moment."
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BBC/Lindle Markwell
Activists are asking for more independent research on the environmental impact of deep-sea mining


Prime Minister Mark Brown, who is driving this, also happens to be the tourism minister and the seabed minerals minister. He's made it clear he wants the Cook Islands to be a leader in the industry.

"It provides the opportunity for our kids to be able to study at any university in the world without having to incur a student loan," says Brown, who has a vision of following the lead of Norway in establishing a sovereign wealth fund.

"It allows us to have the type of health care that our people have to go to New Zealand or Australia for. It allows our young people the opportunity to live fulfilling lives here in our country, without having to go to other countries to ply their trade in an industry that doesn't exist here."

To those who say a country threatened by climate change risks becoming part of the problem, he argues he's trying to find solutions.

"We know that for the last 20 years we haven't been able to get the financing from the larger emitting countries, so we've got to look for ways to protect ourselves."

But activist June Hosking isn't convinced.

She's from one of the outer islands, Mauke, with a population of just 300 people.

While the government has organised consultations with residents across the islands as well as the large diaspora in New Zealand, she says the potential downsides of the industry are not being discussed.

"People don't like to rock the boat in the outer islands," she says. "So, when we have these consultations, there's only maybe three of us who would speak up."

June says such is island life, many refer to the PM as just Mark. She also says his wife is married to her husband's cousin.

But family connections don't stop her being seen as a bit of a trouble-maker in asking questions.

"When locals say 'Oh no, I stay neutral on [deep-sea mining]', I say 'you can't drive very far in neutral'," she laughs.

"There are times in your life when you need to actually make a stand for something – we are talking about our future here."



Additional reporting by Lindle Markwell.

OLD TESTAMENT PATRIARCHY

Polygamous sect leader gets 50 years in prison in scheme to orchestrate sex involving children

PHOENIX (AP) — A polygamist religious leader who claimed more than 20 spiritual “wives” including 10 underage girls was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Monday for coercing girls as young as 9 years old to submit to criminal sex acts with him and o

Jacques Billeaud And Anita Snow, The Associated Press

• 
  

FILE - This undated photo provided by the Coconino County, Ariz., Sheriff's Office shows Samuel Bateman, the leader of a small polygamous group near the Arizona-Utah border. (Coconino County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)

PHOENIX (AP) — A polygamist religious leader who claimed more than 20 spiritual “wives” including 10 underage girls was sentenced to 50 years in prison on Monday for coercing girls as young as 9 years old to submit to criminal sex acts with him and other adults, and for scheming to kidnap them from protective custody.

Samuel Bateman, whose small group was an offshoot of the sect once led by Warren Jeffs, had pleaded guilty to a yearslong scheme to transport girls across state lines for his sex crimes, and later to kidnap some of them from protective custody.

Under the agreement, Bateman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for sexual activity, which carries a sentence of 10 years to life imprisonment, and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, which is punishable by up to life imprisonment. He was sentenced to 50 years on each count, to be served concurrently.

The rest of the charges were dismissed as part of the agreement.

Authorities say that Bateman, 48, tried to start an offshoot of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints based in the neighboring communities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. The fundamentalist group, also known as FLDS, split from the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after Mormons officially abandoned polygamy in 1890.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich sentenced Bateman after hearing statements in court by three teenage girls about the trauma they still struggle to overcome. Although they gave their names in court, The Associated Press does not name victims of sexual crime, and some appeared to still be minors.

“You should not have the opportunity to be free and never have the opportunity to be around young women, “ Brnovich told Bateman, noting that for a nearly 49-year-old man the 50-year sentence was effectively a life sentence.

"You took them from their homes, from their families and made them into sex slaves,” the judge said. “You stripped them of their innocence and childhood.”

A short competency hearing that was closed to the public was held just before sentencing to discuss a doctor’s assessment of Bateman’s mental health. The defense had argued that Bateman could have benefited from a maximum of 20 years of psychiatric treatment behind bars before being released.

The girls told the court, sometimes addressing Bateman himself, how they grappled to develop relationships in high school, among other struggles. Now living with foster families, they said they had received much support from trusted adults outside their community.

After the sentencing, the teens hugged and wept quietly. They were escorted out of court by a half dozen men and women in jackets with the slogan “Bikers Against Child Abuse," a group dedicated to protecting children from what it calls dangerous people and situations. A woman who sat with the teens said no one in the group would have a comment.

There was no one in the courtroom who appeared to be a supporter of Bateman.

The alleged practice of sect members sexually abusing girls whom they claim as spiritual “wives” has long plagued the FLDS. Jeffs was convicted of state charges in Texas in 2011 involving sexual assaults of his underage followers. Bateman was one of Jeffs' trusted followers and declared himself, like Jeffs, to be a “prophet” of the FLDS. Jeffs denounced Bateman in a written “revelation” sent to his followers from prison, and then tried to start his own group.

In 2019 and 2020, insisting that polygamy brings exaltation in heaven and that he was acting on orders from the “Heavenly Father,” Bateman began taking female adults and children from his male followers and proclaiming them to be his “wives,” the plea agreement said. While none of these “marriages” were legally or ceremonially recognized, Bateman acknowledged that each time he claimed another “wife,” it marked the beginning of his illicit sexual contact with the woman or girl.

Federal agents said Bateman demanded that his followers confess publicly for any indiscretions and he imposed punishments that ranged from public shaming to sexual activity, including requiring that some male followers atone for their “sins” by surrendering their own wives and daughters to him.

Bateman traveled extensively between Arizona, Utah, Colorado and Nebraska and regularly coerced underage girls into his criminal sexual activity, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona said. Recordings of some of his sex crimes were transmitted across state lines via electronic devices.

Bateman was arrested in August 2022 by state police as he drove through Flagstaff, Arizona, pulling a trailer. Someone had alerted authorities after spotting small fingers reaching through the slats of the door. Inside the trailer, which had no ventilation, they found a makeshift toilet, a sofa, camping chairs and three girls, 11 to 14 years old.

Bateman posted bond but was soon arrested again, accused of obstructing justice in a federal investigation into whether children were being transported across state lines for his sex crimes. Authorities also took nine children from Bateman’s home in Colorado City into protective custody.

Eight of the children later escaped from foster care in Arizona, and were found hundreds of miles away in Washington state, in a vehicle driven by one of the adult “wives.” Bateman also admitted his involvement in the kidnapping plot.

Federal prosecutors noted that Bateman's plea agreement was contingent on all of his co-defendants also pleading guilty. It also called for restitution of as much as $1 million per victim, and for all assets to be immediately forfeited.

Seven of Bateman’s adult “wives” have been convicted of crimes related to coercing children into sexual activity or impeding the investigation into Bateman. Some acknowledged they also coerced girls to become Bateman's spiritual “wives,” witnessed Bateman having criminal sexual activity with girls, participated in illicit group sex involving children, or joined in kidnapping them from foster care. Another woman is scheduled to be tried Jan. 14 on charges related to the kidnappings.

Two Colorado City brothers also face 10 years to life at their sentencings, on Dec. 16 and Dec. 20, after being convicted in October of charges including interstate travel to persuade or coerce a child to engage in sexual activity. Authorities say one bought Bateman two Bentley automobiles, while the other bought him a Range Rover.

In court records, lawyers for some of Bateman’s “wives” painted a bleak picture of their clients’ religious upbringings.

One said his client was raised in a religious cult that taught sexual activity with children was acceptable and that she was duped into “marrying” Bateman. Another said her client was given to Bateman by another man as if she were a piece of property, feeling she had no choice.

Jacques Billeaud And Anita Snow, The Associated Press

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/12/polyamory-is-not-polygamy-my-husband.html

 

Trump vows to end EV tax credits

Posted December. 10, 2024 07:53,   

Updated December. 10, 2024 07:53

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"We are going to be ending a lot of the environmental things that were ridiculous, that hurt our country very badly and didn’t do anything for the environment."

During an interview with NBC on Sunday, U.S. President-elect Trump reiterated his plan to abolish President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle (EV) tax credit program under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Trump also vowed to use tariffs as a key weapon to advance his “America First” policy, recalling how his first administration imposed a 50% tariff on Korean and Chinese washing machines.

This move has raised alarms for international companies, including South Korean firms that invested heavily in the U.S. under Biden’s policies promoting “friend-shoring,” which encouraged allied nations to strengthen economic ties with America. With South Korea facing challenges caused by martial law and prolonged political instability, concerns are growing about its ability to counteract potential economic pressures under a second Trump administration.

During an interview with NBC on Sunday, Trump said he would end the electric car mandate on day one and many other ridiculous environmental policies.


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