Dozens killed in Saudi-led coalition air raid on Yemen prison

At least 70 people killed in air raid on prison in northern city of Saada, and dozens of others wounded.

This image grab from a handout video made available by the Ansarullah Media centre shows destruction at a prison in the Houthi rebel stronghold of Saada in northern Yemen after it was hit in an air raid [Ansarullah media center via AFP]
Published On 21 Jan 202221 Jan 2022


Dozens of people have been killed in an air raid on a prison in northern Yemen, a Houthi official and medical charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) have said, after a night of deadly bombing underlined a dramatic escalation in violence in the country’s long-running conflict.

A Saudi-led military coalition has intensified attacks on what it has said are military targets linked to the Houthi rebel movement, after the Houthis conducted an unprecedented assault on coalition member the United Arab Emirates on Monday and launched missiles and drones at Saudi cities.

Footage released by the Houthis on Friday showed rescue workers pulling bodies from out of the rubble, following the dawn raid on the temporary detention centre in Saada.

Taha al-Motawakel, health minister in the Houthi government, which controls the country’s north, told The Associated Press news agency that 70 detainees were killed at the prison. He said the death toll was expected to rise since many of the wounded were seriously hurt.

An MSF spokesperson told the AFP news agency at least 70 people were killed and 138 others were wounded in the attack.

The figures came from one hospital in Saada, the spokesperson said, adding, “Two others in the city have received many wounded as well and the rubble is still being searched.”

Further south in the key port city of Hodeidah, video released by the Houthis showed bodies in the rubble and dazed survivors after an overnight air attack carried out by the Saudi-led coalition took out a telecommunications hub. Yemen suffered a nationwide internet blackout, a web monitor said.

NetBlocks said the internet disruption began around 1am local time (22:00 GMT on Thursday) and affected TeleYemen, the state-owned monopoly that controls internet access in the country.

We can’t reach out to any of our beloved ones in Yemen after #saudi/#UAE airstrikes hit the Telecom company in #hudaidah. This is concerning as air strikes have intensified during the last days targeting civilians incl. children in #Sanaa #hudadah
— Sarah Alareqi-سارة العريقي (@SarahAreqi) January 21, 2022

The San Diego-based Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis and San Francisco-based internet firm CloudFlare also noted a nationwide outage affecting Yemen beginning around the same time.

More than 12 hours later, the internet remained down. The Norwegian Refugee Council condemned the attack as “a blatant attack on civilian infrastructure that will also impact our aid delivery.”

According to the UK-based charity Save the Children, at least three children were killed in the Hodeidah air raid.

“The children were reportedly playing on a nearby football field when missiles struck the port town of Hodeidah,” it said in a statement.

The organisation said at least 60 people were killed in the air raid in Saada and more than 100 others wounded, most of them migrants, it added.

“The initial casualties report from Saada is horrifying,” Gillian Moyes, Save the Children’s country director in Yemen, said in a statement.

“Migrants seeking better lives for themselves and their families, Yemeni civilians injured by the dozens is a picture we never hoped to wake up to in Yemen.”.

The Saudi-led military coalition said the reports would be fully investigated.

“We take this report very seriously and it will be fully investigated as all reports of this nature are, using an internationally approved, independent process. Whilst this is ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further,” said coalition spokesman Brigadier-General Turki al-Malki.

The attacks on Yemen were also condemned by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

In a statement, the UN said Guterres “reminds all parties that attacks directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited by international humanitarian law”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also call for calm.

“The escalation in fighting only exacerbates a dire humanitarian crisis and the suffering of the Yemeni people,” he said in a statement released by the State Department on Friday.

Escalation

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed al-Attab, reporting from the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, said thousands of Houthi supporters took to the streets in Sanaa and other cities across Yemen to condemn the air raids.

The air raids came five days after the Houthis claimed a drone-and-missile attack on the United Arab Emirates that killed three people and prompted warnings of reprisals.

According to Save the Children, the escalation of the conflict resulted in a 60 percent increase in civilian casualties in the last three months of 2021, with 2022 already poised to have wider consequences for civilians.

The United Nations Security Council was due to meet at 15:00 GMT on Friday in an emergency session on the Houthi attacks against the UAE, at the request of the Gulf state, which has occupied one of the non-permanent seats on the council since January 1.

A statement released by the UN body before the meeting condemned the latest attacks in Yemen.

“We are very concerned… It’s not acceptable,” Mona Juul, the Norwegian ambassador to the UN, said.

Juul called for “de-escalation and restraint” in the conflict, and also condemned the deadly attacks on Abu Dhabi earlier this week claimed by the Houthis as “heinous terrorist attacks” and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

The UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting the rebels since 2015, in an intractable conflict that has displaced millions of Yemenis and left them on the brink of famine.

The coalition said it carried out air raids in Hodeidah, a lifeline port for the shattered country, but did not say it had carried out any raids on Saada.

Saudi Arabia’s state news agency said the coalition carried out “precision air strikes … to destroy the capabilities of the Houthi militia in Hodeidah”.

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis overran the capital Sanaa, prompting Saudi-led forces to intervene to prop up the government the following year.

Tensions have soared in recent weeks after the UAE-backed Giants Brigade drove the rebels out of Shabwa province, undermining their months-long campaign to take the key city of Marib further north.

On January 3, the Houthis hijacked a United Arab Emirates-flagged ship in the Red Sea, prompting a warning from the coalition that it would target rebel-held ports.

The ship’s 11 international crew members are being held captive.

And on Monday, they claimed a long-range attack that struck oil facilities and the airport in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, killing two Indians and a Pakistani, and wounding six other people.

The attack – the first deadly assault acknowledged by the UAE inside its borders and claimed by the Houthis – opened up a new front in Yemen’s war and sent regional tensions soaring.

In retaliation, the coalition carried out air raids against rebel-held Sanaa that killed 14 people.

The UN has estimated the war killed 377,000 people by the end of 2021, both directly and indirectly through hunger and disease.

UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash warned the country would exercise its right to defend itself after the Abu Dhabi attack.

“The Emirates have the legal and moral right to defend their lands, population and sovereignty, and will exercise this right to defend themselves and prevent terrorist acts pursued by the Houthi group,” he told US special envoy Hans Grundberg, according to the official WAM news agency.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

EU nations quarrel over whether nuclear, gas are 'green'

AFP - 


© SEBASTIEN BERDA


Hours before the window for lodging objections closes, EU environment and energy ministers meeting in France Friday differed sharply on a European Commission provision that would classify nuclear and natural gas energy as "sustainable".

The controversy pits countries led by France -- where nuclear generates a world-leading 70 percent of electricity -- against Germany, Austria and others in the 27-nation bloc.

Debate over the Commission's so-called "taxonomy" is not on the agenda of the informal, three-day talks in Amiens, but flared nonetheless.

In late December the European Commission unveiled a classification labelling investment in nuclear gas-based energy as sustainable, in order to favour sectors that reduce the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming.

Nuclear power is carbon-free, and gas is significantly less polluting than coal.

Countries in the European Union had until midnight Friday to suggest modifications.

After that, the Commission -- taking these suggestions into account -- must "rapidly" publish a final text that will be definitely adopted four months later.

Passage in its current form seems more than likely: it would take a majority of deputies in the EU parliament or 20 of the 27 members states to derail it, and critical mass is lacking in both cases.

A letter to the executive European Commission from some European Parliament deputies protesting that the period for suggesting changes was too short has fallen on deaf ears.

And among EU member states, a dozen have backed France's position and the Commission's proposed taxonomy.

Many are central European nations looking to switch from carbon-intensive coal-fired power to natural gas.

"Nuclear is a decarbonised energy," French environment minister Barbara Pompili told journalists in Amiens.

"We cannot deprive ourselves of it at the same time that we need to very rapidly reduce our carbon emissions."

- 'A very bad signal' -

Despite the strong headwinds, anti-nuclear resistance has not subsided.

"It is neither sustainable nor economic", countered Germany environment minister Stefan Tidow. "It is not a green energy."

Luxembourg and Austria have gone even further, threatening to take the case to court if nuclear is certified as sustainable, citing the risk of accidents and the as-yet unresolved problem of nuclear waste.

"It would be greenwashing," Luxembourg's environment minister, Carole Dieschbourg, told AFP.

"And it would send a very bad signal: it is not a transition energy, it takes too long," she added, alluding to the lag time for building nuclear reactors.

Her Austrian counterpart, Leonore Gewessler, said labelling nuclear power as sustainable will "undermine the credibility of the taxonomy" because it does not fulfil the legal criterion of "not causing damage to the environment".

The EU Commission has proposed a measure requiring financial products to specify what percentage of the activities financed involve nuclear energy, a transparency measure that would allow investors to steer clear if they wanted to.

Berlin has expressed reservations about joining Vienna and Luxembourg in a legal challenge.

"For now, we're working on our response, and when the Commission presents a new text we'll analyse it from a legal standpoint," said Germany state secretary for economic affairs and climate action Sven Giegold.

Austria has also objected to tagging gas as sustainable, with The Netherlands -- which backs the label for nuclear energy -- arguing "there is no scientific reason to include" gas.

Polish undersecretary of state for the environment Adam Guibourge-Czetwertynski disagreed.

"Gas replacing coal because there's nothing better in the short term, that makes sense," he said.

mh/lc

Canadian foreign minister’s Ukraine visit underscores Ottawa’s backing for US-led war drive against Russia

Roger Jordan
WSWS.ORG

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly’s two-day trip to Ukraine this week underlined Ottawa’s full-throated support for the US-led imperialist war drive against Russia. Unlike most of the imperialist political leaders descending on Kiev in recent days, Joly went out of her way to proclaim her country’s support for Ukraine’s prospective NATO membership, a move that would be interpreted by Moscow as akin to an open declaration of war.

Canadian Armed Forces personnel training Ukrainian troops (CAF-Operation Unifier)

Asked by Radio Canada what her message would be to Ukrainian government officials, Joly replied, “I [will] tell them that first of all, Canada’s position has not changed. We believe that Ukraine should be able to join NATO.” She added that her visit was aimed at showing the Trudeau Liberal government’s “unwavering solidarity” with Ukraine’s far-right, pro-western regime, which idolizes Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera and has integrated fascist militias into its armed forces.

Joly’s incendiary remarks give the lie to the claim, incessantly repeated in the mainstream media, that the crisis in Ukraine has been produced by “Russian aggression.” The reality is that in the thirty years since the Stalinist bureaucracy dissolved the Soviet Union and reintroduced capitalism, the imperialist powers have vastly expanded their influence throughout Eastern Europe and encircled Russia militarily. NATO’s territory has moved 800 miles eastward, and the US-led military alliance now has troops positioned in the Baltic republics on Russia’s border. Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that Ukraine’s membership of NATO is a “red line.”

The provocative character of Joly’s demand that Ukraine be made a NATO member becomes even clearer when one considers the character of Ukraine’s ruling elite. Riven by the internal conflicts within Ukraine’s fabulously wealthy and corrupt oligarchy, and widely despised by the country’s impoverished population, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government is a crisis-ridden and extremely unstable regime. The same day Joly touched down in Kiev, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko returned to the country to face charges of sedition for sanctioning, while president, the purchase of coal from pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.

The danger that Kiev, emboldened by the backing it has received from Washington, Ottawa, and the European imperialist powers, could launch a reckless attack on Russia to divert attention from social and political turmoil is real and growing. If this scenario occurred with Ukraine as a NATO member, the Canadian, US, and European militaries would be obligated under the alliance’s collective defence rules to come to Kiev’s military support, triggering a conflagration between nuclear-armed powers that would put the very survival of humanity on the line.

Joly made clear that Canada would provide the right-wing Kiev regime with hundreds of millions of dollars in loans. Noting that Canada has already provided Ukraine with $245 million in loans since 2014 as well as hundreds of millions in foreign aid, Joly left little doubt that the new financial package would be used to strengthen Ukraine’s readiness for war. “We are ready to … offer financial resources to Ukraine because we know that the Russian threat creates a form of economic instability, and that has an impact on state revenue and the ability of the Ukrainian government to finance its approach.”

Contrary to the bogus propaganda about Canada financing “democracy” and “judicial reform” in Ukraine, the “approach” of Kiev over recent years obliquely referred to by Joly has been to whip up virulent anti-Russian nationalism and integrate fascistic militias into its police and security forces. A study by George Washington University last year revealed that Canadian and US military personnel were training members of the fascist “Centuria” group at Ukraine’s National Army Academy, a military school for future army officers. Centuria functions as a faction of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, with which Canadian officials held a direct meeting in 2018. (See: Canadian Armed Forces providing military training to Ukrainian neo-Nazis)

After backing the fascist-spearheaded coup in Kiev in 2014, which overthrew the elected pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and brought a pro-Western government to power, Canada sent 200 troops to Ukraine to train its armed forces. Joly made it abundantly clear during her trip that this deployment, scheduled to expire in March, will be extended.

A report in yesterday’s Globe and Mail confirmed that the Trudeau government plans to announce an extension of the deployment for at least six months next week and could expand the number of Canadian Armed Forces’ personnel involved. The warship HMCS Montreal has already been deployed to join NATO’s provocative military operations in the Black Sea. Ottawa is also considering sending small arms, night-vision goggles, military radios, and armoured vests to the Ukrainian military. The Canadian Security Establishment, a key player in the US-led “Five Eyes” global spying network, could also begin supplying Kiev with intelligence and cyber-security support. The Globe noted that Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, an anti-Russia hawk whose grandfather, Michael Chomiak, edited a pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist newspaper during World War II, is heavily involved in the deliberations over additional Canadian support for Kiev. So too, is Canadian Armed Forces’ head Wayne Eyre.

Trudeau is in talks with the US and Britain, which announced it would send anti-tank missiles to Kiev earlier this week, on a package of economic sanctions against Russia that US President Joe Biden described Wednesday as “punishing.” Turning reality on its head, Trudeau told a press briefing, “We are working with our international partners and colleagues to make it very, very clear that Russian aggression is absolutely unacceptable.”

During Joly’s trip, media reports confirmed that a group of Canadian Special Forces troops was recently dispatched to Ukraine.

In another provocative move, the Canadian Commercial Corporation, a crown corporation that supports Canadian firms in securing foreign government contracts, announced last week it plans to back the construction of an ammunition factory in Ukraine. The facility, which would be operated by several Ontario-based firms, would manufacture small arms, and be supported by $60 million in government funds.

Canada’s fulsome support for Kiev reflects its determination to strengthen its eight decade-long military-strategic partnership with Washington, which is leading the charge of the imperialist powers towards war with Russia. But it would be wrong to see Canada as simply playing a supporting role to US imperialism’s insane drive to retain its global hegemony. Ottawa has its own imperialist interests at stake, including its close ties to far-right regimes in Ukraine and the Baltic republics.

The Canadian ruling elite is also determined to push back Russian influence in the Arctic, which is assuming growing geostrategic and economic significance due to climate change. Last August, Trudeau reached an agreement with the Biden administration to modernize NORAD, the Canada-US North American aerospace and maritime defence command, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. A key objective of the modernization is to strengthen North American continental military capabilities to counter so-called “over the horizon threats” so as to wage a “winnable” nuclear war against Russia or China.

The drumbeat for war with Russia is coming from all sides within the Canadian political establishment. Media reports on an almost daily basis contain lurid claims about an “imminent” or “looming” Russian “invasion.” The only “evidence” ever provided to back up these assertions is that Russia has carried out troop movements on its own sovereign territory. This war-mongering propaganda is accompanied by the never-ending media campaign against China.

The establishment parties unanimously endorse the anti-Russian course. In a statement released on the eve of Joly’s Kiev trip, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole demanded that Trudeau reject “capitulation to President Putin’s aggression.” He urged the government to adopt “Magnitsky sanctions against those responsible for Russian aggression” and “provide Ukraine with lethal defensive weapons.”

New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh demanded targeted sanctions against Russia. NDP foreign affairs spokesperson Heather McPherson suggested her party would be prepared to support sending weapons to the Ukraine at a future date but called for more diplomatic efforts to be tried first. “I don’t think this is the time to be giving arms to the Ukraine,” she commented. The NDP has consistently backed Canada’s military deployment to Ukraine and strongly endorsed Joly’s visit to Ukraine this week. “I am very happy that Minister Joly has taken it upon herself to go to Ukraine at this time,” said McPherson. “It is absolutely vital that Canada do everything (it) can to work to deter Russia.”

World Bank chief contrasts Microsoft deal with poor countries’ debt


By AFP
Published January 19, 2022

After Microsoft announced it would spend tens of billions of dollars to buy a video game company, World Bank President David Malpass on Wednesday drew a contrast between the deal and the amount of money rich nations have pledged to help poor countries facing higher debt loads.

“I was struck this morning by the Microsoft investment — $75 billion in a video gaming company” compared to just $24 billion over three years in aid for the poorest countries, Malpass said, referring to donations allocated in December by 48 high- and middle-income governments.

“You have to wonder, is this the best allocation of capital?” he said of the Microsoft deal in a discussion at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“There has to be more money and growth flowing into the developing countries.”

Microsoft on Tuesday announced the purchase of US gaming giant Activision Blizzard, the firm behind hits like “Call of Duty.”

Malpass has called on the richest nations in the Group of 20 to provide more debt relief to the world’s least-developed countries that qualify for interest-free loans.

A G20 debt service suspension initiative expired at the end of 2021, and this year alone, those countries must pay $35 billion in debt service.

“The debt payments are staggering,” and it has become a “compounding” problem, Malpass said

Retirements common factor in US, UK labor shortage: IMF


By AFP
Published January 19, 2022

The decline of women in the workforce is a problem specific to the United States, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) found - 

An exodus of older workers is the “common thread” behind the baffling labor shortages faced by companies in the United States and Britain, the IMF concluded in a report released Wednesday.

The “mismatch” between job openings and workers’ willingness to do those jobs, especially low-paying positions, also plays a role, but pandemic aid payments were not a big factor keeping workers away, the International Monetary Fund found in its research.

However its report said the issue of women sitting on the sidelines due to difficulties with childcare and schooling amid the Covid-19 pandemic was a problem specific to the United States alone.

“We found that lower participation among older workers not returning to work is the common thread, and matters most. Mismatch plays a secondary role,” authors Carlo Pizzinelli and Ippei Shibata said in a blog post about the findings.

“The fall in female participation is unique to the US, but quantitatively important,” they said, noting that as of October 2021, the absence of mothers of children under five years old “accounted for around 16 percent of the total US employment gap with respect to pre-Covid levels.”

Contrary to the narrative often promoted in the United States, the researchers found “only a modest and temporary effect” from expanded unemployment aid.

The more important issue in both countries was that “the share of older workers not in the labor force rose markedly.”

In the United States, the exodus and early retirements of workers 55 and older combined with the “she-cession” of female workers, “may account for roughly 70 percent of the US employment gap compared with pre-Covid levels,” the authors said.

In the UK, the absence of older workers accounts for 35 percent of the shortage.

Both countries have been hit by a surge in employees leaving their jobs known as the “great resignation,” but the majority of unfilled openings are concentrated in low-wage jobs, the report found.

“Workers may have become more reluctant to take up jobs in low-skill occupations, which are traditionally associated with lower wages and poorer working conditions,” the report said, although that explains only a small fraction of the employment gap.

Resolving the labor shortage and preventing persistent scars on both economies requires addressing the pandemic so workers can return to their jobs, the authors said.

They also recommend “well-designed training programs to reduce risks of mismatch.”

In the United States, they called for “expanded childcare and preschool opportunities,” measures US President Joe Biden has pushed for in legislation that is stalled in Congress.

U.S. big box store roofs could generate major solar power, research shows


A new report by non-partisan group Environment America finds American big box stores have major potential to produce electricity by installing solar panels on their roofs. The report finds the more than 100,000 stores could produce enough energy to power 8 million average American homes.

 File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo


Jan. 20 (UPI) -- U.S. superstores have potential to generate solar energy by installing panels on their roofs, according to a report released Thursday.

With solar panels installed, the United States could create enough energy to power close to 8 million homes, according to the report entitled "Solar on Superstores: Big roofs, big potential for renewable energy," published by the non-partisan group Environment America.

Solar electricity generation capacity has increased approximately 40 times between 2010 and 2021.

"The United States has the technical potential to produce 78 times as much electricity as it used in 2020 just with solar photovoltaic energy," says the report.

The report's authors go on to say the flat, open, sunny roofs covering the country's more than 100,000 big-box retail stores, supercenters, large grocery chains and malls are the perfect spot to install the solar panels.

Those roofs account for almost 7.2 billion cumulative square feet of untouched space and have the potential to generate 84.4 terawatt-hours of electricity.

California, Florida, Texas, Ohio and Illinois have the largest big-box store solar generation potential.

"Putting solar panels on the nation's superstores would be good for businesses, good for electricity customers, good for the grid and good for the environment," says the report.

Fully integrating solar panels could help big-box stores and shopping centers replace half their annual electricity.

Producing electricity on rooftops also reduces energy losses that happen during electricity transmission and distribution. The report found those losses made up 6% of gross electricity generation last year.

The report's authors suggest extending and expanding the federal investment tax credit for solar power, as well as other tax incentives and credits.

Walmart's solar installations have saved the company over $1 million, and its installations in California were expected to provide between 20% to 30% of each location's electricity needs, the report points out.

The four companies with the most solar installed as of 2019 were Apple, Amazon, Walmart and Target. Together, their solar installations totaled almost 1.4 gigawatts of capacity in 2019, which is more than 11% of the overall commercial solar capacity installed in the United States as of 2019.

The UN’s push for a cybercrime treaty could endanger the security of journalists

Madeline Earp // January 20, 2022

‘When there’s ambiguity, some governments will take advantage of that and try to use it to clamp down on speech.’ —Human Rights Watch

Credit: Christiaan Colen (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Cybercrime is on the global agenda as a United Nations committee appointed to develop a treaty on the topic plans for its first meeting amid pandemic-related delays. The process is slated to take at least two years, but experts warn that such a treaty–initially proposed by Russia–could hand new tools to authorities looking to punish those who report the news.

The issue stems from competing definitions of cybercrime—one narrowed on malicious hacking of networks and data, the other encompassing any crime facilitated by a computer. It matters because many authorities around the world already invoke cybercrime or cybersecurity laws to punish journalists— not for secretly hacking into networks or systems, but for openly using their own to publicize wrongdoing.

“When there’s ambiguity, some governments will take advantage of that and try to use it to clamp down on speech,” Deborah Brown, senior researcher for digital rights at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Brown has written about a global surge in national cybercrime laws undermining human rights. “It’s important to look not just at what’s being proposed at the global level, but at how national governments are interpreting their own laws,” she told CPJ.

Cybercrime laws criminalize topics like false news in Nicaragua, Nigeria, and Sudan, among other countries. Journalists have been arrested on cybercrime charges in Iran for reporting on the economy; in Pakistan for investigative and political commentary; and in Benin, for alleged defamation.

In 2011, CPJ warned about Russia’s push, along with China and a handful of other UN member states, to propose an “information security” code to combat online information that could incite terrorism or undermine national stability, charges both countries have levied against journalists.

“This has been part of Russia’s agenda for a while, and China has also been pushing for a treaty that would achieve similar goals—simply to extend more state control over the internet,” said Sheetal Kumar, head of global engagement and advocacy at Global Partners Digital, a London-based organization advocating digital rights.

CPJ emailed the Russian and Chinese permanent missions to the UN in New York to request comment but received no response.

Cybercrime measures can affect the press even if they don’t explicitly criminalize speech. According to Kumar, some seek to undermine encryption, a privacy feature that helps journalists protect files and communicate privately with sources and colleagues. CPJ has reported on journalists facing trumped-up hacking charges in retaliation for reporting, like Egypt’s Nora Younis. Journalists in the U.S. have told CPJ that the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act criminalizes data-gathering and verification activities that ought to be considered a routine part of reporting the news. In one recent local U.S. case, Missouri governor Mike Parsons said on December 29 that he expected prosecutors to charge St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Josh Renaud under a state anti-hacking statute for publicizing a local government website vulnerability that had exposed teachers’ Social Security numbers.

But journalists could be even more vulnerable if a global convention entrenches a broader definition of computer-enabled cybercrime, according to Brown at HRW. “The [UN] treaty has the potential to criminalize certain behavior and content online,” she said.

“Jordan, Indonesia, Russia, China, and others want to see a much broader scope [for the treaty] with so-called morality crimes, disinformation – more content-based crimes,” Kumar said, citing national statements submitted ahead of the convention. CPJ has documented journalists imprisoned under both Jordan’s Cybercrime Law and Indonesia’s Electronic Information and Transactions Law in the past.

Three journalists who have been arrested under cybercrime laws:

Credit: Bogdan Popescu (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)Maria Ressa at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, Italy, April 4, 2019.

Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October, is battling a spate of spurious libel charges under the Philippines’ 2012 Cybercrime Prevention Act in connection with reporting by her news website, Rappler, and could face a six-year prison sentence if one conviction from 2020 is not overturned on appeal.

Bangladeshi reporter Ruhul Amin Gazi has been jailed for over a year without trial because a 2019 report about an executed opposition leader published by his employer, the Bangla-language Daily Sangram newspaper, was available on the internet, triggering a criminal complaint under the Digital Security Act, Rezaur Rahman Lenin, an independent academic and activist based in Dhaka who has followed the case, told CPJ. Local courts deny bail to those charged under the law so often that the prosecution itself is a punishment, Lenin said.
Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act criminalizes using computers to transmit information that could cause annoyance or that the sender knows to be false; Luka Binniyat, a Nigerian journalist who contributes to the U.S.-based outlet The Epoch Times, was arrested under the Cybercrimes Act in November 2021 and continues to be held in advance of a February 3 court hearing.

Many UN member states are calling for increased international cooperation in cybercrime investigations, which could see more information about alleged criminals shared across borders, according to Kumar.

“What’s good is that a number of states have said they want a rights-respecting approach,” she said. “But the devil is in the detail. You’re asking for increased [law enforcement] powers, you’re also saying human rights need to be protected. That’s where the issues will lie.”

This article was originally published by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In Texas, driverless trucks are set to take over roads


ByAFP
Published January 20, 2022


A self-driving truck produced by Aurora is seen on a road in Texas - 

A giant 18-wheel transport truck is barreling down a multi-lane Texas highway, and there is no one behind the wheel.

The futuristic idea may seem surreal, but it is being tested in this vast southern US state, which has become the epicenter of a rapidly developing self-driving vehicle industry.

Before driverless trucks are allowed onto roads and highways, however, multiple tests must still be conducted to ensure they are safe.

Self-driving lorries are operated using radars, laser scanners, cameras and GPS antennas that communicate with piloting software.

“Each time we drive a mile or a kilometer in real life, we re-simulate a thousand more times on the computer by changing hundreds of parameters,” explains Pierre-François Le Faou, trucking partner development manager at Waymo, the self-driving unit at Google’s parent company Alphabet.

Waymo is building a logistics center in Dallas that will accommodate hundreds of autonomous semi-trailers.

And it is by far not alone. Embark, a self-driving technology startup, operates an autonomous trucking lane between Houston and San Antonio, while Aurora, co-founded by a former Waymo employee, will open three terminals and a new 635-mile route (1,000 kilometers) in Texas this year.

In a sign of how competitive the autonomous trucking industry is, none of the three companies agreed to show AFP one of its vehicles.

– Friendly legislation –

“I think that everybody who is in the autonomous trucking business is in Texas,” says Srikanth Saripalli, director at the Center for Autonomous Vehicles and Sensor Systems at Texas A&M University. “Even if they don’t advertise it.”

The companies didn’t land in Texas by chance. The state has the largest number of truck drivers and many qualified engineers, its sunny climate is great for the trucks’ sensors, and neighboring Mexico exports 85 percent of its goods to Texas by road.

Houston and Dallas are major freight hubs, and Texas’s sprawling distances are ideal for long-haul transport.

But most of all, local legislation is friendly toward driverless vehicles.

In 2018, Texas passed a law that essentially gave autonomous cars the same status as conventional vehicles.

“You need insurance and you need to follow the rules of the road, but other than that Texas does not impose any other regulations,” says Saripalli.

With the United States so vast and trucking such a vital part of its economy, companies see self-driving as a way to cut costs and reduce risk, since unlike with human drivers autonomous vehicles don’t get tired and don’t require mandatory breaks.

While it will take a person three days to drive a truck from Los Angeles to Dallas, a self-driving big rig will complete the journey in 24 hours, estimates Aurora.

And it will be nearly twice as cheap. The per-mile cost would drop from $1.76 to $0.96 if the truck drives itself, according to Embark.

– Jobs at risk –

Alex Rodrigues, CEO and co-founder of Embark Technology, insists self-driving trucks will be crucial in combatting the current shortage of long-haul truck drivers in the US, some of whom are unwilling to be away from their families for weeks at a time.

“Right now, there are containers sitting in the port of LA not getting moved,” he says.

And Rodrigues promises that the self-driving truck industry will create “attractive” jobs for local drivers, who will take over the autonomous trucks at transfer points and drive them to their final destination points.

Still, 294,000 trucking jobs would be threatened by the industry’s automation, according to a 2018 study conducted by Steve Viscelli, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

For Julio Moscoso, a 56-year-old driver in Texas, the arrival of driverless trucks is “not good news.”

He says while there are many trucking jobs available right now, that wasn’t always the case. He recalls a time over the past two years when “there wasn’t as much work.”

And most importantly, Moscoso says he wouldn’t trust driverless trucks.

“It’s dangerous. What happens if the sensors fail?” he asks.

At the same time, he admits he does not want to do long-haul journeys anymore, and finds it uncomfortable to sleep in his cabin and not be able to shower every day.

U.S. lawmakers losing public trust over stock trading rules: NYT

(Xinhua) 09:31, January 21, 2022

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- America is facing a crisis of faith in its political system and elected leaders, as the issue of how to prevent members of Congress from improperly profiting from their positions became a hot topic again, according to an opinion piece published by The New York Times (NYT) on Tuesday.

"The issue grabbed renewed attention in the past two years after questions arose about whether certain lawmakers made stock trades based on their privileged knowledge about the COVID pandemic," wrote Michelle Cottle, a member of the newspaper's editorial board.

She mentioned that an investigation by Business Insider revealed last month that dozens of members of Congress had violated the reporting requirements on trading, adding that the U.S. Congress reportedly tends to be lax about punishing violators and about making information on this matter public.

Although Lawmakers from both parties "are rushing to offer up" solutions to the problem, "partisan posturing will be in full bloom" because it is "an election year," said the writer, pointing out that some lawmakers oppose major reform citing "a free-market economy."

"Lawmakers can obsess about making money once they leave office," said Cottle. "Until then, they need to stay focused on the public interest -- which includes taking steps to reassure the public that they aren't all a bunch of corrupt, self-serving, money-grubbing, power-hungry crooks." 

CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Non-Jewish US House reps form ‘Caucus for Advancement of Torah Values’

The new caucus is drawing criticism from Jewish Democratic leaders.

By SHIRA HANAU/JTA
Published: JANUARY 21, 2022 

The inauguration of the Congressional Caucus for the Advancement of Torah Values was attended by, from left to right, Rep. Kat Cammack; Rep. Don Bacon; Rabbi Dovid Hofstedter; Rep. Henry Cuellar; Rep. Dan Meuser; and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick in Washington, D.C.

(photo credit: Sruly Saftlas/CNW Group/Dirshu)

Two non-Jewish members of Congress announced the formation of the Congressional Caucus for the Advancement of Torah Values Wednesday in an effort “to pledge our friendship to our Jewish friends,” according to a statement by Republican Don Bacon, who is co-chairing the caucus.

“This Caucus is going to be so important in a bipartisan way. We have to be able to have the strength so we know what’s good, what’s bad, what’s moral and what’s not moral,” Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who is the caucus’ other chair, said in a statement.

Cuellar, one of the more conservative Democrats in Congress, appeared to be the only member of his party present at the meeting. A photo from the meeting showed Republicans Kat Cammack, Dan Meuser and Brian Fitzpatrick in attendance in addition to Bacon and Cuellar.

(Coincidentally, Cuellar’s home was searched by the FBI Wednesday in a “court-authorized law enforcement activity” according to an FBI statement provided to news outlets.)

Henry Cuellar, U.S. Congressman. (credit: VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)

None of the 37 Jewish members of the current Congress appeared to be participating in the new caucus.

The meeting was also attended by Rabbi David Hofstedter, the Canadian founder of an Israel-based organization called Dirshu. The mission of the organization, founded in Toronto in 1997 but now based in Jerusalem, is to encourage the study of Torah.

Speaking to the group at the opening session, Hofstedter claimed that “Torah values” were the “foundation of the USA” and repeatedly mentioned freedom of religion as one of those “Torah values.”

He also spoke about antisemitism and criticized the closure of synagogues and yeshivas in New York during the height of the COVID lockdowns, and called those closures “uneven-handed” and “inconsistent with city and state policy.”


The new caucus is drawing criticism from Jewish Democratic leaders.

“There are many challenges facing Jewish Americans, including the insidious threat of antisemitism,” tweeted Haile Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “With all due respect to our non-Jewish friends, the creation of this caucus is not the way to address them, nor are our “Torah values” in need of your advancement.”

HENRY CUELLAR GETS BOOST FROM DARK-MONEY GROUP LAUNCHED BY HIS CLOSE AIDE

The Voter Education Foundation, linked to abortion ban advocates, sponsored ads against the conservative Democrat’s primary challenger, Jessica Cisneros.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, speaks to members of the media in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30, 2021. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Sara Sirota
January 20 2022, 7:01 p.m.

AN ADVISER TO Rep. Henry Cuellar, the conservative Texas Democrat whose home and campaign office was raided by the FBI this week, also leads a dark-money group that recently ran ads against Cuellar’s primary challenger, Jessica Cisneros, according to Federal Election Commission and corporate records. Colin Strother, a longtime Cuellar aide and a consultant who has been embedded on Cuellar’s campaign, is also the head of the secretive Voter Education Foundation. The staffing overlap reveals Cuellar’s close proximity to one of Texas’s most zealous anti-abortion activists.

Cuellar and his inner circle have aggressively pushed the limits of campaign laws. Election law stipulates a cooling-off period of 60 to 120 days, depending on the circumstances, before launching an independent spending effort on behalf of that campaign. Otherwise, it doesn’t meet the definition of independent as outlined in Citizens United.

Strother was Cuellar’s campaign manager last cycle, though FEC records show he worked this year as an outside consultant. He was paid by the campaign in August 2021 — the most recent period for which records are available. Strother’s Twitter account was also mysteriously deactivated.

In December 2021, the group, a 501(c)(4) that does not disclose its donors, sponsored signs and ran a flippant TV ad that called Cisneros the “South Texas Jobs Grinch.” Cisneros, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, is a human rights attorney who worked with immigrants and asylum-seekers confronting oppressive Trump and Biden administration policies. Her 2022 run marks her second attempt to oust the nine-term Cuellar, who is the largest Democratic recipient of private prison donations and was one of the most frequent Democratic supporters of Donald Trump’s policies in the House. (President Joe Biden won the district in 2020 with 52.8 percent of the vote.)

Strother has been director of the Voter Education Foundation since its founding in September 2020, according to public records. Strother has been on Cuellar’s campaign payroll on and off since 2003. During that time, Strother became a well-known Democratic campaign strategist on Democratic campaigns across Texas, also working for Roland Gutierrez, a state senator.

Though Strother was not working for Cuellar’s office in Washington at the time, documents from a court case against Cuellar reveal Strother was involved in high-level staffing and policy discussions with the congressman. When Cuellar’s acting chief of staff, Kristie Small, sued him in 2019 for allegedly firing her for being pregnant, Strother submitted testimony stating he vetted every senior staff hire since 2005 and found Small to be “lazy” and a “weak manager.” After the Washington Post reported on an initial complaint she filed with a congressional office seeking counseling, Strother questioned staffers about their knowledge of Cuellar’s supposed probationary rules for employees, and emails shared with the court also showed Strother was included in policy discussions with congressional aides.

Despite Strother’s consulting work for numerous Democratic politicians in Texas, a number of Republican political figures were also involved in the founding of the Voter Education Foundation he directs.

Records show abortion ban radical Bradley Pierce submitted the group’s certificate of formation to the Texas secretary of state. Pierce is the executive director of Abolish Abortion Texas and the Foundation to Abolish Abortion, as well as the vice president and general counsel at Heritage Defense, a nonprofit law firm that advocates for “the God-given parental rights of Christian, homeschooling families.” The Texas Observer in 2017 called Abolish Abortion Texas “the most extreme anti-abortion group at the Texas Lege” and reported that the group helped advance the “abolition of abortion” to the Texas Republican Party platform at its state convention. The organization is also tied to state Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, who in 2019 introduced a bill that would force women who had abortions to face the possibility of the death penalty for homicide.

Cuellar is the most anti-choice Democrat in the House of Representatives, but his apparent links to such an extremist have not been previously known. He was the only House Democrat to vote against a historic bill to protect abortion access in September — just a few weeks after the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the country went into effect in Texas. Cuellar defended his vote by saying abortion is “not a health issue.” He hasn’t commented on the Texas law.



Related
Emails Show Rep. Henry Cuellar Provided Extensive Favors to Border Security Lobbyists

Cuellar has previously come under scrutiny for providing favors to border security lobbyists and pushing for funds for increased drone surveillance. His conservative record led corporate trade associations and Americans for Prosperity Action, a super PAC funded by billionaire Charles Koch, to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars boosting his campaign against Cisneros in 2020. On Thursday, ABC News reported the FBI raid was related to a wide-ranging probe involving Azerbaijan business interests.

In addition to Bradley Pierce, the Voter Education Foundation’s records referred to past San Antonio mayoral candidate Greg Brockhouse as a director at the time of its founding. When Brockhouse again unsuccessfully ran for San Antonio mayor last year, he sought to charm Trump voters on the campaign trail, such as when he skirted a reporter’s question in December 2020 asking if Biden was the president-elect and instead highlighted the issue of voter fraud and Trump’s right to challenge the results in court. His campaign was also plagued with reports showing his ex-wives both filed separate domestic violence complaints against him, years apart.

Public records reveal GOP political operative Thomas Marks and law enforcement bureaucrat Mike Rodriguez are also serving as officers with the Voter Education Foundation. According to his LinkedIn account, Marks was chief of staff until this month for Bexar County Commissioner Trish DeBerry, a Republican who in December announced she was running for a county judge position “because she didn’t see enough Republican representation.” He has also worked as a consultant for other GOP politicians, including former Speaker of the Texas House Joe Straus. Rodriguez, meanwhile, is chief of staff for the Corpus Christi government, where he oversees the police and fire departments.

Strother and Cuellar’s campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.