Wonder Woman interrupts SA cricket game in climate protest
February 16, 2020

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A pitch invader runs past England players during the final T20 cricket match between South Africa and England at Centurion Park in Pretoria, South Africa, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

CENTURION, South Africa (AP) — Climate activists dressed as Wonder Woman and other movie superheroes interrupted a cricket game in South Africa on Sunday by invading the field, and protesters also climbed a floodlight pylon to display a banner.

The protest at the SuperSport Park stadium near the South African capital Pretoria was meant to draw attention to air pollution in South Africa and was carried out by Greenpeace Africa, it said on its Facebook page.

The action came during a series-deciding game between South Africa and England.

A stadium security officer chases a pitch invader during the final T20 cricket match between South Africa and England at Centurion Park in Pretoria, South Africa, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Numerous protesters in costumes managed to get on the field during play. One of them, wearing a Wonder Woman costume, reached South Africa captain Quinton de Kock in the middle of the field and spoke to him before handing him a white face mask. Smiling, de Kock took the mask. Another South Africa player, fast bowler Dale Steyn, joined the conversation and gave the protester a high five. Steyn was also given a white face mask.

Protesters also managed to climb one of the floodlight pylons and unfurl a bright yellow banner high above the field. It read: “Toxic Air Is Not Just A Game” and “(hashtag)BowlOutAirPollution.”

On Facebook, Greenpeace Africa posted a photo of a man and a woman in Superman and Wonder Woman outfits high up on the floodlight pylon and said they were activists.


A pitch invader runs onto the field during the final T20 cricket match between South Africa and England at Centurion Park in Pretoria, South Africa, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2020. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

The protest was directed at South Africa’s national electricity supplier, which operates coal-burning plants and is causing “runaway air pollution,” Greenpeace Africa said.

The game resumed after a short delay. England, which was batting at the time of the protest, went on to win the game and series.

Dozens of HIV-positive S. African women forcibly sterilized

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME February 25, 2020

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A scathing new report reveals that dozens of HIV-positive women were forced or coerced into sterilization after giving birth at public hospitals in South Africa.

The Commission for Gender Equality’s report this week says it investigated complaints by at least 48 women of “cruel, torturous or inhumane and degrading treatment” at the hospitals. At times it occurred when women were in labor.

In many cases, “the hospitals’ staff had threatened not to assist them in giving birth” if they didn’t sign the consent forms for sterilization, the report says. The commission is a statutory body that operates as an independent watchdog.

The forced sterilizations at 15 public hospitals in South Africa between 2002 and 2005 have sparked public outrage. Some of the hospitals are in some of the country’s largest cities such as Johannesburg and Durban.
“When I asked the nurse what the forms were for, the nurse responded by saying: ’You HIV people don’t ask questions when you make babies. Why are you asking questions now? You must be closed up because you HIV people like making babies and it just annoys us,” the report quotes one complainant as saying.

The commission said its investigation took time because of challenges including some hospital staffers who tried to hide documents or refused to cooperate.

It will refer its report to the Health Professions Council of South Africa, which has a mandate to act against health care practitioners.

The World Health Organization says South Africa has the largest HIV epidemic in the world with more than 7 million people living with the illness. Some 19% of the people around the world with HIV live in the country, which also has 15% of new infections.

The commission has recommended that further research be done into how widespread the practice of forced sterilization of women living with HIV might be in South Africa.

Study is halted as HIV vaccine fails test in South Africa

By The Associated Press February 3, 2020

FILE - In a Nov. 30, 2016 file photo, pharmacist Mary Chindanyika looks at documents on a fridge containing a trial vaccine against HIV on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. The latest attempt at an HIV vaccine has failed. Researchers announced Monday, Feb. 3, 2020 they've stopped giving the experimental shots in a major study in South Africa, which has one of the world's highest HIV rates. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam, File)

The latest attempt at an HIV vaccine has failed, as researchers announced Monday they have stopped giving the experimental shots in a major study.

The study had enrolled more than 5,400 people since 2016 in South Africa, a country with one of the world’s highest HIV rates. Last month, monitors checked how the study was going and found 129 HIV infections had occurred among the vaccine recipients compared with 123 among those given a dummy shot, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

“An HIV vaccine is essential to end the global pandemic and we hoped this vaccine candidate would work. Regrettably, it does not,” said NIH infectious diseases chief Dr. Anthony Fauci.

There were no safety concerns, but NIH, which sponsored the study, agreed that vaccinations should stop.

The experimental shot was based on the only vaccine ever shown to offer even modest protection against HIV, one that was deemed 31% effective in Thailand. That wasn’t good enough for real-world use but gave scientists a starting point. They beefed up the shot and adapted it to the HIV subtype that’s common in southern Africa.

Two other large studies, in several countries, are under way testing a different approach to a possible HIV vaccine.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

South Africa removes migrants squatting in Cape Town

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME

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A woman sorts out her belongings, outside the Central Methodist Mission Church in Cape Town, South Africa, Sunday, March 1, 2020 as city officials and police move in to evict them. Hundreds of migrants have been removed from central Cape Town by South African authorities following a months-long stand-off. The migrants removed on Sunday had demanded to be relocated to other countries claiming they had been threatened by xenophobic violence last year. (AP Photo)


A young girl gathers her belongings outside the Central Methodist Mission Church in Cape Town, South Africa, Sunday, March 1, 2020 as city officials and police move in to evict people. Hundreds of migrants have been removed from central Cape Town by South African authorities following a months-long stand-off. The migrants removed on Sunday had demanded to be relocated to other countries claiming they had been threatened by xenophobic violence last year. (AP Photo)

A woman reacts to a police officer outside the Central Methodist Mission Church in Cape Town, South Africa, Sunday, March 1, 2020 as city officials and police move in to evict people. Hundreds of migrants have been removed from central Cape Town by South African authorities following a months-long stand-off. The migrants removed on Sunday had demanded to be relocated to other countries claiming they had been threatened by xenophobic violence last year. (AP Photo)

People sit with their belongings, outside the Central Methodist Mission Church in Cape Town, South Africa, Sunday, March 1, 2020 as city officials and police move in to evict them. Hundreds of migrants have been removed from central Cape Town by South African authorities following a months-long stand-off. The migrants removed on Sunday had demanded to be relocated to other countries claiming they had been threatened by xenophobic violence last year. (AP Photo)

A woman and a boy move their belongings, outside the Central Methodist Mission Church in Cape Town, South Africa, Sunday, March 1, 2020 as city officials and police move in to evict them. Hundreds of migrants have been removed from central Cape Town by South African authorities following a months-long stand-off. The migrants removed on Sunday had demanded to be relocated to other countries claiming they had been threatened by xenophobic violence last year. (AP Photo)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Hundreds of foreign migrants have been removed from central Cape Town by South African authorities following a months-long stand-off.

The migrants, who were moved in an operation Sunday, had demanded to be relocated to other countries, claiming they had been threatened by xenophobic violence last year. But the group lost their court bid to compel the government to fly them to what they said would be safer countries, including the U.S. and Canada.

The foreigners had camped outside the Central Methodist Church at Cape Town’s Green Market Square. South African authorities said they will verify their identities and will process those seeking asylum.

The Nigerian government last year evacuated about 600 of its citizens from South Africa following violent demonstrations against foreigners.

The removal of the foreigners was largely a calm operation, with the authorities getting little resistance from the migrants, except for some heckling and chanting.

Emergency goalie protocol talk on tap for NHL GMs meeting
By STEPHEN WHYNO

Dave Ayres signs autographs on a shirt with his name and number before an NHL hockey game between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Dallas Stars in Raleigh, N.C. on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020. Ayres became a sudden hero to Hurricanes fans when he came into the game as an emergency goaltender in Toronto on Saturday and the Hurricanes won the game. (AP Photo/Chris Seward)


When a 42-year-old Zamboni driver entered as an emergency goaltender and won an NHL game, it became one of the best stories in sports.

But David Ayres going from practicing with the Toronto Maple Leafs to playing against them in the thick of a playoff race also generated debate about what should happen in those rare instances. So emergency goalie protocol will be a significant topic of conversation when general managers open their annual March meeting Monday in Boca Raton, Florida.

“This was a perfect storm,” Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill said. “You never think it’s going to get to the point where you get two guys hurt, but it did happen. ... Is it something that happens once every 20 years? Is it a great story? That’s what we’ll have to discuss.”

Ayres is not employed by the Maple Leafs and works as operations manager at the former Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. He has for years been one of the organization’s on-call practice goalies and even backed up for their top minor league affiliate during a game.

Despite going in for Carolina in a blue and white mask and equipment, Ayres stopped eight of the 10 shots he faced to help the Hurricanes beat the Maple Leafs. Because of that result, Pittsburgh Penguins GM Jim Rutherford didn’t think much about the oddity of the situation.

“I guess if the result of the game had’ve gone the other way, I might’ve put more thought into it,” Rutherford said. “What’s going on now is everybody’s talking about what if, a lot of what ifs. We can talk in circles about what ifs and everything. I don’t have an issue with what just took place. But, like always, I’m open to listen to everybody’s thoughts and what everybody’s ideas are.”


CORRECTS SPELLING OF LAST NAME TO AYRES, NOT AYERS - Emergency backup goaltender David Ayres appears with his goalie stick at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, on Friday, Feb. 28 , 2020. Ayres donated the stick he used when he appeared in an NHL game for the Carolina Hurricanes against the Toronto Maple Leafs. He is the second emergency goaltender to record a win in league history. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)

The current rule of each arena making an emergency goalie available for a game stemmed from 2015 incident in Florida that almost caused an assistant coach to put on the pads and play. Because an emergency goalie has only been required to play twice — Ayres and Scott Foster for Chicago in 2018 — executives and officials might find the current protocol better than the old-school notion of making a skater go in net.

“We said it’s unfair to the guy on the ice to have to go in there,” St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong said. “It didn’t make any sense. So, now we said let’s see if there’s someone locally that can go in the net. It’s difficult to find 31 A-plus goalies that go to 41 home games a year. There’s always ways to try and see if we can improve it.”

Armstrong said he wouldn’t be in favor of the expense of carrying a third goalie all season, which would also be impractical. One possibility calls for each team to have a full-time employee at home and on the road ready to serve in goal if needed.

“What, do you go find a guy that’s not too bad of a goalie that can practice every day and work in your marketing department or wherever he’s working?” Nill said. “He’s got to travel with the team all the time. We look at those scenarios. With everything, there’s CBA issues involved, there’s labor laws involved, so just different things that you have to check off the boxes before you can decide what to do.”

Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said the NHL has to work with the Players’ Association on collective bargaining concerns, like determining who counts as a player. Those complications make it no easy fix with perhaps no perfect solution.

“Obviously we want what’s best for the game, and we want to make sure people aren’t putting themselves in danger by playing goal in a National Hockey League game,” Daly said. “That’s obviously something we have to continue to work through.”

Some other topics that could come up when GMs meet Monday-Wednesday:

— Some offside reviews are disputable because a player’s skate might be in the air, making it unclear even on replay. Coach’s challenges are down after a rule change making an unsuccessful challenge a penalty, but this is more about officials getting it right.

“The offside rule I think is going to be discussed again where just breaking the plane would make it a little bit easier to view it on the video,” Rutherford said. “It’s always hard for the linesmen regardless which way we do this because everything’s happening so fast.”

— A few seasons into hybrid icing, Rutherford is concerned there are too many icing stoppages because players are skating back slower to get the call from linesmen.

“It appears to me that we now have more icings than are necessary where a guy going back for a puck may turn the opposite way where he could’ve got the puck or he may just play the opposing player at the blue line when he could’ve got the puck,” he said. “I have to find out if other GMs feel the same way, but if we do, maybe tighten that up a bit.”

— Commissioner Gary Bettman said recently the NHL isn’t planning to make radical changes to its playoff format like the NBA is considering. But with two of the top three teams in the league -- Boston and Tampa Bay -- playing in the same division, the current divisional format of those teams potentially facing off in the second round might again be questioned.

“We were in 1 to 8 (in each conference) and there was a disparity in travel and so we went to this format,” Armstrong said. “There’s going to be pros and cons to whatever decision is made. I understand the logic of talking about 1 to 8, but that’s an easy talk in the Eastern Conference. It’s a difficult talk in the Western Conference.”

— In-arena medical procedures worked when Blues defenseman Jay Bouwmeester collapsed on the bench earlier this month with a cardiac event. Because of the success of those protocols in situations involving Jiri Fischer, Rich Peverly and Bouwmeester, it’s not an area that needs immediate attention but will continue to be looked at to see what can be better.

“It’s not something that I think anyone looks at and says, ‘OK, this is perfect’ because it’s such an important thing,” Armstrong said. “It’s not something that will just stay stagnant. We’ll always try to evolve to make sure player safety and fan safety is at the forefront of our game.”

‘He’s one of us’: Sanders energizing red-state progressives

By SEAN MURPHY and SARA BURNETT 

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., arrives to speak during a campaign rally in Springfield, Va., Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) — It isn’t easy being a Bernie Sanders supporter in a conservative state like Oklahoma. Travis Wyman, a 40-year-old construction worker and online “social justice warrior,” says he and other Sanders fans can hear “fear-mongering words” like socialist and communist thrown at them many times a day.

It’s done nothing to deter Wyman, who volunteers for Sanders’ presidential campaign at phone banks and was among roughly 200 people who turned out to hear the candidate’s wife, Jane Sanders, speak last week in Tahlequah, an eastern Oklahoma city and home to the Cherokee Nation, the largest Native American tribe in the country.

“Man, this is a revolution. We’re here to change the world. There’s only one way to do that, and that’s to be active,” said Wyman, a Cherokee Nation citizen who had never voted for any presidential candidate before he cast an early vote for the self-described democratic socialist on Thursday, days before Oklahoma holds its primary.

If places like Oklahoma are tough for the Sanders faithful, it would seem to be even rougher territory for Sanders himself. The state and others like it — solidly conservative places like Utah, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas __ overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump in 2016. Republicans dominate politics at almost all levels, and successful Democratic candidates usually reject ideas embraced by progressives like Sanders, such as “Medicare for All.”

But these states, which make up roughly half of those voting in the Super Tuesday contests and where Democrats often are further to the left, are also providing an opportunity — unexpected as it may seem — for the front-runner for the 2020 Democratic nomination to run up the score on his more moderate opponents.

A progressive on the campaign trail — particularly one who has an actual chance of winning — is such a rare sight that Sanders’ candidacy is energizing a core base of progressives who are hungry for a chance to support someone who shares their values. And because the total Democratic primary electorate is small and a half dozen or so other candidates are splitting the more moderate vote, Sanders can scoop up delegates with even a modest showing at the polls.

Sanders leads the delegate count heading into Tuesday, after essentially tying former Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg in Iowa then winning New Hampshire and Nevada. He came in second in South Carolina on Saturday, behind former Vice President Joe Biden

Some of these smaller red states have been friendly to Sanders before. He easily won both Oklahoma and Utah in 2016, garnering almost 80% of the vote in the Utah caucuses over Hillary Clinton, who didn’t hold any public events before the late March vote. Sanders held a Salt Lake City rally before the caucuses that was so large, he scheduled another one days later.

University of Utah political science professor Matthew Burbank saw the enthusiasm firsthand when he returned home on caucus night to find all the parking spots on his street near a caucus site were taken.

“I think progressives in the party said, ‘This is our chance,’” he said. “There was a sense of ‘he’s one of us.’”
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., greets the audience after speaking at a campaign rally in Springfield, Va., Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

But this time around his more moderate rivals also have been working to win the state, where Republicans outnumber Democrats more than three to one but there’s also a significant slice of the voters who aren’t affiliated with either party. There’s also an undercurrent of discomfort with Trump because of his brash style, his history with women and disagreements over the treatment of immigrants and refugees. Utah is welcoming to them, in part because members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is based in the state, were historically driven across the country because of their beliefs and because the faith now has strong growth overseas.

Buttigieg and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a billionaire who has spent millions on TV ads leading up to his Super Tuesday debut, are hoping those voters will turn out for them in the Democratic primary. Buttigieg has racked up endorsements from several politicians in and around the liberal-leaning capital of Salt Lake City. Bloomberg, meanwhile, counts the state’s lone congressional Democrat, Ben McAdams, among his supporters. He’s also built the state’s largest campaign staff.

Sanders’ positions on issues like climate change are especially resonant in Utah, where skiers and other outdoors people worry about wildfires and snow pack, Burbank said. Sanders is scheduled to campaign there Monday.

Rachel Frost, 38, a real estate appraiser from Murray, Utah, said she’s settled on Sanders because he’s been consistent for decades on policy, even when he wasn’t taken seriously.

“He may not be the most likable person, but I don’t need to get a beer with the president. I need someone whose policies will help a majority of the people,” she said.

In this Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020, photo, Jane Sanders meets with community leaders in Nashville, Tenn., as she campaigns for her husband, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.. The Republican strongholds that vote on Super Tuesday are providing an opportunity for the self-described democratic socialist to run up the score on his more moderate opponents. In Utah, Oklahoma, Tennessee and elsewhere, seeing a progressive on the campaign trail with an actual chance of winning is a rare. (AP Photo/Kimberlee Kruesi)

Sanders’ success in this year’s primaries has been in his ability to expand his coalition to include African Americans, Latinos and others in addition to white working people. In Oklahoma, that’s meant building support among Native Americans who make up about 9% of the state’s population. Last fall, Sanders attended the largest annual gathering of the Comanche Nation in the state, where he participated in the annual powwow. On Thursday, the event with Jane Sanders opened with a Kiowa Flag Song and a traditional Cherokee-language prayer.

Sanders’ message of ending inequality and providing health care as a human right resonates with Native Americans like Pam Edgar, a Creek Nation citizen from Tahlequah. So does his commitment to tribal sovereignty, which includes opposing opening tribal lands to mining.

“Being a tribal member, we have the good fortune of having health care for tribal members, so we don’t have to worry about costs, and having that for all citizens is important,” said Edgar, 45.

Sanders’ relationship with Oklahoma’s tribes also serves as a reminder of rival Elizabeth Warren’s own sensitive history in her home state. Warren has apologized to Native Americans after she was criticized for releasing a DNA test meant to bolster her claim to Native American heritage.

Before Jane Sanders’ visit to Tahlequah she visited the Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce in Tulsa’s historic Greenwood District, where a race massacre 100 years ago left an estimated 300 of the city’s black residents dead and its thriving black community in rubble. At a souvenir shop, Cleo Harris Jr. sold her a Black Wall Street T-shirt and said he’s considering supporting Sanders on Tuesday, noting the 78-year-old was active in the civil rights movement alongside Martin Luther King Jr.

Jane Sanders also spent her time during a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, earlier in the week visiting the city’s more racially and culturally diverse neighborhoods. She told The Associated Press that while Tennessee is a more conservative state, it’s also “a working-class state,” which plays to her husband’s strengths.

Sanders’ campaign has employed five staffers and purchased its first television ad in the state last week. It’s unknown how much support he’ll have in a state where Clinton got 66% of the primary vote in 2016.

Brooke Madow, 39, was one of a few dozen people who packed into a modest Nashville coffee shop on Wednesday to see Jane Sanders. Having a chronic, autoimmune disease has made Sanders’ trademark Medicare for All a top issue for her, Madow said.

Like Wyman, she said being a progressive in a conservative state can be isolating, but attending Sanders campaign events helps.

“It feels a little crushing at times, but I think coming to things like this make me feel less like I’m living in a red state,” she said. “Maybe there are more people like me out there who believe in the things I believe in.”

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Burnett reported from Chicago. Associated Press writer Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville and Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.

Attacks on Indian reporters highlight growing intolerance
By EMILY SCHMALL


In this Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020 photo, a photojournalist takes photographs of Indian paramilitary soldiers patrolling a street vandalized in Tuesday's violence in New Delhi, India. Reporting in India has never been without its risks, but journalists say attacks on the press during last week's deadly communal riots between Hindus and Muslims in New Delhi show the situation is deteriorating. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

NEW DELHI (AP) — Reporting in India has never been without its risks, but journalists say attacks on the press during last week’s deadly communal riots between Hindus and Muslims in New Delhi show the situation is deteriorating.

One reporter was shot and survived, another had his teeth knocked out, and many more said Hindu mobs demanded proof of religion and tried to keep them from documenting vandalism and violence that included people attacking one another with axes, swords, metal pipes and guns.

Authorities have yet to provide an official account of what sparked the 72-hour clash that left 42 people dead and hundreds wounded, though tensions between Hindus and Muslims have been building for months over a new citizenship law. Nor have they addressed journalists’ allegations that they were singled out by Hindu mobs.

But experts and journalists say the attacks on reporters covering the riots — and censorship of critical content in the aftermath of the violence — are a sign of growing intolerance for independent reporting in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist led government.

Anindya Chattopadhyay, a photographer for the Times of India newspaper, said that as he reached the scene of the riots Tuesday, a man approached him, offering to put a tilak, a mark indicating a person is Hindu, on his forehead.

The man said it would make his work easier. Chattopadhyay refused, but later, after he rushed to take pictures of a building on fire, he was approached by a group demanding to know whether he was Hindu or Muslim, threatening to remove his pants to check whether he was circumcised per Muslim custom.

“I folded my hands and pleaded with them to let me go, saying I was a lowly photographer,” Chattopadhyay recalled.

He noted that while journalists in India have always been targeted for their work, under Modi “the attackers are much more open, furious and fearless.”


In this Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, a video-journalist films as Indian paramilitary soldiers patrol a street vandalized in Tuesday's violence in New Delhi, India. Reporting in India has never been without its risks, but journalists say attacks on the press during last week's deadly communal riots between Hindus and Muslims in New Delhi show the situation is deteriorating. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)


Similar demands for proof of religion were made during 2002 riots in Gujarat, Modi’s home state and where he was the chief elected official at the time.

The state erupted in violence when a train filled with Hindu pilgrims was attacked by a Muslim mob and caught fire and 60 Hindus burned to death. In retaliation, more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the state.

Modi was accused of tacit support for the rampage against Muslims, and was even banned by the U.S. from traveling there, though he was ultimately cleared by a court of wrongdoing and the travel ban was lifted.

Modi’s supporters saw the international criticism of him and pinned the blame for it on journalists and other critics, a feeling that continues today, said Ashutosh Varshney, a professor at Brown University and an expert on India’s history of riots.

“Right since 2002, Hindu nationalists have looked at journalists as part of the problem,” Varshney said.

He said Modi and his followers believe “critical media” is interfering with their plans to build a Hindu state.

Kuldeep Dhatwalia, a government spokesman and director of the federal Press Information Bureau, said he was not “aware of any complaints about press access.”

“It is not correct to link conditions of journalists for coverage of different incidents at different places,” he said.

Avowed Modi supporters have already attacked critical commentary of last week’s riots.


In this Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020, a television reporter holds a microphone as she walks through a street vandalized in Tuesday's violence in New Delhi, India. Reporting in India has never been without its risks, but journalists say attacks on the press during last week's deadly communal riots between Hindus and Muslims in New Delhi show the situation is deteriorating. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

Mir Suhail, a Kashmiri cartoonist in New York, adapted a news photograph taken during the riots of a Muslim man crouched in supplication, his traditional garb splattered with blood, with a white-bearded man on his back practicing yoga poses.

Suhail had superimposed a stretching Modi from a video of his morning yoga exercise routine that the prime minister posted online in 2018 and was seen by millions of Indians.

Suhail’s animation was retweeted and praised, but also condemned.

By Thursday, a day after the riots came to an end, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter had removed Suhail’s cartoon, saying it violated community standards on hate speech.

This, Suhail said, is why he had to leave his job at a news organization in New Delhi.

“I can’t publish this cartoon,” he said. “I am also afraid that if I go back to India they will throw me in jail, because this is no big deal for them.”

Hotstar, India’s largest video streaming platform, also removed an episode of the American show “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” that poked fun at Modi’s mega-rally with President Donald Trump, who made his first official visit to India last week. The comedian also criticized the Indian government’s response to the violence in New Delhi.

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting spokesman Saurabh Singh said the government “had nothing to do with” the censorship of the cartoon and episode.

Arvind Gunasekar, a reporter for New Delhi Television News, won’t be able to work again until after he has surgery to repair his jaw, which was shattered during the riots.

He and his colleagues were standing on an overpass Tuesday, using their cellphones to capture a Hindu mob tearing down the walls of a Muslim graveyard. One of the vandals spotted him and grabbed him by the collar, calling the others to join.

The blows came hard and fast as the group chanted pro-Hindu slogans.

 
In this Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020 photo, a television reporter, left, reports from a street vandalized in Tuesday's violence in New Delhi, India. Reporting in India has never been without its risks, but journalists say attacks on the press during last week's deadly communal riots between Hindus and Muslims in New Delhi show the situation is deteriorating. (AP Photo)


Gunasekar’s colleague Saurabh Shukla ran his aid. Shukla showed the attackers the prayer beads hanging from his neck and shouted that he was a high-caste Hindu.

“I had to play that card or else they would have killed him. They were about to throw him over the (overpass),” Shukla said.

The mob made Gunasekar unlock his phone and delete the videos he had recorded.

“There are no more journalists here, only nationalists and anti-nationalists, according to our government,” he said. “And such identities are passed all the way down and we are ending up as victims at the hands of the polarized crowd.”

CAPITALISM IN CRISIS 

Empty streets, economic turmoil as virus alters daily life

By DAVID KLEPPER and MARI YAMAGUCHI

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A Health Ministry staffer monitors the body temperature of travelers deplaning from international flights at the Mariscal Sucre Airport, in Quito, Ecuador, Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020. Officials in Ecuador on Saturday confirmed the first case of the new coronavirus in the South American nation. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa)

TOKYO (AP) — The coronavirus has claimed its first victim in the United States as the number of cases shot up in Iran, Italy and South Korea and the spreading outbreak shook the global economy.

Governments stepped up efforts to contain the disease. Saudi Arabia closed Islam’s holiest sites to foreign pilgrims. In Japan, professional baseball teams played in deserted stadiums. The French government advised the public to forgo customary greeting kisses.

Ireland and Ecuador among the countries reporting their first cases Saturday. More than 85,000 people worldwide have contracted the virus, with deaths topping 2,900.

China recorded 573 new virus cases and 35 more deaths in the 24 hours through midnight Saturday, according to the National Health Commission. That raised the total for the country where the disease emerged in December to 2,870 deaths and 79,834 cases.

In the United States, a man in his 50s in suburban Seattle became the first coronavirus death on U.S. soil. Officials say they aren’t sure how the man acquired the virus because he had not traveled to any affected areas.

“Additional cases in the United States are likely, but healthy individuals should be able to fully recover,” President Donald Trump said. Officials announced heightened warnings about travel to certain regions of Italy and South Korea as well as a ban on travel to Iran.

Many cases of the virus have been relatively mild, and some of those infected are believed to show no symptoms at all. But that can allow for easier spread, and concern is mounting that prolonged quarantines, supply chain disruptions and a sharp reduction in tourism and business travel could weaken the global economy or even cause a recession.

South Korea, the second hardest hit country after China, reported 376 new cases on Sunday morning, raising its total to 3,526. Most of the cases in South Korea have been reported in the southeastern city of Daegu and nearby towns.

Italian authorities say the country now has more than 1,100 coronavirus cases, with 29 deaths so far.

Iran is preparing for the possibility of “tens of thousands” of people getting tested for the virus as the number of confirmed cases spiked again Saturday, an official said. So far, the virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes have killed 43 people out of 593 confirmed cases in Iran.

Researchers reported the death rate may be lower than initially feared as more mild cases are counted.

A study by Chinese researchers published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzing 1,099 patients at more than 500 hospitals throughout China calculated a death rate of 1.4%, substantially lower than earlier studies that focused on patients in the central city of Wuhan, where it started and has been most severe.

Assuming there are many more cases with no or very mild symptoms, “the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%,” U.S. health officials wrote in an editorial in the journal.

That would make the new virus more like a severe seasonal flu than a disease similar to its genetic cousins SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or MERS, Middle East respiratory syndrome.

Also Saturday, a survey of Chinese manufacturers showed activity plunged in February by a wider margin than anticipated, adding to the virus’s mounting economic toll.

The monthly purchasing managers’ index issued by the Chinese statistics agency and an industry group fell to 35.7 from January’s 50 on a 100-point scale on which numbers below 50 indicate activity contracting.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a 270 billion yen ($2.5 billion) emergency economic package to help fight the virus. Abe said at a news conference that Japan is at critical juncture to determine whether the country can keep the outbreak under control ahead of the Tokyo summer Olympics.

Abe, who earlier announced plans to close all schools for more than a month through the end of the Japanese academic year sparked public criticism, said the package includes financial support for families and their employers affected by the closures.

“Frankly speaking, this battle cannot be won solely by the efforts of the government,” Abe said. “We cannot do it without understanding and cooperation from every one of you, including medical institutions, families, companies and local governments.”

Even in isolated, sanctions-hit North Korea, leader Kim Jong Un called for stronger anti-virus efforts to guard against COVID-19, saying there will be “serious consequences” if the illness spreads to the country.

In other areas caught up in the outbreak, eerie scenes met those who ventured outside.

Streets were deserted in the city of Sapporo on Japan’s northernmost main island of Hokkaido, where a state of emergency was issued until mid-March. Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan announced they would close, and big events were canceled, including a concert series by the K-pop group BTS.

In France, the archbishop of Paris advised parish priests not to administer communion by placing the sacramental bread in worshippers’ mouths. Instead, priests were told to place the bread in their hands. The French government cancelled large indoor events.

Saudi Arabia closed off Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina to foreign pilgrims, disrupting travel for thousands of Muslims already headed to the kingdom and potentially affecting plans later this year for millions more ahead of the fasting month of Ramadan and the annual hajj pilgrimage.

Tourist arrivals in Thailand are down 50% compared with a year ago. In Italy, which has the most reported cases of any country outside of Asia, hotel bookings are falling. Premier Giuseppe Conte raised the specter of recession.

The head of the World Health Organization on Friday announced that the risk of the virus spreading worldwide was “very high.” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the “window of opportunity” for containing the virus was narrowing.

Economists have forecast global growth will slip to 2.4% this year, the slowest since the Great Recession in 2009, and down from earlier expectations closer to 3%. For the United States, estimates are falling to as low as 1.7% growth this year, down from 2.3% in 2019.

Despite anxieties about a wider outbreak in the U.S., Trump has defended measures taken and lashed out at Democrats who have questioned his handling of the threat.

Trump has accused Democrats of “politicizing” the coronavirus threat and boasted about preventive steps he’s ordered in an attempt to keep the virus from spreading across the United States.

___

Klepper reported from Providence, R.I. Associated Press writers Joe McDonald in Beijing, Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, John Leicester in Paris, Deb Riechmann and Darlene Superville in Washington, Adam Geller, Joseph Pisani and Edith M. Lederer in New York, Hyung-jin Kim and Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul, South Korea, Renata Brito and Giada Zampano in Venice, Italy, Frances D’Emilio in Rome, Paul Wiseman, Christopher Rugaber in Washington, Marilynn Marchione in Milwuakee and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

GLOBAL WARMING
No ice wine for you: Warm winter nixes special German wine

By DAVID McHUGH

FILE-In this Dec. 18, 2009 file photo snow covered grapes hang in a vineyard near Freyburg, Germany. A warm winter means that for the first time Germany's vineyards will produce no ice wine _ a prized vintage made from grapes that have been left to freeze on the vine. The German Wine Institute said Sunday that none of the wine regions that make ice wine saw the necessary low temperature of minus 7 degrees Celsius, or 19 degress Fahrenheit. (AP Photo/Eckehard Schulz)

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — A warm winter means that, for apparently the first time in the history of German winemaking, the country’s fabled vineyards will produce no ice wine — a pricey, golden nectar made from grapes that have been left to freeze on the vine.

The German Wine Institute said Sunday that none of the country’s wine regions saw the necessary low temperature of minus 7 degrees Celsius, or 19 degrees Fahrenheit.

A succession of warm winters have cut into ice wine production recently, the institute said, noting that in 2017 only seven producers managed to make it, and only five managed it in 2013.

“If warm winters become more frequent over the coming years, ice wines from Germany’s regions will soon become an even more expensive rarity than they already are,” said wine institute spokesman Ernst Buescher.

Buescher said the institute knew of no vintage year in this century or last when no ice wine was made, and since winters were colder in the 19th century, it assumed that the latest harvest was the first one to create no ice wine since production began in 1830.

Freezing the grapes before they are crushed concentrates the sugar and leads to an intensely sweet, golden wine often served with dessert. It has always been an niche product with around 0.1% of German production, and expensive due to low volumes.

Making it is a tricky business that can enhance the winemaker’s reputation. Workers must race into the vineyards to bring the grapes in with only a few hours notice when the temperature falls, often at night or in the early morning. Since the grapes must be pressed while still frozen, makers labor in unheated facilities. Vineyard owners also face the risk that grapes set aside for ice wine will rot on the vine before the hard freeze comes.

Canada’s Niagara Peninsula is one of several other places where ice wine is produced, thanks to its cold winters. It’s also made in northern Michigan and Ashtabula County, Ohio, near Lake Erie.

Major markets for German ice wine include Japan and China as well as Scandinavia and the U.S., the institute said.

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Follow AP’s full coverage of climate change issues at https://apnews.com/Climate

‘Into the Wild’ lures the unprepared to Alaska wilderness
By RACHEL D'ORO February 28, 2020

1 of 5
FILE - This March 21, 2006, file photo, shows the abandoned bus where Christopher McCandless starved to death in 1992 on Stampede Road near Healy, Alaska. For more than a quarter-century, the old bus abandoned in Alaska's punishing wilderness has drawn adventurers seeking to retrace the steps of a young idealist who met a tragic death in the derelict vehicle. Scores of travelers following his journey along the Stampede Trail have been rescued and others have died in the harsh back-country terrain. Now families of some of those who died are proposing looking at building a footbridge over the Teklanika River. (AP Photo/Jillian Rogers, File )


ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — For nearly a quarter-century, the old bus abandoned in Alaska’s punishing wilderness has drawn adventurers seeking to retrace the steps of a young idealist who met a tragic death in the derelict vehicle.

For many, Christopher McCandless’ legend was cemented in the 1996 “Into the Wild” book and later in the movie. But scores of travelers following his journey along the Stampede Trail just outside Denali National Park have been rescued and others have died in the harsh reality of back-country terrain.

The area is marked by no cell phone service, unpredictable weather and the raging Teklanika River, whose swollen banks prevented the 24-year-old Virginian from seeking help before his 1992 starvation death.


Now families of some of those who died are proposing looking at building a footbridge over the Teklanika. The effort is led by the husband of a 24-year-old newlywed woman from Belarus who died last year trying to reach the bus.

“People keep going there despite multiple accidents reported,” said Piotr Markielau, who was with his wife Veramika Maikamava when she was swept away by the river. “Making the crossing safer is a social responsibility. It is also a constructive and humane way to learn from people who died there.”

But some local officials in Denali Borough in Healy, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) away, fear a footbridge could give people a false impression of safety that doesn’t exist. There are other hazards, including harsh weather and dangerous terrain. Some attempting the trip are ill-prepared.

“It’ll only encourage more people to go,” says Denali Assembly member Jeff Stenger, who rejects the bridge idea and would prefer to see warning signs posted in the area.

Borough Mayor Clay Walker wants to see the bus relocated to a safer location on the other side of the Teklanika with the help of federal and state agencies.

“This bus has meaning to a lot of people, and the challenge will be to put together a plan that works for all,” Walker said.

FILE - In this June 20, 2008, file photo, a view extends into Denali National Park and preserve from the end of the pavement on the Stampede Road in Healy, Alaska. For more than a quarter-century, an old bus abandoned in Alaska's wilderness has drawn adventurers seeking to retrace the steps of a young idealist who met a tragic death in the derelict vehicle. Scores of travelers following his journey along the Stampede Trail just outside Denali National Park have been rescued and others have died in the harsh back-country terrain that prevented a 24-year-old Virginian from seeking help before his 1992 starvation death. (AP Photo/Matt Hage, File)

A bridge would not have made a difference in the latest rescue. It involved five Italian tourists — one with frostbitten feet — who were rescued Saturday after visiting the dilapidated bus.

The long-discarded bus sits in a clearing on state land roughly half a mile (0.8 kilometers) from the boundary of the Denali National Park and Preserve.

Travelers often traverse park land to get to the bus. It was left in the wilderness as a backcountry shelter for hunters and trappers after it was used to house construction crews working to improve the trail so trucks could haul ore from a mine, according to the book. It’s outfitted with a barrel stove and bunks.

The bus was abandoned when McCandless encountered it and wrote in his journal about living there for 114 days, right up until his death.

Author Jon Krakauer, who wrote “Into the Wild,” said he is “saddened and horrified” by the deaths of people trying to cross the Teklanika. He’s also skeptical building a bridge or moving the bus will solve the problem.

“I really don’t know what can be done or should be done about the unprepared ‘pilgrims’ who get into trouble and perish or need to be rescued,” he said in an email to The Associated Press. “I have no objection to removing the bus, or building a bridge to it, if a persuasive argument can be made that doing either of these things would solve the problem. I am skeptical about the wisdom of either of these proposed measures, however.”

McCandless’ sister agrees. Carine McCandless believes people will keep trying to reach the site, regardless of what locals decide. She said people send her messages every day from all over the world, identifying with her brother’s story, and she understands why people continue to make the trek.

“It is not Chris’s story they are following, it is their own, even if they don’t realize it at the time,” she said. “And as far as the lure of the bus — it’s not about the bus, either. If the bus is moved, people will simply erect a memorial in its place and continue to go there.”

___

Associated Press writer Mark Thiessen contributed to this report from Anchorage, Alaska.

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Follow Rachel D’Oro at https://twitter.com/rdoro

Anti-Defamation League Report on White Supremacy Ignores Trump’s Role in Racism

The new ADL report highlights a 120% increase in white supremacist incidents in 2019 over the last year, but ignores the roots of this rise and doesn't tackle racism.

February 24, 2020

Story Transcript

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Marc Steiner: Welcome to Real News. I’m Marc Steiner, good to have you with us. A new report by the Anti-Defamation League, or the ADL, show there was an exponential leap in white supremacy incidents and propaganda in the year 2019. This ADL report recorded on a 120% increase, more than doubling the number of incidents that were recorded in 2018. The ADL, which was once part of the civil rights struggle in America, has in recent years hardly taken up the banner against racism at all. One could argue that in recent years, it’s done very little to combat racism, but seems to be morphing into a lobby organization to promote the Israeli government and accuse critics of Israeli policy of being anti-Semites, many of whom are associated with the Black Lives Matter movement when they seek solidarity with, for example, let’s say, the struggles in the Gaza strip. So, let’s unpack the most recent report.

It’s good for the ADL to be joining the fight against white supremacy, we all have to, but is it part of a strategy to legitimize their efforts to support the Netanyahu government and his policies among the left and recruit support for the Israeli occupation among African Americans and other groups in our country? Well, there’s that and there’s much more to talk about with our guests who joins us once again. Phyllis Bennis, who’s a fellow and direct with the New Internationalism Project at the Institute For Policy Studies in D.C. and the author of numerous books, our latest is a revised edition of Understanding The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. And Phyllis, welcome, great to have you back with us.

Phyllis Bennis: Great to be with you Marc.

Marc Steiner: So, one of the things that struck me reading this report was that Trump’s name never came up at all in this report. They never talked about his rallying of white supremacists and the way he did. Let’s look at this clip.

Donald Trump: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists. If I win, they’re going back. It’s okay to know it’s Mussolini. Look, Mussolini was Mussolini. It’s okay to… it’s a very good quote on it. Honestly, I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I’ve ever met him. I pretty sure I didn’t meet him.

Marc Steiner: And so, Trump has made a name for kind of aligning himself with these groups very, very quietly and sometimes not so overtly, but doing it. The shooter in Pittsburgh that was inspired by Trump. The report glosses over that completely, doesn’t talk about that at all. But tries also [inaudible 00:02:23] on the left. So what’s at work here?

Phyllis Bennis: Well, I think this is actually consistent with a long part of ADLs history, which has always linked opposition to white supremacy and some good work and investigating episodes of white supremacy, indexing it, having a report every year on the rise in white supremacy attacks, while at the same time largely refusing to hold states and governments that it supports, namely the United States and Israel, accountable for having any role to play. It as if all of white supremacy just emerges from civil society has nothing to do with governments, no one in power, for example, Donald Trump, plays any role in encouraging it despite, as you say, the very clear links when Trump announced that the racists and fascists and Nazis who were marching in Charlottesville were pretty good people. Or the way he talks about immigrants leading to the shooting up of a synagogue killing nine people in Pittsburgh, where the shooter said explicitly that it was because that synagogue, and by extension Jews in general, were supporting the rights of refugees as of course many Jews traditionally have.

So it’s this refusal to acknowledge the role of the state and playing a role in fact with agencies of the state. So the ADL has for years, for decades, been very wrapped up in work with the FBI, with Homeland Security. And while they’ve done work, for example, in creating a very well known K through 12 curriculum guide called A World of Difference-

Marc Steiner: Right.

Phyllis Bennis: Which deals with the issue of white supremacy in a number of ways. It doesn’t only deal with antisemitism, although it starts with and really focuses a great deal on antisemitism. They see no contradiction between on the one hand, publishing something like that curriculum and in many ways doing educational work against Islamophobia in general, while at the same time in the real world, calling for and supporting US government efforts at racial profiling, at surveillance of Muslims and Arabs supporting the worst kind of anti-Arab racism that has led among other things, for example, back in the mid 1980s in California, it was an ADL investigation of what they claimed were Palestinian extremists, Palestinian terrorists, et cetera.

They prepared a report, turned it over to the FBI. The FBI was glad to collaborate with them and the result was the what became known as the Los Angeles Eight case, the longest lasting deportation effort in US history.

Marc Steiner: You were involved-

Phyllis Bennis: Seven… I was. I was part of the legal team for that case. It went on for 21 years until we finally won in the Supreme Court and the case never involved any allegation against any of the eight, it was seven Palestinians and a Kenyan woman, all of whom had been involved in Palestine activism, mainly on campuses in a cultural group a dabke group passing out literature, raising money for clinics in the occupied territories or in refugee camps in Lebanon.

No one ever alleged that they were ever involved with or ever supported anything violent. There were the efforts to find that kind of evidence went on and on, including posting a LA Sheriff’s department officer who moved into an apartment next door to where two of them lived where his wall, which was then filled up with listening devices was against their bedroom walls. So even listening in on pillow talk among one of the married couple, among the eight, they never found any evidence there because there was none. There was no involvement with anything violent with anything extremist and eventually the case won. But that was after 21 years of people being unable to leave the country, unable to attend their parents’ funerals, unable as they graduated and had terrible difficulty getting work. All of these things, they paid an enormous price for that.

And it all started with an ADL report turned over to the FBI. So that kind of collaboration with the state has been a very consistent pattern and it’s what has given them the kind of credential that they have now. So when there’s episodes, for example, when Starbucks was facing new allegations of racism by its employees and the Starbucks company decided they were going to close all the Starbucks for a day and have all their employees go through some kind of anti-racism training, the ADL was among the first organizations they called on to help organize that. To their credit, the other people who were on the team that had been pulled together said, “Wait a minute, this is wrong. This is not the organization that should be doing that.” And they did not ultimately participate.

Marc Steiner: So.

Phyllis Bennis: Yeah, go ahead.

Marc Steiner: We talked about this just before we went on the air together here, that in the early 60s, mid 60s, the ADL marched with King. The ADL put out this book about King, though it didn’t put any political nuance about King’s life in this report they did on the King for kids, but they were part of that struggle. Was it the occupation, from 67 on, that changed all of this? I mean, what more, what changed this political dynamic here?

Phyllis Bennis: I think what changed for the ADL, I mean I wasn’t around at that time in a conscious way and I wasn’t a… I don’t have a fly on the wall of those meetings, but I think what changed was not so much the ’67 war and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories of the Syrian Golan Heights of the Egyptian Sinai, but the fact that opposition to Israel, recognition that Israel was indeed a settler colonial state, that’s what began to rise. And the result was that suddenly Israel was no longer the subject of adoration and support as a tough little outpost in this very tricky neighborhood. The kind of propaganda that had for so long accompanied US support for Israel, certainly among the US Jewish population, but far beyond that, it was very much an American popular idea. After ’67 that became much harder.

And so opposition to Israel began to rise. And not surprisingly, it began to rise in the earliest iterations among people who were already identifying with the anti-colonial struggles around the world, who were seeing African liberation movements as tied to the movement for black liberation in the United States where those connections were being drawn and suddenly Israel was not seen as part of the solution, but as part of the problem, so opposition to Israeli occupation began to rise. It wasn’t the occupation itself that bothered ADL, it was the fact that as a result of the occupation, people began to see Israel in a new light and the criticism of Israel among Jews, among the black community, in a whole range of US communities, began to rise. And it was then that we see a more explicit engagement. Now, it wasn’t the first time.

There are massive reports of ADLs involvement. For example, during the HUAC hearings, again putting itself on the side of the US government among those who would criticize-

Marc Steiner: During McCarthy’s hearings you’re talking about?

Phyllis Bennis: Exactly.

Marc Steiner: That’s a piece of history I don’t know about. Yeah.

Phyllis Bennis: Yeah. So you know, this is the history has gone on for a long time. There was a black list that was created by ADL in 1983 of critics of Israel and anti-semites, as they would define them, very much a parallel to the current work of organizations that are part of the pro Israel lobbies, such as the Canary Mission, which targets particularly academic students and faculty, identifies them as troublemakers because they mobilize for Palestinian rights on campus and the goal of it is to have this massive website that would be available to all future employers so that automatically anybody thinking of hiring any young student coming out of college would think, “Well, I better go check it out on the Canary Mission website and see if they’re a troublemaker or not.” So criticism of Israel becomes equated maybe with being an anti-Semite, but certainly being a troublemaker. And this kind of history goes right back to what the ideal has done for a very long time. So

Marc Steiner: So let’s talk a bit further, let’s close with this, there’s this piece here, so what’s the connection here? If there is a connection, ADL has become fairly vociferous in support of the Netanyahu government and kind of shifted to the right, I mean it was more of a liberal than neoliberal kind of group present, the shift is the right it seems, and this connection between this and the law enforcement training with the Israelis, the Israelis training the law enforcement here, I mean is there a link to all of this or are we making too much of a leap here?

Phyllis Bennis: No, I think there is very definitely a link. The training issue that you’re talking about is the target right now of a major campaign called the Deadly Exchange campaign that’s designed to challenge what has become a massively popular process among US local and statewide law enforcement agencies who are given money by the ADL to go on trips sponsored and arranged by the ADL to go to Israel for “training” by Israeli soldiers, the Israeli military, and the Israeli national police in things like, how to control crowds, how to deal with violent uprisings. And of course what you’re looking at is a military, the Israeli military, the IDF whose job it is to keep control of a militarily occupied population. That’s who these local police forces are asking to train their officers, soldiers whose job it is to suppress an occupied population.

So this is a very dangerous proposition that we see that ADL is responsible for. Jewish Voice for Peace has been leading the national campaign of Deadly Exchange in collaboration with groups like the Black Youth Project 100 in places like Durham, North Carolina, where the campaign had its first victory in a city council resolution that says that, “No, US police will be sent to any country with a record of human rights violations for any kind of training.” That’s the kind of position that every law enforcement agency in this country should have, but it’s emerging right now as a much bigger campaign because the capacity of the ideal to mobilize things, like that police training operation, is a much bigger component. They’re raising millions and millions, tens of millions of dollars every year, for these kinds of processes, these kinds of campaigns. And the result is that the work that they do, the work they have done historically to at least monitor one aspect of white supremacy, which is the nongovernmental side of white supremacy, has been taking a back seat. The focus is, as you say, Marc, much more on building support for Israel.

Marc Steiner: Well, Phyllis Bennis, it’s always a pleasure to talk with you and the clarity you bring to these situations and your analysis. I appreciate it so much. You’re work and being with us today, thank you so much.

Phyllis Bennis: Thank you, Marc. It’s been a pleasure.


Marc Steiner: Always good to talk to you. And I’m Mark Steiner here for the Real News Network. Thank you all for joining us. Please let us know what you think. Take care.

Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow and the Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC.  Her books include Understanding ISIS & the New Global War on Terror, and the latest updated edition of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer.

ADL: Right-wing extremists killed 38 people in 2019


A surveillance stills show alleged gunman Patrick Crusius holding a rifle as he enters a Walmart store at the start of his mass shooting that left 22 people dead, in El Paso, Texas, in August 2019. UPI Photo | License Photo

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The vast majority of domestic extremist-related killings in the United States last year were committed by right-wing extremists, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL, an anti-hate group founded in 1913 to stamp out anti-Semitism, published its annual Murder and Extremism in the United States report Wednesday, tallying 42 deaths by domestic extremists in 2019 -- of which, 38 were committed by right-wing extremists.




Of those deaths, 34 were carried out by white supremacists, which coincides with the resurgence of the ideology in the country since 2015, it said.

The four deaths not attributed to a right-wing extremist occurred during the December attacks in New Jersey City allegedly by David Nathaniel Anderson and Francine Graham, who have ties to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement the ADL described as a fringe racist and anti-Semitic religious sect.

RELATED 5 alleged white supremacists arrested for targeting journalists

The ADL said the pair defy "a simple 'left-right' classification scheme" and as the investigation continues it may become more clear how to define their alleged extremism.

The report said the 42 deaths occurred in 17 separate attacks last year,14 of which resulted in a single death. However, the year's deadliest attack was the August shooting in El Paso, Texas, that left 22 people dead and at least two dozen more injured, it said, adding it was also the third deadliest attack in the past 50 years.

Only the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, for which Timothy McVeigh was executed for, and the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in which 49 people were killed were deadlier, it said.

The 42 deaths also make 2019 the sixth deadliest year on record for extremist-related violence since 1970 and a continuation of a trend of lethal attacks in the United States.

In the past decade, right-wing extremists were responsible for 330 deaths, it said.

"Over the last decade, right-wing extremists have been responsible for more than 75 percent of extremist-related murders in this country," ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. "This should no longer come as a shock to anyone. Lawmakers, law enforcement and the public need to recognize the grave and dangerous threat posed by violent white supremacy."

However, none of the deaths last year were connected to domestic Islamic extremism, a first since 2012, though the United States did see its first terror attack of foreign origin since the 9/11 attacks in December when a Saudi aviation student fatally shot three people at a Florida naval academy.