Poland's Walesa calls for 'system change' in Russia

Issued on: 03/02/2021 

The former president of Poland and Nobel peace prize laureate said jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was a "hero" who could one day win a Nobel himself 

Wojtek RADWANSKI AFP

Gdansk (Poland) (AFP)

Polish freedom icon Lech Walesa on Wednesday called for international cooperation to bring about "system change" in Russia following the jailing of opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

A former leader of the Solidarity labour movement that brought a peaceful end to communism in Poland in 1989, Walesa called Navalny a "hero" who could one day win a Nobel Peace Prize.

The 77-year-old former Polish president spoke a day after top Kremlin critic Navalny was handed a prison term, leading his supporters to take to the streets of Moscow in protest.

"He doesn't have a Nobel (peace) prize yet, but he'll deserve one if he continues to take a stand like this," said Walesa, who himself won the award in 1983 for his leadership of Solidarity.

"We need heroes like him, but we also require a different kind of international solidarity to bring about a system change in Russia," Walesa told AFP in an interview in the city of Gdansk where his battle against communism began.

On Tuesday, Navalny received a jail term of two years and eight months for violating the terms of a 2014 suspended sentence on embezzlement charges he claims were a pretext to silence him.

Walesa said if he had a chance to speak to the 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner he would tell him to follow his communist-era example and fight the system.

"I felt that it wasn't the people who were to blame, but the system which allows for bad behaviour on the part of leaders. And that's something you can see in Russia," Walesa said.

"We shouldn’t be fighting against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, specific individuals, or the police. Instead, we should be fighting for a new system that would preclude this kind of behaviour," he said.

- Protesting women -

Working as a shipyard electrician in Gdansk, Walesa stunned the communist bloc and the world when he led a 1980 strike by 17,000 shipyard workers.

The communist regime was forced to grudgingly recognise Solidarity as the Soviet bloc's first and only independent trade union after it gained millions of followers across Poland.

Walesa later became Poland's first post-war democratically elected president in 1990.

The latest struggle in Poland has been over reproductive rights, with thousands protesting a government-backed court ruling that imposed a near-total ban on abortion last week.

The verdict means that all abortions in Poland are now banned except in cases of rape and incest, or when the mother's life or health are considered to be at risk.

Speaking of the protesting women, Walesa said: "I support them with all my heart. They are right.

"But for now I don't see any hope for the women's victory. Because a victory would have to involve overthrowing those in power, and those in power won't let themselves be overthrown," he added.

The outspoken critic of the right-wing ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party said he himself did not plan any return to politics.

"Of course I'm a patriot and whenever the nation calls, I'm available. But... I’m now 77-years-old and no longer have the energy that I did back then."

© 2021 AFP

More than 10,000 have been detained at pro-Navalny rallies in Russia, monitor says
Issued on: 03/02/2021 - 
Text by: FRANCE 24

More than 10,000 people have been detained at recent rallies in Russia in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, a protest monitor said on Wednesday, adding that many of them have also been subject to mistreatment while in police custody.

Navalny called on Russians to take to the streets after he was detained last month on arrival in Moscow from Germany where he had been recovering from a poisoning with a Soviet-designed nerve agent.

Hundreds more filled the streets of the capital Moscow Tuesday evening, after Navalny, 44, was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for violating the terms of a 2014 suspended sentence on embezzlement charges he claims were a pretext to silence him.

At nationwide rallies over the last two weeks, more than 10,000 people were seized by police, the OVD-Info group that monitors opposition protests said in its report released on Wednesday.

Russia’s Union of Journalists, meanwhile, said that more than 100 journalists were either injured or detained at the rallies.

Detainees are held for hours “in horrid and stuffy conditions, without food or the opportunity to use a bathroom,” OVD-Info analyst Grigory Durnovo told Ekho Moskvy radio.

He added that lawyers from the group, which provides free legal aid to detained protesters, were at times not given access to detention centres.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has defended the government’s crackdown on the protesters, saying that “the holding of unauthorised rallies raises concerns and justifies the tough actions of the police”.

Navalny’s prison sentence: ‘Concerns sanctions won’t change Russia’s behaviour’

Later on Wednesday a Russian court sentenced Sergei Smirnov, chief editor of Mediazona, an online news publication often critical of the government, to 25 days in jail over a re-tweet.

Ahead of a January 23 protest in Navalny’s support, Smirnov, 45, re-tweeted a joke that included the time of the protest rally.

An analyst working for OVD-Info, Grigory Durnovo, told AFP that many of the detainees had been subjected to “difficult conditions” in custody and that authorities were purposefully carrying out “harsh detentions”.

Echoing detainee testimonies, Durnovo said Moscow’s detention centres had reached full capacity due to the massive influx of Navalny supporters.

On Tuesday, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, ordered checks of detained men to see if they have avoided military service, which in Russia is compulsory for one year

Navalny’s arrest and the violent police crackdown has been condemned by international rights groups and Western governments, including the United States, Britain and France.

Germany on Wednesday reiterated calls to free Navalny and said that more EU sanctions on Russia “cannot be ruled out”.

The UN Human Rights Office called for the release of protesters detained “for exercising their right to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression”.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Israel destroys West Bank Bedouin village again

Issued on: 03/02/2021 - 

Israeli bulldozers knocked down tents and portable toilets owned by the Bedouin families in Homsa al-Baqia, a makeshift village near Tubas in the West Bank that Israeli forces had previously demolished in November, an AFP videographer said JAAFAR ASHTIYEH AFP

Homsa al-Baqia (Territoires palestiniens) (AFP)

Israeli forces on Wednesday demolished the "illegal" homes of some 60 Palestinian Bedouins in the occupied West Bank's Jordan Valley, an AFP journalist and activists said.

Israeli bulldozers knocked down tents and portable toilets owned by Bedouin families in Homsa al-Baqia, a makeshift village near Tubas in the West Bank that Israeli forces had previously demolished in November, an AFP videographer said.

According to Israeli rights group B'Tselem, 61 people, over half of them children, were left homeless following Wednesday's demolitions.

The European Union's mission in the Palestinian Territories announced it would visit the site on Thursday.

COGAT, the Israeli army branch responsible for civilian affairs in the West Bank, said in a statement that the structures had been illegally built in a military training zone and that "the residents had agreed to take down the tents".

However, COGAT said the families changed their minds, and so on Wednesday the "last remaining tents at the site were confiscated".

Moataz Bisharat, a Palestinian activist who works to oppose Israel's occupation of the West Bank, said the action was akin to "carrying out the death sentence on all Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley".

The Jordan Valley falls within the West Bank's "Area C", which is fully controlled by Israel's army.

Under Israeli military law, Palestinians cannot build structures in the area without permits, which are typically refused, and demolitions are common.

Bisharat said the number of Palestinian families in the Homsa al-Baqia area had dropped from more than 186 in 1990 to just 21 today "because of the occupation's (Israel's) measures".

"The goal... is not just to occupy Homsa, but the whole Jordan Valley," he said.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six Day war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the past has said he intended to annex parts of the West Bank and Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territory, including the Jordan Valley.

Former US president Donald Trump gave that plan the green light in January last year.

But a surprise normalisation accord between Israel and the United Arab Emirates later in the year appeared to put annexation on ice.

© 2021 AFP

France announces sharp drop in femicides, but NGOs say it’s too early to rejoice

Issued on: 03/02/2021 -

A woman holds a placard enumerating the names of feminicide victims in France in 2019, during a protest condeming violence against women in Marseille, France, on November 23, 2019. © Clement Mahoudeau, AFP (file photo)

Text by:Tamar SHILOH VIDON

Ninety women were killed by their partners or ex-partners in France in 2020 – a significant drop from the 146 victims of femicide the previous year, according to a French government statement on Tuesday. But French NGOs say it is too early to celebrate a reversal of the trend.

In 2020, 106 domestic crimes were committed in France and 90 of the victims were women, Justice Minister Éric Dupond-Moretti said in a video posted on Facebook on Tuesday. “In 2019, 173 crimes were committed, and 146 women were killed,” he said.

“Of course, every murder, every act of violence is a failure, with tragic consequences that we can only imagine. A failure for our entire society and a failure of the ministry of justice,” he added. “The results are still too modest but they offer a glimmer of hope.”

More than 200,000 women are victims of violence every year and in 2019, it was estimated that a woman was killed by her partner or ex-partner every three days.

>> FRANCE 24 on femicide: Our stories on violence against women

The figure announced for 2020 is the lowest in the 15 years since the French government began counting. But associations fighting violence against women say it is too early to welcome this year’s statistic as any kind of enduring trend.

“The circumstances in 2020 were most exceptional, because of Covid and the lockdown,” said Céline Piques, a spokeswoman for the group Osez le Féminisme (Dare to be Feminist).

“We’ll see if the numbers are confirmed in 2021, but for now it’s too early to point to the exact causes for the drop in the number,” Piques told FRANCE 24.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, women’s defense groups alerted the world to the heightened threat women faced by being locked down with an abusive partner. The pandemic and the restrictions imposed to curb its spread shed a spotlight on the violence abused women and children suffered at home, leading to an increase in reports of these incidents.

Justice Minister Dupond-Moretti said the considerable drop in the number of femicides “is undoubtedly due to the view that the whole of society has come to bear on domestic violence and these heinous crimes, and thanks to the work of nongovernmental organisations”.

“It’s also due to the measures taken by the justice ministry to fight against this violence,” he added, citing the introduction of several measures following the so-called Grenelle des violence conjugales, a conference on domestic violence that involved a series of round tables organised by the French government at the end of 2019 to find solutions.

Some of the measures taken following the Grenelle discussions include the deployment in September of electronic ankle bracelets equipped with geolocalisation technology, which emit an alert whenever a violent partner or ex-partner approaches a victim; the distribution of so-called téléphones grave danger – or emergency mobile phones for women threatened with violence – allowing them to alert the police with the push of a button; and expulsion orders allowing the eviction of a violent spouse from the home.

>> Domestic Violence: Electronic bracelets are a first step, but we have to go further

Putting violence into words

But feminists warn against accepting the government’s declarations on the drop in the number of murders and its causes at face value.

Piques agrees there has been a societal change over the past few years. “Already, the term ‘femicide’ has now been recognised and integrated and we’ve stopped considering marital violence as simple ‘disputes’, ‘scandals’ or ‘crimes of passion’ – we’re hearing less and less of that kind of rhetoric. This is really a cultural battle we’re winning, and it’s really important,” she said.

“For example, Osez Féminisme ran a campaign in 2014 around the term femicide, and everybody laughed at the time. Today, politicians are using this term,” she said. “As a result, people have been reacting differently to violence, especially neighbours and people in the couple’s circle, they are better equipped now to detect violence against women and put it into words.”

Piques also agrees that the measures following the Grenelle discussions are a step in the right direction. but “we see today that in terms of the number of protection orders, or the number of emergency phones, we’re really only at the very beginning of what needs to become a massive deployment”, she said.

For example, France is far behind Spain in implementing measures to protect women. Based on figures from 2019, Spain has issues many more protection orders than France, Piques said. “We don’t yet have the figures [of measures implemented] from 2020. But if we listen to associations such as the FNSF (fédération nationale solidarité femmes, or Women’s national solidarity federation), maybe a few more protection measures have been introduced, but it’s not at all systematic yet and the judiciary has not yet begun deploying protection orders as they do in Spain, where they issue some 30,000 orders a year – as opposed to a few thousand in France.”

Other measures are also slow to be deployed: Only 1,260 emergency phones were distributed to women in danger by the end of 2020 and 17 electronic ankle bracelets – only eight of which are active – were distributed as of mid-January. 

Domestic violence up due to Covid-19

Amid the Covid-19 crisis, there are other factors that have not yet been measured but may have contributed to the drop in the number of femicide cases.

For example, according to UN data released in late September, lockdowns led to increases in complaints or calls to report domestic abuse around the world, with a 30 percent increase in France. Yet the number of femicides dropped.

“We know that a major portion of femicides takes place after a separation or at the moment of separation. And here we see two somewhat contradictory statistics: On one hand, a very steep rise in violence, and on the other, an apparent drop in femicides. So, there’s a paradox that might stem from the fact that many women suffering violence today are unable – with the lockdown, Covid, the economic crisis, also in terms of employment or income – to leave their partners,” Piques explained.

Another issue is how the number of femicides is being counted and by whom.

Féminicides Par Compagnons ou Ex, a feminist collective that monitors reports of femicides in the media, tweeted on Tuesday: “When @E_DupondM minimizes #feminicides and discounts elderly and sick women murdered by their husbands (sick emojis)… Know that we’re never far behind the official figure [in releasing our count], and therefore, we will be talking about this again! 2020 -> 100 femicides by a partner or ex”.

Piques agrees that definitions of femicide vary, raising questions about the government’s figures. “We really need go back to the original definition of femicide, which is murder on the basis of sexism, a definition that is wider than spousal homicide. For example, there are cases of murder in couples that don’t reside together, which aren’t counted; or even cases when a man murders a woman because she refused his advances. Is that a sexist murder or not? These aren’t counted either. So in fact, the definitions do vary widely,” she said.

“We also need to include the murders of prostitutes, which occur every year. That, for me, is a truly sexist murder and another example of femicide that isn’t counted,” she added.

Dupond-Moretti’s announcement on Tuesday was the first of its kind by a justice minister in France since the ministry asked in 2020 that systemic reports be sent to the general prosecutor for each domestic homicide, to offer “a more precise follow-up” of these murder cases “to evaluate the impact of the Grenelle measures”.

“Of course, additional resources are still needed, and we will focus on them,” Dupond-Moretti said Tuesday. Organisations fighting for the protection of women from violence couldn’t agree more.

Newsmax anchor Bob Sellers walks off after MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell goes off on another conspiracy rant

Sarah K. Burris RAW STORY
February 02, 2021


MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was kicked off of Twitter for spreading conspiracy theories about the election. So, he turned to his company Twitter account to spread the conspiracies. So, Twitter shut down that account too.

Newsmax welcomed him on the air and immediately he began spouting the conspiracies that are drawing expensive defamation lawsuits from the Dominion Voting Systems company.

Anchor Bob Sellers tried cutting in to clarify that they cannot confirm any of Lindell's conspiracy theories, presumably as a preemptive strike against litigation from Dominion. Lindell continued spouting his conspiracy theories, somewhat muted, while Sellers read the statement about Dominion voting machines.

"They're doing this because I'm reviewing all of the evidence on Friday of all the election fraud of all these machines," Lindell spouted. "So I'm sorry if you --"

"Ok, I'm going to ask our producers, can we get outa here, please?" Sellers asked. "I don't want to have to keep going over this."

Lindell began shouting and then the whole panel was shouting over each other.

Sellers simply walked out.

CAPITALI$M IN SPACE 

SpaceX aims to launch 'all-civilian' trip into orbit

Agence France-Presse
February 02, 2021

Civlians are to be carried on SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, 

which was developed to transport NASA astronauts (AFP)

SpaceX announced Monday it's aiming to launch this year the first all-civilian mission into Earth's orbit, led by a tech billionaire who plans to raffle off one of the spots aboard the craft.

Entrepreneur Jared Isaacman is to be joined by three other novice astronauts for a multi-day journey into space, including one lucky winner of a drawing.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime adventure: a journey into outer space on the first all-civilian space flight," according to a website dedicated to the mission.

SpaceX, the company started by Elon Musk, said Isaacman is "donating the three seats alongside him... to individuals from the general public who will be announced in the weeks ahead."
00:0702:03

Launch of the Dragon spacecraft is being targeted for "no earlier than the fourth quarter of this year", the firm said.

One seat will go to a worker from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which treats childhood cancers and pediatric diseases, and the second is to be drawn from those who enter the raffle and are encouraged to donate to the hospital.

A third will be picked by a panel of judges from entrepreneurs who use an ecommerce tool from Isaacman's company, Shift4 Payments.
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All three crewmembers "will receive commercial astronaut training by SpaceX on the Falcon 9 launch vehicle and Dragon spacecraft," as well as orbital mechanics and stress testing, including operating in micro- or zero gravity, the statement said.

SpaceX says that during the multi-day mission, the astronauts will orbit Earth every 90 minutes.

After the mission, the spacecraft will reenter the atmosphere for a water landing off the Florida coast.
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In mid-November 2020, four astronauts were successfully carried into orbit by a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and boarded the International Space Station.

The Dragon capsule had just a week prior become the first spacecraft to be certified by NASA since the Space Shuttle nearly 40 years ago. Its launch vehicle is the reusable SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

At the end of its missions, the Crew Dragon deploys parachutes and then splashes down in water, just as in the Apollo era.
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NASA turned to SpaceX and Boeing after shuttering the checkered Space Shuttle program in 2011, which failed in its main objectives of making space travel affordable and safe.

The agency will have spent more than $8 billion on the Commercial Crew program by 2024, with the hope that the private sector can take care of NASA's needs in "low Earth orbit" so it is freed up to focus on return missions to the Moon and then on to Mars.

In addition to the first commercial mission, SpaceX is scheduled to launch two more crewed flights for NASA in 2021, including one in the spring, and four cargo refueling missions over the next 15 months.

LISTENING TO, PLAY LOUD

 

Major tremor continues on the Cascadia Subduction Zone 2/3/2021

THE PACIFIC  NORTHWEST COAST OF NORTH AMERICA 

link https://www.dnr.wa.gov/publications/g...​

Current World Earthquake Map https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...​ Recent California and Nevada Earthquakes http://scedc.caltech.edu/recent/​ Current Space Weather info http://www.spaceweather.com/

The Active Volcano in Washington; 

Mount Baker

•Jan 29, 2021

GeologyHub

Did you know that the state of Washington has several "active" volcanoes? One of these volcanoes is Mount Baker. A future eruption could affect a number of towns, including Deming, Hamilton, and Nooksack. This video covers the recent eruptions from this volcano, and states the general hazard which it poses in the future. This video was made by a geologist who is based in Arizona. 

This channel has a gemstone and geology related etsy store. If you want to support this channel, check out prospectingarizona.etsy.com

The Active Volcano in New Zealand; Auckland Volcanic Field

•Jan 30, 2021



GeologyHub

Did you know that Auckland is built on top of an "active" volcanic field? This volcanic field last erupted 600 years ago, and will erupt again. I am referring to the Auckland Volcanic Field. This video covers the recent eruptions from this volcano, and states the general hazard which it poses in the future. This video was made by a geologist who is based in Arizona. This channel has a gemstone and geology related etsy store. If you want to support this channel, check out prospectingarizona.etsy.com

VULCAN PORN

Kilauea Volcano Eruption Update 

(Feb. 3, 2021)



Big Island Video News

HAWAIʻI ISLAND - Activity has been stable in recent days with no major changes. Only the western portion of the lava lake is active. The US Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory says the vigor of the lava stream fluctuated on Tuesday, with cycles lasting 5-6 minutes. A synthesized voice was utilized in the narration for this story. Video and photos are from the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

This is a live stream of the USGS Webcams, most recent images, videos, deformation, and earthquake data from the Kilauea Volcano Eruption on the Big Island of Hawaii, happening inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. USGS webcams, thermal cam, and tilt charts update every 10 minutes. Earthquake and Radar data update about every 2-3 minutes. This content is for entertainment purposes. Best viewed on Large Screen.

Live Monitoring of #Kilauea​ Volcano Eruption 

on the Big Island of Hawaii

   

Mauna Kea Summit Future On The Table At Hawaii House (Feb. 2, 2021)

HAWAII ISLAND - The State House of Representatives is saying that the University of Hawaii should drop its lease of the Mauna Kea lands.

A synthesized voice was utilized in the narration for this story. Flyover video by Tropical Visions Video / Paradise Helicopters, public meeting video from the Hawaii State House and the Maunakea Management Board.