Crime

Reporters Without Borders 

Makes Criminal Complaint Against Belarusian Dictator 

over Protasevich

From: Alice Taylor 4 hrs ago

International media freedom organization Reporters Without Borders has formally asked Lithuanian prosecutors to investigate Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and his associates for the offense of criminal hijacking.

A letter sent to the prosecutor general’s office asks that the incident be investigated as “hijacking of an aircraft with criminal intent” as defined in articles 251 and 252-1 of Lithuania’s criminal code.

On Sunday, a Ryanair plane flying between Greece and Lithuania was intercepted by a Belarusian military jet and forced to land at Minsk airport. The authorities claimed there was a bomb on board and made all passengers disembark on the plane.

They then arrested opposition journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sophia Sega. A further four people also disembarked the plane, believed to be Russians before the passengers were allowed to get back on and the plane could depart.

Protasevich and his girlfriend were then taken into custody where it was feared he would be subjected to torture and mistreatment. The journalist is accused of inciting opposition protests that started in 2020, extremism, inciting social hatred, and organizing riots. He is potentially facing the death penalty.

Following widespread outrage and condemnation from human rights organizations, media freedom groups, politicians, and civil society, as well as the threat of sanctions from the EU, Belarusian authorities published a “confession” video featuring Protasevich.

In it, he can be seen looking tired and drawn, clasping his hands and speaking quickly. He confesses to the charges against him and says he is being treated well and in line with the law.

The video was criticized as being a flagrant violation of his rights and was believed to be made under duress.

Members of the European Parliament from all groups called on the Council and Commission to suspend all flights over Belarus and between the country and the EU and to start a full inquiry into the breach of aviation rules. 

The EU then announced it would introduce additional sanctions against Belarusian individuals which would be announced in due course. It also asked the International Civil Aviation Organisation to investigate the action which led to the plane being hijacked.

RSF has dismissed Minsk’s claim that there was a bomb on board and has said this is “clearly fabricated.”

“We decided to file a complaint against Alexander Lukashenko himself because he was the direct instigator of this act of hijacking for terrorist purposes, and the term is not excessive,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. 

“The Lithuanian criminal code penalizes hijacking a plane ‘by threatening the lives or health of the crew or passengers’ and defines ‘terrorist aim’ as ‘intent to intimidate the public or part of the public.’ By this unprecedented act, Alexander Lukashenko wanted to reinforce intimidation of the public, especially journalists.”

They state that Lukashenko endangered the lives of the crew and passengers and had the sole aim of intimidating the public, especially all critical journalists in Belarus.

It reads:

“There is no doubt that Protasevich’s arrest, following an unprecedented hijacking of an international plane, is intended to intimidate all Belarusian journalists, inside and outside the country. This event is intended to show them that, wherever they are, they can be apprehended by the regime and put in prison. It shows that the regime will not hesitate to arrest anyone who criticizes it.”

The organization has also claimed that by attacking a European aircraft that was flying between two EU capitals, Belarus was attempting to “destabilize the EU” by testing the reactions of the EC.

Lithuanian law allows for charges to be pressed regardless of the defendant’s nationality or place of residence, in the case where the crime is related to terrorism or terrorist activity.

RSF said the Lithuanian prosecution must hold Lukashenko to account while considering anyone else who was involved and responsible.

The G20 Rome Declaration on health is a mixture of hypocrisy, cynicism and indecency

An opinion piece by Riccardo Petrella, Roberto Morea and Roberto Musacchio
24 May 2021 The Barricade

We did not expect innovative proposals, but we did expect a little more breath of change. Well…. there was no breath. Worse still, in its place there were strong ugly winds.

1. First, the Declaration never, not even once, refers to the ‘universal right to health’. It does not mention it, confirming what the dominant groups have been doing for years: erasing it from the world political agenda and with it the principle that guaranteeing health universally, i.e. for all, is an institutional obligation for the public authorities, the states, and not a political option of magnanimity or compassion towards ‘the poor’ on the part of world leaders. Conversely, the Declaration speaks several times of “equitable and affordable access” to the tools for combating Covid-19 pandemic (vaccines, medical treatments, diagnostics and individual protection tools). In other words, a typically mercantile principle and objective, of monetised exchange (sale and purchase) according to market rules that have nothing to do with the right to health in equality and justice. In the market there are no rights, except for private property, no social justice. Forgetting the universal right to health is an act of political indecency.

2. Not surprisingly – another key aspect – the Declaration insists that the necessary steps that will be taken in the coming months to promote access to vaccines for all, must be defined and taken in the framework of the WTO Treaties (World Trade Organization, an independent body from the UN) and, in particular, of the WTO-TRIPs (Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights) treaties. And not within the general framework of the UN and specifically the World Health Organisation (WHO, a UN agency). The Declaration of Rome remains entrenched in the primacy given, also in the field of health, to the “world” regulation fixed in the logic of inter-national trade (dominated by the merchants and financiers of the most powerful countries in the world). The Rome Declaration remains on the position of refusing to attribute this primacy to the UN in general, and to the WHO in particular, as requested, especially in recent years, by 100 or more states, hundreds of Nobel Prize winners, scientists, personalities from the world of culture and thousands of associations and organisations, including trade unions. The acceptance of the primacy of the UN and the WHO implies that the rules on this matter will be established in compliance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and the international treaties on civil, social and political rights of the 1970s. The signatories of the Rome Declaration are well aware that since 1994, the year of its creation, the WTO has been the scene of continuous hard struggles by the vast majority of member states against the most powerful states to defend their rights to life and their economic and social sovereignty, which have been systematically dismissed in the WTO treaties.

3. Therefore, claiming that the objective of the global fight against the pandemic pursued by the most powerful states of the G20 remains that of “leaving no one aside” is an act of hypocrisy. The reality shows that the strategy to combat the pandemic, which was adopted a year and a half ago in the name of fair and affordable access to vaccines and in compliance with the WTO/TRIPs treaties, has helped to sideline hundreds of millions of people who, as of 21 May 202, are excluded from vaccines (only 1% of the African population has been vaccinated) and, above all, from health care in general. According to the WHO, more than half of the world’s population is still without basic health coverage in 2020, and the pandemic has made the situation worse.

4. The Declaration confirms that, today, the key solution chosen by those in power is to increase the production of vaccines and to distribute and administer them as widely as possible, as quickly as possible and on an equitable, safe and efficient basis, for the benefit of the populations of the poorest low-income countries (92 countries in the world) and middle-income countries (more than 30). This apparently reasonable choice is a mystifying and unacceptable choice because it postulates the acceptance and the maintenance of the gulf and the inequalities between the rich and ‘developed’ countries of the North, particularly the ‘West’, and the poor, underdeveloped or less developed countries. Prioritising on production and distribution of vaccines substantially means to maintain the structural supremacy and power of the rich countries in the financial, technoscientific, productive and commercial fields. It means that private companies from the developed world remain the absolute owners of knowledge about life, the owners of patents, the producers of vaccines, the leaders of international trade, the providers of medical and health services, the controllers of health markets, the masters of the digitalisation of health systems… So, in the spirit of the Rome Declaration the best practical solution is that the rich countries (continue to) “help” the poor countries. In this context, the life of billions of people and their future is obligatorily depending, and will depend, on aid, “charity” and benevolence from the rich and the powerful.

What an indecent and cynical conception!

Let’s give one good example. At the last meeting of the general council of WTO-TRIPs the representative of the USA said that Biden Administration is open “now that the full access to vaccines has been ensured for the American citizens” to consider means and ways to lifting WTO rules on intellectual property right with the aim to foster affordable access to vaccines to all peoples in need. To sum upon on this point, all that remains for the poor countries is waiting for receiving vaccines and access to the other medical tools offered by the rich countries. To this end, however, they must be recognised by COVAX as eligible for assistance from the rich. COVAX is the mechanism set up by the countries of the “North” , run by two public-private organisations, CEPI and GAVI, whose aim is to encourage the sharing of research and development and the purchase/distribution of vaccines for the benefit of poor countries. Bought vaccines are transferred as free aid to the populations of low-income countries, and as reduced-price aid to those of middle-income countries.

The COVAX mechanism has proved unsuitable for two main reasons. Firstly, because rich countries and private philanthropic bodies such as the Gates foundation have not fed COVAX finances as expected. To do well, COVAX would need more than $40 billion. They have received only $12 billion. Secondly, COVAX is based on the maintenance of the patent system that makes vaccines and medical devices absolute private property for 20 years, thus giving -as we have seen – political decision-making and operational power over life and health, to private multinational companies. COVAX has no political power, no autonomous power of negotiation and decision. It depends on the good will of pharmaceutical oligopolies and of the strongest States.

5. This brings us to the controversial point concerning the provisional suspension of patents. This was the most anticipated point of the G20 Global Health Summit. The G20 formally opted not to decide and to postpone the debate to the 7-9 June meeting of the WTO General Council. In fact, the postponement was necessary not because of disagreement between some states (such as South Africa, India, Russia, Indonesia and China…) on the one hand, and the EU, the UK, the US, Japan, on the other. But to give the EU and the US time to agree on a common position based, as proposed by the EU, on a third way solution between rejecting and approving the suspension. The European Union is overwhelmingly opposed to suspending the patent regime and even more so to abolishing it. It therefore seeks to overcome the difficulties by shifting the debate to the definition of a new global treaty on common global monitoring and response system to current and future pandemics. Present system has admittedly demonstrated its weakeness and inefficiency. In the mind of the European Union leaders, the new treaty could adopt a model of common monitoring and responses system closer the intra-European coordination system set up in the context of the recent creation of the European Health Union.

This is also the position Mario Draghi seems to be taking. During his initial Summit speech he expressed his support for a suspension of patents “on condition that it is targeted and limited in time”. The same applies to the US position, as expressed in Rome by the US Vice-President Kamala Harris (who was a little disappointing). Among the members of the G20, only South Africa has a clear position on ensuring the health of its citizens and other African countries. India is rather ambiguous. In Modi’s ultra-nationalist and competitive strategy, the suspension rather serves the objective of reinforcing India’s growing role as the world’s leading producer of low-cost vaccines through the private enterprise Serum Institute of India. This strategy has the support by Oxford University and Astra Zeneca, which last year signed a deal for more than 1.2 billion doses of its vaccine to be produced by the Serum Institute of India. India has a strategy of economic expansion in the sector to compete with China. For its part, Indonesia, another member of the G20, has made clear its desire, thanks to the reduction of patent constraints, to become the main hub of South East Asia, in competition with China and India.

In short, not all that glitters is gold outside the North/Western countries when it comes to economic strategy in the global pharmaceutical industry.

6. The state of art above described will perpetuate until the public authorities of the most powerful countries in the world have dissociated and liberated themselves and their public health policy from the state of subservience to their big multinational pharmaceutical and chemical companies and financial groups, following the massive privatisation of national health systems and the legalisation of private patenting for profit. The Rome Declaration did not write a single line about the subservience of the public powers. And pour cause. As everyone knows, the public authorities have practically financed in toto (the case of the Astra Zeneca vaccine,) and in large part (the case of Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson vaccines, …) the design, development, production and marketing of vaccines. If there are vaccines, this is not thanks to the companies mentioned but to the large sums of public money injected by the States in the sector (we are talking about tens and tens of billions of dollars), through many ways, including the decisive one of the “Advanced Market Commitments”, i.e. the guaranteed commitments of public purchase of billions of doses produced by companies.

The scandal here is that the companies have pocketed everything and, without any major investment, have already made billions in profits to distribute to their shareholders, without the states, the citizens whose public money has been poured into the coffers of the multinational companies, having obtained any direct financial benefit in return. The states have spent and continue to spend and the companies continue to make profits.

In this context, the sovereignty of the people, of the citizens, is reduced to zero. Hypocrisy, cynicism and indecency prevail.

In conclusion, again after the G20 Global Health Summit, it is clear that the future of the realisation of the universal right to health and the future of the earth life is not yet on track in the interests of all the earth’s inhabitants and in harmony with respect for the rights of nature.

The Barricade is an independent platform, which is supported financially by its readers. If you have enjoyed reading this article, support The Barricade’s existence! See how you can help – here! Also, you can subscribe to our Patreon page.

The Barricade also has a booming Telegram channel, a Twitter account and a YouTube channel, where all the podcasts are hosted. It can also be followed in Rumble, Spotify, SoundCloud and Instagram.

The Barricade

Blackmail, racketeering, oligarchs and violence in Bulgaria. Discussing Borissov’s legacy w/ Georgi Hristov

On the Barricades podcast, 16 May 2021

A heinous scandal is brewing in Bulgaria, with wealthy businessman and landowner Svetoslav Ilchovski at the center, who recently testified before a parliamentary commission about the Bulgarian PM’s gangsterism. “The Barricade” has published a lengthy article on Ilchovski-gate, which can be found here.

Boyan Stanislavski and Maria Cernat, hosts of “On the barricades” discussed this issue with Bulgarian leftist journalist and activist Georgi Hristov on Sunday, May 16th.

Before their review of Svetoslav Ilchovski’s stunning testimony and the origins of the peculiar model of “parliamentary democracy” that was established in Bulgaria after 1989, they discussed the prospects open to the provisional government appointed by President of the Republic Roumen Radev following the subsequent failures of the three largest parliamentary parties.

Is there anything this government can accomplish in the three months before the announced early elections on July 11? Many non-political experts were appointed, which appears to be a logical and rational decision given the nature of this administration. One thing is certain: whatever this government does, it will have to contend with Borissov’s machinery, which allows him to control the entire institutional and economic infrastructure of the state and then use it to his (and his oligarchic friends’) benefit. The mechanism is straightforward: nepotism and corruption. The boss, Boyko Borissov, makes all appointments in all existing public institutions. For nearly 15 years, the cadreship of the entire state apparatus has been cultivated to serve him and his gang, and it has been ensured that everyone is completely obedient. Can a massive cleansing take place in a matter of months? Can the provisional government accomplish anything else?

 About

The Barricade is a new outlet set up by a group of left oriented activists from around Eastern Europe – Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia and Serbia. The main goal of this platform is to provide competent analysis and comments on the situation in the former Eastern Bloc as well as to offer interesting, non-standard views regarding the most important global processes and events.

This website is not a mouthpiece of any party or other political organization and the views presented here range from social-democratic to Marxist or anarchist. The official publisher of The Barricade is the Sofia-based Publishing House BARICADA, which has successfully launched and developed two similar projects in Bulgarian and Romanian. A website in English is a continuation of the efforts to present leftist viewpoints as well as to familiarize the international community with real descriptions and careful, hype-free analysis of the difficult circumstances in the region of Eastern Europe.

Most leftist platforms operate with very limited budgets and ours is no exception to this rule. Therefore most of the articles you will find here are translations. If you would like to help out with translating or if you have any suggestions, do not hesitate to contact us.

Also, we do hope that in the near future The Barricade will become a focal point for the most serious groups, parties and individuals on the European left and will be able to not only offer material to read but also organize discussions and other events across the continent.

Comradely,

The editorial board

The Barricade · Blackmail, racketeering, oligarchs and violence in Bulgaria. w/ Georgi Hristov

The Barricade is an independent platform, which is supported financially by its readers. If you have enjoyed reading this article, support The Barricade’s existence! See how you can help – here! Also, you can subscribe to our Patreon page.

The Barricade also has a booming Telegram channel, a Twitter account and a YouTube channel, where all the podcasts are hosted. It can also be followed in Rumble, Spotify, SoundCloud and Instagram.

Maria Cernat - Boyan Stanislasvski

Boyan Stanislavski (Poland) and Maria Cernat (Romania) make a regular 

video podcast, in which they discuss various developments in Poland,

 Romania and the region. 

The work title of their podcast is “Squatting reds in tracksuits”

French FM warns Israel on its way to apartheid

The French foreign minister took issue with those who assert Europe has no power to help resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

By LAHAV HARKOV
MAY 24, 2021 

Jerusalem Post

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian attends a news conference during the Foreign ministers of G7 nations meeting in Dinard, France, April 6, 2019.
(photo credit: STEPHANE MAHE / REUTERS)

The current situation in Israel could lead it to become an apartheid state, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday.

The chance of a two-state solution “was starting to disappear,” he said on the French TV program Grand Jury. “The risk of apartheid is strong if we continue to adopt a logic of one state or the status quo.”

We must “initiate a policy of small steps,” Le Drian said, adding: “We must ensure that there is a logic of trust that can be established” between Israel and the Palestinians.

French lawmaker Meyer Habib, who represents French expats in Israel and other countries, criticized Le Drian, saying his remarks were “unfortunate.”

“Israel will never be an apartheid state,” he said. “[France] should not be preaching to the only democracy in the Middle East and the only Jewish state in the world.”

Le Drian’s “irresponsible statement adds fuel to the fire, perhaps with a goal to get votes from the pro-Arab Left,” Habib said.

Le Drian’s remarks come amid a push by NGOs to label Israel an apartheid state. Human Rights Watch released a lengthy report making that argument last month, as did Breaking the Silence earlier this year.

While accusing Israel of apartheid, Human Rights Watch distanced itself from comparisons to what was once an actual apartheid state, South Africa, while still claiming Israel falls under that category.

Le Drian also expressed concern over violence in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in Israel in recent weeks.

He took issue with those who say Europe has no power to help resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

“Europe is powerful,” Le Drian said. “It plays its part in the Middle East.”

Last week, the EU Foreign Affairs Council was unable to release a statement about the fighting between Israel and Hamas because it must be done by consensus, and Hungary vetoed it.

Countries such as France and Germany were pandering to their Muslim citizens, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, adding that he was standing up for his mostly Christian country and its values by supporting Israel.

UK uni. probes Jewish lecturer for suggesting Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic

Newcastle’s Northumbria University defined as “urgent” its probe of Pete Newbon, a senior lecturer in Romantic and Victorian Literature, over the image, the BBC reported Thursday.

By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ/JTA
MAY 25, 2021 

Britain's former opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts after the General Election results of the Islington North constituency were announced
(photo credit: REUTERS / HANNAH MCKAY)

A British-Jewish academic is facing an ethics review for posting an image on social media suggesting that former Labour Party head Jeremy Corbyn is antisemitic.

Newcastle’s Northumbria University defined as “urgent” its probe of Pete Newbon, a senior lecturer in Romantic and Victorian Literature, over the image, the BBC reported Thursday.

Corbyn is seen reading to children from a book with the title doctored to read “The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion,” a 19th-century antisemitic conspiracy theory.

The tweet’s text reads: “A nasty, horrible Zionist! We can’t go over him, we can’t go under him, we’ll have to make an effigy.” It’s a reference to “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” by Michael Rosen.

In 2009, Corbyn called Hamas and Hezbollah his friends and said that Hamas is working to achieve peace and justice. Four years later he defended an antisemitic mural showing Jewish bankers playing Monopoly on the backs of dark-skinned men.

In 2015 he laid flowers on the graves of Palestinian terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972. That year he also said British “Zionists” don’t understand British irony.

Britain’s late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and the Board of Deputies of British Jews have called Corbyn an antisemite. The current chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, said Corbyn was “complicit in prejudice” against Jews. Dozens of Labour lawmakers who criticized Corbyn over antisemitism concerns have left amid anti-Semitic abuse by Corbyn supporters.  BULLSHIT, THIS IS A RIGHT WING ZIONIST TROPE, BECAUSE CORBYN AND THE LEFT SAY FREE PALESTINE INSTEAD OF ISRAEL HAS THE RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF

Corbyn has denied having any antisemitic biases.

Netanyahu to Blinken: We oppose consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem

Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would prefer that a consulate to another entity – the Palestinian Authority – not be on Israeli sovereign territory.

By LAHAV HARKOV
MAY 26, 2021 
Jerusalem Post

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, May 25, 2021
(photo credit: HAIM ZACH/GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel opposes the reopening of a US consulate for Palestinians in sovereign Israel, hours before the US went public with its plan to do so in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu said Israel would prefer that a consulate to another entity – the Palestinian Authority – not be on Israeli sovereign territory.

Blinken did not specify where in Jerusalem the new consulate would be. Many other countries have consulates or embassies to the Palestinians in east Jerusalem, which is part of Israel under Israeli law but not recognized by most countries, or in Ramallah.

The Trump administration then merged the US consulate for Palestinians into the US Embassy to Israel in the capital in March 2019; the move was mostly symbolic as most consulate workers continued doing the work they did before, but under the title of “Palestinian Affairs Unit.”

Blinken said in a press conference on Tuesday night that he is not sure what the time-frame will be on reopening the consulate.

"I can tell you that it’s, I think, important to have that platform to be able to more effectively engage not just the Palestinian Authority, but Palestinians from different walks of life, the NGO community, the business community, and others. And so we look forward to doing that," he stated.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said soon after that reopening the consulate "is an important step in our view, in terms of continuing to rebuild the relationship with the Palestinian leaders that was cut off for several years because of the closure of the consulate, because UNRWA funding was cut off in 2018, and there really wasn’t a method for engaging with Palestinian leaders and others."


Israeli Ambassador to the US and UN Gilad Erdan said that it is the US’s prerogative to reopen the consulate, but that Israel “indeed expressed clear opposition to reestablishing the consulate on Jerusalem’s municipal territory.”

“It can be in Abu Dis [or] Ramallah,” Erdan told KAN. “The fact that the Americans may have a security concern from opening a consulate for their workers in these places only shows what we’re talking about.”

Erdan also pointed out that opening the PA embassy in Jerusalem contradicts American policy recognizing the city as Israel’s capital, as former US president Donald Trump did in 2018 and US President Joe Biden said he would not reverse.

Still, Erdan said, “we can disagree with the current government and not every disagreement has to become a crisis. The fact is that, in the same breath, we are cooperating closely and [Blinken] announced his strong commitment to Israel’s security and replenishing the Iron Dome batteries.”

Erdan said that Netanyahu unequivocally supports US and other international humanitarian aid for Gaza but that his support is nuanced: “We can and must stop a humanitarian crisis, so things that are necessary like water, electricity, medicines or things like that certainly must be allowed, but we must check 100% that it is not reaching Hamas’s hands to be used to rebuild terrorist infrastructure.”

Netanyahu also supports economic projects for Palestinians in the West Bank, Erdan said, but only on the condition that the Palestinians back down from unilateral action against Israel in international organizations.

“When the PA promotes actions against us in the [International Criminal] Court in the Hague or [on Thursday] in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where there is a Palestinian initiative to form a commission of inquiry against Israel, we clarified to the Americans: The two things don’t go together. There won’t be an advanced dialogue with Abbas and the PA as long as they continue to try to harm the State of Israel, its soldiers and its civilians,” he said.

As such, Erdan explained, “we can try to promote economic projects but nothing beyond that, a diplomatic dialogue cannot be advanced in this way.”

Blinken said on Tuesday that Iran increased its violations of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action after the US left the deal in 2018, and a return to it was meant to put the nuclear threat “back in the box.”

Erdan, however, said Israel views Iran’s recent violations as a response to Biden campaigning last year on a return to the JCPOA.

Iran is “trying to put pressure, through what we call ‘nuclear extortion,’ to worsen its violations, because it doesn’t see an international military threat,” the ambassador said.

 “If Iran wants the US to return to the deal so badly, you have to ask, why do they want it? And I’ll answer why: Because in a few years, when the agreement ends, Iran will no longer have to violate it because it will have the legitimacy to have thousands of advanced centrifuges that will allow it to break out to a bomb in a very short time.
“Israel cannot accept this situation,” he added.

As for the American plan to negotiate a “longer and stronger” version of the JCPOA after Iran returns to compliance with the original, Edan pointed out that Blinken “didn’t say what would happen if the Iranians refuse to talk to them about the deal they want to aim for.”
“We totally believe the US government that it does not want Iran to have the bomb and that would be very bad, but for Israel it’s not just very bad, it’s an existential interest, because we are the ones directly threatened by Iran, and they are the ones building a network of terror organizations around us,” Erdan said.

As such, the ambassador added, “Israel will maintain its freedom to act, to take any step to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and no agreement will bind Israel to behave in a way that will tie its hands.”

|Occupied West Bank

Ireland recognises Israel’s ‘de facto annexation’ of Palestine

Gov’t now set to vote on amendment that, if passed, would expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland and impose sanctions against Israel.

Pro-Palestinian protesters seen on O'Connell Street, Dublin, during a Rally for Palestine on Saturday, May 22, 2021, in Dublin, Ireland [Artur Widak/ Getty Images]

26 May 2021

The Irish government has supported a parliamentary motion condemning the “de facto annexation” of Palestinian land by Israeli authorities, in what it said was the first use of the phrase by a European Union country in relation to Israel.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on Tuesday that the motion, brought forward by opposition party Sinn Fein, “is a clear signal of the depth of feeling across Ireland”.

KEEP READING

The AU’s words of solidarity for Palestine are no longer enough

‘Disgraceful’: AP slammed for sacking reporter amid Palestine row

Blinken arrives in Egypt to support Israel-Hamas ceasefire

“The scale, pace and strategic nature of Israel’s actions on settlement expansion and the intent behind it have brought us to a point where we need to be honest about what is actually happening on the ground. … It is de facto annexation,” Coveney, of the centre-right Fine Gael party, told parliament.

“This is not something that I, or in my view this house, says lightly. We are the first EU state to do so. But it reflects the huge concern we have about the intent of the actions and of course, their impact,” he said.

If passed, the amendment would require the government to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland and to impose economic, political and cultural sanctions against Israel.

Most countries view settlements Israel has built in territory captured in the 1967 war as illegal and as an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians.

Coveney, who has represented Ireland on the United Nations Security Council in debates on Israel in recent weeks, had insisted on adding a condemnation of recent rocket attacks on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas before he agreed to government support for the motion.

Some of the Irish parliamentarians wore face masks bearing the Palestine flag or of the checkered keffiyeh pattern.

The left-leaning Sinn Fein party refused to support the government amendment condemning Hamas attacks.

The motion came days after a ceasefire ended 11 days of the worst fighting between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in years.

The violence sparked large pro-Palestinian protests in Dublin.

At least 253 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children, according to Gaza’s health ministry, while about 2,000 were injured. At least 12 people were killed in Israel.

The Irish parliament, or Dáil, is set to debate the People Before Profit amendment of the Sinn Fein Private Members motion on Wednesday, with a vote expected later.

Some welcomed Ireland’s move on social media.

“Ireland has become the first EU state to recognise Israel’s de facto annexation of Palestine in contravention of international law,” tweeted Ronan Burtenshaw, editor of the UK’s socialist Tribune Magazine. “A landmark on the road to isolating an apartheid state as we did in the 1980s. Next stop: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.”

John Brady, a Sinn Fein politician, tweeted: “We have forced a massive shift on the position of the Irish Government. They have stated that Israel has de-facto annexed Palestinian lands. Ireland is 1st EU country to state Israel’s actions break international law. There must be consequences for these actions #FreePalestine.”

People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett described Wednesday’s coming vote as “historic”.

More than 5,200 people have signed Barrett’s petition, which calls on the Irish government “to publicly declare that the state of Israel is guilty of war crimes”.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Airships for city hops could cut flying’s CO2 emissions by 90%

Bedford-based blimp maker unveils short-haul routes such as Liverpool-Belfast that it hopes to serve by 2025

Hybrid Air Vehicles hopes to produce 12 of its Airlander 10 airships a year by 2025, 

each capable of carrying 100 people on short-haul flights. Illustration: Hybrid Air Vehicles

Rupert Neate

@RupertNeate

Wed 26 May 2021 

For those fancying a trip from Liverpool to Belfast or Barcelona to the Balearic Islands but concerned about the carbon footprint of aeroplane travel, a small Bedford-based company is promising a surprising solution: commercial airships.

Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV), which has developed a new environmentally friendly airship 84 years after the Hindenburg disaster, on Wednesday named a string of routes it hoped to serve from 2025.

The routes for the 100-passenger Airlander 10 airship include Barcelona to Palma de Mallorca in four and a half hours. The company said the journey by airship would take roughly the same time as aeroplane travel once getting to and from the airport was taken into account, but would generate a much smaller carbon footprint. HAV said the CO2 footprint per passenger on its airship would be about 4.5kg, compared with about 53kg via jet plane.

Other routes planned include Liverpool to Belfast, which would take five hours and 20 minutes; Oslo to Stockholm, in six and a half hours; and Seattle to Vancouver in just over four hours.

HAV, which has in the past attracted funding from Peter Hambro, a founder of Russian gold-miner Petropavlovsk, and Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, said its aircraft was “ideally suited to inter-city mobility applications like Liverpool to Belfast and Seattle to Vancouver, which Airlander can service with a tiny fraction of the emissions of current air options”.

Tom Grundy, HAV’s chief executive, who compares the Airlander to a “fast ferry”, said: “This isn’t a luxury product it’s a practical solution to challenges posed by the climate crisis.”

He said that 47% of regional aeroplane flights connect cities that are less than 230 miles (370km) apart, and emit a huge about of carbon dioxide doing so.

“We’ve got aircraft designed to travel very long distances going very short distances, when there is actually a better solution,” Grundy said. “How much longer will we expect to have the luxury of travelling these short distances with such a big carbon footprint?”

Grundy said the hybrid-electric Airlander 10 could make the same connections with 10% of the carbon footprint from 2025, and with even smaller emissions in the future when the airships were expected to be all-electric powered.

“It’s an early and quick win for the climate,” he said. “Especially when you use this to get over an obstacle like water or hills.”

HAV said it was in discussions with a number of airlines to operate the routes, and expected to announce partnerships and airline customers in the next few months. The company has already signed a deal to deliver an airship to luxury Swedish travel firm OceanSky Cruises, which has said it intends to use the craft to offer “experiential travel” over the North Pole with Arctic explorer Robert Swan.

Grundy said the company was in the final stages of settling on a location for its airship production line, which he hoped would be in the UK. He said the company would hire about 500 people directly involved in building the craft, and it would support a further 1,500 jobs in the supply chain. The company currently employs about 70 people, mostly in design, at its offices in Bedford. He said the company aimed to produce about 12 airships a year from 2025.

The craft was originally designed as a surveillance vehicle for intelligence missions in Afghanistan. HAV claims independent estimates put the value of the airship market at $50bn over the next 20 years. It aims to sell 265 of its Airlander craft over that period.

The £25m Airlander 10 prototype undertook six test flights, some of which ended badly. It crashed in 2016 on its second test flight, after a successful 30-minute maiden trip. HAV tweeted at the time: “Airlander sustained damage on landing during today’s flight. No damage was sustained mid-air or as a result of a telegraph pole as reported.”

The aircraft, which can take off and land from almost any flat surface, reached heights of 7,000ft (2,100m) and speeds of up to 50 knots (57mph) during its final tests. The company has had UK government backing and grants from the European Union.

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Stefan Boscia

Dominic Cummings said it was "crackers" Boris Johnson is Prime Minister (Getty Images)

Dominic Cummings has claimed Boris Johnson did not take the virus seriously even in February 2020, with the Prime Minister calling Covid-19 a “scare story”.

He said “senior officials and advisers such as me fell disastrously short” of expected standards during February and March of 2020 and that thousands died “unnecessarily” as the government had no plan at all for the pandemic.

Read more: Cummings Confessional: Your bingo card ahead of former No.10 aide’s Westminster tell-all

Johnson’s former top aide, who apologised for the government’s slow pandemic response, said herd immunity was Downing Street’s strategy up until mid-March and that health secretary Matt Hanock lied when he said it was never the plan on 15 March 2020.

Cummings told MPs this morning that the government was not spending much time on Covid-19 in January or February last year, saying that Boris Johnson saw it as a “scare story” and “the new swine flu”.

He said other top Downing Street advisers “were literally skiing in the middle of February” and that “it wasn’t until the last week of February that there was any sense of urgency across the Cabinet Office”.

The Prime Minister reportedly said in February 2020: “I’m going to get Chris Whitty to inject me with Covid so everybody knows there’s nothing to be frightened of.”

Cummings is facing MPs on a joint session of parliament’s Health and Science committees in a marathon session in which Johnson, the Department of Health and Hancock have been blamed for Covid failures.

Cumming said the government’s initial Covid plan was herd immunity lock and to not lock down down hard as eventually happened.

The rationale behind this is that it a lockdown would prolong the first peak of Covid-19 in order to get herd immunity and avoid a second peak in winter 2020 that could be worse, he said.

He said “Hancock himself and the chief scientific and medical officers were briefing journalists on the week of the 9th [March] that this is what the plan is”.

The former Number 10 aide said “by 11 and 12 [March] we’d already gone terribly wrong” and that he had began to call for a lockdown.

“Me and others realised the system was delaying [stricter Covid measures], because there’s not a proper plan in place,” he said.

Read more: Dominic Cummings to say PM said ‘Covid is only killing 80-year-olds’ to delay lockdown

“The justification was ‘it doesn’t matter if it’s now or in a week’s time’. The logic doesn’t work – these things are being delayed because there isn’t preparation and planning being made.”

Cummings also recalled when former deputy cabinet secretary Helen McNamara stormed in to Number 10 during this period to say “I think we are absolutely f***ed, I think this country is heading for a disaster, I think we’re going to kill thousands of people”.

He said: “On the 14th we said ‘you are going to have to lockdown’, but there is no lockdown plan, it doesn’t exist. Sage hasn’t modeled it, the Department of Health don’t have a plan, we are going to figure it out and hack it together.”

Cummings also took aim at Hancock, saying that he should have been fired “for at least 15,20 things” including “lying to everybody in multiple occasions in meeting after meeting in the cabinet room and publicly”.

He said this included a time when Hancock said that NHS treatments were not being delayed when they in fact were.

Cummings also said it was “crackers” Johnson was Prime Minister.

“Any system which ends up giving a choice between [Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn] to lead is obviously a system that has gone extremely badly wrong,” he said.

“In any sensible rational government it is complete crazy that I should have been in such a senior position in my personal opinion.

“I’m not smart, I’ve not built great things in the world, it’s completely crackers that someone like me should have been in there just the same as it was crackers Boris Johnson was in there.”

Read more: Top UK civil servant wanted to run Covid ‘chicken pox parties’ in March 2020

Downing Street has said: “There is a huge task for this government to get on with. We are entirely focused on recovering from the pandemic, moving through the roadmap and distributing vaccines while delivering on the public’s priorities.

“Throughout this pandemic, the government’s priority has been to save lives, protect the NHS and support people’s jobs and livelihoods across the United Kingdom.”