CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

States: Sackler family members abusing bankruptcy process


FILE - In this Aug. 9, 2021, file photo, fake pill bottles with messages about OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma are displayed during a protest outside the courthouse where the bankruptcy of the company is taking place in White Plains, N.Y. A federal judge should reject a sweeping settlement to thousands of lawsuits against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, a group of states said at a hearing Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021 arguing that the protections it extends to members of the Sackler family who own the firm are improper. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge should reject a sweeping settlement to thousands of lawsuits against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, a group of states said at a hearing Tuesday, arguing that the protections it extends to members of the Sackler family who own the firm are improper.

States have credible claims that family members took more than $10 billion from the company, steered it toward bankruptcy, and then used a settlement crafted in bankruptcy court to gain legal protections for themselves, Washington state Solicitor General Noah Purcell told U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon.

“If that is not an abuse of the bankruptcy process,” Purcell said, “it’s unclear what would be.”

The plan, crafted largely by those with claims against Purdue and approved in September by a federal bankruptcy judge, calls for members of the Sackler family to contribute more than $4 billion in cash, plus the company itself, to fight the opioid epidemic, which has been linked to more than 500,000 U.S. deaths in the past two decades, including deaths linked both to prescription and illicit drugs.

In exchange, members of the family are to be protected from lawsuits accusing them of spurring the crisis. The suits accuse the company and family members of helping to spark the overdose crisis by aggressively marketing OxyContin, a powerful opioid painkiller.

They would not be protected from criminal charges. They’re not facing any now, though a group of activists has been pushing federal authorities to bring charges against some members of the family, which includes some people who were executives and board members at the company and others with no involvement other than receiving money from it. Much of their fortunes are held in offshore trusts that could be hard to access in U.S. lawsuits.

Most state and local governments and thousands of individual victims of the epidemic agreed to the deal, though many did so grudgingly. Those groups are now joining with Purdue and Sackler family members to defend the plan from appeals from an office of U.S. Department of Justice, eight states, the District of Columbia, some Canadian local governments and Native American tribal groups, plus some individual victims.

In the hearing Tuesday in a New York City courtroom, McMahon focused on the $10.4 billion in transfers from Purdue coffers to family trusts from 2008 to 2018. Nearly half of that was used to pay taxes on the earnings.

The judge said that by taking bigger distributions over the decade leading to the company’s bankruptcy filings, Sackler family members “made themselves necessary” to the negotiations over how much money would be available for claimants.

Lawyers for the family said that distributions were bigger because the company was making more money and that there’s no evidence any of them were trying to manipulating the bankruptcy system.

Those appealing the plan contended that the protections the Sacklers got are more generous than what they could have received had they filed for bankruptcy themselves. Bankruptcy would also protect the company from lawsuits.

They also said that allowing the deal would usurp states’ ability to sue Sackler family members to hold them accountable.

“What confirmation of this plan does in this case is strip the states of police powers,” Maryland Assistant Attorney General Brian Edmunds said, “to protect the public from harm.”

Marshall Huebner, a lawyer for Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue, said the states were misstating some details of the settlement plans, including how U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain insisted that Sackler family members would receive protections from lawsuits involving only opioids made by Purdue.

He also noted that the overwhelming majority of governments agreed to the plan, which would funnel money to individual victims of the opioid crisis and to efforts to fight the crisis.

McMahon cut him off. “My questions focus on aspects of legality of the releases,” she said. “I don’t want to hear about the wonderful things it’s going to do. I know it was approved by a supermajority.”

Still, Huebner noted, there would be far less money to work on the crisis without money from Sackler family members. He said that if they could be sued and prevailed, they might not pay the settlement. And if they lost other lawsuits — they now face about 860 of them — they might not be able to afford to.

Kenneth Eckstein, a lawyer for a group of government entities supporting the settlement, said they also wanted the releases for Sackler family members.

If some states could sue the family, he said, the others would not accept a payment plan that stretches over nine years because of a risk that the Sacklers’ money would dry up before the installments could all be paid.

Mitchell Hurley, a lawyer for unsecured creditors who were seeking pieces of Purdue’s assets, said that if most of those groups had not joined to agree to a settlement, “the value of Purdue was going to be wasted and go to lawyers” rather than addressing the opioid crisis.

He noted that the government and private creditors — except the individual victims — have agreed to use all the money they receive to fight opioids, which are claiming 200 lives a day in the U.S. And that money, he said, could start flowing soon if it’s allowed.

“If it fails, if it blows up,” Hurley told McMahon, “it’s going to be the creditors who uniquely suffer the consequences.”

But Maria Ecke, who lost her son Jonathan in 2015 to an addiction that began 17 years earlier when he was prescribed opioids after being injured in a car crash, said the settlement hurts.

The Connecticut resident on Tuesday showed McMahon a poster of photos of her son and pleaded that the settlement not be allowed.

“The plaintiffs have suffered and continue to suffer physical and mental injuries,” she said.

McMahon has said she hopes to rule by next week, though a decision could take longer. Hers almost certainly won’t be the last word; whatever decision she reaches is likely to be appealed to a higher court.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 

Ghislaine Maxwell's and Elizabeth Holmes' fake feminist defenses are an insult to #MeToo

Amanda Marcotte, Salon
November 30, 2021

Ghislaine Maxwell (Photo: via Wikipedia)

ELIZABETH HOLMES

In the midst of all the tumult over the pandemic and other ongoing political disasters, it's easy to overlook the other historically remarkable moment happening right now: Ghislaine Maxwell and Elizabeth Holmes, the defendants in the two most high profile trials in the country this week, both happen to be women.

The crimes the two are charged with are, to be clear, very different. Maxwell's alleged victims are innocent teenage girls who she is accused of sex trafficking for her boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein. The alleged victims in the Holmes case, on the other hand, are less sympathetic — wealthy investors who were seemingly snookered due to their own arrogance and poor character judgment. (Holmes' company, Theranos, also harmed ordinary people who got false tests showing results like breast cancer or HIV, but they are not technically the victims in the government's fraud case.) But in a society where men are three times as likely to be charged with a crime than women, it's notable that what the two most famous alleged criminals on trial right now have in common is their gender.

To be certain, they have other things in common, as well.

Both are white women from high-class backgrounds. Their alleged crimes played out in the world of famous and wealthy people. Both seem to have a peculiar charm that they are accused of using to manipulate people. And most disturbingly, both have legal defenses that are relying on a glib and phony form of feminism.

Whether it works or not, feminists should be alarmed by this defense strategy, as it has the potential to confuse the public about what feminism is and what it isn't — and whether or not women should be treated like true equals of men, even if that means holding them equally accountable for their behavior.

"Ever since Eve has been blamed for tempting Adam with an apple, women have been blamed for things men have done," Maxwell's lawyer, Bobbi Sternheim, said during her opening statements on Monday. She called Maxwell a "scapegoat," and added, "She is not Jeffrey Epstein. She is not anything like Jeffrey Epstein."

On the stand this week, Holmes finally unveiled a defense that her legal team has been hinting at throughout the trial: That she is not accountable for fraud, because she's the hapless victim of male abuse. On Monday, Holmes first testified that she was a rape victim in college, suggesting that is the reason she dropped out of Stanford at 19 in order to start Theranos. Prior to being charged with defrauding investors, however, Holmes had portrayed her dropping out in purely positive terms. She was routinely equated with other Silicon Valley figures— most notably her hero, Apple CEO Steve Jobs — who had dropped out because their purported genius could not be contained by the tedium of traditional education.

Holmes then got into the meat of her defense, accusing her business partner and then-boyfriend, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, of being controlling and abusive. "Holmes testified that Balwani, 20 years her senior, coached her to adopt a rigorous daily schedule, dictated how she should control her body movements and behave as a business person, and forced her to have sex with him, 'because he said he wanted me to know that he still loved me,'" NBC News reports.

All this may be true, though Balwani denies it. But as an explanation for why Holmes repeatedly appeared to mislead investors, it leaves a lot to be desired. Instead, as with the opening statements in the Maxwell case, the defense appears to be leaning heavily on sexist assumptions that women simply don't have the agency to be true criminal masterminds, and that all responsibility for that kind of behavior must lay with men. Worse, in both cases, this sexist assumption is being repackaged as a kind of feminism in the #MeToo era.

It's frustrating because it is true that a lot of women in prison for various crimes probably don't deserve to be there because their crimes are a direct reaction to abuse or the result of being coerced by abusive men. But those kinds of crimes, such as drug use or prostitution, are often victimless crimes. In other cases, women are in prison for literally trying to defend themselves against abusive men.

Maxwell, on the other hand, is accused of procuring underage girls for Epstein's sexual exploitation, and even participating herself. Holmes is accused of lying to investors about what Theranos medical devices are capable of doing. These are not situations where someone is using drugs to cope with trauma or being forced into sex work. There's a deliberation to their behavior over literal years that simply can't be squared with the idea that they lacked agency and were under some kind of male control.

These kinds of defenses aren't really any kind of feminism, despite the trappings. They owe more to long-standing sexist beliefs that paint women as simply incapable of making any kind of decision, good or bad, and instead assuming all female choice-making is secretly controlled by men. While that stereotype may benefit these two women in their defenses, on the whole, it's very bad for women. The refusal to treat women as legitimate choice-makers, for instance, is used to deny women reproductive rights, job promotions, or even a chance to be political leaders. Allowing that women have the ability to make choices means accepting that sometimes, they make bad ones — or even criminal ones.

Holmes, in particular, has shown an adeptness at manipulating both feminist hopes and sexist stereotypes to get what she wants. She dressed and carried herself in a self-consciously masculine manner when she was allegedly defrauding investors, leaning into sexist assumptions about what "smart" and "capable" look like. Now that it benefits her to look less competent, however, she has adopted a more feminine style of hair and dress. Similarly, Maxwell is accused of using her gender and assumptions about women being "safe" to lure in Epstein's victims.

Both cases definitely underscore feminist arguments about how gender is more of a performance than a biological reality. But both defenses are depending on jurors not getting that, and instead assuming that women are inherently less capable than men.

Will it work?

Time will only tell, but there's good reason for feminists to hope it won't. Women's equality doesn't just mean accepting that women are equal to men in intelligence and competence. It also means accepting that a small percentage of women, like a small percentage of men, use those skills for bad purposes. Feminism is not well-served by the stereotype of women as hapless children who can't be assumed responsible for their own behavior. The trials of Holmes and Maxwell will serve as an interesting test of whether or not this more nuanced view of what women's equality truly means has sunk in with the public.

 CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Holmes interrogated over response to article that exposed Theranos flaws

Founder of blood testing start-up denies she trying to intimidate WSJ journalist

Miles Kruppa

Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos Inc, (C) arrives at federal court in California on Tuesday. Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

 

Prosecutors interrogated Elizabeth Holmes about her response to the investigative article that pierced her company’s rosy image in 2015 as the Theranos founder took the stand for a fifth day of testimony in her criminal fraud trial.

Ms Holmes said repeatedly on Tuesday she could not recall details about the tactics prosecutors said the blood-testing start-up used to silence whistleblowers. She denied that Theranos tried to intimidate the author of The Wall Street Journal report, John Carreyrou, who has been a frequent fixture in the San Jose federal court where her trial has been taking place.

Responding to questions from assistant US attorney Robert Leach, Ms Holmes said she did not remember the meaning behind text messages that showed she wanted to “get ahead” of the story, which alleged that the company’s proprietary devices did not work as advertised.

Ms Holmes said she wanted to prevent disclosure of the company’s “trade secrets” while admitting that she fumbled the response to the article.

“I think I mishandled the entire process of the Wall Street Journal reporting,” Ms Holmes said.

Ms Holmes faces 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. She has pled not guilty. Investors valued Theranos at $9 billion at the company’s peak before its decline and eventual shut down in 2018.

• Theranos founder accuses former boyfriend and business partner of abuse
• Elizabeth Holmes points fingers at others in Theranos fraud trial
• Elizabeth Holmes describes Theranos’s ‘big idea’ to jurors

Tuesday’s hearing gave prosecutors their first chance to directly interrogate Ms Holmes under oath. They questioned claims that Ms Holmes made about Theranos’ testing abilities, playing a clip on the business news channel CNBC in which she claimed that all the company’s testing offerings could be run on proprietary devices.

Ambitious entrepreneur

Attorneys for Ms Holmes have sought to paint her as an ambitious entrepreneur who failed to deliver on her grand vision. On Tuesday, she admitted that she held ultimate control over decisions at Theranos after being asked whether the “buck stops” with her. “I felt that,” she replied.

Ms Holmes appeared uneasy answering questions about a set of documents Theranos sent to investors and business partners that included the logos of Pfizer and other large pharmaceutical companies.

In previous testimony, Ms Holmes admitted she personally added the logos of Pfizer and Schering-Plough to documents purporting to show their work together. On Tuesday, she testified that she thought the reports were independent due diligence before admitting that they had been prepared by Theranos.

Prosecutors displayed a series of emails between Ms Holmes and Pfizer employees, emphasising that they did not contain any explicit endorsements of Theranos’s technology.

The questioning from prosecutors followed an emotional day of testimony on Monday, when Ms Holmes accused her former boyfriend and business partner Sunny Balwani of abusive behaviour, including repeated forced sex.

“He would get very angry with me and then he would sometimes come upstairs to our bedroom and he would force me to have sex with him when I didn’t want to,” Ms Holmes said. Mr Balwani’s attorneys have previously denied accusations of abuse.

Ms Holmes also said Mr Balwani would berate her for her performance as chief executive and had heavily influenced her leadership style. They lived together from 2005 until Mr Balwani left Theranos in 2016.

Judge Edward Davila has ordered a separate trial for Mr Balwani, who was charged at the same time as Holmes.

Prosecutors said on Tuesday they would probably finish their cross-examination early next week, and an attorney for Ms Holmes said the defence’s case would probably conclude by Friday. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2021

New powers to pushback and criminalise Channel crossings breach UK’s human rights obligations, JCHR finds

1 December 2021

Government proposals to forcibly push back people attempting to cross the Channel should be scrapped if the Government cannot show they are compatible with the UK’s human rights obligations, a report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights has found.

• Read the full report (HTML)
• Read the full report (PDF)
• Read the report summary
• Read the report's conclusions and recommendations
• Find all publications related to this inquiry, including oral and written evidence

Following legislative scrutiny of the Nationalities and Borders Bill, the Joint Committee finds that a suite of new measures to criminalise and disincentivise attempts to enter the UK without a visa or immigration leave will breach human rights law and the Refugee Convention.

It calls on the Government to switch focus and prioritise measures to ensure the safety of life at sea, and in particular preventing the loss of life of those attempting to cross the Channel. It further calls for reassurance that there will not be immunity from prosecution where criminal offences are committed by border officials leading to loss of life at sea.

The report is part of the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ ongoing legislative scrutiny of the Nationalities and Borders Bill. It focuses on Part 3 of the Bill which sets out the Government’s proposed changes to immigration law and sets out new powers for enforcement.

2021 has seen a steep rise in the number of migrants attempting to enter the UK by crossing the channel in small boats. In early November, over 1,000 people made the crossing in a single day. On Wednesday 24 November, 27 people drowned while attempting to make the crossing.

As a signatory to international treaties governing maritime law, including the SOLAS and SAR conventions and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, in addition to its wider obligations under human rights law, the UK is required to take all reasonable measures to prevent people coming to harm at sea.

The Joint Committee finds that Government proposals to ‘pushback’ migrants attempting to cross the Channel in small boats is likely to see the UK act in contravention of its international obligations. Greater powers to board, divert and detain vessels would add danger to an already perilous route, whilst failing to act as a deterrent to those making the journey or people smugglers.

The UK has an additional responsibility to ensure that cases of slavery or human trafficking are investigated fully and the victims protected. By focussing on repelling boats away from its territorial waters, the UK would be failing in this duty.

The Joint Committee calls for the Home Secretary to set out clearly how the enforcement powers would only operate in a manner that is compatible with human rights law. If this cannot be done the powers should be removed from the Bill. Where boats are not seaworthy and there is a risk to safety the focus should be on saving lives and the proposed legislation should reflect this.

Border officials who commit a criminal offence whilst carrying out pushbacks should not be immune from prosecution, particularly if their actions result in loss of life. The Bill should be amended to make clear that there is no impunity for criminal offences committed by officials during enforcements operations.

Plans to criminalise those arriving in the UK without a visa or immigration leave are inconsistent with the UK’s obligations under the United Nations Refugee Convention, which explicitly prohibits refugees being penalised for unauthorised entry. Given the limited options refugees have for entering the UK via legal routes the Government should reconsider these measures.

The criminalisation of those facilitating illegal arrival into the UK has been poorly thought out given the potential for those acting only to protect human life at sea being exposed to potentially disproportionate sentences and dissuaded from life-saving actions. Such measures would be inconsistent with international obligations to protect and save lives at sea, and with the fundamental right to life under the European Convention on Human Rights.

While some concerns for the right to access justice remain, reforms of immigration removals that would mandate five working days’ notice before a person is removed, up from the current 72 hour notice period, are welcomed. The Joint Committee finds that this would allow greater protections against removals taking place without legal challenge.

The introduction of more factors to count against the grant of bail would increase the risk that immigration detention will be used, and prolonged, where it is not necessary or proportionate. It should be removed from the Bill.

Chair's comments

Publishing the report, Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Harriet Harman MP said:

“The Channel is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and despite its short distance the cold and choppy waters make crossing perilous. In their desperation to come to the UK people risk travelling in small and unsuitable boats. As we have seen, the consequences are devastating when something goes wrong.

The Government is determined to prevent these crossings, but pushbacks are not the solution. They will not deter crossings, the seas will become even more dangerous and the people smugglers will continue to evade punishment. Current failures in the immigration and asylum system cannot be remedied by harsher penalties and more dangerous enforcement action.

The Bill is littered with measures that are simply incompatible with human rights law and the UK’s obligations under international treaties. That is why we have called on the Government amend the Bill by clearly setting out how any new measures can be carried out with respect to human rights law. Any measures that cannot meet these standards should be removed from the Bill completely.”

Further information

• Inquiry: Legislative Scrutiny: Nationality and Borders Bill
• Joint Committee on Human Rights
• About Parliament: Select committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch committees

Image: PA

AUSTRALIA LIKE BC
NSW flood damage bill expected to exceed $1b as November rain submerges crops
ABC Rural / By David Claughton, Lara Webster, and Michael Condon

Floodwater has spread across many parts of NSW, including the Upper Hunter.

(Supplied: David Mclean)

The cost of the New South Wales floods could exceed $1 billion after record November rain in the state.

Key points:

Many crops are still submerged and more rain is forecast

The downgrading of grain quality will see payments to many farmers plummet

The DPI says the scale may be greater than the flooding in 2016

The NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) is assessing the damage, but downgrades in the quality of crops and damage to fences and equipment are likely to be significant.

DPI emergency coordinator Simon Oliver said the scale could be greater than the flooding in 2016 and that the damage to crops would hurt farmers the most.

This year's yield was set to be bigger than 2016's.

"It's going to take a while to get a true figure, but the damage in that event was over a billion dollars," Mr Oliver said.


"So when you add infrastructure and roads, the council damage bill could be at that level or even higher."

Growers are struggling to get into the paddock to assess the damage and some may not be able to harvest at all.

"If it continues to rain, as has been forecast in some places, it's going to be impossible to get a harvester in," Mr Oliver said.

Photos capture extent of NSW north-west floods

These images show the impact of floodwaters inundating the saturated plains of the NSW north-west, cutting off towns and submerging crops.Read more

Dairy farmers have got problems with fodder crops and pastures.

"We are already seeing some problems with yield," Mr Oliver said.

"A lot of lucerne and fodder crops have been under water for days."

But the news was not all bad — Mr Oliver said farmers had moved livestock early and the department had not received many calls for assistance.

"We have had to do some mustering jobs by air to push stock out of the water," he said.

"There's been a few fodder drops, but in the main people have done a really great job in moving large stock out of harm's way."

Farmers can get assistance by calling 1300 795 299.

Chris Mammen says wheat that might have been worth $1,000 per tonne is now only worth a few hundred per tonne.(ABC Rural: Lara Webster)

Crops under water

Gunnedah grain grower Chris Mammen's wheat paddocks have been flooded a number of times.

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He is expecting to lose hundreds of dollars a tonne when he finally harvests the crop, which has been standing in water for a week or more.

"If we can get it off it will all be downgraded and probably drop in yield too," Mr Mammen said.


"Some of this could have been worth upwards of $800 to $1,000 dollars a tonne for me, but now it is feed [grade] and will go under $200 a tonne."

Robert Weinthal says the damage will be widespread, but some crops like sorghum and corn are coping better.(ABC Rural: Lara Webster)

Boggabri farmer and agronomist Robert Weinthal says much of the local wheat crop will be downgraded significantly.

"There's some pretty ugly sights, to be honest, in terms of where the crops were at and what they're looking like now," he said.

"It's hard to say how much damage really has been done.

"It will be a lot — there's no denying that."

But Mr Weinthal is optimistic that some summer plantings will pull through.

"There's a lot of summer crop you could see from the air, some advanced sorghum and corn, that's really enjoying life," he said.

WW3.0  POSTPONED
No obligation to defend Ukraine from Russia, Nato chief says

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg said Russia would pay a high price if it invaded Ukraine, while also pointing out Ukraine is not a Nato member, only a partner (Photo: nato.int)

By ANDREW RETTMAN

BRUSSELS


Nato has indicated it would not defend Ukraine if it was attacked by Russia, while warning the Kremlin it would still pay a "high price" in terms of sanctions if it did so.

"It is important to distinguish between Nato allies and partner Ukraine. Nato allies, there we provide [Article 5] guarantees, collective defence guarantees, and we will defend and protect all allies. Ukraine is a partner, a highly-valued partner," Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said in Riga on Tuesday (30 November).

"There's a difference between a partner Ukraine and an ally like, for instance, Latvia", he added.

"We need to understand the difference between a Nato ally, Latvia, other Baltic countries, Poland, Romania, and a close and highly valued partner, Ukraine. We provide support for Ukraine ... for the Nato allies we have the security guarantees, Article 5", he reiterated.

Stoltenberg spoke at a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Latvia amid a Russian military build-up on Ukraine's eastern border.

"We see [Russian] heavy armour, we see drones, and combat ready troops [near Ukraine]", he said.

But his comments on Article 5 in the Nato treaty were a sign the Western alliance would not defend Ukraine in the event of an attack, just as it did not do so in Russia's first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, or Russia's invasion of Georgia, also a Nato "partner", in 2008.

Russia would still pay a "high price" for any fresh aggression, the Nato chief added.

But this would likely be limited to economic sanctions and additional defensive deployments on Nato's eastern flank, he indicated.

"There will be a high price to pay for Russia if they once again use force against the independent, sovereign nation Ukraine," he said on Tuesday.

"We have demonstrated our ability to impose costs, economic, political actions. And also, over the years, increased our military presence in this region," he added.

There would be "heavy economic and financial sanctions, political sanctions", he said.

Nato already had Russia-deterrent battalions in the Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions.

These are meant to act as 'tripwire' for up to 40,000 rapid reaction forces in the event of war.

Latvia, Poland and Belarus

For its part, Latvia has called for US troops and Patriot missile batteries to be permanently stationed on its territory due to the increasingly tense climate.

And for his part, Russian president Vladimir Putin dialled up tension in remarks at an economic forum in Moscow also on Tuesday.

Nato military assistance to Ukraine was a threat to Russia, he said.

"We can also do this [cause threats]. The flight time it takes to reach those who give orders [in Nato] is five minutes," he said, referring to the flight-time of a Russian hypersonic missile.

The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said the same day that Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine, was both "de facto" and "de jure" Russian territory.

His comments indicated he planned to recognise its annexation on an upcoming visit there, further jangling nerves in the region.

Lukashenko, last weekend, also said he would fight on Russia's side in any war with Ukraine and announced new military drills on Ukraine's border.

His Ukraine war-talk comes after recently pushing thousands of migrants to attack EU borders in Lithuania and Poland.

Poland also fears Russia will shortly build new military bases on the Belarus-EU border as part of the two countries' secret, joint "military doctrine".

"The Kremlin and its allies want to change the political system and destabilise the region," Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the BBC on Tuesday.

"We have to wake up from our geopolitical nap," he added.

UKRAINE IS NOT YOURS 

Lukashenko pledges to win Ukraine back

MINSK, 1 December (BelTA) – I will never be on the side of frenzy nationalists in Ukraine, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said in an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov, Director General of the Russian state news agency MIA Rossiya Segodnya, BelTA has learned.

“I will never be on the side of those frenzy nationalists that we see in Ukraine today. I will do everything possible to win Ukraine back. This is our Ukraine. Ukrainians are our kith and kin. These are not just emotions. This is my strong belief,” the Belarusian leader stressed.

“If Russia faces an aggression from Ukraine, we will stand by Russia, legally, economically, politically. Legally is the main word here,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.

Palestinian cast back out of play about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

“Abraham’s Land,” the musical about the Israel-Palestinian conflict originally produced in 1991, has been revived for a new generation – but several Palestinians from original the cast backed out.

By JONAH GOLDMAN KAY/JTA
Published: DECEMBER 1, 2021 

JERUSALEM POST

Bobbi Ktula, Hersh Powers, Lila Bahng, Hugh MacDonald and Mira Gross-Keck in the stage musical "Abraham's Land."
(photo credit: BEN KERNS)

When Seattle-based playwright and theater director Lauren Goldman Marshall first staged her original musical about the Israel-Palestinian conflict in 1991, she had recently embarked on a journey of self-discovery prompted by the First Intifada. Working alongside Palestinian collaborators, she produced a heartfelt show meant to celebrate “seeing the other.”

Thirty years later, that show, “Abraham’s Land,” has been revived for a new generation. A new adaptation was staged in Seattle this summer, and a filmed version is streaming for free online through Dec. 31.

But much has changed in the intervening decades, from the trajectory of peace efforts to sentiments among American Jews to ideas in the theater world about what constitutes meaningful representation on stage.

And now, several Palestinians who were involved in the first staging, including the play’s original co-author, have backed out of the project. They say the Jewish producers ignored their concerns about representation and a narrative they perceived as racist.

From left: David Studwell, Maria Habeeb, Netanel Ballaishe and Hassan Nazari-Robati in a scene from ''Abraham's Land,'' an original stage musical about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, streaming online through Dec. 31, 2021. (credit: BEN KERNS)

“This play has harmed Palestinians both on a political level and on an interpersonal level over its 30-year existence,” reads an open letter penned by Palestinian former members of the crew. “This production and those behind it cannot continue to exploit our communities.”

At least one Jewish group is rethinking its support of the production in light of the public outcry: Kadima Reconstructionist Community, a Seattle-area congregation, withdrew its endorsement of “Abraham’s Land” following the open letter.

Other former collaborators say there’s nothing left the show can teach anyone.

“The play is outdated,” Palestinian-American playwright Hanna Eady, who co-wrote the original script with Goldman Marshall, said about “Abraham’s Land” today. “It has nothing to do with what’s going on here, or what has been going on since the first Intifada — nothing.”

“Abraham’s Land” was originally inspired by Goldman Marshall’s reaction to the first Intifada in the late 1980s, during which she reconsidered her own relationship to Israel as an American Jew. She visited Israel, stayed in a Palestinian refugee camp and held a conversation with Israeli soldiers who were struggling with their role in the occupation.

“I thought that there was an oppressor and an oppressed, and the Palestinians were living under a very harsh and brutal occupation,” Goldman Marshall told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

She wanted to help other Jews understand the effects of the occupation on the Palestinian people.

“I felt that maybe now Jewish Americans could hear this,” she said. “We needed to open up the dialogue. If we don’t speak out, who will?”

In the show, an Israeli soldier named Yitzhak kills a man named Ismail, a Palestinian with a bright future and a passion for coexistence, during a peaceful protest. Haunted by Ismail’s ghost, Yitzhak goes on a journey of self-discovery in an attempt to cope with the effects of his actions. Dressing as a Palestinian, he sneaks into Gaza and meets Ismail’s family in an attempt to seek their forgiveness.

Goldman Marshall worked alongside Eady, who co-wrote the script, and began to workshop the play with Jewish and Palestinian participants. First staged in 1991, the finished production reflected the kind of dialogue-driven optimism that defined the years leading up to the Oslo Accords. If the audience could just “see the humanity of the other side,” Goldman Marshall thought, perhaps it would inspire meaningful progress toward peace.

In 1999, Goldman Marshall reworked the play in collaboration with campers at Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit that brings together American, Israeli and Arab youth for peace-building summer camp sessions. At the camp, some of the adult chaperones from the Seeds of Peace Israeli delegation thought the play was “too pro-Palestinian.” After uproar from the students who were involved, the play was ultimately performed, but after that brief restaging, Goldman Marshall shelved the script.

Over the last few years, the playwright watched as conversations around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shifted. American Jews as a whole grew more critical of Israel’s actions against the Palestinians, becoming increasingly comfortable with using words like “apartheid” to describe the country’s policies in Gaza and the West Bank. If the mainstream Jewish community wasn’t ready for the play when it came out in the 1990s, Goldman Marshall thought, perhaps they’d be ready for it now.

Goldman Marshall’s own views shifted, as well, to the point where she began questioning the entire Zionist project and the two-state solution.

“It is in Jewish best interests, morally and pragmatically, to rethink the notion of Israel as a Jewish state,” she wrote in a 2018 op-ed for The Seattle Times after the Trump administration moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a relocation that prompted protests from Palestinians and liberal Jews alike.

So while she saw an opportunity in this new climate to finally have a receptive audience for “Abraham’s Land,” Goldman Marshall also knew that the play would need to be adjusted to account for her own changing politics.

She began working with Eady on updating the script. The play had originally focused on both Yitzhak and Ismail as flawed characters in need of empathy for the other. But in its newer form, Ismail understands the Israeli experience, while Yitzhak struggles to come to terms with his role as an occupier.

When Eady saw these changes, he pushed back, telling Goldman Marshall that her script was insulting to the Palestinian cause. In particular, he objected to Goldman Marshall’s decision to make one of the Palestinian characters a suicide bomber — a portrayal Eady says is both racist and “harmful to a lot of Palestinians.” After months of disagreements, Eady ultimately pulled out of the project.

“It’s a real bad play — from the title to the last word,” he said.

Eady, who is still credited on the revival’s poster as an original co-writer, said he only got involved in the first place because, in the post-Oslo years, it felt like Goldman Marshall’s “both sides” approach was as good as things could get for Palestinians. He said he had objected to the treatment of the Palestinian characters at the time, but thought the play was his only chance to offer his side of the story.

“It was like taking [a] bucket of shit for a little bit of honey on the bottom,” he said.

The more recent groundswell of support for the Palestinian cause, both within the Jewish community and outside of it, emboldened Eady to demand more from the play this time around. He said his onetime collaborator refused to acquiesce.

Goldman Marshall said she remains committed to the idea that understanding the other — a framework that has fallen out of favor among many on the left who argue that it shores up an oppressive status quo — is the best way to achieve peace.

“I felt that if I could dig deeper, make the characters more three-dimensional, and broaden my own compassion, maybe I could move more hearts and minds,” she said.

After leaving the play, Eady soon found out that he was not alone in his frustrations with the play and its author. A number of other Palestinian members of the crew and external advisors said Goldman Marshall had ignored their concerns over the portrayal of Palestinians in “Abraham’s Land,” or exploited their labor and experiences for her own goals.

The breaking point for many of the Palestinian participants was Goldman Marshall’s decision to cast Netanel Bellaishe, a Jewish Israeli actor, as Ismail, the Palestinian lead whose ghost haunts the Israeli character. Since the George Floyd protests last summer, Broadway has been embroiled in an ongoing debate about the limits of representation in theater, and actors and directors have questioned whether roles should be cast based on the race of the character, especially if those characters belong to an underrepresented community.

The Palestinian participants who left the play wrote a letter, which JTA reviewed, to Goldman Marshall outlining their complaints. To them, it was unthinkable to cast Bellaishe, a former IDF soldier, as a Palestinian killed by an Israeli. Eady compares Goldman Marshall’s decision to a playwright deciding to cast a German to play a Jew in a play about the Holocaust.

The anger over casting Bellaishe wasn’t just about representation, they said — it was about the underlying politics of that decision. If Goldman Marshall was willing to cast an Israeli as a Palestinian, against the wishes of her own Palestinian crew members, did she actually care about their cause?

An early Seattle production of ''Abraham's Land,'' starring Vincent Mancuso as Yitzhak, dates back to 1992. The show has undergone revisions since then, but its Palestinian collaborators still said the new version retained anti-Palestinian sentiments. (credit: Lauren Goldman Marshall)

The producers of “Abraham’s Land” defended their decision to cast Bellaishe as Ismail, saying that he was the most qualified actor for the role, and highlighting the inclusion of Palestinian cast members elsewhere in the production.

“As far as I was concerned, there was no reason to not offer the role to Netanel, because he was quite clearly the best professional for the role,” said David Grabarkewitz, the play’s director.

Goldman Marshall says that while representation is important, actors also benefit from playing characters with different backgrounds than their own.

“I did feel very strongly that it was important to have Palestinian representation in the cast,” she says. “But I don’t think that it means that you always have to play your own side.”

But for Eady and the other Palestinian crew members who left the project, Goldman Marshall’s words didn’t align with her actions. Falastiniyat, a feminist Palestinian activist group in Seattle, wrote a letter to Goldman Marshall on behalf of the Palestinian participants. In it, they claim that “when Palestinians expressed concern with the racism of the narrative, this feedback was ignored or outright justified.”

Palestinian cast members also said that Goldman Marshall routinely asked them to go beyond their role as actors and offer advice on Palestinian culture. While it’s normal for playwrights to solicit suggestions from their cast, the Palestinian participants claim Goldman Marshall effectively turned them into unpaid cultural consultants. Many of these crew members say they were also asked to share personal stories of their lives under occupation, which Goldman Marshall “edited without consent” by using them in ways that betrayed the original stories without consultation, according to the letter from Falastiniyat.

In a follow-up email, Goldman Marshall said that Falastiniyat had not provided evidence to support their claims, which she said were “either false or taken out of context.”

After Falastiniyat published its letter, Kadima withdrew its support for the project. The Reconstructionist synagogue initially published a message on its website explaining its decision, but has since removed it; the congregation told JTA it was revising its public message about the project, but did not provide the text of the original message. Various other interfaith organizations remain involved with the project.

In the end, many of the Palestinian cast members ended up quitting the production, feeling tokenized and ignored. Whereas Goldman Marshall believed she was facilitating dialogue and asking tough questions about the conflict, the Palestinian participants say she took advantage of their experiences to legitimize the production.

“If her goal is to convert Jews who support occupation, that’s not how you do it,” Eady says.

Some Palestinian groups and individuals, including the Gaza-based nonprofit Palestine Charity Team and its manager Alaaeldin Ahmed M. Abusaker, remain listed as supporters of the play; one of its summer performances was accompanied by a talk from a Gaza resident and public health professional.

At the end of the show, the protagonist exclaims, “It’s not Israel. It’s not Palestine. It’s Abraham’s land.” For Palestinian participants who left the play, this line ignored their struggle for recognition in favor of Goldman Marshall’s nebulous concept of empathy. Their letter is emphatic: “The land is and will always be Palestine.”

SEVEN YEARS BAD LUCK

Watch the moment Boris Johnson broke his menorah — seconds after he was gifted it

Why you should never wave a Chanukkiah about, as demonstrated by the prime minister at the Conservative Friends of Israel business lunch

By MICHAEL DAVENTRY November 30, 2021

As Boris Johnson concluded his remarks at Monday’s Conservative Friends for Israel annual business lunch, much of the audience in London’s Park Plaza Hotel will have thought the hilarity was at an end.

But there was one more moment to come as Lord Polak, CFI’s honorary president, rose to his feet.

He invited the prime minister and Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister, back to the stage to offer them a short word of thanks.

There they were presented with a menorah – it was Chanukah, after all.

It took Johnson mere seconds to wave his gift in the air, like a footballer hoisting aloft the World Cup, and sent parts of the candelabra flying across the stage.

As Yair Lapid roared with laughter, the prime minster and Lord Polak scrambled around the floor of the stage to collect the pieces and restore the menorah to its former glory.

How a groundbreaking 1964 study 'introduced a genuine neurological argument against free will'

Alex Henderson, AlterNet
November 29, 2021

Brain image (Shutterstock)

For decades, neuroscientists have been debating the question: How much free will do people actually have? Why are some people inclined to make better, wiser decisions than others? And why do some people, even those considered highly intelligent, act on their worst impulses while others don't

Those are the sort of questions that neuroscientists have been grappling with over the years.

New York City-based science writer Bahar Gholipour discussed the "death of free will" in a much-read article published by The Atlantic on September 10, 2019. And he explained why a 1964 study continued to have an impact on how some neuroscientists view that subject.

"The death of free will began with thousands of finger taps," Gholipour wrote. "In 1964, two German scientists monitored the electrical activity of a dozen people's brains. Each day for several months, volunteers came into the scientists' lab at the University of Freiburg to get wires fixed to their scalp from a showerhead-like contraption overhead. The participants sat in a chair, tucked neatly in a metal tollbooth, with only one task: to flex a finger on their right hand at whatever irregular intervals pleased them, over and over, up to 500 times a visit."

Gholipour continued, "The purpose of this experiment was to search for signals in the participants' brains that preceded each finger tap. At the time, researchers knew how to measure brain activity that occurred in response to events out in the world — when a person hears a song, for instance, or looks at a photograph —but no one had figured out how to isolate the signs of someone's brain actually initiating an action."

That German experiment from 57 years ago, according to Gholipour, was groundbreaking because it showed "the brain readying itself to create a voluntary movement."

Gholipour explained, "This momentous discovery was the beginning of a lot of trouble in neuroscience. Twenty years later, the American physiologist Benjamin Libet used the Bereitschaftspotential (readiness potential) to make the case not only that the brain shows signs of a decision before a person acts, but that, incredibly, the brain's wheels start turning before the person even consciously intends to do something. Suddenly, people's choices — even a basic finger tap — appeared to be determined by something outside of their own perceived volition."

Libet, according to Gholipour, "introduced a genuine neurological argument against free will."

"Over time, the implications have been spun into cultural lore," Gholipour wrote in 2019. "Today, the notion that our brains make choices before we are even aware of them will now pop up in cocktail-party conversation or in a review of Black Mirror. It's covered by mainstream journalism outlets, including This American Life, Radiolab, and this magazine. Libet's work is frequently brought up by popular intellectuals such as Sam Harris and Yuval Noah Harari to argue that science has proved humans are not the authors of their actions."

Coal: The end is nigh — or is it?

As coal power is phased out in favor of cheaper renewable energy, the fossil fuel's future looks bleak. Yet coal is making a comeback as it helps power post-pandemic recoveries.



Coal power generation might be surging this winter, but experts say the fossil fuel's days are numbered


Amid a worldwide energy crisis, global coal power emissions are surging to pre-pandemic highs, especially in China and India. Rising oil and gas prices and the onset of winter have conspired with the energy needs of rebounding post-COVID economies to increase coal demand after a long decline.

The renaissance of the most carbon intensive fossil fuel was further reinforced when a commitment to a coal "phase-out" in the Glasgow Climate Pact was weakened to a "phase-down."

Going into COP26, the UK president of the conference Alok Sharma said he hoped the summit would "consign coal power to history" in a bid to keep global heating to around 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit). That didn't quite happen.

"A green light for more coal production," was how former Australian resources minister, Matt Canavan, responded to the last-minute diluting of the plan to exit coal.

"The countries in our region, like India, like China, like Southeast Asia, are growing and developing their industries, and their demand for coal almost has no limit," he said in a television interview.

Experts admit that the weakened language in the Glasgow agreement could muddy the broader momentum towards a coal phase-out by 2030 or 2040 at the latest.

But the current spike in coal demand will be a "short-term phenomenon" linked to a strong post-lockdown economic rebound, believes Catharina Hillenbrand von der Neyen, head of research at climate think tank, Carbon Tracker. "I would strongly caution against any view that this is the revival of coal."

Revival unlikely to last

Neyen expects coal to revert to its pre-COVID slide driven by cheaper renewables — including in China, which generated over half of the world's coal-fired power in 2020.

"The structural trend is for steeply falling load factors," she said, meaning that with competition from renewables, coal plants aren't running at full capacity, rendering them unprofitable. While new coal power plants are being built, they contribute to an oversupply that only exacerbates the problem. As a result, 27% of the global coal fleet has become unviable, according to Carbon Tracker.

"If I could put all my eggs into the coal basket again, you might find they drop onto the floor quite quickly," said Hillenbrand von der Neyen of coal's precipitous long-term outlook.

 


Gaurav Ganti, a researcher with Berlin-based think tank Climate Analytics, agrees. "This short-lived renaissance is unlikely to persist, given strong headwinds from low-cost renewables," he said.

Even as China and India power their COVID recovery with coal, the fact remains that the number of planned new coal power plants has declined by 76% since 2015 when the Paris Agreement was signed, according to climate change think tank E3G. This is equivalent to China's whole coal capacity.
'No room for complacency'

China provided about 75% of global coal investment in 2020. However, its decision in September to end funding of coal projects beyond its shores, and to peak its own coal use by 2025 as part of its 2060 net-zero emissions plan, is a further signal of coal's inevitable demise, said Ganti.

"However, there is no room for complacency," he added — even despite the broader commitment by 47 countries at COP26 to phase out coal via the Global Coal to Clean Power Transition Statement. "Our work indicates that keeping to 1.5 C, the warming limit of the Paris Agreement, requires coal-fired power to be phased out by 2030 in developed economies, and 2040 globally. Developing countries will require substantial international support for ditching coal."

And despite the Glasgow conference backing away from firm language on ending coal, individual countries are bringing their phase-out deadlines forward.

Germany's new governing coalition — comprising Social Democrats (SDP), Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) — is aiming for a 2030 coal exit, eight years ahead of the country's previous schedule.

Germany is Europe's second largest coal consumer and producer, but even amid a nuclear energy phase-out, it already managed to halve coal power consumption between 2010 and 2020. And while it's true that coal energy demand has also spiked in Germany in 2021, this was due in part to unusually poor weather conditions for wind and solar.

 
Financing a global coal phase-out

Along with other EU nations and the US, Germany is also helping to finance a coal phase-out in South Africa, which produces 90% of its energy from coal and is the biggest emitter of the fossil fuel in Africa. Germany's then-environment minister described the $8.5 billion (€7.3 billion) initiative agreed to in Glasgow to fund the shift from coal to clean energy as a potential "blueprint" for other regions.

Meanwhile, Portugal this week completely stopped burning coal for energy, two years ahead of a planned phase-out.

Fossil fuel powerhouse Ukraine has also committed to ending coal-power generation by 2035, or 2040 at the latest. At COP26, the country joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), a coalition of national governments, businesses and organizations committed to an accelerated coal exit.
Stranded coal assets

Researchers are warning that governments who stick with coal could be set to lose billions in stranded assets — as well as hundreds of thousands of jobs — as the world decarbonizes to limit heating to below 2 degrees Celsius. A stranded asset is something that had value or generated income but no longer does.

According to a June 2021 report, one-third of coal mines in Europe, North America and Australia will become stranded assets by 2040 if countries meet their climate targets. Australia, for example, could lose $25 billion (€22 billion) per year in this scenario. Globally, 2.2 million jobs could be at risk unless countries act quickly to transition to a cleaner energy system.

But economics is not the only motivation to get out of coal. "Governments face a choice here," said Gaurav Ganti. "Invest in the fossil fuels of yesterday and risk stranded assets, or invest in renewable energy to get us on a 1.5 C pathway."

Edited by Ruby Russell/Jennifer Collins