THE MULTITUDE  NO ONE IS ILLEGAL 

European countries must provide safe routes for refugees

Ending the people smuggling trade will not be easy, but implementing safe pathways can and will undermine those seeking to exploit refugees and save lives, writes John Lannon
Having fled from war, persecution and violence, the trauma experienced in their home countries is compounded by violent and life-threatening experiences in Europe, often at the hands of police.

 Photo: AP/Rafael Yaghobzadeh

WED, 01 DEC, 2021 - 20:26
JOHN LANNON

As Europe comes to terms with the tragic deaths of 27 people in the English Channel, it’s time for governments, including Ireland’s, to do more to provide safe routes for people in need of international protection.

Deaths like these are predictable and preventable and can be avoided if governments work together in a timely and effective manner to share responsibility for the protection of refugees. The deaths included seven women and three children.

The desperation that drove them and others to undertake their perilous journey across a cold, dark sea in a flimsy boat highlights what a hostile environment Europe has become for people seeking safety and protection. It’s not just the English Channel in which people are dying.

People fleeing from oppression in Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and other parts of the world are losing their lives on other European Union borders. From January to September 2021 an estimated 1,369 migrants lost their lives while crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

Read More
EU plane to monitor Channel for crossings as leaders stress need to work with UK

And at least eight people have died on the Poland/Belarus border in recent weeks, having been trapped in a densely wooded border zone in sub-zero temperatures with no food or shelter.

Having fled from war, persecution and violence, the trauma experienced in their home countries is compounded by violent and life-threatening experiences in Europe, often at the hands of police. Just outside Dunkirk, local police have an ongoing policy of “continuous removal” of the tents of hundreds of people, mostly Iraqi Kurds, resulting in their meagre possessions being trashed, lost or stolen.

It shouldn’t be like this. Seventy years ago the 1951 Refugee Convention was established as a response to the urgent needs of refugees generated by World War II. In 2001, the UN’s Refugee Agency, the UNHCR, described it as a timeless treaty under attack.

This is the case now more than ever, as people are increasingly forced to flee persecution, war and human rights violations and to seek refuge in other countries. It’s time now for Europe to live up to the commitments made 70 years ago, and to ensure an effective collective response to the conflict and wars now being waged.

Governments have a duty to protect the fundamental rights of all people under their jurisdiction, regardless of their nationality and/or legal status. This includes providing access to asylum procedures.

According to a recent UK Refugee Council report, 98% of people crossing the English Channel in treacherous conditions claim asylum. Right now, people are being denied that right.

States have the sovereign power to regulate entry, and have an obligation to guard, control and protect their borders. However, international law provides that measures to this effect cannot prevent people from seeking asylum.

Instead of governments looking to apportion blame for the arrival of people who may be in need of international protection, they need to work together to ensure safe routes that provide solutions for refugees.

There is a range of options open to them, including refugee resettlement, family reunification, and complementary pathways that provide opportunities for refugees to enter and settle in a country through labour mobility, education and other schemes. They can also include community sponsorship programmes that are additional to resettlement, and humanitarian admission programmes.

As part of the UN Global Compact on Refugees, states committed to expanding access to third-country solutions, including opportunities for resettlement and complementary pathways for the safe admission of refugees. This ground-breaking agreement recognises that a sustainable solution to refugee situations cannot be achieved without international cooperation.

Read More
How are people-smuggling gangs exploiting English Channel crossings?

European countries, including Ireland, must therefore do more by providing safe pathways for people in need of international protection. The proposed Afghan Admissions Programme announced by the Irish government in September is a welcome initiative in this regard. However, the delay in implementing it is problematic for those at risk.

Members of the Afghan community in Ireland worry constantly about the safety of family members in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries. We should not force them, through our inaction, to make decisions like the people who died in the English Channel.

Evidence has shown that governments’ refusal or unwillingness to provide safe passage for people seeking refuge, while instead focusing their efforts on shutting down smuggling activities, will continue to result in loss of life. Despite the fact that thousands of people have drowned in the Mediterranean, the crossings have not ended. The same is true in the English Channel.

Ending the people smuggling trade will not be easy. But implementing safe pathways can and will undermine those seeking to exploit refugees. And it will save lives.

John Lannon is the CEO of Doras, a Limerick-based national organisation working to protect the rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.

On Thursday, December 9th at 7pm Doras is hosting an online event with special guest speakers to mark its 21st anniversary as well as 21 years of Direct Provision. More information and free registration at www.doras.org

Letter from the U.K.

The Tragic Choices Behind Britain’s Refugee Crisis

The drowning of twenty-seven people in the English Channel was not an inevitable disaster.

By Sam Knight

December 1, 2021

Rafts that migrants used to cross the Channel now sit in a storage facility in Dover, England.

Photograph by Dan Kitwood / Getty

It has been a cold, calm November in southern England. Every few days, the autumnal murk has been punctured by skies of frigid, high-blue brilliance. And on these days, inflatable rubber boats—gray or black, sometimes as many as a few dozen—have set off from the wide, sandy beaches of northern France and chanced a course through the shipping lanes of the English Channel, seeking to bring migrants and refugees to the shores of Britain. “After five hours, the floating boat stopped working,” a Middle Eastern man who recently made the crossing, and whom I will call Adam, said. “Water started to enter our boat.” According to Adam, there were forty-eight people on his dinghy, including women and young children. He called the British Coast Guard from his cell phone and gave them the boat’s location. “She told me, ‘O.K., give us two hours,’ ” Adam recalled. “Two hours?” he replied. “We will be under the sea.” A patrol vessel reached them in an hour. While they were waiting to be rescued, a fishing trawler circled the dinghy three times, and a man shouted at them in English. “Just racists,” Adam told me. “They came and said, ‘Go back to your country. Go back to France.’ ”

On November 24th, a rubber boat like Adam’s got into difficulties soon after leaving the French coast, near Dunkirk. The French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, later said that the craft was obviously unseaworthy, “like a pool that you blow up in your garden.” At around 2 p.m., fishermen on a passing trawler came across bodies in the sea. The temperature of the English Channel in late November is about eight degrees Celsius. A person in the water will lose consciousness in around an hour. By nightfall, twenty-seven bodies had been recovered, including those of seven women and three children. It was the worst maritime disaster in the English Channel since the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise, a car ferry, off Zeebrugge, in 1987, in which a hundred and ninety-three people drowned. Nobody was surprised. “It had to happen, and it happened,” Alain Ledaguenel, the head of Dunkirk’s lifeboat service, said. “We know that the means available for sea rescue are inadequate.”

I travelled to Dover the morning after the sinking. When the “small boats,” as they are euphemistically known, are intercepted on the English side of the Channel, or if they make it all the way to the shore, the passengers are picked up and taken to two facilities there, in the harbor docks. Around ninety-eight per cent claim asylum on arrival. On the day of the disaster, more than six hundred people had made it across. Many were still being processed—undergoing covid tests, having their fingerprints taken, being given dry clothes while their possessions were taken away and placed in clear plastic sacks—in a large white exhibition tent, erected in a parking lot. Independent inspectors have described the site, which is called the Tug Haven, as “a facility struggling to cope and fundamentally unsuitable for holding detainees for anything in excess of a few hours.” Delays frequently occur. The tent has narrow wooden benches for seating and no running water. One night in July, officials placed a six-thousand-pound order at a local Domino’s to feed hundreds of people who were forced to spend the night. A red double-decker bus is parked permanently at the Tug Haven, to provide extra seating. Last week, the top deck of the bus was half full of passengers with purple blankets round their shoulders, shielding their eyes from the low sun.

The number—and desperation—of people willing to risk their lives to reach Britain in this way has increased sharply in a short space of time. In 2019, fewer than two thousand people had made the voyage. In 2020, that number rose to eight thousand four hundred and seventeen. In the first eleven months of this year, the total has exceeded twenty-five thousand. On November 12th, eleven hundred and eighty-five people made the crossing—the current record for a single day. (Three people, who attempted the passage in kayaks, went missing and have not been found.) The daily flotillas have caused a crisis for Boris Johnson’s Brexit-inspired government, which was elected with a large majority in part because it offered a fantasy of an island-bound future, removed from such things. “At the referendum, us Brexiteers told the people that we would take back control,” Edward Leigh, a senior Conservative Member of Parliament, reminded the House of Commons last week. “It is clear that, in this aspect, we have lost control.”

In British politics, the main question relating to the boats is whether the country’s asylum system is too cruel or too kind. Leigh, who was speaking before the disaster, told the Commons, “If we tell the most desperate economic migrants in the world, ‘We will provide a free border taxi service across the channel, we will never deport you and we will put you up in a hotel for as long as you like,’ is it any wonder that more and more come?” He suggested suspending Britain’s human-rights legislation to deal with the emergency. Lee Anderson, a fellow Conservative M.P., from Nottinghamshire, has suggested that the government should move asylum seekers to the Falkland Islands—one of Britain’s last overseas territories, in the South Atlantic—while their cases are considered. “The only way we will put these people off is by giving them the message that if you come here you are going to be sent 8,000 miles away,” he told the Guardian.

To frighten off the boats, Johnson’s government is in the process of passing new immigration legislation that will distinguish between “Group 1 refugees,” who arrive in the country legally, and “Group 2 refugees,” who do not and who, therefore, cannot qualify for the same legal status—a distinction that is widely held to be a breach of the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention. In September, the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees described the classification of Group 2 refugees as “a recipe for mental and physical ill health, social and economic marginalisation, and exploitation.” Johnson’s ministers appeared to take this as encouragement. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, who is responsible for the country’s borders, has promised to make small-boat crossings of the Channel “unviable.” Earlier this fall, volunteers from Channel Rescue, a human-rights organization that monitors activity from the British coast, spotted U.K. Border Force patrols practicing how to turn around unstable dinghies with Jet Skis. Patel is a former advocate of capital punishment and a close ally of the Prime Minister. Another clause in the proposed immigration bill appears to offer legal immunity for officials who end up drowning people in the Channel as long as “(a) the act was done in good faith, and (b) there were reasonable grounds for doing it.”

The other view of the oncoming boats and last week’s needless deaths is that these are the results of choices that have been made. Britain receives about a third as many asylum seekers as France does. In the twelve months leading up to September, there were thirty-seven thousand applications—a similar volume to the previous peak, during the European migrant crisis of 2015, but still a manageable load for a country of Britain’s size and wealth. In 2020, the U.K. ranked below Finland and Slovenia for the number of refugees it accepted, per capita. The small boats are the fruit of a conscious hostility. Traffickers are able to sell a space on a cheap dinghy with an unreliable engine and no pilot for three thousand pounds because the British and French authorities have successfully shut down other illicit routes into the country. In 2014, there were nights when an estimated two thousand people were trying to board trucks and trains through the Channel Tunnel. But those roads and freight yards are now guarded by fences, heat detectors, cameras, and dogs. The pandemic has reduced air travel and truck crossings further. “If you try to clamp down in one area, you see displacement elsewhere,” Patel said, at a parliamentary hearing last month. “We are all grownup enough to understand that.” The boats are new but the agony is not.

The Immigrants Deported to Death and Violence

During the hearing, Patel also claimed that seventy per cent of those who cross in small boats are single men and thus “effectively economic migrants”—a leap of reasoning otherwise known as a lie. Despite the protestations of Patel and many in her party, those who take their chances on the water are likely to be legitimate refugees. Analysis by the Refugee Council, a British N.G.O., has found that ninety per cent of those who arrive on boats come from ten countries, including Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. In the U.K., around sixty per cent of asylum seekers from those countries are recognized as refugees on their first attempt, and a higher proportion on appeal.

In Dover, I met Joy Stephens, the chair of Samphire, an N.G.O. that works in the town to improve community relations and assist asylum seekers whose applications have failed. The charity was set up in 2002, to support asylum seekers who were being held in a former fortress on a hill above the town. (The detention center was closed in 2015.) By chance, Stephens was returning home from Calais on the evening of last week’s shipwreck. Her ferry was delayed while the bodies and survivors were recovered and rescued from the water. (Two men, from Iraq and Somalia, were found alive and suffering from hypothermia.) Stephens saw the news on her phone while she was waiting on the quayside. “We close our hearts to the fact that these are human beings, just like you and me,” Stephens said. “So crossing the waters, you know, all the way, I was thinking, Here am I with a ticket on this boat crossing safely, while other people have to risk their lives.”

Like other campaigners, Stephens supports the idea of establishing safe routes across the Channel, in the form of a humanitarian visa or a system for people to apply for asylum in Britain while staying on the French side of the water. “If there have been twenty-five thousand people arriving by boat, well, two-thirds of those have risked their life stupidly,” Stephens said, citing the high proportion of refugees on the boats. “They could have had the same processing done and crossed safely and legally on the ferry with me.” In the hours after the sinking, Lord Dubs, an eighty-eight-year-old Labour peer, who arrived in Britain as a child refugee from the Nazis, urged the government to work more closely with the French authorities. In 2016, Dubs helped create a loophole that allowed four hundred and seventy-eight unaccompanied children to travel to the U.K. so that they could be reunited with family members. That loophole was closed last year.

As ever with Johnson’s government—especially when it is faced with a moral challenge of deep complexity—you get distraction rather than solemnity. The night after the disaster, Johnson wrote a three-page letter to Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, proposing joint naval patrols and better intelligence sharing; immediately afterward, Johnson posted his message on Twitter. Macron saw this as a breach of diplomatic protocol. “I am surprised by methods when they are not serious,” he said, and disinvited Patel from an emergency meeting of European ministers, called to respond to the sinking.

It is not a coincidence that clandestine crossings of the Channel have surged during the discord of Brexit, which has frayed relations between Britain and the rest of the continent both practically and emotionally. In his letter to Macron, Johnson politely asked for a new agreement between the U.K. and the E.U., to return migrants and refugees to the bloc—a version of the exact arrangement that Britain triumphantly left slightly less than two years ago. You might think that could be a source of humility, or some regret. But that is not the kind of thinking that occurs to either Johnson or Patel. At the same time as the British government seeks to renege on its obligations to refugees, it has also cut its international-aid budget (which might otherwise help stabilize some of the regions people are forced to flee) and presided over an almighty backlog in the processing of asylum claims once people are in the U.K. During the pandemic, asylum claimants have been housed in former barracks and courtrooms, complete with cell doors and prison-style bunks. The mistreatment lands between the incompetent and the provocative. It diminishes us all. I asked Colin Yeo, a leading immigration barrister, about the government’s policy toward the small boats and their passengers. “This is not serious politics, in the sense of actually getting out and doing things and using your power to achieve change,” he said. “It’s just sort of performance. It’s theatre.”

I met Adam, the man who survived his crossing, in the parking lot of a hotel outside London. He wore a black tracksuit and glasses. After he was processed at the Tug Haven, in Dover, he was taken to a detention center, near Heathrow Airport, for a little more than a week. “They treat us like a human,” he said. “They are too good.” Then Adam was housed, with around four hundred other men, in a hostel near Elephant and Castle, in South London, which had been rejected by the local authority as unsafe to accommodate homeless people during the pandemic. The previous week, Adam had been moved, at short notice, to the hotel, which was next to a highway. Three Afghan men, in traditional dress, sat on the curb. The hotel had been requisitioned at short notice and there was a banner advertising last-minute wedding deals.

Adam was studying for a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence. He had worked as a software engineer before climbing into an inflatable boat in northern France. He had stayed in hotels before, on business, and was struck by the indignity of the modifications that had been made for the asylum seekers: the inadequate food, the lobby stripped of places to sit, the reticent staff. “When we just go through reception, they look to another way,” Adam said. “People are not stupid. . . . They understand how you look at me.” He spoke English, so was often called upon to translate or intercede in misunderstandings. But it was tiring. The previous night, some Kurdish men—the same nationality as most of the people who drowned last week in the Channel—had been playing loud music in the hotel. Adam did not speak Kurdish, so he went to bed. But he puzzled at the men’s intransigence and the attitude of the staff. “In quantum physics, I forget,” he said, searching briefly for the expression. “Every action has an opposite action. Why you do this?” I thought of Adam, and his bemusement, last week, when the small boat went down. Was that the intended consequence of closing a country to the most desperate and the most in need, or was it an accidental one? The action, or the reaction?

The mystery of where omicron came from — and why it matters

December 1, 2021
NURITH AIZENMAN

NPR RADIO

GOATS AND SODA
LISTEN· 3:573-Minute
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Here's a computer generated image of the omicron variant of the coronavirus — also known as B.1.1.529. Reported in South Africa on Nov. 24, this variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning.

Uma Shankar sharma/Getty Images

The discovery of omicron — the new variant of coronavirus with a high number of concerning mutations — has kicked off a frenzy of research. Scientists are racing to figure out how transmissible this variant is and how resistant to vaccines.

They're also grappling with a mystery: How did omicron get created?

NPR spoke with two scientists in the thick of this research. Trevor Bedford is a computational virologist and professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Richard Lessells is an infectious disease specialist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, and part of the team that identified omicron in South Africa and alerted the world. Here's what they have to say.
Omicron's genetic family tree contains a big surprise

One of the key tools that scientists use to puzzle out the origin of a particular coronavirus variant is to look at its genetic code. Just as a person who wants to find out their ancestry — were their forebears Nordic? Mongol? — can find traces of that lineage in their genes, the virus's genome contains clues.

"It's been very common to use an evolutionary tree — or a family tree — of these SARS-CoV-2 viruses to catch introductions in places like Australia and Taiwan that have not had a lot of local spread," says Bedford. "You can figure out where the importations are coming from by looking at the viral genome and checking, 'Is it close in its sequence characteristics to [strains] that are circulating elsewhere that have been sequenced and shared with the database?' "

Scientists can then see, as they continue to take samples in the new region over time, how each particular strain starts to pick up additional — often benign — mutations step-by-step until it morphs into a significantly different strain.

But Bedford says that when you look at the family tree for this omicron variant there's something surprising: "With omicron, your closest sequences are back from mid-2020 — so over a year ago. That is very rare to see."

In other words, while scientists can tell that this variant evolved from a strain that was circulating in mid-2020, in the intervening months there's been no trace of all the intermediate versions that scientists would have expected to find as it morphed into its current form.

"It doesn't tie into anything that was circulating more recently," says Bedford." Yet its mutations put it a long way from that 2020 strain.

How to explain this?

Hypothesis #1: The animal source

It's possible, says Bedford, that the mid-2020 strain infected some unknown animal population, evolved as it spread among them and has just recently spilled back over into humans.

But Bedford thinks that hypothesis is unlikely to prove true. "This is getting technical," he says. But the gist is that you'd expect to see signs of the animal's genetic material in the genome, and instead there's an insertion of human RNA "that along [omicron's evolutionary] branch, it was evolving in a human."

Hypothesis #2: "Cryptic spread" in an unmonitored region

Another possibility, says Bedford, is that the mid-2020 strain started circulating in a location where there hasn't been a lot of monitoring — "perhaps somewhere in Southern Africa." That would enable the virus to evolve under the radar all this time. "And eventually, by the time you get to 2021, it's picked up enough mutations that it has become [much more] transmissible and then kind of explodes onto the scene at that point," says Bedford.

But he also finds that scenario — which scientists sometimes refer to as "cryptic spread" — hard to believe. "Because if it would seem that as [this strain of the virus] was on its path to becoming omicron and becoming a quite transmissible virus, [the earlier versions] would have started to spread more widely before just now." And at that point it would have been noticed in countries that do have robust surveillance systems.

Lessells agrees. On the one hand, he notes that there certainly are countries in Africa where there has not been much ongoing sampling of the coronavirus. Indeed, he says, earlier in the pandemic South Africa's labs picked up a variant that hadn't been seen before in a traveler from Tanzania, one of several sub-Saharan African countries "where they weren't measuring the epidemic very well."

"Now," he adds, "that variant to our knowledge, never really took off in any area. And we still don't know to what extent that was circulating in Tanzania and what the significance of it was." But he says those episodes actually illustrate that once a variant reaches South Africa, at least, it is least likely to get identified. "We have seven [genomic] sequencing hubs that are each connected to the public and private diagnostic labs across the country," he notes.

Also omicron, in particular, triggers a notable signature in the PCR tests that are being done on a routine basis to confirm infections. This warning flag, in fact, is what prompted a private lab to alert Lessells and his colleagues last month so that they could sequence the samples in which they discovered omicron. "If you've got representative sequencing and frequent sequencing, and if you can be nimble enough to respond to what you're observing in the cases in the diagnostic lab, then you can pick up these variants that are at a relatively early stage," he says. "So you'd have to have a pretty big blind spot to be missing something that's really evolving over a period of months."

Hypothesis #3: Incubation in an immunocompromised person

There is, however, one place the virus could have been hiding while it evolved into omicron that would probably have been in health officials' blind spot: Inside the body of a single person. Specifically a person whose immune system was suppressed, for example as a result of an untreated infection with HIV. In such instances, explains Bedford, the person's immune system is still strong enough to prevent the coronavirus from killing them. But it's not strong enough to completely clear the virus. So the virus lingers inside the person for month after month, continually reproducing. With each replication there's a chance it will acquire a mutation that makes it better at evading the person's antibody-producing immune cells.

"It creates this kind of cat-and-mouse game where the immune response is chasing and the virus is running," says Bedford. "And so over the course of the year, if you look in these individuals, you see, at the end of that time, generally a quite evolved virus."

Lessells is one of several researchers to have demonstrated this phenomenon by retroactively analyzing a series of samples of the coronavirus that had been taken over a period of about six months from a woman who had HIV. Through an unfortunate series of unintended mishaps in her medical care, it later transpired that she was not being properly treated for her HIV infection during that time — even as she was enrolled in a larger study for which samples were being taken of the coronavirus that she harbored.

"Because we had samples from a few different time points over that six month period," says Lessells, "we could show how the virus evolved and variants with some of the same mutations as the variants of concern appeared over time in the samples."

If this is how omicron was created, then presumably it wasn't until fairly recently that the virus finally spread into others from the person who was incubating it.

Why wouldn't this spread have happened at earlier points during omicron's evolution in the immuno-compromised individual's body?

"That's a good question and a legitimate one," says Bedford. "I don't have an obvious answer besides chance." Still like Lessells, he currently considers this scenario the most plausible explanation of omicron's emergence.
Why knowing omicron's source matters

Both scientists stressed that the scientific investigation of omicron is happening in real time — with new information coming out so fast that their views on its origins could change.

Still, in the short run, says Bedford, making educated guesses as to omicron's source can inform assessment of how seriously to treat the threat from the variant. For instance, he says, if omicron had been evolving out of sight in a large population of humans over a period of months, this suggests it's actually not that transmissible. After all, he says, "we've still only seen a handful of these travel cases [arriving in various countries]. So that would suggest that it hasn't been spreading really rapidly — that it's taken a little while to ramp up to this level."

But he says, if omicron evolved in one person's body and only recently spread to a wider population, this means the level of circulation that is now being detected — or as Bedford puts it "the time frame for getting to where we are now, where we're starting to pick up cases in travelers'' — was reached over a much shorter period. And this would suggest that the variant is much more transmissible.
The larger takeaway: Ramp up HIV treatment

Regardless of the origins of omicron, Bedford and Lessells say its emergence is one more reminder that dangerous future variants could be created by the mutation of the virus in an immuno-compromised person. This is especially urgent when it comes to the literally millions of people in Southern Africa who have HIV and are not on medication. The point is not to blame or stigmatize people in this situation, they say, but rather to recognize that helping them is a key to ending the coronavirus pandemic. As Lessells puts it: "The intervention here is clear. We just need to strengthen our HIV response and get as many people as we possibly can on to effective treatment regimens."

GOATS AND SODA
Why some researchers think the omicron variant could be the most infectious one yet

Tennis: IOC has acted irresponsibly in Peng case, Sport & Rights Alliance says

Peng Shuai (above) posted a message on social media alleging that China's former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli had sexually assaulted her.

PHOTO: AFP

NEW YORK (REUTERS) - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has acted irresponsibly in regard to missing Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai, the Sport & Rights Alliance said on Wednesday (Dec 1).

The three-times Olympian and former doubles world number one has been the subject of international concern after she posted a message on social media last month alleging that China's former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli had sexually assaulted her.

IOC president Thomas Bach said Peng was safe and well after a 30-minute phone call with her on Nov 21, after Western governments and the global tennis community expressed concern for her wellbeing.

The 35-year-old had not been seen for nearly three weeks since making her allegations.

"The behaviour of the IOC in relation to Peng Shuai's sexual assault allegations and disappearance has been irresponsible and shows just how hollow its understanding of human rights really is," Andrea Florence, acting director of the Sport & Rights Alliance, said in a statement.

"The IOC's eagerness to ignore the voice of an Olympian who may be in danger and to support claims of state-sponsored media in China shows the urgent and critical need for an IOC human rights strategy."

The Sport & Rights Alliance, comprised of non-governmental organisations and trade unions, aims to promote human rights in sport.

It said the IOC must put athletes' needs first with the 2022 Beijing Winter Games due to start in just over two months, and called upon it to use its influence to push China to investigate Peng's claims in an "independent and transparent" manner.

"The main purpose of the call was to enquire about the well-being and safety of Peng Shuai. In the 30-minute conversation, she was very clear in confirming that she is safe and well," the IOC said in a statement.

"Safeguarding the well-being of athletes is paramount to the IOC and the Olympic Movement. We have agreed to stay in touch, and she agreed to meet in Beijing in January."

The IOC added that Peng has "asked that her privacy be respected in all aspects".

The Human Rights Watch said last week that the IOC was more interested in keeping the Games on track than it was about athletes' welfare.

Tennis world seeks answers on Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai | THE BIG STORY

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Where is Zhang Gaoli? Chinese politician accused by tennis star Peng Shuai keeps out of sight

Senior IOC member Dick Pound responded on Tuesday, telling Reuters the criticism was "complete nonsense".

"What seemed to change after that (call) was all of the wannabes that were unable to get in contact with her sort of said 'well the IOC botched it' and 'this was all organised by the Chinese' and so on," Pound said.

The Beijing Olympics are scheduled to run from Feb 4-20.

University of Bristol student who sews sanitary pads for refugees now leads 1,000 volunteers

Ella Lambert set up the not-for-profit group with university friend Oliwia Geisler in August last year

By Laura Parnaby, PA
Josh Luckhurst
2 DEC 2021

Ella Lambert and her friend set up the Pachamama Project to help refugees out of period poverty (Image: Pachamama Project)

A student who began sewing reusable sanitary products for refugees during lockdown is now running a global network of 1,000 volunteers.

University of Bristol student Ella Lambert, 21, learned to stitch using YouTube videos during the first national lockdown, and has since launched the Pachamama Project, which aims to end period poverty.

The languages student, from Chelmsford in Essex, set up the not-for-profit group with university friend Oliwia Geisler in August last year.

Miss Lambert had wanted to work in refugee camps abroad in summer 2020, but when coronavirus restrictions forced her to stay at home she started sewing sustainable period products for women instead.

Since then, more than 30,000 patterned pads which come in discreet matching pouches have been made by over 1,000 volunteers in the UK, Germany, Italy, France and the US using donated materials.

Miss Lambert told the PA news agency the project was also linked to her personal experience with serious period pains and a desire to break the stigma associated with talking about them.

“I’ve always really struggled with period pain, like absolutely atrocious period pain which would mean that I’d have to miss out on school and cancel plans last minute,” she said.

“So although I’ve been really lucky, and I’ve never had to experience period poverty as such, I do know what it’s like to have to miss out on really important things and appointments because of my period.

“This seemed like a really easy way of combatting period poverty and making sure that people didn’t have to deal with that because they had the products they needed that would last.”

She said the project “went from zero to 100” this year after initially making the pads with Miss Geisler and her mother.

“It’s really escalated from a little university project from a kitchen table to a global network,” she said.

The student recently visited a refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, where she worked with local women who were able to distribute the products for a profit.

She told PA: “I was actually leading the distributions which was amazing.

“We have Pacha clubs, we’re calling them, in Lebanon and Greece.

“That’s when we have a group of women making them and then, for example, in Lebanon, they’re selling them, but to NGOs, so they then give them away again to other refugees.

“So not only do those refugee women get to earn a bit of an income, but they also have a further impact of actually reducing period poverty in their community.

“I read a stat today saying that 76% of people who menstruate in Lebanon are struggling to afford period products because of the huge inflation and that kind of economic crisis.

“What better way to actually try and come up with a solution for this problem, but to have the people leading it be the people in that community?

“I get letters every day from my volunteers… we get thousands of every week.

“You know, letters saying how much the products helped them.”

'NONE' AS IN; MYOB

Forecasting Religious Affiliation in the United States Army

by Melissa Haller

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Full Document
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Research Synopsis
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Research Questions
How has the religious composition of enlisted RA soldiers and of RA officers changed over time?

How does the religious composition of the U.S. population compare with the religious composition of the enlisted RA?

What is the likely projected religious composition of the enlisted RA and of RA officers over the next five years?

Changes in the religious composition of the United States could affect the religious composition of recruits into the U.S. Army; this in turn could significantly alter the religious needs of the Army population for years to come. To prepare for these changes, the U.S. Army's Office of the Chief of Chaplains will need to monitor and potentially adjust the force mix of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps.

The research team analyzed administrative data on enlisted soldiers, chaplains, and officers in the Regular Army (RA), as well as data from the General Social Survey (GSS), a nationally representative survey of the U.S. population. They found that the religious composition of the U.S. population differs from that of the RA, and they project how the religious makeup of the RA might change if the Army modifies its recruitment efforts to target geographically underrepresented areas of the United States.

Key Findings

The three largest religious groups in the enlisted RA are Protestants, Catholics, and "Nones"

The proportion of Protestants increased from fiscal year (FY) 2000 to FY 2015 and began to decline modestly after FY 2015.

The proportion of Catholics has declined steadily since FY 2005.

Officers in the Army tend to be considerably more religious than the enlisted population

The "Nones" population makes up less than 5 percent of RA officers.

The religious composition of the U.S. population differs from that of the enlisted RA

Protestants are the largest group overall in both populations, but the proportion of Protestants is increasing in the RA but decreasing in the United States.

The United States has a larger proportion of Catholics than the RA does.

The RA initially had a larger proportion of "Nones," but the proportion of "Nones" in the U.S. population has grown rapidly in the past 20 years and is approximately equivalent to the current proportion in the RA.

The religious composition of the enlisted population is likely to shift over the next five years

Given the current geographic makeup of the enlisted RA, the proportions of Protestants and Catholics will likely decline modestly, and the proportion of "Nones" will likely increase.

Religious makeup could shift further if the Army increases recruitment from underrepresented regions of the United States.

In contrast, the religious composition of the officer population is likely to remain relatively stable.

Table of Contents

Chapter One
Introduction

Chapter Two
Methodology

Chapter Three
Findings

Chapter Four
Conclusions

Appendix A

Supplementary Figures and Tables

Forecasting Religious Affiliation in the United States Army | RAND

Research conducted by
RANDARMY RESEARCH DIVISION

WW3.0

U.S. Would 'Consult Internationally' Before Any Response To Russian Moves On Ukraine

December 02, 2021 
By RFE/RL

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (file photo)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has suggested that any U.S. response to Russia's actions toward Ukraine would be carried out in conjunction with the international community.

"Whatever we do will be done as a part of an international community," Austin said on December 2 while on a visit to South Korea.

"The best case though is that we won't see an incursion by the Soviet Union into the Ukraine," he added, accidentally referring to Russia as the former Soviet Union.

Austin spoke after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is scheduled to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Stockholm on December 2, warned Moscow to end its troop buildup near the Ukrainian border or face hard-hitting sanctions.

SEE ALSO:
Blinken Set To Meet Lavrov With Nerves On Edge Over Russian Troop Buildup Near Ukraine

Asked whether the U.S. reaction would be strictly economic, Austin declined to answer directly, saying only that the "best methods" would be used.

Austin also called on Moscow to be transparent about its military buildup and voiced hope that the United States and Russia could work to "resolve issues and concerns and lower the temperature in the region."

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Flashpoints

NATO chief says allies must prepare for the worst in Ukraine

By David Keyton, The Associated Press and Lorne Cook, The Associated Press
Dec 1, 2021

This image released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service shows, Russian military vehicles move during drills in Crimea on April 22, 2021. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

RIGA, Latvia (AP) — NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned Tuesday that the U.S.-led military organization must prepare for the worst as concern mounts that Russia could be preparing to invade Ukraine.

NATO is worried about a Russian buildup of heavy equipment and troops near Ukraine’s northern border, not far from Belarus. Ukraine says Moscow kept about 90,000 troops in the area following massive war games in western Russia earlier this year, and could easily mobilize them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that his country’s intelligence service had uncovered plans for a Russia-backed coup d’état. Russia denied the allegation and rejected the assertion that it is planning to invade Ukraine.

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“You can discuss whether the likelihood for an incursion is 20% or 80%, it doesn’t matter. We need to be prepared for the worst,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Riga, Latvia, after chairing talks among NATO foreign ministers focused on the threat posed by Russia.

“There is no certainty, no clarity about exactly what are the Russian intentions, and they may actually evolve and change,” the NATO chief continued. Referring to Russia’s seizure in 2014 of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, Stoltenberg added: “They’ve done it before.”

Asked about the decision to activate NATO’s crisis response planning system, which helps analyze potential crises and prepare a response to them, he said: “Allies agree that we need to have the plans in place to be sure that we are always able to protect all allies against any potential threat.”

The United States has shared intelligence with European allies warning of a possible invasion. European diplomats acknowledge the Russian troop movements, but some countries have played down the threat of any imminent invasion ordered by Moscow.

“We are very concerned about the movements we’ve seen along Ukraine’s border. We know that Russia often combines those efforts with internal efforts to destabilize a country. That’s part of the playbook, and we’re looking at it very closely,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

“Any renewed aggression would trigger serious consequences,” Blinken warned.


The Ukraine military's assessment of a how a potential attack by Russia would play out. (Courtesy of Ukraine military).

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also said “Russia would have to pay a high price for any form of aggression.”

Maas said “honest and sustainable de-escalation steps, which can only go via the route of talks, are all the more important now.”

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 after Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly president was driven from power by mass protests. Weeks later, Russia threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency that broke out in Ukraine’s east.

Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of sending troops and weapons to back the rebels. Moscow denies that, saying that Russians who joined the separatists were volunteers. More than 14,000 people have died in more than seven years of fighting, which also has devastated Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, known as Donbas.

A 2015 peace agreement brokered by France and Germany helped end large-scale battles, but efforts to reach a political settlement have failed and sporadic skirmishes have continued along the tense line of contact. Russia has refused recent overtures for talks with France and Germany.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it is NATO that threatens peace in the region.

“Significant units and military equipment of NATO countries, including the U.S. and Britain, are being deployed closer to our borders,” Lavrov said during a news conference in Moscow. He alleged that the West has long provoked Ukraine “into anti-Russian actions.”

Whatever Russia’s intentions, NATO would not be able to provide Ukraine with any substantial military support in time to make a difference against Russian forces, so economic measures like Western sanctions are more likely to be used to inflict a financial cost on Moscow.

Stoltenberg underlined that Ukraine is not part of the military organization and so cannot benefit from the collective security guarantee available to member countries.

Meanwhile, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin announced that Belarus will conduct joint military drills with Russia “to cover the southern borders,” a reference to the border area near Ukraine, according to Belarus state news agency Belta. It’s unclear when this would happen.

Cook reported from Brussels. Dasha Litvinova in Moscow, Geir Moulson in Berlin and Jill Lawless in London contributed.

Russia has no right to veto Ukraine's accession to NATO, - Stoltenberg

The issue of Ukraine's readiness to join the alliance should be decided directly by the country and its 30 allies

Source : 112 Ukraine
2 December 2021


The decision on the degree of Ukraine's readiness to join NATO will be made by the members of the alliance. Russia has no veto on this issue as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated.

“Only Ukraine and 30 NATO Allies that decide when Ukraine is ready to join NATO. Russia has no veto. Russia has no say. And Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence, trying to control their neighbors,” Stoltenberg stated.

Related: NATO expansion on Ukraine's territory could be "red line" for Russia, - Putin

He noted that Ukraine is an independent, sovereign state with internationally recognized borders, guaranteed by Russia and all other powers. And these internationally recognized boundaries must be respected.

“NATO is not a threat to anyone, but NATO respects the decision of countries like the Baltic countries, Poland, when they decided to join. And we will also respect the decision of Ukraine, that they aspire for NATO membership. We have stated that they will become a member, but of course, it's up to us, 30 NATO Allies, to decide when Ukraine is ready for membership when they meet the NATO standards,” he added.

Related: NATO to consider options for responding to Russia's military activity near Ukraine's border

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested starting negotiations on guarantees of NATO's eastward non-expansion. According to Putin, Moscow needs legal guarantees, since "Western colleagues did not fulfill their respective oral obligations."

Tech feuding flares on the Hill as Haugen’s star power fades

The parties “have very different views of the problem” with the online platforms, Rep. Dan Crenshaw said during a hearing where Republicans brought their own Facebook witness.

Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, left, and Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation Kara Frederick, right, testified during a hearing before the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

 | Alex Wong/Getty Images

By ALEXANDRA S. LEVINE and REBECCA KERN

12/01/2021 

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s revelations about the social media giant briefly ignited optimism among big tech’s critics that Democrats and Republicans could unite to rein in the companies.

But her return to Congress on Wednesday made it clear how far apart the two parties remain.

Haugen’s testimony before a House Energy and Commerce panel featured sharp partisan divides on one of lawmakers’ biggest tech policy priorities — curbing the online industry’s liability protections. Republicans also derided Democratic proposals for regulating online companies and their algorithms, while sounding their own accusations that social media platforms censor conservatives.

And unlike Haugen’s media-grabbing Capitol appearance in early October, when she testified solo in front of a Senate Commerce subcommittee, she had to share the spotlight Wednesday. Republicans called their own former Facebook employee to testify alongside her: A conservative who echoed their own arguments about censorship.

Lawmakers also appeared far apart on the hearing’s main topic: how to rewrite Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a decades-old law that provides broad liability protections over user-posted content online.

Republicans hammer Haugen this time

The warm reception and praise Haugen received during her earlier appearances before the Senate and policymakers in Europe were less evident Wednesday, as some Republicans took a hostile tone with the former Facebook product manager.

Several lawmakers, especially Democrats, still heaped praise on her for divulging thousands of internal documents detailing Facebook’s research into the harm its products inflict on vulnerable populations or political discourse. But the tough questioning from some GOP members, along with low in-person attendance at the hearing, show that her star power may be dwindling — and that her credibility with Republican lawmakers may be starting to wear thin.

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) were among the lawmakers who grilled, snubbed or interrupted Haugen in a manner unseen at the Senate hearing in October, when members of their party joined Democrats in applauding Haugen’s strength and bravery for coming forward.

GOTCHA
McMorris Rodgers zeroed in on GOP complaints that social media companies censor conservative voices — and in doing so, appeared to pin Haugen as a liberal even though she has not been explicit about her political views.

"Do you support Big Tech's censorship of constitutionally protected speech on their platforms?" McMorris Rodgers said, demanding a yes-or-no answer.

When Haugen failed to respond in one word, McMorris Rodgers interrupted her, saying: “I take it as a no.”

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen appears before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee at the Russell Senate Office Building on Oct. 5, 2021 in Washington, D.C. | Matt McClain-Pool/Getty Images

In another apparent snub, Johnson posed a question to Haugen but then asked witness Kara Frederick, a tech policy research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to respond. Johnson raised concerns about Haugen’s recent testimony before the U.K. Parliament in which she had called for regulators to intervene in tech platforms’ content moderation operations. Johnson argued that government involvement in private businesses’ content moderation is a threat to the First Amendment.

“This is un-American,” Johnson said in his line of questioning to Haugen — but he tossed the floor to Frederick before Haugen could respond.

It added up to often-chillier treatment than Haugen has received since going public as the Facebook whistleblower in October, including in her high-rated “60 Minutes” appearance and recent profile in Vogue.

Conservatives bring their own ex-Facebooker

Frederick, the Republicans’ key witness on Wednesday, offered a stark contrast at times with Haugen, especially on the accusations that Facebook censors conservative viewpoints on topics such as the origins of the Covid pandemic.

Frederick, who worked at Facebook from 2016 to 2017 and helped develop its Global Security Counterterrorism Analysis Program, said she joined the company because of what she saw as its mission — the democratization of information.

“But I was wrong, it’s 2021, and the verdict is in: Big Tech is an enemy of the people,” she said. “It is time all independently minded citizens recognize this.” Her arguments were echoed by numerous Republican lawmakers, even as they opposed the idea of creating an agency to regulate the tech giants.

She added that social media companies like Twitter and Facebook “censor” Republican lawmakers more than Democrats. Both companies have previously rejected these accusations, and some analysis has found that right-leaning social media influencers, conservative media outlets and other GOP supporters dominate online discussions on hot political topics.

“Holding Big Tech accountable should result in less censorship, not more,” Frederick said.

Meanwhile, Haugen called for tougher government oversight of social media companies, including their algorithms.

But the two witnesses agreed on one thing: that Facebook’s algorithms amplify extremist content on the platform.

“I am extremely concerned about Facebook’s role in things like counterterrorism or counter-state actors that are weaponizing the platform,” Haugen said. “Facebook is chronically under-invested in those capacities and if you knew the size of the counterterrorism team for the threat investigators you’d be shocked.”

Facebook, which recently renamed itself Meta, contested this assertion. The company has more than 350 employees working against organizations that proclaim or are engaged in violence and will spend over $5 billion on safety and security this year, according to a spokesperson. (That’s a small percentage of the company’s revenues, Haugen noted.) The company removed 9.8 million pieces of terrorism content from July to September, according to its transparency center.

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Frederick, who was deployed three times to Afghanistan for the Defense Department, said she went to work at Facebook because she “believed in the danger of foreign Islamic terrorism. I went to make sure that the platform was hostile to those bad actors, illegal actors.” Instead, she said, human traffickers, Islamist terrorists and drug cartels all use the platform, despite being against Facebook’s policies.
Parties still worlds apart on what to do

Democrats and Republicans agreed that Congress needs to focus on the algorithms that the companies use to determine what content their users see — including in the debate about the sweeping liability protections the platforms enjoy under Section 230.

They sharply diverged from there, however.

Democrats often argue that social media platforms lean on the 1996 law to evade responsibility for misinformation, hate speech and other harmful material on their sites, while many Republicans contend that the statute enables tech companies to censor conservative voices with impunity.

None of the Democrat-led bills that had been slated for consideration at Wednesday’s hearing had Republican support — a reflection of the two parties existing on vastly different wavelengths on Section 230 changes.

Crenshaw emphasized that even bipartisan outrage at Facebook and other large tech players cannot bring the parties closer together on the matter.

"I want to be clear. ... Republicans and Democrats do not agree on this issue,” he said during the hearing. “I've observed a clever strategy by the media and some of my colleagues implying that we all agree, that we're all moving in the right direction towards the same thing: We're all mad at Big Tech. This is not really true; we have very different views of the problem.”

Despite some commonalities in the parties’ respective proposals, the parties are a long way from sorting through thornier details — like the contours of what material Section 230 should cover.

Some Republicans have called for repealing the statute entirely. One of four Democratic bills discussed at the hearing — the SAFE TECH Act (H.R. 3421 (117)) — would take a narrower approach, removing the liability protections when it comes to extremist and terrorist content.

Get ready for more hearings

A separate group of Energy and Commerce lawmakers — the consumer protection subcommittee led by Chair Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) — is convening a related hearing Dec. 9 on legislation aimed at bringing transparency and accountability to social media platforms and their algorithms. Instagram head Adam Mosseri faces a grilling before the Senate Commerce consumer protection panel a day earlier, albeit on a more bipartisan issue: Children’s privacy online.

But some see the dissonance across party lines on Section 230 as a threat to any broader efforts to rein in tech companies.

“There are ideas coming from both sides of the dais that are worth debating,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). “The devil’s in the details, but if we’re not even trying to engage in a bipartisan process, we’re never going to get a strong or lasting set of policies.”

INDIA
First December cyclone in 130 years: Odisha gears up for Cyclone Jawad

As many as 879 floods and cyclone shelters in the coastal pockets have been readied to house villagers, says official

By Ashis Senapati
Published: Thursday 02 December 2021

A cyclone shelter in Jagatsinghpur district of Odisha has been set up. Photo: Ashis Senapati

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an alert regarding the formation of Cyclone Jawad, which is likely to reach the coasts of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha on the morning of December 4, 2021.

This would be the first cyclone in December in Odisha in around 130 years; no cyclone had crossed the state coast in the month between 1891 and 2020 according to IMD records, said Umashankar Das, senior scientist at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Bhubaneswar.

“There are active western disturbances in northwest India. IMD has been keeping records of cyclones since 1891,” added Das.

Climate change due to natural causes could have a profound effect on cyclone tracks, said Uma Charan Mohanty, former professor, Center for Atmospheric Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi.

A round-the-clock control room has already been set up in the office of Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA) in Bhubaneswar. Officials of Ganjam, Puri, Balasore, Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara districts are on high alert.00:0300:30

District collectors have been told to take all necessary measures to deal with the situation. As many as 879 floods and cyclone shelters in the coastal pockets have been readied to house villagers, said Satyabrat Padhi, capacity building coordinator, OSDMA.

Around nine years ago, Odisha State Disaster Mitigation Authority identified 328 villages situated within 1.5 km of the coastline in six coastal districts.

As many as 64 sea-side villages of Kendrapara district, 28 of Jagatsinghpur, 88 of Puri and 44 of Ganjam were identified as being prone to Tsunami. Similarly, 63 villages of Balasore district were also identified as tsunami-prone, 41 villages in Bhadrak district were listed as being vulnerable to tsunami within 1.5 kilometers from the sea.

The state government installed 162 alert siren towers in different locations of the coastal pockets. The system is equipped with both ways of communication systems by Digital Mobile Radio handset.

Weather warnings and flood bulletins issued by the metrological centers and central flood forecasting division, Bhubaneswar, and communication of gauge reading reports is immediately disseminated by the BDOs and tehasildars to the field level.

Satellite phones, wireless and temporary telephones have been installed in inaccessible areas to keep an active connection and share information, added Padhi.

The Odisha State Disaster Mitigation Authority along with the district administration and other government and non-government agencies organise mock cyclone, tsunami and flood drills to create awareness among the people to face natural disasters.

Mock drills increase preparedness, evaluate response capabilities and improve coordination among all government and non-government agencies.

The fisheries department has asked fishermen out at the sea to return to safer places, added Padhi.

Israeli police repeatedly raid home of pro-Palestine activists, in campaign of intimidation

December 1, 2021 

Haley Firkser [@haleyyael /Twitter]

December 1, 2021 at 4:49 pm

Israeli police have repeatedly raided the apartment of left-wing activists in Jerusalem for allegedly spraying graffiti supporting the Palestinian cause, according to a report by the Israeli news outlet, Haaretz.

On Wednesday night the week before last, police in the city of Jerusalem were sent to the apartment after receiving reports that Haley Firkser – one of the tenants – had sprayed signs and symbols of protest in the centre of the city in support of Palestinians from the South Hebron Hills in the occupied West Bank.

The paper reported that Firkser said, "they [the police] scared us, banged on the windows and when we opened the door, they asked for IDs." They then "photographed us with their phones and asked us questions."

Another tenant confirmed this report, saying that "I heard people pushing at the door and saw flashlights. They said to wake everyone up, took us outside, and took pictures of us with phones."

Then, for a second time, six detectives in plain civilian clothing conducted another raid on the apartment last Tuesday, in which they produced a warrant signed by a magistrate's court judge, who ruled that the raid was necessary in order to investigate "suspected property damage/defacement."

Again, they demanded to see Firsker. When they learned that she was not there, they ordered that she come in for questioning as soon as possible, threatening that, if she did not, then there would be more night-time raids on the apartment.

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Firkser, who went to the police station but was sent back as there was no officer to interrogate her in English, told the paper that "It's very scary to be at home. We feel targeted by the police." The appointment for her interrogation is now set to be tomorrow.

Eisner also said the police's conduct "is out of line with the suspicions. They behave like we killed someone. They just tried to frighten me. It's unbelievable that the police expend so much energy to intimidate citizens." He added that it is unnecessary, as "the penalty for graffiti is a fine."

It raised concerns amongst the activists living in the apartment that they were specifically targeted for their political views and stances, rather than for a genuine reason to tackle any crime committed.

The city's police force hit back at those complaints, telling the paper that "during an investigation opened over the weekend on suspicion of a crime, the police arrived at the house where the suspects live and searched it, pursuant to a legal warrant." It insisted that "there is no connection between the political affiliation or opinions of the suspects and the enforcement actions taken in regard to this case."

Firsker's attorney, Riham Nassra, also called the police actions unreasonable, confirming that the spraying of graffiti "is an offense that barely justifies detainment, and it certainly doesn't justify entering a home in the middle of the night and illegally photographing and questioning them. Nothing of what the policemen did is proportional to the suspicions."

The incident sheds more light on the Israeli authorities' violence and intimidation tactics against, not only Palestinians, but also Israelis who criticise the occupation and call for Palestinian rights to be respected.

Last month, another left-wing activist called on the Israeli Knesset to allow him to bear arms to protect Palestinians being targeted by Jewish settlers and their violence.

International Community Recognizes Victory of Xiomara Castro


President-elect Xiomara Castro, Honduras, Nov., 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @DiazCanelB

Published 1 December 2021

She leads the results with 53.3 percent of the votes, beating the National Party candidate Nasry Asfura who only achieved 34.2 percent of the polls.

On Wednesday, world leaders ratify the victory in the Honduran presidential elections of Xiomara Castro, the left-wing candidate and wife of former President Manuel Zelaya, who was overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup in 2009.

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"Finally, my dear colleague and friend Xiomara: sooner or later, the People and history always do justice," Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernandez-Kirchner tweeted.

“I greet the Honduran people and extend my congratulations to President-elect Xiomara Castro, to whom I wish success in her duties. We will continue to work together for the benefit of our nations,” Panama’s President Nito Cortizo tweeted.

“I congratulate the brother people of Honduras for concluding their electoral process. I thank Xiomara Castro for our telephone conversation. Best wishes for success in her administration. I highlight the valuable work of former President Luis Solis as OAS Mission head,” Costa Rica’s President Carlos Alvarado said.

Until 11:00 pm on Tuesday, the Honduran electoral authorities had processed 1.9 million votes from the Sunday elections, in which citizen participation reached 68.27 percent of those eligible to vote. Although there are still ballot boxes to be counted, the National party, which has remained in power since the 2009 coup, acknowledged its defeat. A short time later, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also congratulated Castro.

The Liberty and Refoundation party's politician leads the results with 53.3 percent of the votes, beating the National Party candidate Nasry Asfura who only achieved 34.2 percent of the polls despite having controlled the Tegucigalpa mayoralty during the last eight years.

Sunday's elections were the third consecutive elections in which Xiomara Castro sought the Presidency. She will take office on January 27, 2022.