Is it ethical to use animals as organ farms for humans?

Mike Bebernes
·Senior Editor
January 22, 2022·

What’s happening

Doctors in Maryland earlier this month completed the world’s first heart transplant using a heart that came from a genetically modified pig. The experimental procedure, performed on a 57-year-old man with a terminal heart condition, is seen as a major breakthrough in the burgeoning field of cross-species organ transplants.

The heart transplant came just a few months after two teams of scientists broke new ground in separate experiments testing the viability of pig kidney transplants conducted on brain-dead bodies that had been donated to science.

The theory of animal-to-human transplants, known as xenotransplantation, dates back hundreds of years. Only recently, though, has that goal appeared to be within reach. Advances in gene-editing technology now allow scientists to overcome what was once an insurmountable barrier to cross-species transplantation: The human immune response that recognizes and attacks foreign tissues in the body. The heart used by doctors in Maryland came from a pig that had 10 separate gene modifications, including pig genes that were inactivated and human genes that were added, to prevent the recipient’s body from rejecting the organ.

Researchers hope these experiments prove to be the early steps of a process that ultimately turns animals into a viable solution to the severe organ supply shortage, which leads to thousands of deaths in the U.S. each year. Even though a record 41,000 organ transplants were conducted in the U.S. last year, more than 100,000 Americans are estimated to be on the transplant waiting list. An average of 17 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant.
Why there’s debate

The case for continuing to pursue research into xenotransplantation is straightforward. If science advances to the point where animal organs are a readily available option for human transplants, it could prevent countless deaths worldwide every year. In the eyes of the scientists, the value to humans would outweigh the harm caused to animals. “People talk about the ethics of doing the science,” one researcher told Nature, “but I would also argue that we should consider the ethics of not doing this science.”

Animal rights groups, unsurprisingly, oppose the idea of using animals for human transplants. “Animals aren’t toolsheds to be raided but complex, intelligent beings,” a spokesperson from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said. Others question the ethics of creating a class of animal for the sole purpose of slaughtering them to harvest organs. Some also argue that there is a lot that can be done to increase the supply of certain organs, like kidneys, from human sources that wouldn’t require anyone to die.

There are also concerns about the process of creating transplant-ready animals in the first place. Many bioethicists say creating creatures with both human and animal genes raises complicated questions about where the line between human and beast really is. They also call for strict guidelines for how much human material a creature can have before it starts to deserve considerations that wouldn’t be afforded to regular animals.
What’s next

There are still enormous scientific, logistical and legal obstacles that will have to be overcome before animal-to-human transplants can become a realistic option for the typical transplant patient. Most experts say it will likely be several years before xenotransplantation will be conducted outside of scientific research.

Perspectives

Supporters

A future where no one dies waiting for a transplant is worth pursuing

“The door to using bioengineered nonhuman organs has been opened — and with it, the promise of an almost unlimited supply of donor organs could follow.” — Jonathan Reiner, CNN

Transplants are close to harmless when compared to livestock slaughter

“The place to worry about animal welfare is breakfast, not the medical use of pigs.” — Art Caplan, bioethicist, to USA Today

Xenotransplantation can help reverse racial inequities in who receives transplants

“A Black, Asian or Indigenous person is less likely to get an organ donation than is a white person. ... Xenotransplantation has the potential to further democratize organ donation.” — Sylvain Charlebois, Ottawa Citizen

Human lives are simply more valuable than animal lives

“I can’t think of any reason to oppose this approach — assuming safety and efficacy — unless one is an animal-rights believer who thinks that pigs have equal value to humans. But they don’t. A rat is not a pig, is not a dog, is not a boy.” — Wesley J. Smith, National Review

The organ shortage creates its own, much more profound, ethical issues

“Treatment should be allocated equitably. Doctors are not qualified to distinguish 'sinners from saints,' nor do we think they should be deciding which patients are more deserving.” — Dominic Wilkinson, Conversation

Skeptics

Killing animals for human needs is indefensible in all cases

“The practice of breeding, raising and killing pigs for our purposes is deeply problematic as well. Pigs have consciousness, emotionality, bonds of care and more. This is more than enough to render the practice of breeding pigs for xenotransplantation massively harmful for pigs, even if the practice is beneficial for some humans.” — Jeff Sebo, Chicago Tribune

Gene editing raises troubling questions about the line between humans and animals

“Receiving a pig kidney won’t magically transform anyone into Babe, but what about a pig liver? Or better yet, a pig heart? You know the slippery slope — today it’s just a pig kidney, but tomorrow, we’re all galloping across the Island of Dr. Moreau. That’s a little dramatic, of course, but fears about violating the barrier between humans and animals are enduring and inexorable.” — Peter McKnight, Vancouver Sun

Major ethical questions are being ignored in pursuit of a medical breakthrough

“Assuming that pigs are the future of xenotransplantation assumes that there is no ethical problem with creating a new form of animal farming predicated on genetic modification and on-demand slaughter for spare parts. And yet a surprising number of medical professionals, bioethicists, and the media covering xenotransplantation have been mum on the subject.” — Jan Dutkiewicz, New Republic

There is a lot that can be done to make organs more available without killing animals

“Mostly, the development makes me sad that humans have been so unwilling to step up and donate kidneys to each other — or create the policies that would encourage such an act — that they are resorting to taking them from another species. Donating a kidney is a routine, safe procedure, one that humans could and would likely be more willing to provide if compensated.” — Dylan Matthews, Vox

The debate changes depending on which organ is being manipulated

“It seems likely we’d view an animal with brain or reproductive cells from a human differently than one with, say, human liver cells. In those cases, the ethics of ‘humanization’ start to become more meaningful.” — Nathaniel Scharping, Discover

There are serious ethical challenges concerning humans involved in the research too

“There is no question that using pigs as organ sources is the future. ... But first efforts often fail. Those brave enough to jump into the unknown need to be especially clear that they went forward at the right time and with the right patient, who fully understood the risks involved.” — Multiple authors, Washington Post

Is there a topic you’d like to see covered in “The 360”? Send your suggestions to the360@yahoonews.com.

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images

Famine, subjugation and nuclear fallout: How Soviet experience helped sow resentment among Ukrainians toward Russia

The Conversation
January 30, 2022

‘We have a chance to show the truth’: Inside Chernobyl's 'death zone' 30 years later
Ukraine and Russia share a great deal in the way of history and culture – indeed for long periods in the past, the neighboring countries were part of larger empires encompassing both territories.

But that history – especially during the Soviet period from 1922 to 1991, in which Ukraine was absorbed into the communist bloc – has also bred resentment. Opinions of the merits of the Soviet Union and its leaders diverge, with Ukrainians far less likely to view the period favorably than Russians.

Nonetheless, President Vladimir Putin continues to claim Soviet foundations for what he sees as “historical Russia” – an entity that includes Ukraine.

As scholars of that history, we believe that an examination of Soviet-era policies in Ukraine can offer a useful lens for understanding why so many Ukrainians harbor deep resentment toward Russia.

RAWSTORY+
Revisiting 'The Lost Boys of Ukraine': How the war abroad attracted American white supremacists

Stalin’s engineered famine

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Ukraine was known as the breadbasket of Europe and later of the Soviet Union. Its rich soil and ample fields made it an ideal place to grow the grain that helped feed the entire continent.

After Ukraine was absorbed into the Soviet Union beginning in 1922, its agriculture was subject to collectivization policies, in which private land was taken over by the Soviets to be worked communally. Anything produced on those lands would be redistributed across the union.

In 1932 and 1933, a famine devastated the Soviet Union as a result of aggressive collectivization coupled with poor harvests.


A deliberate famine?
Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Millions starved to death across the Soviet Union, but Ukraine felt the brunt of this horror. Research estimates that some 3 million to 4 million Ukrainians died of the famine, around 13% of the population, though the true figure is impossible to establish because of Soviet efforts to hide the famine and its toll.

Scholars note that many of the political decisions of the Soviet regime under Joseph Stalin – such as preventing Ukrainian farmers from traveling in search of food, and severely punishing anyone who took produce from collective farms – made the famine much worse for Ukrainians. These policies were specific to Ukrainians within Ukraine, as well as Ukrainians who lived in other parts of the Soviet Union.

Some historians claim that Stalin’s moves were done to quash a Ukrainian independence movement and were specifically targeted at ethnic Ukrainians. As such, some scholars call the famine a genocide. In Ukrainian, the event is known as “Holodomor,” which means “death by hunger.”

Recognition of the full extent of the Holodomor and implicating Soviet leadership for the deaths remains an important issue in Ukraine to this day, with the country’s leaders long fighting for global recognition of the Holodomor and its impact on modern Ukraine.

Countries such as the United States and Canada have made official declarations calling it a genocide.

But this is not the case in much of the rest of the world.

Just as the the Soviet government of the day denied that there were any decisions that explicitly deprived Ukraine of food – noting that the famine affected the entire country – so too do present-day Russian leaders refuse to acknowledge culpability.

Russia’s refusal to admit that the famine disproportionately affected Ukrainians has been taken by many in Ukraine as an attempt to downplay Ukrainian history and national identity.

Soviet annexation of Western Ukraine

This attempt to suppress Ukrainian national identity continued during and after World War II. In the early years of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian national movement was concentrated in the western parts of modern-day Ukraine, part of Poland until the Nazi invasion in 1939.

Before Gemany’s invasion, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany entered into a secret agreement, under the guise of the Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact, which outlined German and Soviet spheres of influence over parts of central and east Europe.


David Low’s famed cartoon depicting Stalin and Hitler’s pact over Poland.
David Low/British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent

After Germany invaded Poland, the Red Army moved into the eastern portion of the country under the pretense of stabilizing the failing nation. In reality, the Soviet Union was taking advantage of the provisions laid out in the secret protocol. The Polish territories that now make up western Ukraine were also incorporated into Soviet Ukraine and Belarus, subsuming them into the larger Russian cultural world.

At the end of the war, the territories remained part of the Soviet Union.

Stalin set about suppressing Ukrainian culture in these newly annexed lands in favor of a greater Russian culture. For example, the Soviets repressed any Ukrainian intellectuals who promoted the Ukrainian language and culture through censorship and imprisonment.

This suppression also included liquidating the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a self-governing church that has allegiance to the pope and was one of the most prominent cultural institutions promoting Ukrainian language and culture in these former Polish territories.

Its properties were transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church, and many of its priests and bishops were imprisoned or exiled. The destruction of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is still a source of resentment for many Ukrainians. It stands, we believe as scholars, as a clear instance of the Soviets’ intentional efforts to destroy Ukrainian cultural institutions.

The legacy of Chernobyl in Ukraine

Just as disaster marked the early years of Ukraine as a Soviet republic, so did its final years.

In 1986 a nuclear reactor at the Soviet-run Chernobyl nuclear power in the north of Ukraine went into partial meltdown. It remains the worst peacetime nuclear catastrophe the world has seen.

It required the evacuation of nearly 200,000 people in the areas surrounding the power plant. And to this day, approximately 1,000 square miles of Ukraine are part of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, where radioactive fallout remains high and access is restricted.

Soviet lies to cover up the extent of the disaster – and missteps that would have limited the fallout – only compounded the problem. Emergency personnel were not given proper equipment or training to deal with the nuclear material.

It resulted in a heavy death toll and a higher than normal incidence of radiation-induced disease and complications such as cancer and birth defects among both former residents of the region and the workers sent in to deal with the disaster.

Other Soviet republics and European countries faced the fallout from Chernobyl, but it was the authorities in Ukraine who were tasked with organizing evacuations to Kyiv while Moscow attempted to cover up the scope of the disaster.

Meanwhile, independent Ukraine has been left to attend to the thousands of citizens who have chronic illnesses and disabilities as a result of the accident.


An abandoned fun fair, two kilometers from the Chernobyl power station.
Martin Godwin/Getty Images

The legacy of Chernobyl looms large in Ukraine’s recent past and continues to define many people’s memory of living in the Soviet era.

Memories of a painful past

This painful history of life under Soviet rule forms the backdrop to resentment in Ukraine today toward Russia. To many Ukrainians, these are not merely stories from textbooks, but central parts of people’s lives – many Ukrainians are still living with the health and environmental consequences of Chernobyl, for instance.

As Russia amasses troops at Ukraine’s borders, and the threat of an invasion increases, many in Ukraine may be reminded of past attempts by its neighbor to crush Ukrainian independence.

Emily Channell-Justice, Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program, Harvard University and Jacob Lassin, Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Russian and East European Studies, Arizona State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

SEE

 LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for Holodomor 

Book Review: Marxism and the Philosophy of Science

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/05/book-review-marxism-and-philosophy-of.html

Nikolai Vavilov in the years of Stalin's ‘Revolution from Above’ (1929–1932)

Abstract

This paper examines new evidence from Russian archives to argue that Soviet geneticist and plant breeder, Nikolai I. Vavilov's fate was sealed during the ‘Cultural Revolution’ (‘Revolution from Above’) (1929–1932). This was several years before Trofim D. Lysenko, the Soviet agronomist and widely portrayed archenemy and destroyer of Vavilov, became a major force in Soviet science. During the ‘Cultural Revolution’ the Soviet leadership wanted to subordinate science and research to the task of socialist reconstruction. Vavilov, who was head of the Institute of Plant Breeding (VIR) and the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL), came under attack from the younger generation of researchers who were keen to transform biology into a proletarian science. The new evidence shows that it was during this period that Vavilov lost his independence to determine research strategies and manage personnel within his own institute. These changes meant that Lysenko, who had won Stalin's support, was able to gain influence and eventually exert authority over Vavilov. Based on the new evidence, Vavilov's arrest in 1940 after he criticized Lysenko's conception of Non-Mendelian genetics was just the final challenge to his authority. He had already experienced years of harassment that began before Lysenko gained a position of influence. Vavilov died in prison in 1943.

Politics of Perseverance: Ukrainian Memories of “Them” and the “Other” in Holodomor Survivor Testimony,

 1986-1988

 Johnathon K. Vsetecka,
.Unpublished Master of Arts thesis,
 University of Northern Colorado, May 2014.

ABSTRACT
This thesis examines the famine of 1932-33 in Ukraine, now known as the Holodomor, from a survivor’s point of view. The Commission on the Ukraine Famine, beginning work in 1986, conducted an investigation of the famine and collected testimony from Holodomor survivors in the United States. This large collection of survivor testimonies sat quietly for many years, even though the Holodomor is now a recognized field of study in history, among other disciplines. A great deal of scholarship focuses on the political, genocidal, and ideological aspects of the famine, but few works explore the roles of everyday Ukrainian people. This thesis utilizes the testimonies to examine how everyday survivors construct memories based on their famine experiences. Survivors often share memories of themselves, but they also elaborate on the roles of others, which included Soviets, German villagers, and even other Ukrainians. These testimonies transcend the common victim and genocide narratives, showing that not all Ukrainians suffered equally. In fact, some survivors note that the famine did not disrupt their everyday lives at all. Collectively, these testimonies present a more complex narrative of everyday events in Ukraine and elucidate on the ways that survivors remember, interpret, and construct memories related to the Holodomor.

SALACIOUS SUNDAY POST

Retired Kansas judge’s X-rated case inspires thesis linking Orwell, Snowden and Austin Powers
Tim Carpenter,

 Kansas Reflector
January 30, 2022

Fembots from "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery"

 (NewLine Cinema)


TOPEKA — Magistrate Judge Marty Clark’s posting of X-rated pictures of himself to a couples’ dating website and erotic communication with a married woman triggered an ethics complaint that resulted in a Kansas Supreme Court sanction of public censure.

Outcome of his case was more or less a foregone conclusion, but the concurring opinion authored by Justice Caleb Stegall framed the scandal in terms of a scholarly debate weaving court precedent and Bible scripture with ideas embodied by dystopian author George Orwell, surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden and movie character Austin Powers.

“While Judge Marty K. Clark’s behavior was embarrassing, foolish and grossly immoral, it was not a violation of any of our rules governing judicial conduct,” Stegall wrote. “The behavior we are talking about consists entirely of the lawful, private, consensual sexual practices of Judge Clark.”

Surveillance of all kinds, including the self-surveillance favored by Clark, with high-powered video and audio devices and assisted by the ease of digital-media publication has led to substantial increase in government and employer intrusion into private lives of individuals, he said.

“Wisdom councils that Big Brother himself is not obliged to act on every scrap of tittle-tattle that comes his way from ill-meaning Little Brother,” Stegall said.

Clark posted to the Club Foreplay website nude and partially nude photographs of himself, including one image of him standing in water with his penis exposed. He shared images and interacted via text and email with a Missouri woman he met during 2019 at the Lake of the Ozarks. He did so during weekday work hours, but it’s not clear he was on the clock. The woman’s disgruntled husband eventually filed an ethics complaint against the judge.

Clark served Russell County for 23 years before retiring days ahead of a judicial review panel’s recommendation of public censure in May 2021. He didn’t challenge fundamental conclusions of wrongdoing during Supreme Court oral arguments in October. On Friday, the high court said Clark warranted public censure for conduct undermining confidence in the judiciary.

Blackmail, intimidation

Chris Joseph, an attorney representing Clark, said the Supreme Court ought to focus on behavior of judges directly connected to their legal responsibilities. He said the justices were essentially “regulating the bedroom” by weighing in on private conduct of a sexual nature. It mirrors disdain exhibited by some people of judges who were in homosexual relationships or consumed alcoholic beverages, he said.

“It’s my position the court shouldn’t venture into that realm,” Joseph said.

Todd Thompson, an attorney serving as judicial examiner in the Clark case, said it was an ethical breach for a judge to massage his private organ for purposes of posting photographs to a website for swingers. He used a phony name on the website, Thompson said, suggesting he was aware of the impropriety.

Clark sent salacious texts to the married Missouri woman discussing details of a potential sexual encounter in his judicial chambers in Russell County, Thompson said.

“The judge is subjecting himself, when he engages in this type of conduct, to the possibility of being intimidated or blackmailed by people who have these photographs,” Thompson said.

The Supreme Court decided public censure, accomplished by publishing a statement declaring Clark’s misconduct, was sufficient. Clark isn’t an attorney, so he won’t be practicing law. The lower-level court sanction didn’t preclude him from seeking election as a magistrate judge in the future.

Clark’s retirement message, released by the judicial branch, didn’t mention his disciplinary case. He said he appreciated the chance given him at a young age to serve Russell County.

“I became a judge because I wanted the opportunity to help people,” he said. “Working with child-in-need-of-care cases and adoptions is the most satisfying part of the job.”
‘Unforgiveable sin’

Half of the 27-page decision comprised the concurring opinion from Stegall, one of the court’s conservatives who was appointed by Gov. Sam Brownback. Stegall said Clark shouldn’t remain on the bench, but the proper approach for addressing moral qualms about a judge’s private behavior would be for voters to oust him or her at the next election or to initiate impeachment proceedings.

“Judge Clark’s actions did not have any real, factual connection to his role as a judge,” wrote Stegall in the opinion joined by Justice Keynen Wall. “So, what is really going on? In short, Judge Clark has embarrassed us — the examiner, the commission, this court, the judiciary and the wider legal community. And, this may be the unforgivable sin of our day.

“The complex and ubiquitous shaming and shunning rituals our society has concocted and enacted in recent decades may best be understood as an elaborate response to collective embarrassment. Scapegoating and ‘cancelling’ the most embarrassing among us becomes a quasi-religious way of purging collective shame and guilt.”

Stegall said the state’s examiner and the disciplinary panel that recommended public censure acted as “grand inquisitors on behalf of an allegedly scandalized public.”

“Who has really been scandalized?” Stegall asked. “As with the excessive rhetoric, the legal justifications given by the examiner and panel in this case are thin cover for the naked embarrassment and the accompanying need to close ranks and restore a facade of judicial superiority.”

Stegall wrote it was absurd for judges to be held up as a class of rulers who must be obeyed because they possessed moral or intellectual superiority.

“I may be an unexpected defender of ‘consensually non-monogamous’ judges — and I have no difficulty condemning adultery as morally destructive — but above all else, the rule of law condemns the arbitrary and unaccountable power of the state to pick winners and losers, reward friends and punish enemies, and protect its own interests above the public’s. Such abuses and the hypocrisy they reveal are the real threat to the legitimacy and integrity of the judiciary,” Stegall said.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

BOURGEOIS INDIVIDUALISM

FAKE LIBERTARIANS

Unvaccinated convoy protesters are selfish, plain and simple. Please, just get the jab

The choice not to get vaccinated has meant hospitals and their intensive care units are overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, Althia Raj writes.

By Althia Raj

National Columnist

TORONTO STAR

Sat., Jan. 29, 2022

Please, just get vaccinated.

I have no idea if I speak for a majority or a minority of Canadians but my principal thought watching the demonstration unfold on Parliament Hill Saturday is just how selfish the unvaccinated are.

I’m sorry. Yes, I feel the need to apologize for feeling this way, but it is selfish to decide not to get vaccinated when you have no medical reason not to. Vaccines have been shown to be overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines save lives. Your life, and the lives of others.

We live in a society where we, as a group, have decided to invest in and support one another. I don’t have children, but my taxes go to educate my neighbours’ children and I’m happy about that. Our taxes go to pay for the roads and bridges we drive on, the parks we play in, the health-care services we all use.

Unless you’re living off the grid, hunting your own food, treating yourself when you’re sick, and choosing not to partake in society, I think protesting because you’re fed up with vaccine mandates that prevent you from doing certain jobs or going to a restaurant is selfish.

The choice not to get vaccinated has meant hospitals and their intensive care units are overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases. Vaccination, unfortunately, hasn’t prevented transmission, and there are too many vaccinated Canadians in hospital, but proportionally there are vastly more unvaccinated patients. Because we all share that hospital capacity, many Canadians have gone without surgeries, diagnostic tests or treatments. That’s unfair. As a group, we should do everything we can to ensure this doesn’t happen, and that means, please, get vaccinated.

Vaccinated protesters on the hill say they are tired of restrictions. I am also tired of the restrictions. We all are. I think often of the single parents with school-age children and how they’ve managed, or the small-business owners who worry about their life savings sunk in a business that may be unable to recover. I can’t wait for things to return to normal, to feel safe going about everyday activities, and not worry about my 82-year-old father catching COVID-19.

The sooner everyone gets vaccinated, the sooner this can happen.

I know some feel there’s no point to vaccination; we’re now on dose three and dose four may not be far behind. So many people have already caught COVID-19, what’s the point, the argument goes. Many people who recently got sick with the Omicron variant had mild symptoms, they note. True, and most were vaccinated. As long as people travel and there isn’t vaccine equity around the world, the virus will mutate, and we’ll be rolling up our sleeves for new jabs.

The alternative is we continue to live in a see-saw of lockdowns, or we accept that tens of thousands will die as the cost of keeping our society open.

I don’t like either of these scenarios. Please, just get vaccinated.

We are incredibly privileged to live in Canada, to have ample access to free vaccines. The few visible minorities on the hill reminded me how so many around the world would love to be in our position.

We are fortunate to live in a country where we can safely protest. I was relieved to see, as I write this, that the demonstration was non-violent. It was loud, full of profanity directed at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and reports of people urinating on the street. More troubling were the Confederate flags, swastikas, the use of the War Memorial as a parking lot, protesters dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the appropriation of a statue of Terry Fox. The demands from the convoy’s organizer, Canada Unity, which have garnered more than 250,000 signatures, are also concerning. Their memorandum of understanding reads like a civics essay from a flunking Grade 9 student. The Senate and the governor general cannot instruct any level of government to waive COVID-related fines or reinstate dismissed employees. Furthermore, the “people of Canada” are already represented in Ottawa, by members of Parliament who were just recently selected in a free and fair election, not by this self-appointed group of minority truckers and their supporters.

I fear the deepening polarization happening in this country. I worry about the hollowing out of the political middle, and political parties increasingly catering to their more radical wings. Our politicians should be united in calling out the misinformation that protesters are sharing, not catering to the group for political reasons.

Part of the problem is an erosion of trust. The pandemic response has been far from perfect. Official advice has not always been as transparent and honest as it could have been. Moreover, that advice shifted as science evolved. I can still hear Canada’s chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, telling us in 2020 that quarantine is unnecessary and discouraging the use of masks. Politicians, meanwhile, too often chose to make politically popular decisions rather than be guided by science. I fear Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe’s decision to end proof of negative tests or proof of vaccination policy is the latest example.

But as I watch Phil Powers on the CBC, sitting in his truck stopped in front of Parliament Hill, urging people to do their “own research” and complaining that the “mandate season ... has gone on long enough, and it is just time for us to have our lives back,” I have only one message. Please, just get vaccinated.

Althia Raj is an Ottawa-based national politics columnist for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @althiaraj

 

Chinese Satellite Reportedly Grappled, Moved Another Spacecraft Away From Orbit

© AP Photo

Kirill Kurevlev

Correspondent

All materialsWrite to the author

The event was discussed as part of a webinar on managing the risks of satellite close approaches in geostationary orbit, hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Secure World Foundation earlier this week.

Last week, China reportedly demonstrated yet another advancement in space-based technology and capabilities as an analytics firm claimed to have seen a satellite "grab" another one and yank it from its orbit.

According to a Breaking Defense report upon the event, China's Shijian-21 satellite, or SJ-21, vanished from view on January 22 and resurfaced while performing a "large maneuver" to approach a dead BeiDou Navigation System satellite. The SJ-21 then yanked the BeiDou from its orbit and deposited it in a "graveyard orbit" a few hundred kilometers away, where it is unlikely to interact with or collide with live satellites.

Graveyard orbit is typically classified as 300 kilometers above geostationary orbit, or around 36,000 kilometers above the ground.

The information was reportedly presented by Brian Flewelling, chief architect for space situational awareness (SSA) at ExoAnalytic Solutions, who showed footage from the event.

"We continue to track SJ-21 and monitor it for conjunctions with all known space objects. The ability to maintain custody of SJ-21 after this large daytime maneuver is an important and unique capability of Exo’s commercial SSA network," Flewelling is quoted as saying.

The latest tracking data acquired earlier this week from ExoAnalytic's telescopes shows the SJ-21 separating from the BeiDou, leaving the latter in the eccentric "super-graveyard drift orbit," Flewelling told the outlet after the event.

SJ-21 has now reportedly returned to a near-geostationary orbit.

“What we know for sure is what we can observe by its actions in space — the intent behind it and what China plans to do with this technology is a more subjective assessment,” he added.

The "gap" in observations was reportedly caused by the fact that it docked with the now-defunct satellite during the day when telescopes are unable to image.

According to the report, the SJ-21 maneuver is consistent with the US initiative of On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM) capabilities, which the US and Europe have also pursued. Such missions would reportedly come within Space Command's operations and might be a factor in future Artemis program launches.

"Artemis is about more than getting back to the Moon; it’s about sustained human presence on the Moon and the ultimate goal of going to Mars," Larry Huebner, NASA technical lead for OSAM-2 said at the event, per Fox News.

The SJ-21 was reportedly supposed to "test and verify space debris mitigation technologies," but the ability to shift satellites around signifies that China has alarming capabilities for orbital manipulation of other nations' satellites, according to US experts.

Also at the webinar, CSIS, the Secure World Foundation, and the University of Texas at Austin introduced a new web-based project to watch real-time and forecast movements of satellites and space debris, with the goal of improving transparency about close approaches in orbit.

An OSAM-capable vehicle may ultimately be equipped with a 3D printer to generate new pieces for production in space, allowing space vehicles to achieve remarkable capabilities. The US reportedly intends to launch a "servicer" satellite in 2025.

Rising settler violence against Palestinians in Burqa reignites struggle over land

Residents of the West Bank village have been fighting to reclaim their land since 1978 when Israel confiscated it to establish the Homesh settlement

Mushir Seif, a Palestinian resident of Burqa, has been for decades denied access to his land which is only 10 minutes away by foot (MEE/Atef Daglas)

By Atef Daglas in Nablus, 

Occupied Palestine
Published date: 29 January 2022

Perched atop the roof of his home in Burqa village north of Nablus in the occupied West Bank stands Mushir Seif, gazing across the Mount of al-Zuhur at his land, now swallowed up by the Israeli settlement of Homesh.

The land is only 800 meters away from him, and 10 minutes away by foot, yet for over four decades he’s been denied access to it.

Seif and his 6,000 fellow Burqa residents have not been able to reclaim or plant anywhere in the 45 dunams (45,000 square metres) of their land that have been confiscated by Israel since 1978 when Homesh was established.

Israel uses settler violence as 'tool' to take Palestinian land: B'Tselem

Read More »

With a mixture of sadness and bitterness, Seif told Middle East Eye of the pain he and his fellow villagers have felt for decades due to the settler presence on the land - with the tacit support of the Israeli army - and the persistent feeling of insecurity caused by settler violence.

“It was an ambush by the settlers,” Seif told MEE about one near-fatal attack that he and other villagers came under last November.

“The army was conspicuously absent and did not come even after the attack,” he added.

The incident Seif referred to happened on 15 November when a group of Burqa residents was on their way to visit their stolen land. When they arrived, Homesh settlers shot at them, assaulted them with sharp objects, and destroyed Seif’s car. At least six farmers were seriously injured.

The November assault was not an isolated incident. Palestinians in Burqa fear that settlers are ramping up violence to create a new reality on the ground and force the government to give them the land.

Attacks increased particularly after the killing of an Israeli settler by Palestinian gunmen in December near Homesh, bringing the decade-long fight over land in Burqa back into the spotlight.

Struggle through the generations

The plight of Palestinians in Burqa started in 1978 when Israel confiscated 1,050 dunams from Mounts al-Zuhur and al-Qubaybat in the village to establish a military base.

The military outpost was soon transformed into what is known as the Homesh settlement, whose radius of control extends to 4,000 dunams.

In 2005, the Israeli government under Ariel Sharon evacuated settlers from Homesh, along with settlers in the Gaza Strip and five other settlements and military bases near Jenin, as part of its unilateral disengagement plan.

Since then, the army has closed off the area for the Palestinians that owned the land while settlers continued to come back to maintain their presence, establishing a makeshift yeshiva, or religious seminary, in contravention of Israeli law.


From 1978 up to the present day, the tussle between settlers and the Palestinians who own the land has been ongoing, a struggle passed down from grandparents to grandchildren.

Such is the case of the family of Yousef Hajji, known as Abu Saleh, who was expelled by the army while tilling the land 44 years ago. Abu Saleh passed away in 2005 aged 91 before he could return to his property.

His son Fathallah, 72, faced a similar situation a few years ago when he tried to plant trees on the land and was expelled by Israel. Now, the same fate has befallen his grandson, Nasser, who was wounded in the settler attack in November.

Standing beside his son, Nasser, as he received treatment for his wounds at the Rafidia Surgical Hospital in Nablus, Fathallah told MEE that Nasser had gone with dozens of his fellow villagers to visit and plant the land.

The visit was arranged to comply with a request by the Israeli High Court, which asked for proof that demonstrates the villagers' inability to access the land due to settler attacks.

'When we were ambushed, the settlers attacked us from behind and from the front, and the army was nowhere to be found' - Munir Qadus, Yesh Din

Settlers and the army had testified in front of the court saying farmers do not ever visit the land and hence cannot lay claim to it.

The attack was not the first of its kind in Burqa, Fathallah said, but it was the most violent.

About 50 settlers had been lying in wait for them and attacked them with sharp objects once they approached the land.

Munir Qadus, a field researcher with the Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din, was one of those assaulted on the day when his phone was broken and his glasses were lost.

“We waited for over 15 minutes for the army to arrive to secure the entrance of the farmers to their lands, despite the security coordination from the side of the Palestinian Authority (PA),” Qadus told MEE.

“When we were ambushed, the settlers attacked us from behind and from the front, and the army was nowhere to be found.”

About 50 similar settler attacks were documented in 2020 alone, Qadus said, which included beatings, attacks on homes, and stone-throwing against Palestinians passing by in their cars.

Court orders ignored

In 2013, after many lawsuits filed by the farmers, the Israeli High Court ruled that Homesh was a private Palestinian landholding belonging to its farmers and that an Israeli presence there was not permissible.

In breach of the court order, settlers maintained a de facto outpost on the lands.

Burqa residents have been able to enter their lands at times since 2018, but only fleetingly and without planting anything.

On the rare occasion that they could plant certain trees on the lands through aid and charitable organisations, settlers would promptly uproot them and fill the water-wells with rocks.

Settlers in Homesh pictured in November, the same month a group of Palestinians were ambushed and assaulted (Provided/Munir Qadus)

Jehad Salah, former head of the Burqa Village Council, told MEE that the only reasonable explanation for the settlers’ continuing presence in Homesh is the implicit approval of the army and government.

Qadus accuses the government and the army of negligence in implementing the law, asserting that neither the settlers nor the army abide by the court order, which is the highest legal body in Israel.

“They think that all of the land is Israeli land,” Qadus said.

Israel: Settler attacks on Palestinian olive harvest 'most dangerous in years'

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Settler attacks on Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have seen an “alarming” rise in 2021, UN human rights experts said in a statement last year.

“We are witnessing the highest recorded levels of violence in recent years and more severe incidents,” the statement said.

According to UN figures, 370 settler attacks led to damage to property in 2021 and a further 126 assaults caused casualties.

At the same time, settlement building has tripled from the previous year, with the approval of the construction of 4,000 new units, according to Khalil al-Tafkaji, Palestinian expert on settlement and director of the map unit at the Centre for Arab Studies in Jerusalem.

Both authorised and unauthorised Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land are considered illegal under international law.
'We will not leave the mountain'

Following the shooting near Homesh that left one settler dead and two wounded on 16 December, settlers unleashed a wave of attacks that have affected most of the village’s residents.

Dozens of houses have been assaulted and their windows and doors broken, threatening the lives of many villagers. Gravestones were not spared the onslaught and many of them were vandalised and defaced.

Saddam Salah, an anti-settlement activist in Burqa who regularly documents the violations on his camera, says at least 30 houses in Burqa were attacked in the three weeks after the December shooting. Settlers also used live bullets while attacking Palestinian homes, he said.

The situation has been exacerbated by the army’s crackdown on the village.

Military checkpoints have been erected around Burqa and its entrances have been blocked, leaving some neighbourhoods completely sectioned off and isolated.

A resurgence of popular resistance has emerged in Burqa in recent weeks and there have been protests against the deplorable conditions perpetrated by the army and the settlers.

Palestinians in Burqa are rising up against the attacks and incursions by the army and the settlers

 (MEE/Atef Daglas)

At least eight Palestinians have been injured by live bullets in demonstrations against the Israeli assaults, and hundreds more by rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas.

Despite the soaring tensions in Homesh, the settlers continue their calls to “climb the mountain [of Homesh],” refusing to give up their position, citing religious reasons.

But the people of Burqa, the rightful owners of the land, promise that they will not remain silent.

With their oft-repeated slogan, “we will not leave the mountain,” they have created a counter popular resistance movement, alongside nearby villages of Beita and Kufr Qaddum, promising to protect their land and push back against turning Homesh into an Israeli settlement once more.

 

Surging Fertilizer Prices Set to Exacerbate African Food Crisis

Mumbi Gitau, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- A surge in global fertilizer prices is adding to worries about food security across sub-Saharan Africa, where small-scale farmers depend largely on imports -- if they even use additional nutrients at all.

With prices tripling over the past 18 months, many farmers are considering whether to forgo purchases of fertilizers this year. That leaves a market long touted for its growth potential set to shrink by almost a third, according to Sebastian Nduva, program manager at researcher group AfricaFertilizer.Org. That could potentially curb cereals output by 30 million tons, enough to feed 100 million people, he said.

“We are likely to see a scenario where yields are depressed and this will mean that either the government will have to readjust their budgets and import food, or there will be food shortages,” Nduva said.

Sub-Saharan Africa already has the world’s lowest fertilizer application rates, averaging 12 kilograms per hectare compared with a global average of 110 kilograms. With usage set to fall as input costs rise, the threat to regional food security and political stability is growing, according to Alain Sy Traoré, director of agriculture and rural development at the ECOWAS Commission. 

That will increase the region’s dependence on imports at a time when food prices are near a record high. More than 20 million people across sub-Saharan Africa are already on the brink of famine, according to the World Food Programme. 

Soaring gas prices helped drive fertilizers higher last year, squeezing supply as increasing costs shuttered plants while producers introduced export restrictions. 

While fertilizer prices in the U.S. have eased, prices in Europe and the Middle East, the top suppliers to Africa, are yet to find any relief -- a gauge of western European prices for ammonia remains at a record. Tensions over Ukraine have also been pushing up natural gas prices this month and any escalation could drive fertilizer prices even higher.

The high costs have curbed output at some of the more than 100 fertilizer blending plants in sub-Saharan Africa, which largely depend on imports of the nutrient, Nduva said. Stockpiles of the nutrients are now dwindling after governments and traders delayed procurements in the hope that prices would fall.

Small scale farmers, who account for more than 70% of fertilizer consumption in the region, are hardest hit. Most lack access to finance that could help them withstand the spiking prices.

“Corn, rice, sorghum and millet growers are most vulnerable because they do not have such buffers and will be forced do without any nutrients when planting,” said Patrice Annequin, senior fertilizer market specialist at IFDC, which promotes affordable nutrient technologies. 

Yao Nabotena, a cotton farmer in Kokaha village in Ivory Coast, used just 33 bags of fertilizer this season, half the amount required on his seven-hectare plantation. 

Some sectors are in a stronger position to weather the market turmoil. Gains in cocoa and cotton will cushion some farmers in West Africa from the higher input costs, said Annequin.

African nations have also begun or are expanding production of fertilizer as part of plans to reduce reliance on imports from Europe and North America, which are sometimes unsuitable for the region’s soils. Investors from Morocco’s OCP Group to Africa’s richest person Aliko Dangote and Fertiplant East Africa are investing in operations to produce or improve delivery of fertilizer in countries including Nigeria, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Fertilizer demand in the region should bounce back in 2023 as prices come down. Still, even before the current squeeze, sub-Saharan Africa had barely reached half its consumption potential, according to AfricaFertilizer.Org. Higher application rates and better use of arable land could transform the market.

“Meeting any of these parameters could double the region’s fertilizer consumption,” Nduva said.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Waymo sues California DMV to keep robotaxi safety details secret

Sandeen said a distinction should be made between trade secrets and plain secrecy.

A Waymo self-driving test vehicle in Mountain View, California.

 (Yichuan Cao / TNS)

Russ Mitchell
Los Angeles Times

Jan. 28, 2022 

Waymo, the driverless car company operating an autonomous taxi fleet in San Francisco, is suing the California Department of Motor Vehicles. The immediate issue: whether the company, owned by Google parent Alphabet, can hide from the public safety-related information by designating it as a trade secret.

The topics Waymo wants to keep hidden include how it plans to handle driverless car emergencies, what it would do if a robot taxi started driving itself where it wasn’t supposed to go, and what constraints there are on the car’s ability to traverse San Francisco’s tunnels, tight curves and steep hills. Waymo also wants to keep secret descriptions of crashes involving its driverless cars.

That’s among the information the DMV requires to determine whether to issue permits to deploy robot vehicles on public roads.

The permit was issued last year. Waymo is focusing on San Francisco, where, for the time being, its robotaxis operate under the supervision of trained human drivers.

The wider issue: how to handle the explosion in trade secret claims in an age of artificial intelligence, robot technology, the Internet of Things and pervasive data collection.

The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court on Jan. 21, contends that Waymo would lose out against other driverless car companies if full permit information were shared with the public.

The suit stems from a public records request to the DMV from an unidentified individual or entity seeking Waymo’s driverless deployment application — the basic filled-out form, attachments of additional material, and responses to follow-up questions from the DMV.

Before releasing the material, the DMV invited Waymo to censor sections the company believed would reveal trade secrets. The DMV sent the package to the requester with major portions blacked out, including full concealment of some of the DMV’s own questions.

Whoever asked for the material then challenged the blackouts. According to the lawsuit, the DMV contacted Waymo and invited the company to sue the agency.

“Every autonomous vehicle company has an obligation to demonstrate the safety of its technology, which is why we’ve transparently and consistently shared data on our safety readiness with the public,” Waymo spokesperson Nicholas Smith said via email when asked about the suit. “We will continue to work with the CA DMV to determine what is appropriate for us to share publicly and hope to find a resolution soon.”

Where the DMV stands on the issue remains unclear. The agency has yet to file a response to the suit and told The Los Angeles Times it won’t discuss ongoing legal matters.

In effect, the DMV is shifting responsibility to the court to determine what’s a trade secret, what’s not, and what balance should be struck between corporate claims and public interest. It can take years to resolve such lawsuits. Therefore, if any of the redacted material is made public, it probably won’t be soon.

Punting to the courts is understandable, said Sharon Sandeen, a law professor and director of the Intellectual Property Institute at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota.

For government agencies subject to public records laws, “the default rule is supposed to be to disclose, unless there’s a clear exception,” said Sandeen, who researches the intersection of AI and trade secrets. But laws regarding public records and trade secrets are anything but clear, she said. Ambiguous court rulings and lack of legislative clarity have caused agencies to fear that unless they “abide by everything the company wants,” they risk being sued themselves for intellectual property theft.

Trade secrets aren’t automatically protected from public disclosure in matters that call for government regulation, she said. She points to the lengthy, detailed financial documents companies must file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Companies presumably would prefer not to do so, she said, but they must if they’re to sell shares to the general public.

Sandeen said she is in no way opposed to protecting true trade secrets. Few lawyers dispute the idea that a legitimate trade secret should be protected by law. But trade-secret cases have mushroomed even as companies collect enormous amounts of data on the public, information they consider their own business property, leading critics to ask whether their trade-secret claims are overbroad and intentionally exaggerated.

“Corporate and government actors have pushed to transform the law of trade secrecy into one of the most — if not the most — powerful tools to ensure concealment of information,” law professors Charles Graves and Sonia Katyal wrote in an article published in the Georgetown Law Journal in June.

“The irony is that this has happened at the very same time that the opaque nature of algorithmic decision making, coupled with the new interplay between government agencies and private technologies, has created a crisis regarding access to information by journalists, regulators and others working in the public interest.”

Sandeen said a distinction should be made between trade secrets and plain secrecy.

“There needs to be leadership at the legislative and executive level that says this is the type of information we need for the public interest,” she said.

The matter will remain contentious.

In its lawsuit, Waymo says revelation of the safety information at issue would cause “a chilling effect across the industry.”

Sandeen said, “The goal of having cars moving around publicly funded streets without a driver is a real important public interest, and they shouldn’t be allowed to hide behind trade secrets to avoid scrutiny.”

Russ Mitchell

Appeals court upholds California’s net neutrality law

The court ruled 3-0 that the state law isn’t preempted at the federal level

By Kim Lyons@SocialKimLy Jan 28, 2022,

 Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that California’s net neutrality law can remain in place, upholding a lower court decision. California’s 2018 law is the toughest in the country, and was signed into law a year after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed the federal Open Internet Order. That 2015 order put into place strict net neutrality rules barring internet providers from blocking or throttling legal apps and websites. It also banned prioritization of paid content by ISPs.

California’s law also bars throttling and speed lanes, and not long after the law was passed, the Department of Justice under former President Trump sued the state, arguing that the law was pre-empted by the FCC’s 2017 repeal of the federal law. That lawsuit and other legal challenges prevented the California law from taking effect, but last year the DOJ dropped its lawsuit.

Industry groups, including wireless trade association CTIA, and internet providers AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast also sued to block the California law from taking effect, but a district court judge rejected their challenge, which argued that the FCC decision should preempt the state law.

On Friday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 3-0 to uphold the lower court ruling, saying the FCC “no longer has the authority” to regulate broadband internet services since the agency had reclassified them as information services, rather than telecommunications services. “The agency, therefore, cannot preempt state action,” the court wrote in its ruling, adding that the power to control access could potentially “open the door for anticompetitive, discriminatory behavior that could disadvantage important segments of society.”

The industry groups said in a statement Friday that the “piecemeal approach” to the issue “is untenable, and Congress should codify national rules for an open Internet once and for all.”

At the moment, the FCC can’t reinstate net neutrality at the federal level, because it doesn’t have a majority; it has four members, two Democrats and two Republicans. Gigi Sohn, President Biden’s nominee to replace former FCC chairman Ajit Pai, is still awaiting Senate approval.