Cambodian court jails American lawyer, dozens of others for treason



Story by Reuters - Yesterday 

A Cambodian court handed down jail sentences on Tuesday to about 60 opposition figures including prominent lawyer Theary Seng for conspiring to commit treason, in a mass trial condemned by the United States and rights groups as politically motivated.

Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer and human rights activist, was among more than 100 people affiliated with the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) charged with treason and incitement.

The court in Phnom Penh sentenced Theary Seng to six years in jail and ordered her arrest, her lawyer told reporters.

“This is not acceptable and I will meet her in prison to discuss appealing,” the lawyer Chuong Choungy said outside the court, noting she was among about 60 co-defendants who had been sentenced to between five to eight years in prison.

Theary Seng had arrived at court dressed as the Statue of Liberty with a symbolic chain around her, and saying she expected to be found guilty.

After the verdict, she was bundled into a police pickup truck after the verdict, sparking scuffles between officers and her supporters.Theary Seng stands outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday. - Heng Sinith/AP

The verdicts are likely to renew international concern about Cambodia’s veteran prime minister, Hun Sen, and what his critics say has been elimination, over many years, of opposition to his rule. Hun Sen denies persecuting his opponents.

US embassy spokesperson Chad Roedemeier said the United States was “deeply troubled by today’s unjust verdicts”.

“The United States has consistently called on Cambodian authorities to stop politically motivated trials, including against US citizen Seng Theary and other human rights defenders, members of the political opposition, journalists, and labour and environmental activists,” Roedemeier told Reuters.


Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen gestures during a news conference at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh on September 17, 2021. - Tang Chhin Sothy/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

The court sentenced veteran opposition leader Sam Rainsy, a former finance minister and leader of the CNRP who lives in exile in France, in absentia to eight years in prison.
‘Autocratic’

Before her arrest, Theary Seng spoke of the verdict she expected, saying it would apply to all Cambodians who “love justice, who love freedom, who are genuine democrats”.

“It follows the logic of this autocratic regime to find me guilty,” she told reporters.

Hun Sen has ruled Cambodia for 37 years. He rose to prominence in the 1980s, after the defeat of the Khmer Rouge “killing fields” regime, and cemented his hold on power in the 1990s.

The CNRP was banned and its leader Kem Sokha arrested before a 2018 general election, allowing Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party to win every parliamentary seat, and prompting international outrage.

The charges against Kem Sokha stem from accusations he conspired with the US to overthrow Hun Sen. Kem Sokha and the US reject the accusations.

Human Rights Watch urged foreign governments, the United Nations, and aid donors to press Cambodia to quash the convictions and end a broad attack on the country’s remaining civic and democratic space.

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Canada, U.S. face democratic ‘rough patches’ amid populism: American envoy

Amanda Connolly - GLOBAL NEWS - Sunday, June 12, 2022

Canada and the United States are facing "rough patches" in their democracies as populist, authoritarian movements continue to find traction among Western countries, says the American ambassador.

But in an interview with The West Block's Mercedes Stephenson, David Cohen said he is ultimately optimistic that the democracies will find a way through the political turmoil of recent years.

"I am always a glass-half-full kind of a guy," Cohen said. "I irrevocably believe that democracy will prevail.

"We may have to work through some issues. There may be some rough patches."

"But at the end of the day, you combat these rough patches with the strength of democracy, with dialogue, with working together with other democracies."

His comments come as the U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, deadly attack on the Capitol presents its findings to the American public in televised hearings.

Read more:

Key takeaways from Jan. 6 committee’s first hearing on the Capitol riot

Cohen added that the challenges to democracy are not just happening in North America but in countries around the world where extremists are trying to use populism to subvert democratic processes and voices to further the goals of authoritarianism.

China and Russia are among the actors involved in those attempts to subvert democracy, he said, but also domestic forces including elements in the trucker convoys that blockaded the Canadian capital and border crossings for three weeks earlier this year.

"I don't know whether it's Donald Trump lines that have seeped into Canadian politics or whether it is this global movement that, quite frankly, predated Donald Trump," Cohen said.

"I think the best way to combat some of the hateful rhetoric of these extremist movements is with positive speech, is with democracies getting together and talking about the benefits of democracy and the things that we can do together as democratic countries and democratic societies," he added.

"And that's a lot of the discussion that took place at the Summit for the Americas last week."

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The Summit brought together not only Canada and the U.S. but countries from the hemisphere, including many from Latin America where analysts have suggested American influence has waned in the years since the U.S. withdrew from leadership on the global stage under the Trump administration.

That waning influence presents an opportunity for Canada to exercise a bigger role in hemispheric diplomacy and strategy.

“Given the U.S. position on all of this, it only makes Canada’s potential role in the hemisphere, not just materially but symbolically, really critical,” said Kenneth Frankel, chief executive of the Toronto-based Council of the Americas, in an interview last week with Global News.

“Latin Americans who are struggling for democracy and human rights — they want to know that there’s a big country in the neighbourhood that’s on their side.”

Read more:
L.A. Summit offers Canada a chance to boost its global influence

An ongoing source of criticism for Canada, though, is matching rhetoric with action -- and dollars.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has continued to face questions about why he is not committing Canada to spending the NATO target of two per cent of GDP on defence amid what his defence minister, Anita Anand, has acknowledged is a "darker" and "more chaotic" world.

Read more:
Canada’s defence minister says the world is ‘growing darker’ and ‘more chaotic’

While the government has increased defence spending by roughly $8 billion in the most recent budget, it still falls roughly $75-billion short of hitting the NATO target, according to an analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Cohen had appeared critical of that budget increase earlier this year, when he described it as "a little disappointing as matched against the rhetoric that we heard leading into the release of the budget.”

He clarified those comments to Global News.

"I think there was an impression created that there would be a larger increase in defence spending than there ended up being," he said.

At the same time, Cohen said the U.S. acknowledges there are spending commitments such as NORAD modernization and a defence policy review that could end up seeing additional defence spending beyond what is outlined in the budget.

"I don't think, as the United States ambassador to Canada, it's appropriate for me to say one way or another what's enough and what isn't enough," he said. "I think Canada has a firm sense of the importance of defence, particularly in light of what's happening in Russia -- Ukraine, particularly --and what you talked about earlier with China's increasing aggressiveness."

"Canada needs to make a judgment of what is enough to spend by way of defence and how quickly they need to move to be able to get there."

Scientists find oldest belly button in the world on a dinosaur fossil


An “exquisitely” preserved dinosaur fossil has revealed the soft underbelly of a horned dinosaur from China. Specifically, paleontologists using high-tech laser imaging technology found evidence of a dinosaur that lived 125 million years ago and sported a belly button.


Laser image of the bipedal Psittacosaurus showing the umbilical scar and scales.

Swikar Oli -  National Post

The long umbilical scar on the Psittacosaurus specimen is similar to those found on some lizards and crocodiles. Unlike mammals, this reptilian form of belly button is a slit-like opening connecting the embryo to the egg’s yolk sac and other membranes. The yolk sac is absorbed by the dinosaur either immediately before or soon after hatching, leaving behind an opening in the abdominal wall that seals up and appears as a long scar.

While scientists have hypothesized that egg-laying dinosaurs would develop such scars, this is the first time it has been spotted in a non-avian dinosaur.

“We call this kind of scar a belly button, and it is smaller in humans. This specimen is the first dinosaur fossil to preserve a belly button, which is due to its exceptional state of preservation,” said Michael Pittman, one of the study’s authors and a palaeontologists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The size, smoothness and location of the umbilical scar rule out trauma or infection as the cause, the study says. The abdominal scale’s pattern was uninterrupted, whereas a healed injury would have a “smooth, scale-free connective tissue over the open wound,” the authors note.

Psittacosaurus (a name that means ‘parrot lizard’) was a two-metre long beaked herbivore that lived in the early Cretaceous. The fossil used in this study was made public in 2002 and has led to big discoveries because of its exceptionally preserved state, complete with scales, horn and “long plumes of tail bristles,” the researchers write.

“This Psittacosaurus specimen is probably the most important fossil we have for studying dinosaur skin. But it continues to yield surprises that we can bring to life with new technology like laser imaging,” the study’s lead author Phil R. Bell from the University of New England in Armidale in Australia told Phys.org .

The palaeontologists compared the length of the specimen’s femur to other Psittacosaurus to estimate its age as just shy of sexual maturity, about 6 or 7 years old. It’s unclear whether the umbilical scar in dinosaurs lasts until adulthood.

The prized specimen is on view at at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany.

UK cancels first flight to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda


LONDON (AP) — Britain canceled a flight that was scheduled to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda late Tuesday after the European Court of Human Rights intervened, saying the plan carried “a real risk of irreversible harm."

The decision to scrap the flight capped three days of frantic court challenges from immigrant rights lawyers who launched a flurry of case-by-case appeals seeking to block the deportation of everyone on the government’s list.

British government officials had said earlier in the day that the plane would take off no matter how many people were on board. But after the appeals, no one remained. British media reported that the number of potential deportees had been more than 30 on Friday.

After the flight was canceled, Home Secretary Priti Patel said she was disappointed but would not be “deterred from doing the right thing.” She added: “Our legal team are reviewing every decision made on this flight and preparation for the next flight begins now.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson had emphatically defended Britain’s plan, arguing that it is a legitimate way to protect lives and thwart the criminal gangs that smuggle migrants across the English Channel in small boats. Britain in recent years has seen an illegal influx of migrants from such places as Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Iraq and Yemen.

Johnson announced an agreement with Rwanda in April in which people who enter Britain illegally will be deported to the East African country. In exchange for accepting them, Rwanda will receive millions of pounds (dollars) in development aid. The deportees will be allowed to apply for asylum in Rwanda, not Britain.

Opponents have argued that it is illegal and inhumane to send people thousands of miles to a country they don’t want to live in. The leaders of the Church of England joined the opposition, calling the government’s policy “immoral.” Prince Charles was among those opposed, according to British news reports.

Activists have denounced the policy as an attack on the rights of refugees that most countries have recognized since the end of World War II.

Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said the British government's deportation threat would not serve as a deterrent to those seeking safety in the U.K.

“The government must immediately rethink by having a grown-up conversation with France and the (European Union) about sharing responsibility and look to operating an orderly, humane, and fair asylum system,” Solomon said.

The U.N. refugee agency condemned the plan out of concern that other countries will follow suit as war, repression and natural disasters force a growing number of people from their homes.

Politicians in Denmark and Austria are considering similar proposals. Australia has operated an asylum-processing center in the Pacific island nation of Nauru since 2012.

“At a global level, this unapologetically punitive deal further condones the evisceration of the right to seek asylum in wealthy countries,” said Maurizio Albahari, a migration expert at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana as he described the UK policy.

Many millions of people around the globe have been displaced over the past two decades, putting the international consensus on refugees under strain. The world had more than 26 million refugees in the middle of last year, more that double the number two decades ago, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Millions more have left their homes voluntarily, seeking economic opportunities in developed nations.

In Britain, those pressures have led to a surge in the number of people crossing the English Channel in leaky inflatable boats, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Last November, 27 people died when their boat sank in the waters between France and England.

Johnson, fighting for his political life amid concerns about his leadership and ethics, responded by promising to stop such risky journeys.

While Rwanda was the site of a genocide that killed hundreds of thousands of people in 1994, the country has built a reputation for stability and economic progress since then, the British government argues. Critics say that stability comes at the cost of political repression.

Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, attacked the policy as “all wrong.”

If the British government is truly interested in protecting lives, it should work with other countries to target the smugglers and provide safe routes for asylum-seekers, not simply shunt migrants to other countries, Grandi said.

“The precedent that this creates is catastrophic for a concept that needs to be shared, like asylum,” Grandi said Monday.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and 24 other bishops from the Church of England joined the chorus of voices asking the government to reconsider an “immoral policy that shames Britain.”

“Our Christian heritage should inspire us to treat asylum-seekers with compassion, fairness and justice, as we have for centuries,” the bishops wrote in a letter to the Times of London.

Britain’s Supreme Court refused to hear one last-ditch appeal Tuesday, a day after two lower courts refused to block the deportations. Legal challenges continued, however, as lawyers filed case-by-case appeals on behalf of individual migrants.

Many migrants favor Britain as a destination for reasons of language or family ties, or because it is seen as an open economy with more opportunities than other European nations.

When Britain was a member of the European Union, it was part of a system that required refugees to seek asylum in the first safe country they entered. Those who reached Britain could be sent back to the EU countries they traveled from. Britain lost that option when it withdrew from the EU two years ago.

Since then, the British and French governments have worked to stop the journeys, with a great deal of bickering and not much success. More than 28,000 migrants entered Britain in small boats last year, up from 8,500 in 2020.

Nando Sigona, a migration expert at the University of Birmingham, said large principles are at stake if the Rwanda policy stands.

“How can we establish any kind of moral high ground where we intervene in other countries if we are not signatory to providing protection to those fleeing war and persecution?’’ Sigona asked.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration

Danica Kirka, The Associated Press

POLITICAL PRISONER
World Vision defendant Halabi's verdict set for Wednesday


ZIONIST NEWS SOURCE
By YONAH JEREMY BOB - 

Yesterday 
The Jerusalem Post

The Beersheba District Court will decide the fate of World Vision defendant Mohammad El Halabi on Wednesday, six years after his arrest and under pressure from the High Court of Justice to stop dragging its feet.

The state prosecution accused El Halabi of assisting Hamas in addition to his humanitarian work, but he claims the charges were made to delegitimize Palestinian civil society.

El Halabi’s case has received global coverage because he was connected to World Vision, and is being watched closely to determine the fairness and professionalism of the Israeli justice system.

As the El Halabi verdict comes in, the International Criminal Court is about 15 months into a criminal investigation of alleged Israeli and Hamas war crimes during the 2014 Gaza War and the 2018 Gaza border conflict, and has yet to give any signs about how it views Israel’s prosecution and courts in terms of probes and verdicts that have resulted from the events in dispute.

There are also questions on whether the time frame and evidentiary stringencies of the trial can be justified, given that El Halabi was not charged with violent crimes himself.

These questions might only be strengthened if he is found innocent or exonerated on some of the charges.

Sources say that a mixed verdict of partial conviction and partial acquittal could be presented to the world as a sign that the court was objective, and did not “buy” everything pitched to it by the prosecution and Israeli intelligence.

The setting of the verdict date itself came under a direct order from the High Court on May 9, after the court had been set to hear a debate on whether to extend El Halabi’s detention for another 90 days.

The verdict was expected to be delivered before May, and the justices seemed to have lost patience with the Beersheba District Court, which has tried the case.

The High Court extended his detention in February for 90 days, but on the basis that it had indications from the Beersheba District Court that this could be a final extension before the verdict.

Related video: Why Arab world is furious at BJP over insults to Prophet Muhammad

The case

EL HALABI’S CASE had come before the High Court dozens of times since his August 2016 indictment, but each time the justices extended his detention pending a verdict in the trial.

The extremely delayed and time-consuming trial ended with closing arguments in July and October, and it is unclear what further delayed the verdict.

El Halabi has vehemently denied the charges and accused the prosecution and the Shin Bet of manufacturing charges, coercing a confession in order to undermine humanitarian organizations in Gaza and dragging out the case.

Mohammad was indicted in August 2016 for smuggling $7.2 million a year to Hamas for buying weapons and building attack tunnels. This was instead of World Vision using it for food, humanitarian assistance, and aid programs for disabled children.

Neither World Vision nor an Australian government audit found the wrongdoing allegedly uncovered by Israel’s Shin Bet.

Since March 2021, more allegations have come out from El Halabi’s side, including that he was fooled by an undercover informant in detention into confirming details that the informant kept pressuring El Hablabi to confirm.

According to the defense, El Halabi told law enforcement that the confession was coerced from the first moment they raised it with him, and the original document recording the confession was lost by police.

The defense says that the case should have been dropped in light of the circumstances in which the confession was given, and that the police record of what was said is an inauthentic photocopy, raising questions of a police cover-up.

In addition, the defense has claimed that World Vision did not transfer any material to Gaza at some of the crossing points where the prosecution says El Halabi made illegal transfers to Hamas.

The Jerusalem Post has learned that although these allegations were new to the public in March 2021, the prosecution had been aware of them and responded to them behind closed doors throughout the trial.

While the prosecution’s responses are classified at this stage, it appears that the prosecution would acknowledge using an undercover informant, but would say that this is a standard approved tactic and that no illegal pressure was applied.

Moreover, the prosecution would point out that the court already rejected any allegations of a coerced confession earlier in the case, and that the only question left to the court is how much weight to give the confession.

In terms of the lost document allegation, it appears the prosecution would likely express regret, but reject any conspiracy theories. It would point out that this is not the first case in which such an error occurred, and that the defense has not flagged any specific issues to invalidate the authenticity of the copy of the confession.

Regarding the border crossing issue, the prosecution would respond that El Halabi was a clever operator and sometimes used different organizations or names to move material while using World Vision as his main laundering tool.

Both sides accuse the other of unconscionable delays relating to fighting over how the trial would take place, what evidence the defense would get to see, and the possibility in the earlier years of reaching a plea deal.

ATERMATH

Tonga volcano ‘afterglow’ creates dazzling sunsets across New Zealand and Australia

Eva Corlett

 in Wellington 

 The Guardian

Unusually fiery and vibrant sunrises and sunsets across New Zealand and Australia in recent weeks could be due to aerosols that were hurled up into the stratosphere following Tonga’s volcanic eruption in January.

New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospherics (Niwa) has been inundated with messages from people asking what is causing the “strange but beautiful phenomenon”.

The team contacted colleagues in Otago and Paris to confirm if their suspicions were true – that the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption was responsible for the displays.


Sunset at Seddon Park in Hamilton, New Zealand, in March. 

Photograph: Marty Melville/AFP/Getty Images

The Lauder Atmospheric Research Station in Central Otago said their instruments had detected unusual spikes in aerosols in the stratosphere, at around 20-25 kilometres above New Zealand. Researchers at the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace in Paris said satellite data also showed that concentrations of stratospheric aerosols from the eruption had tripled between 35°S and 45°S – the latitude where New Zealand lies on the globe – since April.

The aerosols from the plume of gas and ash have been dispersing around the globe, Niwa said, and indeed, it is thought that they are causing the stunning skies. Sunsets and sunrises would have been similarly striking around Tonga in the aftermath of the eruption, but now the aerosols were heading south.

“Usually when you see a sunrise or sunset, it is the clouds that morph into the most vibrant colours,” said Nava Fedaeff, a Niwa forecaster.

“However, when stratospheric aerosols are present after a volcanic eruption, they scatter and bend the light as the sun dips or rises past the horizon, creating a glow in the sky with hues of blue, purple, and violet.”


A hot air balloon flies over Melbourne in late January.

 Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Volcanic twilights are known as “afterglows”, with the colour and intensity of the afterglow dependent on the amount of haze and cloudiness along the path of light reaching the stratosphere, Fedaeff said. “These bewitching scenes are made even more striking by crepuscular rays caused by shadowing from distant clouds or mountain barriers.”

New Zealand has experienced this phenomenon before. Sunset afterglows persisted for months after the eruption of Philippine volcano Mount Pinatubo in 1991, meaning New Zealanders could be treated to these lovely morning and evening colours for a while longer, Fedaeff said.

The sun sets at Hagley Park Oval in Christchurch, New Zealand, in April. 

Photograph: Sanka Vidanagama/AFP/Getty Images

SOCIALIST GENTRIFICATION

West Virginia cash-for-worker program welcomes new residents


Yesterday 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A program offering $20,000 in cash and incentives for remote workers to move to West Virginia as part of a population push has chosen 33 people for its second class of newcomers and is now taking applications for a third host region, officials announced Tuesday.

Tourism officials said the public-private program received more than 3,600 applications for the latest round in the Greenbrier Valley, about the same number as there are residents in the laid-back southeastern community of Lewisburg.

The applicants recently selected for the Greenbrier Valley are from 19 U.S. states, including as far away as California. The average annual income of those selected is about $125,000. The applicants will be bringing family members for a total of 61 new residents.

“These people are coming to West Virginia because they want to be in the mountains,” state Tourism Secretary Chelsea Ruby said at a news conference.

Among them is Ben Isenberg, a Maryland transplant who owns a branding agency and closed on a home 30 days after receiving his spot.

“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, my family and I set out to travel across the United States to stretch our legs and experience nature," Isenberg said in a statement. "We traveled, camped and explored national parks across the country in search of a place that would feel like our forever home. As new West Virginia residents, I am proud to say that we have found just that and more in the Greenbrier Valley of West Virginia.”

Another new resident is returning home. Andrew Neely graduated from Greenbrier East High School but moved away for a career in the Air Force. His most recent role was with a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company.


Neely said his return "is like a dream come true. I’m an avid fisherman, paddler and biker, so West Virginia makes complete sense as the place for me to put down roots.”

Besides Lewisburg, which once was voted America’s “Coolest Small Town,” the Greenbrier Valley also includes the posh Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs and the state fairgrounds in Fairlea. The area is within an hour of the New River Gorge National Park and Reserve.

Last year, the first round of the Ascend West Virginia remote worker program welcomed 53 new residents from as far away as Germany to the northern college town of Morgantown.

As part of Tuesday's announcement, officials said they are opening up new applications for the Eastern Panhandle, along with additional openings for Morgantown and the Greenbrier Valley.

Despite the state’s long-term population doldrums, the Eastern Panhandle is the fastest-growing region of West Virginia and is a cheaper living alternative for people who work a little more than an hour away in Washington, D.C. The Eastern Panhandle includes small towns such as Harpers Ferry, Martinsburg and Shepherdstown.

The 2020 census found West Virginia lost a greater percentage of its residents than any other state in the past decade, and is now the only state with fewer residents than it had in 1950. Residents left as jobs in the coal, steel and other industries were eliminated. The nation’s second-largest coal producer, West Virginia has lost 56% of its coal mining jobs since 2009 as power plants turn toward renewable energy sources.

To begin to reverse the exodus, West Virginia is leveraging one of its most appealing assets, its “almost heaven” natural beauty, in direct appeals to outdoor enthusiasts whose jobs enable them to work from anywhere they choose.

Under the remote worker program, out-of-state participants who move to West Virginia will receive $12,000 along with annual passes to indulge in whitewater rafting, golf, rock climbing, horseback riding, skiing and ziplining. The full relocation package is valued at more than $20,000.

As a consolation, those who were not selected will be offered an average of $3,500 in mortgage assistance if they move to West Virginia.

Over the next five years, the program plans to welcome more than 1,000 new remote workers to the state. The program was founded through a $25 million gift to West Virginia University by former Intuit executive chairman Brad Smith and his wife, Alys. Brad Smith is now the president of Marshall University in Huntington.

John Raby, The Associated Press

Winnipeg Mayoral candidate calls for supervised consumption sites

A second mayoral candidate has come out against a proposed plan to dismantle two Transcona bus shelters as a way to deal with homelessness and due to complaints about drug use.

Mayoral candidate Rick Shone, pictured near a bus shelter on Portage Avenue at Spence Street on Monday, June 13, 2022, is calling on the city to adopt supervised consumption sites to help keep transit riders safe in Winnipeg.

Glen Dawkins - Monday, June 13,2022 Winnipeg Sun   

Rick Shone would like to see the City establish supervised drug consumption sites instead.

“Personally I think we’ve been putting our heads in the sand,” said Shone, standing in front of a bus shelter on Portage Avenue near the University of Winnipeg which had its glass walls, doors, seating and electrical units removed similar to what is planned for two bus shelters on Regent Avenue directly in front of Kildonan Place. “Nobody wants to deal with (the city’s drug crisis). There’s a number of people talking about it but we need someone to actually take some concrete steps.

“We need to try something. We’re not trying anything, instead we’re tearing down bus shelters.”

On Saturday, fellow mayoral candidate Scott Gillingham also dismissed the idea.

“I can’t accept the idea that destroying our own transit infrastructure will accomplish anything but shift homelessness and addiction problems around,” said Gillingham in a statement Saturday. “Bus shelters outside Portage Place were dismantled for similar reasons – but encampments simply moved to other transit shelters along Portage Avenue.”

Shone is proposing the city follow the example of communities such as Vancouver which have had the Insite supervised drug injection site since 2003.


© KEVIN KING

Mayoral candidate Rick Shone is calling on the city to adopt supervised consumption sites to help keep transit riders safe in Winnipeg. Pictured on Monday, June 13, 2022,

“This is the first step to address a really big crisis that we have in the city right now and that is the addictions crisis,” said Shone.

Last June, the City’s Protection Committee released a study on the feasibility of establishing a supervised consumption site, saying that the City could move forward without the province although funding could be a barrier.

Shone considers supervised consumption sites as just the first step in a wider strategy to combat drug use and addiction in Winnipeg.

“I don’t think the city should go on its own,” said Shone, who estimates the cost to be $1.5-2 million a year for the sites. “The province should step in because this is definitely a health issue. The challenge is that we need somebody to take the bull by the horns and get something done.”

These sites increase access to health services for a vulnerable population, connecting these individuals with health services and information on addictions treatment, Shone said.

“I think we have to be realistic here in the sense that we have a drug crisis and it’s not something that is going to go away tomorrow,” he said. “We need to look at what is a bigger plan here.”

Winnipeggers head to the polls on Oct. 26 to elect a new mayor and council.

gdawkins@postmedia.com

Twitter: @SunGlenDawkins

L3Harris in talks to buy Israeli spyware firm NSO - reports

TODAY

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. defence contractor L3Harris is in talks to buy Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, U.S. and Israeli media reported, citing sources with knowledge of the deal.

The deal is yet to be finalised and needs to be approved by Israel, the U.S. and L3Harris’ board of directors, according to the joint report by Haaretz, The Washington Post and The Guardian, and confirms parts of a report published in Intelligence Online this week.

It noted that The White House is concerned that any deal with to buy the Israeli firm’s hacking tools would raise serious counterintelligence and security concerns.

NSO declined to comment on the reports.

The surveillance firm, which makes the Pegasus software, has been in the spotlight after revelations its tools had been used by governments and other agencies to spy on people’s cellphones. NSO has said its technology helps catch criminals.

NSO lost many of its existing customers when the U.S. Commerce Department in November banned the company.

The reports said that if approved, the deal could see NSO removed from the banned list – either directly, or by having its assets bought by L3Harris, which will only work with the United States and its allies.

In January, NSO had told Reuters it was in talks with a number of U.S. funds over "various financial moves", confirming media reports that it was discussing a sale of its assets.

Apple is among those to have sued NSO, saying it violated U.S. laws by breaking into the software installed on iPhones.

Microsoft Corp, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc, Google parent Alphabet Inc and Cisco Systems Inc have also criticised NSO or taken legal action.

(Reporting by Steven Scheer, Editing by Louise Heavens)

Israel is pressuring the US to de-blacklist Pegasus developer NSO

By Walla! AND JERUSALEM POST STAFF - Thursday, June 9,2022
© (photo credit: REUTERS/AMIR COHEN)

Israel has asked the US administration several times in recent months to remove the cyber company NSO, developers of the PEGASUS spyware software, from the US Commerce Department’s blacklist, according to Walla, two senior Israeli officials, and a senior American official.

The officials said the Biden administration was considering the Israeli request. However, another senior government official denied the allegations, saying that when Israel raised the request, it was made clear that the White House would not intervene.

If the Biden administration decides to remove NSO from this blacklist, it would be a dramatic change in policy that would likely draw harsh criticism from within the Democratic Party, Congress and the American cyberdefense community.

“We told the Americans that they should not tear down NSO,” a senior Israeli official told Walla. “Even if the company had some problematic customers, it does not mean that the company’s products and capabilities are no longer needed.”

NSO has in recent months hired two US law firms that work with the Commerce Department regarding the commerce list.

The company’s lawyers have appealed the decision to put NSO on the blacklist and asked for a hearing, but so far, apart from an exchange of letters with the Commerce Department, there has been no progress.



In recent years, NSO has become a strategic asset for the Israeli defense community, especially for the Mossad. The company was used, among other things, to promote secret ties with countries with which Israel has no diplomatic relations, and to strengthen intelligence ties with countries with which Israel does have them.

At the end of last year, after the Biden administration decided to impose sanctions on NSO, an internal discussion took place in the Israeli government regarding the degree of assistance to be provided to the company, and whether Israel should officially contact the US administration on the issue.

NSO heads then sent a letter to the prime minister, foreign minister and defense minister asking for their intervention, and warning of the consequences of the company’s future sanctions.

Initially, a decision was made that Israel would act proactively with the US to change the decision, but at a later stage the policy changed and Jerusalem began to put pressure on the Biden administration.
NSO blacklisting

In November, the Commerce Department added NSO and another Israeli offensive cyber company, Candiro, to the blacklist of companies operating in a manner contrary to the interests of national security and foreign policy.

This was the first time that the US government imposed sanctions on Israeli cyber companies that receive an export license from the Israel Defense Ministry.

The Commerce Department has determined that NSO provided spyware to governments that used it against journalists, human rights activists and diplomats at US embassies around the world.

As part of the sanctions, any American company that wishes to enter into a transaction with NSO must obtain a license from the department.

In July, a series of investigations published in international media revealed that a number of countries – including Hungary, India, Morocco, Mexico and Saudi Arabia – used NSO’s Pegasus software to spy on opposition activists and journalists.

With Marcos Jr.’s election, Filipinos need to brace for a bleak future

© (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Bernadette P. Resurrección, 

Associate Professor, Global Development Studies, 

Queen's University, Ontario -

 Monday, June 13, 2022

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been elected the 17th president of the Philippines, 36 years after his father, the known dictator and plunderer Ferdinand Sr., was ousted in a peaceful revolution.

Marcos Jr. won the presidency with 31 million votes, trouncing his closest rival, Vice-President Leonor “Leni” Robredo, who received 15 million votes.


© (AP Photo/Jess Tan Jr.)

Ferdinand Marcos Sr. poses with his only son Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

 in 1972 in Manila, Philippines.

Ferdinand Marcos Sr. established martial law in the Philippines from 1972 to 1981, a period of brutal repression with more than 11,000 documented human rights violations. Critics of Marcos were imprisoned, tortured, raped and executed. His family and their cronies are thought to have plundered about $10 billion, and they evaded legal claims for the Marcos family’s ill-gotten riches in Philippine and foreign courts even after Marcos Sr.‘s death in Hawaii in 1989.

Critics accuse the Marcos family of whitewashing their family’s crimes and martial law atrocities through social media platforms. In a narrative of denial, Marcos Jr. promises to restore the “Golden Age” of peace and prosperity that his father had begun, raising questions about whether that means a future of martial law.

Revisionist history

The revisionist “narrative of nostalgia” has three parts, according to Filipino academic Victor Felipe Bautista:

The supposed glorious past under a benevolent President Marcos;

The fall that interrupted the Marcos regime supposedly orchestrated by Corazon Aquino, the widow of Marcos’s political arch-rival, Benigno Aquino Jr., who was assassinated on the Manila airport tarmac upon his return to the Philippines in 1983;

The dark present, when Marcos is said to be a “victim of black propaganda,” meaning subtle propaganda that does not come from the source it claims to come from.

The Marcos Jr. propaganda operations include collective memory experts who use revisionist nostalgia as a tool for steering public opinion.

Critics suggest massive and well-resourced efforts to change and control the narrative through historical revisionism has been key to Marcos Jr.’s electoral victory. I complement this with a view that the Philippines’ colonial legacy equally influenced the results of the recent presidential election.

Colonial class divides

In many post-colonial societies, colonial powers and their elite, modern-day counterparts maintain class divides. Those divides allow them to control the masses as a steady source of extracted surplus and cheap labour and, for local politicians, a traditional source of votes.

Development in the Philippines has always been tied to colonial relations. Ties with the United States remained strong even after formal independence in 1946, which is evident in bilateral agreements allowing American firms to own and operate public utilities and extract natural resources.

Post-colonial relations with the U.S. and development aid helped generate the fortunes of a Filipino landed oligarchy, dispensed infrastructure and agricultural loans and provided military aid during the martial law years, setting the stage for the Marcos years as the Golden Age in Philippine history.

Returning from their exile in the 2000s, members of the Marcos family were elected to various political positions. Efforts to change the anti-Marcos narrative and alter the political culture in the Philippines via the new technologies of social media grew rampant.

Before long, photos of bridges, roads and buildings built by Marcos Sr. began to flood social media to suggest the Philippines was on par with emerging industrializing nations at the time of his administration.

“If my father was allowed to pursue his plans, I believe that we would be like Singapore now,” said Marcos Jr. in 2011.

Western appeal

To young voters born after the martial law era — the country’s largest voter demographic — Singapore evokes images of globalized progress: glitzy designer malls, savvy digital technology and western-style posh lifestyles that promote capitalist consumption. Young Filipino voters also seemed to delight in the “cool” Marcos vibe of speaking with American accents and stories of the privileges that come with wealth.

The Marcos messaging — also carefully curated in more than 200 BuzzFeed-style posh, familial and cheerful YouTube videos — sought to temporarily bridge the traditionally sharp social divides in the Philippines. This served to momentarily placate centuries-old internalized local racism, self-othering and a deep-seated sense of colonial, racial and class inferiority among Filipinos compared to westerners and their local wealthy counterparts, such as the Marcos family.

For a deeply class-stratified and colonized society, the Marcos propaganda machine has enhanced aspirations for western markers of progress and modernity.

But these efforts haven’t just been an attempt to whitewash the plunder of the Marcos family and the brutalities of martial law.

The propaganda also conjures up a vision of a neocolonial, modernized and consumption-driven future. In a nutshell, Marcos has escalated western aspirations and solidified the racialized and marginalized class identities that capitalism — an economic system organized around a minority class and its pursuit of profit — is dependent upon.

Marcos Jr.’s references to a Golden Age in the Philippines invites a nostalgic look at the past. But it also warns of a darker future.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
Philippines: the challenges ahead for the new president Marcos

A member of the Marcos family is returning to power – here’s what it means for democracy in the Philippines

Bernadette P. Resurrección does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.