Saudi Arabia: Potential freedom for one activist, decades in jail for others

Saudi human rights advocate, Mohammed al-Qahtani, may soon be free after 10 years in prison. But his release, if it comes, coincides with what appears to be a new crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia.

It is still not clear whether Mohammed al-Qahtani will be freed in the next few months

If the Saudi judiciary follows its own rules, then Saudi human rights activist, Mohammed al-Qahtani, will finally be free in November. He has been in prison in Saudi Arabia for 10 years.

Al-Qahtani, who is also an economist, founded the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association, or ACPRA, in 2009.

He was arrested in 2012 and then in 2013, sentenced to a decade in jail as well as given a 10-year travel ban. Human Rights Watch said the charges against al-Qahtani and a colleague, who later died in prison, included "destabilizing security by calling for protests" and "setting up an illegal human rights organization."

The organization founded by al-Qahtani, who is in his mid-50s and formerly a professor at Riyadh's Institute of Diplomatic Studies, was dissolved too, by the court's order.

Previously ACPRA had called for the implementation of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Saudi Arabia as well as a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament, alongside the creation of transparent and accountable legal organizations.

A threat to the monarchy

In calling for a constitutional monarchy, the human rights organization was clearly challenging the Saudi political status quo. The country is one of the world's last absolute monarchies.

Just from a purely legal perspective, al-Qahtani should be released soon, Lina al-Hathloul, head of communications at a London-based organization, ALQST for Human Rights, told DW.

Saudi Arabian human rights abuses have long been in the media spotlight

"It might be too difficult for Saudi authorities to keep him after his sentence has ended," she suggested. "I think that it might bring pressure that they won't be able to handle."

On the other hand, prison releases are not conducted in any regular way in Saudi Arabia and the justice system is arbitrary, al-Hathloul added.

"We have seen a couple of cases like that, including that of Ashraf Fayyad, the Palestinian poet who stayed in prison almost a year beyond the end of his sentence. We hope this isn't becoming a trend," she said.

Al-Hathloul is well aware of the unpleasant vagaries of the Saudi prison system. She is the sister of prominent Saudi women's rights activist, Loujain al-Hathloul, who pushed to end a ban on female drivers in Saudi Arabia. For this, Loujain was arrested in 2018 and served almost three years in prison. Although the activist is now out of prison, she cannot leave the country for another five years. Her sister, Lina, is now based in Europe.

Support from Berlin

Besides international human rights organizations, al-Qahtani also has advocates in Germany. Rainer Keller, a German member of parliament from the country's Social Democrats, is sponsoring al-Qahtani as part of a program called "Parliamentarians Protect Parliamentarians." This is a campaign initiated by Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, with a view to helping protect persecuted politicians and human rights defenders elsewhere.

Keller hopes his sponsorship could protect al-Qahtani. "In political terms, it can be used to create publicity [around al-Qahtani's case]," Keller explained. "We also try to use diplomatic channels to advocate on behalf of our sponsored party."

Keller also sees his sponsorship of al-Qahtani as sending an important message. "In Saudi Arabia, human rights violations are systemic," said Keller, who is a member of the Bundestag's Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid and the body's rapporteur for Saudi Arabia. "Against this background, it is important for us, as parliamentarians, to make an issue of these human rights violations persistently."

Rainer Keller is a member of the Bundestag's Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid

Of course, international engagement on behalf of imprisoned Saudi human rights activists is helpful, agreed al-Hathloul. But at the same time, she deplores the fact that many European governments still support the Saudi regime.

"Their support to our regime is the only reason why our regime survives, and how it is able to double down on repression," she said, recalling the gruesome murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi embassy in Istanbul in 2019, a murder that most likely happened with the knowledge of members of the ruling Saudi royal family, including the country's crown prince and de-facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, often known simply as MBS.

A pariah no more

"Mohammed bin Salman was sidelined after the murder of Khashoggi," al-Hathloul said. For several years he was isolated politically by US and European leaders. But recently he has been back in favor again, al-Hathloul pointed out. US President Joe Biden, who previously called Saudi Arabia "a pariah state" came to visit MBS in July. The same month, the Saudi royal visited French President Emmanuel Macron in France.

The international energy crisis has persuaded Western leaders to greet the Saudi Crown Prince more warmly

It is despite the fact that bin Salman is behaving just as repressively as ever and "imprisoning people for 34 years or 45 years, just because of some tweets," al-Hathloul said, referring to two recent cases that have made global headlines.

In August, a Saudi court sentenced Salma al-Shehab, a mother of two and researcher at a British university, to 34 years in jail and gave her a 34-year travel ban for spreading "rumors" and retweeting Saudi dissidents like Lina al-Hathloul, according to court documents translated by UK daily The Guardian. Al-Shehab was not even a particularly prominent activist and had been returning to Britain after a family holiday when she was arrested in January 2021.

Later the same month, another woman, Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani, was sentenced to 45 years in prison"disrupting the cohesion of society" and "destabilizing the social fabric" with online activities, acording to human rights organization Dawn, which cites court documents. Al-Qahtani (who is not related to Mohammed al-Qahtani) is not a prominent activist either and it remains unclear what exactly she did online. She too had been arrested  in July of last year.

Salma al-Shehab (pictured in 2014): 34 years in jail for some tweets and likes on Twitter

Cases like these demonstrate one thing, said German politician Keller. "Saudi Arabia is still very far away from what we would define as having standards on human rights," he told DW.

And that is a challenge for European governments, al-Hathloul argued. "They should understand the leverage they have with this regime," she said. "I mean, MBS cannot survive without them accepting him. But when they do accept him, he sees it as a green light to do whatever he pleases, including silencing the Saudi people."

This makes civil society movements in European and other Western nations all the more important, al-Hathloul continued.

"It's important for Western civil society to listen to Saudi civil society in the diaspora. They shouldn't be fooled by the Saudi [government's] narrative around reforms. Solidarity works and just one tweet can change things," she concluded. "It means the Saudi regime cannot cover up violations anymore."

This story was originally published in German. 

Hong Kong arrests journalists' union leader Ronson Chan

Chan was arrested after allegedly refusing to show his ID to a police officer. Hong Kong has plummeted in press freedom rankings in recent years as independent journalism has come under fire from Chinese censors.

Chan's arrest came shortly before he was due to the leave the country for a six-month fellowship in the UK

Ronson Chan, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA), was arrested on Wednesday, accused of obstructing police and disorderly conduct. 

Chan's employer, Channel C, said the veteran reporter and another employee had gone to the city's Mong Kok district to report on a meeting of public housing apartment owners. They allegedly refused to show ID to police officers, who claimed they were "acting suspiciously."

Chan was set to leave Hong Kong at the end of the month for the six-month Reuters Institute fellowship program at Oxford Universtiry.

Authorities have used a national security law and colonial-era sedition charges to crack down on dissent in Hong Kong after democracy protests three years ago. Local media deemed critical of the government have faced a surge of police investigations, causing the city to plummet down global press freedom rankings.

Dwindling press freedom

Local tabloid Apple Daily and online news platform StandNews, the latter of which Chan used to work for, were forced to close last year after executives were charged with national security violations, leaving hundreds of journalists out of work.

Hong Kong's contentious new national security laws were pushed through via Beijing in 2020 after failing to clear the city's own legislature, and prompted major protests.

Like many now-banned civil society groups and pro-democracy unions, both Chan and the HKJA have faced repeated criticism from media outlets that answer to Beijing's Liaison Office in the city. 

Following such coverage, Hong Kong journalists have come to expect visits from the police.

When Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released its annual press freedom ranking in May, Hong Kong had plunged 68 places to 148th in the world. In RSF's first report in 2002, Hong Kong had some of the freest media in Asia and ranked 18th worldwide.

The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong halted handing out Asia's largest annual human right press awards earlier this year, citing risks posed by the national security law to any prospective winner.

es/msh (AP, AFP)

Yemen: Rusty oil ship in the Red Sea threatens an ecological catastrophe

The Red Sea is under imminent threat of a massive oil spill from an aged Yemeni tanker. The UN's plans to avert the disaster have stalled for lack of funding.

The FSO Safer threatens to pollute the whole region if autumn and winter storms break or

 sink the vessel off Yemen's coast.

The derelict oil tanker FSO Safer, moored some five miles (6 kilometers) off the Yemeni coast in the Red Sea and used as an oil storage facility, is a floating environmental catastrophe waiting to happen.

The vessel, which could break apart or explode at any moment, holds 1.1 million barrels of crude oil.

That's equivalent to 48 million gallons (218 million liters) of oil or four times the amount that was spilled in the Exxon Valdez oil disaster near Alaska in 1989.

A oil spill from the FSO Safer would destroy coral reefs and other sea life in the Red Sea, jeopardize hundreds of thousands of jobs in the fishing industry, and cut Yemen off from supplies of food and fuel, the United Nations and other organizations have warned. 

Preventable disaster

However, it is possible to prevent what the US Special Envoy for Yemen, Tim Lenderking, calls a "looming disaster."

Technically, the solution is straightforward: For an initial cost of $80 million (€80.8 million), the oil could be transferred over the course of four to five months from the FSO Safer to a temporary vessel.

Once a long-term storage vessel is found, the oil could be transferred again.

The oil storage ship FSO Safer was abandoned in 2015 due to Yemen's civil war

As for the FSO Safer (FSO stands for floating storage and offloading unit), the tanker could be sold as scrap metal to offset some of the operation's total cost, estimated at around $144 million. 

The problem is that neither the funding for the first stage is completed, nor are reliable political agreements in place for the oil transfer to take place.

So far, the United Nations, with the support of The Netherlands and US Envoy Lenderking, has drummed up $70 million in contributions from various countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Germany.

Private companies have also been called upon to donate, which resulted in a $1 million contribution from the Dubai-based Yemeni HSA Group in late August. 

"We are the closest we have ever been to addressing the threat," Lenderking told DW. 

Yet, without the total sum of $80 million for the first step, the UN-coordinated plan remains on hold even though the situation is becoming increasingly critical. Experts widely agree that the tanker probably won't survive the rougher seas of the coming autumn and winter. 

Politicization of the vessel

Domestically the situation is also anything but hazard-free. FSO Safer belongs to  a Yemeni company, the Safer Exploration and Production Exploration Company, while the warring Houthi militia controls Hodeida, the port closest to the ship. 

Following UN negotiations, the Houthi militia agreed in March this year to the first stage of oil transfer and signed a memorandum of understanding.

The document isn't legally binding, however, and some doubt whether the Houthis will keep the agreement. In the past, the Houthis have thwarted several UN attempts to inspect or repair the vessel, or called off interventions at the last minute. 

Meanwhile, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a Houthi military leader, has regularly posted on Twitter that he holds the internationally recognized Yemeni government and their allies "fully responsible for any disaster resulting from the Safer tank." 

Yemen is in its eighth year of a civil war between the Iran-backed Houthi militia and the Saudi-backed internationally recognized government. The country is now divided into the Houthi-controlled north and the government-controlled south. 

Exacerbating a humanitarian disaster 

Meanwhile, the war has plunged the country into the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe. The vast majority of Yemenis rely on international aid to fend off famine.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February has further exacerbated the situation in Yemen, which used to import up to 45% of its wheat from Ukraine and Russia. 

An oil spill from the FSO Safer would restrict food aid for more than 8.4 million people in Yemen by disrupting access to the ports of Hodeida and Salif, through which "almost 70% of aid is brought into the country," said Julien Jreissati, Program Manager for Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa.

Potable water for about 10 million people in Yemen would also be threatened since desalination plants on Yemen's coast could be affected, he added.

In addition, such a spill would completely close Yemeni fisheries, which support 1.7 million people, Jreissati said.

Yemen's fishermen told DW that they are scared of an oil spill as their livelyhood depends on fishing.

The Red Sea at risk

The impact would also be felt beyond Yemen and its coastal waters. 

"The entire Red Sea region's drinking water supply could be contaminated," Jreissati said. 

According to a recent Greenpeace study, desalination plants on the Red Sea coasts of Eritrea and Saudi Arabia could be affected within three weeks after a spill.

The Red Sea is home to pristine coral reefs and an incredible array of marine life, and an oil spill in what is one of the world's most biodiverse oceans would spell disaster both ecologically and economically. 

If the tanker sinks, experts are also worried about the possible effects of the resulting oil spill on international shipping routes throughthe Suez Canal. An estimated 12% of global trade passes through the Suez, which connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

It's estimated that it would cost around $20 billion to mop up the FSO Safel oil spill, which is significantly more than the $80 million needed to transfer the oil out of the tanker.

For Tim Lenderking, it is obvious that "we all have a stake in protecting this vital waterway and prevent the compounding of a humanitarian catastrophe." 

'Absurd and irresponsible'

Yemen expert Jens Heibach, a research fellow at the Hamburg-based GIGA research institute, says that it is in the Houthis' "best interests" to allow the oil transfer to take place and "to avert this catastrophe."

"The population in the areas held by the Houthis would suffer the most," he told DW.

He says the Houthis could also benefit in the future if the FSO Safer is replaced by a fully financed vessel that could store oil from Yemen's Marib oilfields. 

"It is certainly important to the Houthis to keep this hub under their control and theoretically make profits later on," Heibach said. 

He believes, however, that the FSO Safer and the catastrophe it poses is being used as leverage for imminent peace negotiations.

Since the beginning of last Ramadan, Yemen has experienced the longest, albeit fragile, peace agreement sincethe war began in 2014.

The current truce agreement ends on October 2. 

For Heibach, one thing is certain: "The FSO Safer is part of the negotiating mass. Given the situation, it is obvious that everyone is hoping to get the best out of the situation while keeping their fingers crossed that the whole thing doesn't go to pieces in the meantime. This is completely absurd and irresponsible."

YEMEN: AID ORGANIZATIONS RUNNING OUT OF MONEY
Shortage of aid
The humanitarian crisis in war-torn Yemen is getting worse again. According to the United Nations' World Food Program (WFP), 13 million people there are in danger of starvation. This is due to the ongoing civil war in Yemen and a shortage of humanitarian aid.
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Edited by: Kate Hairsine

Germany: Dispute over nuclear 'reserve' deepens

The operators of the Isar 2 reactor accused Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck of expecting the impossible. Habeck, meanwhile, suggested they had not understood his plan.

Habeck said that Preussenelektra's letter was also confusing because surely the company had an interest in keeping the power plant online

The back and forth over whether Germany will extend the lifespans of its three remaining nuclear power plants continued on Wednesday with deputy chancellor Robert Habeck accusing one of the plant's operators of not understanding the government's plan.

Habeck, whose portfolio incorporates energy policy, announced plans to keep two of Germany's three power stations online in the coming winter, repeatedly referring to them as an "emergency reserve," on Monday. For the senior member of Germany's fervently anti-nuclear Green Party, the announcement cannot have been comfortable. 

This prompted the operator of one of the two reactors to question what Habeck had meant, given that nuclear power plants can take weeks to switch on or off and cannot be used to plug intermittent gaps in electricity provision. 

The plan "to send two of the three operational reactors into a cold reserve status, to power them up if and when necessary, is not technically feasible," German magazine Spiegel quoted PreussenElektra boss Guido Knott as saying in a letter to Habeck's ministry. 

"I have noted the letter from PreussenEelektra with some astonishment," responded Habeck.

He suggested that the company had not understood the term "emergency reserve," which he said would not entail a closing and then re-starting of the plant. Rather, the plan meant only that the government would "decide at some point whether the power plants are needed or not. This could happen in December, January or February."

"This fact seems to have passed the technicians at PreussenElektra by," Habeck said. 

The minister added that he had already received a letter from PreussenElektra in August that said if the government wished to prolong the lifespan of Germany's nuclear plants for a longer period of time, the Isar 2 plant would need to go into standstill mode for a period of time in order to accommodate that wish.

Habeck argued that these two letters seemed to contradict each other.

Opposition says nuclear stance is 'madness'

Germany has been phasing out nuclear energy since 2011, and the last three plants were due to go offline at the end of 2022. However, this plan has been complicated by an energy crisis brought on by dwindling supplies of Russian gas.

On Monday, Habeck's ministry announced that two of the plants would remain online in "emergency reserve" for a few weeks in the winter.A government-commissioned report said there was no point in trying to prolong the use the country's current nuclear plants for a longer period, as the phaseout process had already gone too far to be walked back.

Despite that, opposition politicians on Wednesday criticized the government's refusal to reconsider nuclear energy in a time of crisis as "madness."

Habeck's 'insolvency' comments also attracting scrutiny

The deputy chancellor was also under fire on Wednesday following an appearance on a prime time talk show in which his critics alleged he confused insolvency with companies halting production. 

Asked whether he anticipated a "wave of insolvencies" in winter, Habeck had responded: "No I do not. I can imagine that some branches might temporarily halt production though." 

He said certain businesses that relied on people having disposable income at hand, such as organic food stores or florists or bakeries, might be forced to halt operations if demand sank. "Then they are not insolvent automatically, but perhaps they stop selling." 

Opposition politicians, including Merz, tried to pounce on the comments during Wednesday's Bundestag budget debate. But Habeck's ministry responded with a lengthy statement later in the day saying he had not confused the issues, but rather had wanted to point out that a more pressing danger than insolvency could be some businesses being forced to close their doors in a bid to avoid insolvency. 

"Focusing solely on insolvency" would be too myopic, the ministry argued.

es/msh (dpa, Reuters)

THE PANDEMIC IS STILL HERE

Long COVID risk rises in depressed, anxious or lonely people, study says


People in psychological distress before getting infected with the COVID-19 virus have an increased risk of developing long COVID, a new study suggests. 

Sept. 7 (UPI) -- People who are depressed, anxious, worried, stressed or lonely becoming infected with the COVID-19 virus have an increased risk of developing long COVID symptoms, a Harvard-led study out Wednesday suggests.

And the researchers said this heightened risk of ending up with the often debilitating, long-term condition following the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection was independent of smoking, asthma, and other health behaviors or physical health conditions.

The study was published online in JAMA Psychiatry.

The Harvard researchers found that psychological distress before COVID-19 infection was associated with a 32% to 46% increased risk of long COVID -- and a 15% to 51% greater risk of what they termed "daily life impairment" due to long COVID.

"We were surprised by how strongly psychological distress before a COVID-19 infection was associated with an increased risk of long COVID," Siwen Wang, a researcher in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health who led the study, said in a news release.

Wang added: "Distress was more strongly associated with developing long COVID than physical health risk factors such as obesity, asthma, and hypertension."

This follows a British study from late July finding that people with long COVID are experiencing a broader array of symptoms than previously thought, including hair loss and sexual dysfunction, as well as fatigue, breathing difficulties and brain fog.

RELATED  CDC: 1 in 5 Americans report 'long COVID' symptoms after COVID-19 infection

In the United States, as of July 2021, long COVID can be considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

According to the researchers, mental health is known to affect the outcomes of some diseases, and depression and other mental illnesses have been associated with greater risk of more severe COVID-19 and possible hospitalization.

They said that mental health conditions alongside other acute respiratory tract infections, such as flu or common cold, are associated with more severe, longer-lasting symptoms.

RELATED Study: Omicron less likely than Delta to cause long COVID

And they pointed to previous studies that suggest psychological distress is associated with chronic symptoms after Lyme disease and in chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, which have symptoms similar to those of long COVID.

For the new study, Wang and her colleagues enrolled more than 54,000 people in April 2020, asking the participants about their psychological distress and then following them for more than a year.

Over that period of time, the 3,000-plus participants who contracted COVID-19 were asked about their virus symptoms and symptom duration. The researchers then analyzed the responses, comparing those individuals who developed long COVID to those who did not.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first prospective study to show that a wide range of social and psychological factors are risk factors for long COVID and daily life impairment due to long COVID," Andrea Roberts, the study's senior author said in the release.

Roberts, a senior research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard Chan School, cited the need to consider psychological health, as well as physical health, as risk factors of long COVID-19.

Roberts said the study's findings reinforce the need to increase public awareness of the importance of mental health and ensure people who need care receive it.

‘People are desperate’: The long Covid sufferers dealing with suicide risk

Issued on: 07/09/2022 - 

Long covid sufferer Lauren Nichols, 34, takes medication at her home in Boston, Massachusetts. © Reuters

Video by:Sam BALL

Heidi Ferrer caught Covid-19 in 2020 and never recovered. She developed long covid and was left with debilitating pain and severe neurological tremors that made it impossible for her to sleep or walk. In May this year, she committed suicide at her home in California. According to one poll, she was one of just many long covid sufferers to struggle with suicidal thoughts.

MLB players union joins AFL-CIO and eyes minor leaguers

Wed, September 7, 2022 


The Major League Baseball Players Association announced an affiliation with the AFL-CIO on Wednesday, tightening ties to the national US labor movement as it seeks to represent minor-league talent.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is the world's largest federation of unions with more than 55 national and international groups representing more than 12 million workers.

"The MLBPA has a proud, 56-year history of success rooted in unity and a highly engaged membership," said MLBPA executive director Tony Clark, whose 15-year MLB career ended in 2009.

"We look forward to bringing that history and experience to bear as a more formal part of the movement."

AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler said adding the rosters of MLB's 30 teams will boost the larger union movement as it hopes to help MLBPA add more than 5,000 minor-league players in developmental leagues, some who have objected to low pay and difficult working conditions.

"The MLBPA and every single one of its 1,200 players have a home in our movement because this union understands and lives the meaning of the word solidarity by leveraging the power of sports and helping others," Shuler said.

"Together, with our 12.5 million members, we will bring our strength to their fights, including working to organize 5,400 minor league players."

The AFL-CIO offered support to the MLBPA during a 99-day lockout ahead of this season that resulted in a five-year collective bargaining agreement reached with MLB team owners on March 10.

The move will add MLBPA to the AFL-CIO Sports Council, which includes the NFL Players Association and US Women's national soccer team.

The council helps align the interests of various member unions, including those representing stadium workers, hospitality and other sport-related groups.

js/nr

Israeli PM opposes prosecuting soldier who likely shot Abu Akleh

Soldiers have ‘full backing’ of Israeli government,’ Yair Lapid says regarding killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

The veteran Al Jazeera reporter was wearing a bulletproof vest marked "Press" and a helmet when she was shot in the head in the Jenin refugee camp

 [File: Majdi Mohammed/AP Photo]

Published On 7 Sep 2022

Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid has pushed back against suggestions of prosecuting a soldier who likely shot dead Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while she was covering an Israeli army operation in the occupied West Bank in May.

The veteran Al Jazeera reporter was wearing a bulletproof vest marked “Press” and a helmet when she was shot in the head in the Jenin refugee camp. Her killing caused global outrage and calls for an independent investigation.

The Israeli army conceded on Monday for the first time that one of its soldiers had likely shot Abu Akleh, after having mistaken her for a fighter. It had initially blamed Palestinian gunmen for her killing.

“There is a high possibility that Ms Abu Akleh was accidentally hit by [Israeli military] gunfire that was fired toward suspects identified as armed Palestinian gunmen,” said the army’s final report into her May 11 death.

The acknowledgement came after months in which the army had insisted it was impossible to determine the source of the deadly shot that killed the celebrated Al Jazeera journalist.

“I will not allow an [Israeli military] soldier that was protecting himself from terrorist fire to be prosecuted just to receive applause from abroad,” Lapid told a military ceremony.

“No one will dictate our rules of engagement to us,” he said. “Our soldiers have the full backing of the government of Israel and the people of Israel.”

US Department of State spokesman Vedant Patel had told a news briefing on Tuesday: “We’re going to continue to press our Israeli partners to closely review its policies and practices on rules of engagement and consider additional steps to mitigate the risk of civilian harm”.

A United Nations investigation concluded in June that there was “no evidence of activity by armed Palestinians close by” when Abu Akleh was shot.

Israel’s military advocate said on Monday that the circumstances of the incident “do not raise the suspicion of a crime having been committed which would justify the opening of a criminal investigation”.

The Palestinians have accused Israel of deliberately targeting Abu Akleh. Israel has denied this.

“Israel has expressed sorrow over her death. It was a tragedy that transpired in an incident in which there was heavy enemy fire. The [Israeli military] never intentionally shoots at innocent people,” Lapid said.

The Abu Akleh family said that Israel had “refused to take responsibility for the murder” of the journalist.

Al Jazeera has denounced the findings of the Israeli investigation and demanded a probe by an “independent international body”.

US Department of State spokesman Ned Price on Monday underscored “the importance of accountability in this case … to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.”

‘Israel alone bears the responsibility’

Israel has stepped up its incursions into the occupied West Bank since a wave of deadly Palestinian street attacks in Israeli cities. In the latest such raid, on Wednesday, Israeli troops killed a 20-year-old Palestinian man.

As part of near-nightly sweeps, the army carried out arrests and searches in several locations including the village of Tubas, where it said an improvised explosive device was thrown and shots were fired at soldiers, who returned fire.

Islamic Jihad claimed the man killed, Younis Tayeh, as a member and said he had died during confrontations. Tayeh’s family denied he had taken part and said he was crossing the street when shot.

US-brokered peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem collapsed in 2014.

The diplomatic stagnation has contributed to the erosion of the credibility of the US-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), which has limited self-rule and security control in the West Bank.

Gantz said the PA should do more to rein in “militants”. “The spread of weapons and lack of governance are harming both the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority itself,” Gantz said.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Wasel Abu Youssef described Gantz’s remarks as “desperate”.

“Israel alone bears the responsibility for the daily killings of our people,” he said.

KEEP READING
Justice for Shireen: The American investigation – Part 2

Israel’s war on love

Israeli inquiry into Shireen Abu Akleh killing draws condemnation

Al Jazeera denounces Israeli probe findings in Abu Akleh killing

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

NOT JUST SCOTUS
US law can't require coverage of HIV prevention drugs, judge rules

Wed, September 7, 2022 


A US judge ruled Wednesday in favor of Christian employers who refuse, on religious grounds, to provide workers with health insurance that covers the cost of drugs that help prevent HIV/AIDS.

District Judge Reed O'Connor of a Texas federal court, known for making several rulings hostile to former president Barack Obama's sweeping health care law, took aim at a new aspect of the legislation nicknamed "Obamacare."

The law requires private insurers to reimburse certain preventive care as defined by health authorities. In 2020, they included PrEP -- pills that act to prevent HIV transmission.

Two companies and several individuals went to court to challenge the coverage of the drugs, saying it violates their religious beliefs by making them "complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior," O'Connor said in his decision.

One of the plaintiffs was facing fines of $100 per employee per day for failing to comply with the Obamacare law, said the judge, who ruled that the requirement to reimburse the cost of PrEP pills violates the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

President Joe Biden's Democratic administration will likely appeal the ruling, which was strongly criticized by the leader of the House of Representatives.

"This disturbing decision amounts to open homophobia," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

PrEP, short for pre-exposure prophylaxis, was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2012 and is now routinely recommended for high-risk people who are HIV-negative to prevent them from becoming infected.

When taken daily, PrEP reduces the risk of infection by 99 percent, but only 23 percent of people who could benefit from it were using the medicine in 2019.

chp/sw/mlm

Religious employers need not cover HIV prevention drugs in health plans, U.S. judge rules

By Eleanor Klibanoff & Karen Brooks Harper, The Texas Tribune


A federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas, agreed Wednesday with a group of Christian conservatives that Affordable Care Act requirements to cover HIV prevention drugs violate their religious freedom. Photo by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/Wikimedia Commons


Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Fort Worth, Texas, agreed Wednesday with a group of Christian conservatives that Affordable Care Act requirements to cover HIV prevention drugs violate their religious freedom.

U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor also agreed that aspects of the federal government's system for deciding what preventive care is covered by the ACA violates the Constitution.

O'Connor's ruling could threaten access to sexual and reproductive health care for more than 150 million working Americans who are on employer-sponsored health care plans. It is likely to be appealed by the federal government.

This lawsuit is the latest in a decade of legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, many of which have run through O'Connor's courtroom. In 2018, O'Connor ruled that the entirety of the ACA was unconstitutional, a decision that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

At issue in the class-action lawsuit is a 2020 mandate requiring health care plans to cover HIV prevention medication, known as PrEP, free of charge as preventive care.

In the suit, a group of self-described Christian business owners and employees in Texas argue that the preventive care mandates violate their constitutional right to religious freedom by requiring companies and policyholders to pay for coverage that conflicts with their faith and personal values.

The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by Austin attorney Jonathan Mitchell, the legal mind behind Texas' civilly enforced six-week abortion ban. In the suit, Mitchell also challenges the entire framework through which the federal government decides what preventive services get covered.

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O'Connor threw out several of Mitchell's arguments but agreed that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force's system for deciding what health care services are required to be fully covered under the ACA violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

"At a high level, this lawsuit is part of a larger pushback against the government's ability to regulate," said Allison Hoffman, a law professor at Penn Carey Law at the University of Pennsylvania. "And then also asking what happens when regulations and religion clash."

One of the plaintiffs, Dr. Steven Hotze of Katy, often sues the government and elected officials over politically charged issues, including fights with GOP state leaders over emergency COVID-19 orders and an attempt to stop Harris County from expanding voter access.

In the complaint, Hotze said he is unwilling to pay for a health insurance plan for his employees that covers HIV prevention drugs such as Truvada and Descovy, known generally as PrEP, "because these drugs facilitate or encourage homosexual behavior, which is contrary to Dr. Hotze's sincere religious beliefs."

PrEP reduces the risk of getting HIV by 99% when taken as recommended, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In spite of the assertions by the Christian group in Texas, the CDC also says that 1 in 5 new cases are in women, not men who have sex with men.

"The virus doesn't choose who to infect, it can infect anyone," said Dr. Satish Mocherla, an infectious disease specialist at Legacy Community Health Services in Dallas. "So why a particular demographic is being targeted is a mystery to us."

And contrary to what the lawsuit asserts, PrEP does not "facilitate or encourage homosexual behavior," said John Carlo, CEO of Prism Health North Texas and former public health director of Dallas County. "PrEP prevention research shows that its use does not increase risky behaviors or cause people to have more sex or use more intravenous drugs when using it," Carlo said. "This is well studied."

The other plaintiffs, including John Kelley, a Tarrant County orthodontist, claim they "do not need or want contraceptive coverage in their health insurance. They do not want or need free sexually-transmitted disease testing covered by their health insurance because they are in monogamous relationships with their respective spouses.

"And they do not want or need health insurance that covers Truvada or PrEP drugs because neither they nor any of their family members are engaged in behavior that transmits HIV."

Kelley was previously the named plaintiff in the case, but the name was changed last month "because the media coverage of this case has triggered a wave of threats and cyberbullying" against Kelley, according to a motion.

Wide-reaching consequences

The lawsuit specifically addresses PrEP, but O'Connor's ruling, which addresses how the federal government can decide what preventive care is covered in employer health care plans, may end up having much more wide-reaching consequences, Hoffman said.

"We're talking about vaccines, we're talking about mammograms, we're talking about basic preventative health care that was being fully covered," she said.

"This is opening the doors to things that the ACA tried to eliminate, in terms of health plans that got to pick and choose what of these services they fully covered."

The American Medical Association, along with 60 leading medical organizations, issued a statement condemning the lawsuit.

"With an adverse ruling, patients would lose access to vital preventive health care services, such as screening for breast cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, heart disease, diabetes, preeclampsia, and hearing, as well as access to immunizations critical to maintaining a healthy population," the organizations wrote.

While implementation has not been as universal as hoped, fully funded preventive care through the ACA has been shown to be largely effective at improving health outcomes, reducing health care spending and increasing uptake of these services.

"The idea that an employer can shop a la carte for policy coverage goes against what we have learned over the last decade in the effort to end the HIV epidemic," said Carlo, the former Dallas County health director. "This takes us into the wrong direction, and we have only just begun to head into the right one."

At Legacy Community Health Services in Houston, where patients include a large population of those receiving PrEP, the lawsuit has begun to worry those who rely on their insurance to cover their treatment - and those patients are not restricted to members of the LGBTQ community, Mocherla said.

They include hemophiliacs and others who are vulnerable to HIV infection, Mocherla said. The rate of infection since the introduction of pre-exposure prophylaxis has declined in almost every demographic, he said.

Allowing companies to drop free coverage would prevent many of Legacy's patients from being able to afford the treatment, Mocherla said, and would reverse that historic trend of declining HIV rates.

Shutting down access right now, while "we are on the verge of a breakthrough," would set back the effort to eradicate the deadly virus by decades, he said.

"Without prevention, how can you cure the disease?" Mocherla said. "It's just shocking. ... And if ending the HIV epidemic is dear to anyone's heart, we cannot leave prevention aside. And that's why we are mystified. We are all very dismayed."

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. Read the original here. The Texas Tribune is a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans -- and engages with them -- about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Sweeteners may be linked to heart disease risk, study suggests


AFP
Wed, September 7, 2022


A large study suggested Thursday that artificial sweetener could be associated with a higher risk of heart disease, however experts urged caution about the findings.

Sweeteners are consumed by millions every day in products like diet soda, partly as a way to avoid weight gain from sugar -- but the healthiness of these substitutes has long been a matter of controversy.

Aiming to assess the heart disease risk of sweeteners, researchers at the French INSERM institute analysed the data of more than 100,000 adults in France who self-reported their diet, lifestyle and medical history between 2009-2021 as part of the NutriNet-Sante study.


Thirty-seven percent of the participants consumed artificial sweeteners, with an average intake of 42 milligrams a day -- the equivalent of one packet of sweetener or about a third of a can of diet soda.

During the nine-year follow-up period, 1,502 heart problems were recorded, including heart attack, angina and stroke.

The research, published in the journal BMJ, indicated that heart disease occurred in 346 out of 100,000 people who consume a high level of sweetener, compared to 314 per 100,000 for non-consumers.

"These results, in line with the latest WHO report published this year, do not support the use of sweeteners as a safe alternative to sugar," said INSERM's Mathilde Touvier, who coordinated the study.

An April report from the World Health Organization said that "there is no clear consensus on whether non-sugar sweeteners are effective for long-term weight loss or maintenance, or if they are linked to other long-term health effects".

Another study published earlier this year using Nutri-Net data found a correlation between cancer and sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame potassium and sucralose.

However such observational studies have come under increased criticism because they cannot establish the cause of the differences they find, which could come from other sources.

Naveed Sattar, a professor of metabolic medicine at Glasgow University not involved in the sweetener study, said that it "cannot answer the question posed".

"This is because there are clearly major differences in many characteristics of people who consume artificial sweeteners compared to those who do not consume any," he said.

He called for governments to fund long-term, randomised trials "to get closer to the truth".

ic/dl/rox

New malaria vaccine results raise hopes of mass rollout

Daniel Lawler
Wed, September 7, 2022 


A booster dose of a new malaria vaccine maintains a high level of protection against the disease, researchers said Thursday, expressing hopes the cheap jab could be produced on a massive scale in a matter of years.

The international research team suggested the vaccine, developed by Britain's Oxford University, could represent a turning point in the fight against the mosquito-borne parasitic disease, which killed 627,000 people -- mostly African children -- in 2020 alone.

Last year a different vaccine produced by British pharmaceutical giant GSK became the first to be recommended for widespread use against malaria by the World Health Organization, and has now been administered to more than a million children in Africa.


However research has found that the effectiveness of GSK's vaccine is around 60 percent, and significantly wanes over time even with a booster dose.

Oxford's R21/Matrix-M vaccine meanwhile was found to be 77 percent effective at preventing malaria in research published last year -- the first time the WHO's roadmap goal of 75 percent had been met.
- 'Fantastic' -

For the research, 450 children aged five to 17 months in Burkina Faso -- where malaria accounts for around 22 percent of all deaths -- were given three doses in 2019.

They were split into three groups, two receiving different doses of the Matrix-M adjuvant, a vaccine ingredient patented by Novavax also used in the US biotech firm's Covid jab. The third control group received a rabies vaccine.

Ahead of the 2020 rainy season -- when malaria cases surge -- 409 children returned to get a booster shot.

For the group that received the higher dose of adjuvant, the booster rose the protection level to 80 percent, according to the results of a phase 2b trial published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal on Thursday. The lower dose had 70 percent efficacy.

And crucially, the booster returned antibody levels to a similar level seen after the first round of doses, the study said.

The study's lead investigator Halidou Tinto of the Burkina Faso health research institute IRSS said, "It is fantastic to see such high efficacy again after a single booster dose."

Tinto, who was involved in trialling both malaria vaccines, said GSK's vaccine had an optimal efficacy of around 60 percent. "So I can confirm that R21 is doing much better," he told a press conference.
- 70% reduction in deaths? -

Oxford vaccinologist and study co-author Adrian Hill said the vaccine meant "We really could be looking at a very substantial reduction in that horrendous burden of malaria, deaths and disease in the coming years, certainly by 2030."

A 70 percent reduction in deaths from malaria could be feasible in that time, he said, partly because of the vast number of vaccine doses that could be quickly produced.

Oxford has partnered with the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India.

The institute is "willing and able to manufacture 200 million doses a year starting next year," Hill said.

The six to 10 million doses that GSK can produce a year is "not enough for 40 million children who need four doses in the first year," Hill added.

And the Oxford vaccine would likely cost a few US dollars a dose, less than half the $9 for GSK's version, he said.

The challenge of getting those doses into arms would require more funding, he added.

Results from a phase three trial involving 4,800 participants across four countries are expected later this year, which could potentially lead to approval.

Azra Ghani, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London not involved in the research, welcomed the results, saying it was "particularly encouraging" the booster dose restored protective antibodies.

Gareth Jenkins of the charity Malaria No More UK said the results were "another encouraging signal that, with the right support, the world could end child deaths from malaria in our lifetimes".

Jenkins said in a statement that new British Prime Minister Liz Truss' "first foreign policy test" was to ensure continued funding at the replenishment conference for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria being held in the US this month.

dl/bp