Two Views Of Abraham’s Sons On Rosh HaShanah – OpEd

 September 24, 2022 

By Rabbi Allen S. Maller

In the June 13, 2022 issue of Islamicity Barnaby Rogerson writes: “In the Muslim account Abraham has two separate families. His Jewish descendants come from his marriage to his cousin-wife Sarah. His Arab descendants come from Hagar, his Egyptian concubine. Hagar had been given to Sarah as a gift from Pharaoh’s sister and, although Sarah had initially allowed her husband to sleep with her, Sarah became jealous when she remained barren while Hagar became pregnant. 

“When Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, Abraham was forced to separate his two women. He took Hagar and her baby across the Arabian desert and left them with just a bag of dates and a jar of water in the empty valley of Mecca. As he climbed out of the valley he stopped on the plain and prayed to God to care for them.

“As their supplies dwindled, Ishmael began to cry out with thirst. Hagar ran distractedly up first one hill and then another (these two hillocks, the hill of Safa and the hill of Marwah, stand just outside the Kaaba sanctuary) searching desperately for water. She ran between these hillocks seven times (the origin of the oldest of the practices of the Muslim pilgrimage) before finally collapsing. The Archangel Gabriel then appeared to her and dug down into the earth in order to expose the Zemzem spring, whose waters bubbled out to save both mother and son.

“Many years later Abraham returned to find his son Ishmael grown into manhood and Hagar presiding over the town of Mecca. His joy was great but his dismay even greater when God tested him by calling upon him to sacrifice his first born son. 

“Ishmael, like his half-brother Isaac, was of course spared this terrible fate. Instead father and son built the Kaaba as an altar to the One God. In the process they discovered the foundations of an earlier altar built by Adam; which had been washed away in the flood. They instituted a three-day festival, which culminated in the sacrifice of a ram to commemorate God’s mercy. This is the original Eid el Kebir, the feast of sacrifice. It is the single greatest festival of the Islamic year.” From “The Prophet Muhammad” by Barnaby Rogerson.

Since I have been writing articles for Islamicity for more than 15 years, I thought I should add some views of Hagar and her son Ishmael that appeared in an article that I, Rabbi Allen Maller, wrote with Rabbi Ron Kronish titled: The Descendants of Prophets Isaac and Ishmael Can Live Together Peacefully. 

Muslims know that Hagar and her son Prophet Ishmael are mentioned in the biblical book of Genesis, (chapter 21); but very few know that “every year Jews in synagogues worldwide read Genesis chapters 21 and 22 on the first and second days of Rosh Hashanah; the Jewish New Year Festival.”

Rosh HaShanah begins this year on the evening of September 25 and ends before sunset on September 26 for Reform Jews; and on September 27 for Conservative and Orthodox Jews. Rosh HaShanah ushers in a ten day period of seeking self-improvement by doing a self-judgement review of our deeds in the past year; and then making specific commitments to doing better in the new year.

Rabbi Kronish writes: “On these very special holy days we read about Prophet Ishmael as well as Prophet Isaac. Reading about the patriarch of the Arab people is part of our Jewish tradition because these foundational events are essential to our identity as Jews and Chapter 21—the story of the birth and banishment of Ishmael—establishes our Jewish connection to God’s non-Jewish children. 

“God saw Ishmael was about to die and the text tells us the God of the Hebrew Bible hears the voice of all children, including Ishmael, in their suffering and misery, as well as in their joyous and hopeful moments.

“After these events we next hear about Ishmael a few chapters later, when Isaac and Ishmael meet again (Genesis 25:9) at the funeral of their father Abraham. Islamic and Jewish tradition both agree that Prophet Abraham visited Prophet Ishmael’s distant home on at least two different occasions to make sure that his family relationships were suitable. These pre and post funeral reconciliations would be why the Torah’s describes Abraham as ‘contented’ in his old age. 

“Can we see this as a very good model for family reconciliations [today by] forgiving old hurts? And can it also become a model for the descendants of Prophet Ishmael and Prophet Isaac, the contemporary Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews, to find the grounds to attain, after the military funerals are over, the forgiveness and reconciliation that both Islam and Judaism teach are holy goals.

“Rabbi Kronish’s answer is Yes. “But Jews and Muslims have to overcome some deeply ingrained negative stereotypes of each other. Some of this comes from our understanding –or purposeful misunderstanding — of our sacred texts, which can be very problematic and often lead to negative stereotyping. It is time to choose reconciliation rather than retribution between Jews and Muslims in this world. The time for enmity is over.”

And I would add to the words of Rabbi Kronish that everyone knows how important fasting during Ramadan, and daily worship and prayer are in Islam; but few know that Islam considers reconciling people better than many acts of worship. 

Prophet Muhammad said: “Should I not tell you what is better in degree than prayer, fasting, and charity.” They (the companions) said: “Yes.” He said: “Reconciling people, because grudges and disputes are a razor (that shaves off faith).” (Ahmad, Abu Dawood, and At-Tirmithi)

Even more amazing the Prophet said: “The one who reconciles people is not considered a liar if he exaggerates what is good or says what is good.” [Ahmad] 

This is an excellent guide to dealing with the three-generation old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather than focusing mostly on what the other side did to us, we all should focus on how the conflict has hurt all of us, and how much better our future would be if we could live next to each other in peace. 

If the descendants of Prophet Isaac and Prophet Ishmael negotiate a settlement that reflects the religious policy that “…there is no sin upon them if they make terms of settlement between them – and settlement [reconciliation] is best.” (Quran 4: 128) 

For in Jewish tradition family harmony is of such importance that a rabbinic dicta states that this goal even warrants engaging in a “white lie”. When God tells Sarah she will give birth to a son, she says: “After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my husband being old also?” But when God speaks to Abraham, God says: “Why did Sarah say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old?” (Genesis: 18:12-13). 

The rabbis comment that God omitted Sarah’s mention of Abraham’s even older age out of concern for their family harmony. And the Sages of the school of Hillel taught that one can praise the beauty of a bride even though she is not very pretty.

Prophet Muhammad said: “He is not a liar who seeks to reconcile between people and says [only] good things.” (al-Bukhaari, 2490) This is because the Qur’an refers to Prophet Abraham as a community or nation: “Abraham was a nation/community [Ummah]; dutiful to God, a monotheist [hanif], not one of the polytheists.” (16:120) 

If Prophet Abraham is himself an Ummah, then fighting between the descendants of Prophets Ishmael and Isaac is a civil war and should always be avoided.

Rabbi Dr Ron Kronish is the Founding Director the Inter-religious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI), which he directed for 25 years. His book, The Other Peace Process: Inter-religious Dialogue, a View from Jerusalem, was published by Hamilton Books, an imprint of Rowman and LIttlefield, in September 2017.

Rabbi Allen S. Maller
Allen Maller retired in 2006 after 39 years as Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Culver City, Calif. He is the author of an introduction to Jewish mysticism. God. Sex and Kabbalah and editor of the Tikun series of High Holy Day prayerbooks.

PICTURE The dismissal of Hagar, by Pieter Pietersz Lastman. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Restoring America's Oyster Population Through Conservation & Farming 

NBC Nightly News Films

Sep 23, 2022

From ocean to table, oysters play an important role as both a habitat and a fishing industry. Now, as the country’s wild oyster populations are under threat from overharvesting and climate change, there is a growing movement to establish sustainable aquaculture in the south. Together, scientists and aquafarmers are working to protect wild oyster reefs across the country, fight pollution and continue the Gulf’s rich oyster tradition.

Lofgren signals that stock trading ban will include Supreme Court justices

Mychael Schnell - Yesterday 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) signaled in a letter to colleagues that legislation banning congressional lawmakers from trading stocks will include Supreme Court justices.

© Provided by The Hill

Lofgren, the chair of the House Administration Committee, outlined a framework for “Combating Financial Conflicts of Interest and Restoring Public Faith and Trust in Government” in Thursday’s letter, with the first prong pertaining to a stock trading ban for “senior government officials,” their spouses and their dependent children.

That group of officials, according to Lofgren, includes members of Congress and the Supreme Court.

If enacted, individuals subject to the ban would be prohibited from investing in securities, commodities, futures, cryptocurrency and other similar investments and be banned from shorting stocks. Investments in diversified mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, widely held investment funds and U.S. Treasury or state and local government bills, notes or bonds would, however, be allowed.

Officials would have the choice of divesting their holdings or placing them in a qualified blind trust.

Lofgren’s framework comes as the House is preparing to consider a lawmaker stock trading ban next week, after months of deliberations on the topic. But it was unclear if Supreme Court justices would be included in the ban.

The push for such a prohibition gained supporters on Capitol Hill after reports surfaced that members violated laws meant to prevent financial conflicts of interest.

Earlier this month, The New York Times published an extensive report that found nearly 100 lawmakers or their family members made financial trades in the past three years that may be conflicts of interest.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) threw her support behind a lawmaker stock ban in February, a reversal of her previous opposition to the push, while also floating the idea of including the judiciary in any reforms made to financial reporting requirements.

Under current law, Supreme Court justices are permitted to trade stocks, which some say could pose a conflict of interest.

Lofgren in Thursday’s letter said she will introduce legislation reflecting her four-point framework.

“A number of bills that have been introduced to date address some of these issues and include thoughtful proposals, but no one bill addresses each of these four elements with this level of detail. I will soon introduce legislative text for a bill built on this framework for reform,” the California Democrat wrote.

“Many Members have already concluded that reforms are necessary. I agree,” she added.

Lofgren’s framework also calls for increasing the “granularity” of financial disclosures by asking for more specific information. It would additionally require electronic filings of all financial disclosure filings from all three branches of government.

Thirdly, the framework would increase penalties for failure to comply with financial disclosure requirements and implement additional fines that would be tied to the sum of assets or transactions that violated rules.

The fourth tenet of the framework is aimed at increasing accountability and public awareness. The measure would require that information about compliance is publicly disclosed and direct the Justice Department to present an annual report to Congress outlining criminal and civil proceedings taken against violators.

Pelosi told reporters last week that a ban on lawmaker stock trading could come to the floor this month. The House is scheduled to leave Washington next week, and it is not set to return until after the November midterm elections.

On the House floor Thursday, top lawmakers said the House may consider legislation to reform the STOCK Act next week. That 2012 statute, an acronym for the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, banned congressional employees and staffers from utilizing information received through work to benefit personally.

Serbian police cancel Europride parade in Belgrade

Online News EditorSeptember 13, 2022

 

Belgrade, Sep 13 (EFE).- Serbian police have banned the Europride parade that was scheduled to take place in Belgrade on September 17, the country’s interior ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry justified the decision with security concerns over an anti-globalist march set to take place at the same time.

“It has been assessed that there is a risk of attacks and confrontations, there is a risk of violence, destruction of property and other forms of threat to the public order of great magnitude,” the interior ministry said in a statement.

Interior minister Aleksandar Vulin added that possible clashes would put those taking part in the marches, as well as other citizens, in danger.

The organizers of the parade celebrating the LGBT community condemned Serbia’s political leadership for canceling the event, calling it a “total failure.”

“We are working with the @BelgradePride team on alternative solutions,” the European Pride Organizers Association (EPOA) added in a Twitter post.

EPOA chief Kristine Garina added that banning pride parades is “anti-constitutional.”

“It’s been ruled by the Serbian court several times. The ban will be appealed in court and will be overturned,” she tweeted.

According to Garina, thousands of LGBT people, as well as their friends, will gather in Belgrade on Saturday, despite the ban.

Belgrade Europride week kicked off on Monday by hoisting the rainbow flag outside Serbian government headquarters. It will end on Sunday with more than 130 concerts, human rights conferences and exhibitions, among other events across the Serbian capital.

Belgrade was chosen by EPOA three years ago to host Europride 2022, to be the first city in Southeast Europe to do so.

In recent weeks, traditionalists, right-wing extremists and members of the Serbian Orthodox Church have taken to the streets to protest the event.EFE

sn-jk/smq/mp

‘What doors will open?’: Hope in Singapore ahead of gay sex decriminalization

Online News EditorSeptember 23, 2022

 

By Paloma Almoguera

Singapore, Sep 24 (EFE).- After almost a century in force, Singapore is preparing to repeal a law inherited from the British Empire that criminalizes sex between men – a decision that generates elation but also doubt among the LGBT community of the conservative island state.

“There (is) a question on what else would come. Still there is a lot of insecurity of what the trade-offs are. Okay, we will repeal the law, but what are you going to take away from the lives of gay people?” asks Becca D’Bus, the pseudonym of Eugene Tan, creator of a successful drag queen show.

Becca, 44, is referring to the fine print of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s Aug. 22 announcement that Section 377A of the penal code will be repealed, and that she thinks the government will try to “appease” certain groups who have expressed opposition on the island of 5.7 million people.

Among them is part of the influential religious sector. Singapore has a 33 percent Buddhist population, while about 20 percent are Christian and 14 percent Muslim, in addition to other minority faiths.

In force since 1938, section 377A includes penalties of up to two years in prison for men who commit acts of “gross indecency” with another man.

Lee said the repeal, the date of which has not been announced, will “bring the law into line with current social morals, and I hope, provide some relief to gay Singaporeans.”

Initially, it does. The repeal has for decades been the main goal for the LGBT+ community in Singapore, which in February suffered great disappointment when the appeals court ruled against a claim of unconstitutionality.

“I feel happy for the people who had fought hard for the repeal. They should be recognized for their hard work,” says Joseph (not his real name), a Singaporean who has been in a gay relationship for years and who prefers to remain anonymous.

His happiness is shared by Becca, although from a different perspective.

“Marriage is not something that I care about, but it is clear that there is an attempt to sort of limit the ways in which citizens can be heard,” she tells EFE.

“I think we should be talking about care, families and how people choose to care for each other and how we protect these relationships, whatever they may be,” she adds.

The eventual repeal of 377A, which India annulled in 2018 and which is still in force in former British colonies such as neighboring Malaysia and Myanmar, is considered the definitive end of the criminalization of gay sex in Singapore, even though the government has not been enforcing the law for years.

“I have never felt any form of discrimination here due to my sexuality – both personally and at a professional level,” Joseph says.

However, sitting in a cafe devoid of the make-up and wardrobe she wears on stage every Saturday night, Becca says that many companies and theaters have refused to contract her show for being too queer, and questions the impact that the repeal will have on vital issues.

“There are suggestions that materially things won’t change: housing laws (Singapore, where 80 percent of the population lives in government-subsidized housing, makes it easier for married people and families to access accommodation), marriage, discrimination in the work environment…”

“If someone thinks he has been fired because his bosses are homophobic, he doesn’t have a case in court – we are not protected,” Becca denounces.

What they both agree on is that new discussions must be had and that their lives will not change much immediately after the repeal.

“As a guy who is in a long-term relationship, who shares a household with another man, this repeal does not really impact me. Our lives before and after the repeal will remain the same,” says Joseph.

Becca jokes: “I don’t think I will be having more sex.”

The nomadic day laborers sustaining Turkey’s agricultural industry

Online News EditorSeptember 17, 2022

 

By Dogan Tiliç

Ankara, Sep 17 (EFE).- The unease is palpable among the day laborers getting ready to work at an onion field outside Ankara.

“Stop filming,” says one. “Delete the photos, we don’t want press, it doesn’t help and only brings problems.”

The man worried about the presence of journalists is Ahmed, who is from the province of Sanliurfa, some 700 kilometers away in southeast Turkey.

Ahmed is a university student but, like his father, Ömer, 66, he earns a living by traveling around the country for seven months of the year in search of work to sustain the family.

Turkey’s agriculture sector, a major exporter to European markers, is kept afloat by some two million day mostly Kurdish laborers.

They are not granted labor rights and toil away in poor conditions.

“We start in April,” Ömer, who has been a seasonal worker for as long as he can remember, tells Efe.

“We left the village and we went to Adana (western Turkey) to work in the fields. Then we went to Malatya (eastern Turkey) to harvest apricots and now we will be with the onions in Ankara for a month.”

Day laborers such as Ahmed and Ömer make up an estimated fifth of the five to six-million strong agricultural workforce in Turkey.

The vast majority of the informal laborers are Kurds who leave their native southeastern Turkey from April to November, migrating across the country from the greenhouses of the Mediterranean coast to the fields of central Anatolia and the Black Sea.

Myriad sectors rely on their labor, from cotton, peanuts and hazelnuts to onions, garlic, potatoes, beets, peppers, tomato and watermelons.

This year, the going rate for a seasonal laborer is around 175 Turkish lira ($9.60) per day. Under those conditions, a laborer would have to work an entire month with no days off to reach the minimum wage.

It is common for entire families to travel around in search of work.

Men, women and children toil away for up to 12 hours under the sun and live in camps set up far from the nearest towns and villages.

“We arrive here, surrounded by dirt and mud, we don’t have water, nothing. There’s no electricity,” Hasan, a young day laborer, tells Efe.

Ömer adds: “We don’t have baths or a shower. We travel. Now we are here, in two days we will be somewhere else. If we stayed in one place, we would be part of society.”

Many day laborers return to the same spots each year.

“If you live for five or 10 years in a European country, they give you nationality,” Hasan says.

“We’ve been coming here for 18 years and they don’t even give us electricity. You have to walk 10 kilometers to find a cafe to charge your mobile.”

Ailing divers say Honduras fails to deliver promised benefits

Online News EditorSeptember 23, 2022

 

By Anny Castro

Puerto Lempira, Honduras, Sep 23 (EFE)- Indigenous lobster divers who developed debilitating medical conditions from venturing into deep waters without the necessary equipment or precaution say that the Honduran government has failed to fully comply with a 2021 court ruling mandating compensation.

“There is no support,” the leader of the Association of Injured Divers of Mosquitia, Erasmo Granuel, told Efe while seated in a wheelchair in the doorway of his humble wooden dwelling.

He said that more than 3,000 divers in Mosquitia, which sits on the Caribbean coast, are disabled after years of going below depths of 40 m (131 ft) in pursuit of lobster, edible snails and sea cucumbers.

Those divers “have nothing, not even a cent,” the Miskito leader said.

The majority of the 100,000-plus residents in the six municipalities making up the Mosquitia region subsist by fishing, selling lobster and snails to wholesalers for 95 lempiras ($3.85) a pound.

Thirteen months ago, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of 42 members of the Miskito community who sued Honduras over the state’s failure to regulate, supervise and oversee the practice of dangerous activities by the firms that control the deep diving lobster fishing industry.

The suit was filed in 2003 and only 10 of the original plaintiffs are still alive.

One of the survivors is Emsly Emus Rivas, 78, who has been in a wheelchair since 1984 due to injuries he suffered during an episode of decompression. He can’t afford the cost – anywhere from $142 to $304 per session – for treatment in a hyperbaric chamber.

Another, Evelito Londres, has nearly total hearing loss as a result of decompression syndrome.

Londres and Ral Balderramos, who has trouble walking, are two of the divers who have received housing and monetary compensation from the Honduran government under the August 2021 court ruling.

The lawmaker who represents the area in the Honduran congress, Erika Urtecho, is asking the government to provide the hospital in Puerto Lempira with additional hyperbaric chambers to accommodate the large number of injured divers.

The state has not done as much as it should to comply with the court ruling, Urtecho said, while adding that she is hopeful the administration of President Xiomara Castro, who took office earlier this year, “will be complying fully.”

“Those men who in their time were hurt are leaving children and wives without sustenance because they can’t return to work,” the legislator said.

“But we must not think only of those 42 (plaintiffs), the number of injured divers is much bigger and continues to grow,” Urtecho said. EFE ac/dr

Huge surplus leaves Georgia with $6.6B in cash to spend

By JEFF AMY

yesterday

1 of 2
FILE - Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp speaks at Ola High School on July 29, 2022, in McDonough, Ga. On Friday, Sept. 23, 2022, the state Accounting Office reported that Georgia ran a surplus of more than $6 billion in the budget year that ended June 30, meaning the state's next governor and lawmakers could spend or give back billions. (AP Photo/Megan Varner, File)


ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia ran a surplus of more than $6 billion in the budget year that ended June 30, meaning the state’s next governor and lawmakers could spend or give back billions.

The State Accounting Office, in a Friday report, said Georgia ran a $6.37 billion surplus even after spending $28.6 billion in state taxes and fees in the 2022 budget year. Total state general fund receipts rose a whopping 22%.

Even after filling its rainy day fund to the legal maximum, Georgia has $6.58 billion in “unreserved, undesignated” surplus — cash that leaders can spend however they want.

Some money is already spoken for, with the state likely to transfer more than $1 billion to pay for roads, bridges and other transportation projects. That would make up for the state’s decision in March to waive its gasoline tax of 29.1 cents per gallon and its diesel tax of 32.6 cents per gallon. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has repeatedly extended the tax breaks since then, a move lawmakers must ratify when they return in January.

Kemp, running for reelection against Democrat Stacey Abrams, has designs on an additional $2 billion of the surplus, pledging to give another $1 billion in state income tax rebates, plus spending $1 billion to renew a long-dormant property tax break for homeowners.

“The governor will continue to leverage state resources to help families in our state fight through 40-year-high inflation caused by failed Democratic leadership in Washington,” said Kemp spokesperson Tate Mitchell.

Abrams also wants to give a $1 billion income tax rebate, although she would restrict it to households making less than $250,000 a year. She proposes spending $1.9 billion of the surplus over four years, financing a big boost in teacher pay and an expansion of the state-federal Medicaid program to provide health insurance for poorer adults.

Republicans resist spending surplus money on continuing programs, and Kemp has attacked Abrams’ spending proposals as unsustainable. He claims she wouldn’t be able to keep her promises without tax increases.

“The numbers don’t lie,” said Abrams campaign spokesperson Alex Floyd. “Thanks in part to federal legislation passed by Georgia Democrats, we have the money to make investments in education, health care and small businesses — all without raisings taxes.”

Republican leaders have held fast to pessimism about state revenue forged in the Great Recession, when steep revenue drops and an unwillingness to raise taxes led to painful cuts in state services. Kemp said at a campaign appearance on Sept. 12 that “unfortunately, growth has slowed two quarters in a row, and many are predicting even rougher times in 2023.”

Part of their concern is that a steep rise in interest rates to combat inflation could slow the economy or tip it into recession. There’s also a state income tax cut beginning Jan. 1, 2024. It will reduce Georgia’s current tax — with a top rate of 5.75% and lower brackets below — to a flat tax of 5.49%. That would cost about $450 million in the first year, and budget writers must begin accounting for it next year.

But revenue thus far shows few signs of slowing, running 5.5% ahead of plan through the first two months of the 2023 budget year. Both income and sales taxes are running more than 10% ahead of last year, buoyed in part by wage and price inflation, and Georgia would be even further ahead if it resumes collecting fuel taxes.

The state also has other money in reserve. The rainy day fund to cover budget shortfalls remained filled to its legal limit of 15% of tax receipts, rising from $4.29 billion to $5.24 billion.

And Georgia’s lottery continued to pile up a surplus as well. That could bolster calls to expand the college aid and preschool programs financed by lottery proceeds. The lottery is legally required to keep half of yearly $1.47 billion proceeds in reserve to cover possible decreases in gambling revenue. But that fund now holds an additional $1.1 billion above what’s required.

___

Follow Jeff Amy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jeffamy.

Professor, NASA Researcher Pleads Guilty in China Ties Case

September 23, 2022 8:49 PM
Associated Press

HOUSTON —

A NASA researcher and Texas A&M University professor pleaded guilty to charges related to hiding his ties to a university created by the Chinese government while accepting federal grant money.

Zhengdong Cheng pleaded guilty to two counts — violation of NASA regulations and falsifying official documents — during a hearing in Houston federal court Thursday.

Cheng's conviction was part of a program called the China Initiative, which was first started under the Trump administration. But in February, the Justice Department abandoned the program after complaints it chilled academic collaboration and contributed to anti-Asian bias. The department had also endured high-profile setbacks in individual prosecutions, resulting in the dismissal of multiple criminal cases against academic researchers in the last year. The Justice Department said it planned to impose a higher bar for such prosecutions.

Cheng had originally been charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and false statements when he was arrested in August 2020. But he pleaded guilty to the new charges as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen sentenced Cheng to the time he had already served during his pretrial incarceration — about 13 months.

Cheng also agreed to pay restitution of $86,876 and pay a fine of $20,000.

Philip Hilder, Cheng's attorney, said the professor was "relieved that this unfortunate chapter of his life is behind."

But Hilder was critical of the China Initiative program, saying while its original purpose was "to fight economic espionage ... that was not the case in his matter."

"The China Initiative ... has now been phased out as a Justice Department priority. The overall mission stays the same, to ferret out economic espionage, but the focus is to target wrongdoers by their deeds and not by their ethnicity," Hilder said.

Prosecutors accused Cheng, who was hired by Texas A&M in 2004, of concealing his work in China even as his team of researchers received nearly $750,000 in grant money for space research. NASA is restricted from using funds for any collaboration or coordination with China, Chinese institutions or any Chinese-owned company.

But, prosecutors say, Cheng violated those restrictions by maintaining multiple undisclosed associations with China, including serving as director of a soft matter institute at a technology university in Guangdong, China, that was established by China's Ministry of Education.

"Texas A&M and the Texas A&M System take security very seriously, and we constantly are on the look-out for vulnerabilities, especially when national security is involved," John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M System, said in a statement Friday. "We will continue to work with our federal partners to keep our intellectual property secure and out of the hands of foreign governments who seek to do us harm."

Cheng was fired from Texas A&M shortly after his arrest. Texas A&M is located about 145 kilometers northwest of Houston.

Hilder said Cheng loves academia but is evaluating his options on what he does next.

"He's a proud, loyal United States citizen and he looks forward to getting back to being a productive member of our society," Hilder said.

In a tweet Friday, FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge James Smith said his agency "prioritizes investigating threats to academia as part of our commitment to preventing intellectual property theft at U.S. research institutions and companies."

In February, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen told reporters he believed the initiative was prompted by genuine national security concerns. He said he did not believe investigators had targeted professors on the basis of ethnicity, but he also said he had to be responsive to concerns he heard, including from Asian American groups.

Towel sales serving as voter-preference gauge ahead of Brazil election

Online News EditorSeptember 23, 2022

 

By Carlos Meneses

Sao Paulo, Sep 23 (EFE).- Sales of towels with the images of rightist President Jair Bolsonaro and center-left former head of state Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are serving as an informal gauge of voter sentiment ahead of the Oct. 2 first round of Brazil’s general election.

Street stalls selling Lula and Bolsonaro beach towels have proliferated in recent weeks in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, the country’s two largest cities, with some vendors keeping a running count of buyers’ preferences on blackboards.

Images of those scoreboards have been going viral on the Internet, causing towel sales to soar.

The phenomenon has become known as “DataToalha” (DataTowel), a reference to DataFolha, a prestigious Brazilian polling firm that on Thursday released a survey showing Lula in first place with 47 percent of voter preference and Bolsonaro trailing far behind in second place with 33 percent support.

Like all the other voter surveys, DataToalha also shows Lula with a comfortable lead.

One vendor on Sao Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, Fernando Lopes, set up his street stall near the headquarters of the Federação das Industrias do Estado de São Paulo, a powerful employers’ trade union, and says he is thrilled with the pace of sales.

“I’m taking advantage of the contest to earn some money. The one selling the most is Lula’s,” the 31-year-old said as a group of people took a photo of his blackboard.

In fact, the tally at that stall was extremely lopsided: “Bolsonaro 34-Lula 193.”

Each towel is selling for 40 reais ($7.60). Hats with the images of those same two candidates, meanwhile, are selling for 30 reais.

Lopes works seven days a week and says he sells between 15 and 20 towels a day, most of them with the image of the candidate of the center-left Workers’ Party (PT).

“The Bolsonaro voters complain a lot. They say the tally is a lie and that I’m campaigning for Lula,” he said. “It’s not true because I sell both of their towels.”

Lopes said people have tried unsuccessfully to alter the count through bribes. “One woman even offered me 700 reais, but I told her ‘no.'”

He recalled that another Bolsonaro supporter said he wanted to buy 100 towels with the image of the retired army captain.

But Lopes said the man changed his mind when told the scoreboard was merely keeping track of the number of Bolsonaro- and Lula-supporting customers and that the count would go up by just one regardless of how many towels he bought.

Lula’s supporters on Avenida Paulista showed equal enthusiasm for their candidate and expressed hope that he will win in the first round, as some polls suggest. If neither candidate receives more than 50 percent of the ballots, a runoff will be held on Oct. 30.

“If I were rich, I’d buy 1,000 Lula towels,” Julia Espindola, a 30-year-old nurse who visited Lopes’ stall after hearing about those sales on social media, told Efe.

A half-hour later, Lula’s count had gone up by two to 195, while Bolsonaro’s tally was stuck on 34.

Lopes, who saw his income evaporate due to pandemic-triggered social-distancing measures and was forced to live on the street with his wife and two-year-old daughter, hopes that all the formal and informal polling prove correct and the ex-president will emerge victorious.

“Lula hasn’t won the election yet and he’s already creating jobs,” Lopes joked, while at the same time accusing the incumbent president of “not caring about the poor.” EFE

Bolsonaro, military intensify antidemocratic conspiracies on eve of Brazil’s elections

Tomas Castanheira

WSWS.ORG

The antidemocratic conspiracies promoted by Brazil’s fascistic President Jair Bolsonaro and the military are advancing with the approach of the first round of presidential elections on October 2.

Brazilian special forces troops (Ministerio de Defensa)

As the president loudly proceeds with his plan to contest an increasingly likely defeat at the polls, the military has been elevated to the position of final arbiter of the political process, with the installation of the next president dependent on its approval.

Just two weeks before the election, the president has publicly reiterated that he will not accept a result other than victory. In an interview last Sunday on the SBT TV network, Bolsonaro declared that if he receives less than 60 percent of the vote, that is, if he is not declared elected in the first round, “something abnormal happened at the TSE [Superior Electoral Court].”

The claim that an electoral fraud is underway to remove him from power is the central argument of the Hitler-style “big lie” being systematically promoted by Bolsonaro. This coup narrative dismisses as fraudulent the results of all recent polls, pointing to the Workers Party (PT) candidate, Lula da Silva, beating him by a wide margin. The latest Datafolha poll, published on Thursday, showed Lula with 47 percent of the vote and Bolsonaro with only 33 percent.

In the interview recorded in London, where he attended Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, Bolsonaro justified his certainty of victory on what he calls Data Povo (“Data People”), i.e., his subjective perception of the “popular will” based upon crowds attending his events, as opposed to data from institutes like Datafolha.

He said, “It’s pretty divided, you know, much more favorable to me. I say, if I get less than 60 percent of the vote, something abnormal has happened at the TSE in view obviously of the Data Povo that you measure by the amount of people who not only come to my events as well as welcome us along the way to get to the venue.”

Bolsonaro’s plan to contest the ballots widely mimics Donald Trump’s actions in the last US presidential elections, which culminated in the January 6 Capitol coup attempt. But much more than Trump, Bolsonaro has reasons to trust that a significant section of the Armed Forces will legitimize his attempt to hold on to state power.

Last week, the military clubs in Rio de Janeiro released a joint note calling for the “Rescue of the Green and Yellow” (the colors of Brazil’s flag) against what they claim to be “an explicit attempt to destroy the concepts of citizenship and patriotism.” Concluding with a passage from the Tamoio Song, by the Brazilian Romantic poet Gonçalves Dias, which says that “Life is combat, that slaughters the weak,” the document is an unequivocal call for a coup.

The demonstrations conducted by Bolsonaro on Independence Day, last September 7, had already confirmed these expectations. They were highly successful in merging, with the consent of the generals, a massive military parade with the demonstration of thousands of Bolsonaro’s far-right supporters.

The corrupt bourgeois opposition to Bolsonaro responded to this pivotal event in Brazil’s political history with new concessions to the military that put even more power into their hands.

On September 13, the TSE approved a reformulation of the “integrity test” of the electronic ballot boxes to meet demands from the military. The change, made on the eve of the electoral process, will introduce the use of biometrics in the inspection of the ballot boxes.

As admitted by the president of the TSE himself, Supreme Court (STF) Judge Alexandre de Moraes, this supposed “safety measure” lacks any technical justification. Moraes said that “there is no proof that the test [with biometrics] will or will not improve oversight [of the ballots].” In other words, the TSE accepted a requirement that is known to have the sole purpose of fomenting the distrust of the electoral process that underlies Bolsonaro’s conspiracy.

Moraes, who assumed the presidency of the TSE on August 17, has taken as his main task the fine tuning of the Electoral Court’s relations with the military, deepening the concessions made by his predecessors. He promptly set up exclusive TSE meetings with the military, behind closed doors and without minutes. His predecessor, Edson Fachin, had resisted accepting this anti-democratic demand made insistently by Defense Minister and Bolsonaro’s conspiracy collaborator, Gen. Paulo Sergio Oliveira.

The intimate relationship established by the PT and its pseudo-left ally, the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL), to these reactionary forces in the bourgeois state is highly revealing of the political bankruptcy of these parties.

The same Alexandre de Moraes was praised by the Brazilian pseudo-left as the great savior of democracy in the country. It has entrusted the STF judge with taking “all measures deemed appropriate to ensure that the result of the 2022 election is fully respected and fulfilled,” as stated in a document written by PSOL parliamentarians.

The “measures” taken by Moraes, with the criminal consent of the PT and the PSOL, are proving to be key pieces in the advance of military tutelage over the political regime.

In addition to the concessions taken from the TSE, the military is preparing to carry out, for the first time since the establishment of the bourgeois democratic regime in Brazil, a parallel check of the ballot boxes. Soldiers will be sent to hundreds of polling places around the country to personally check the “fairness” of the democratic process.

Whether the findings of this verification will serve to legitimize a political coup by Bolsonaro, or even an independent intervention by the military in the name of “political stabilization” of the country, remains a question to be answered. The degeneration of bourgeois democracy in Brazil, on the other hand, is a deepening process in which there is no turning back.