GMO RAPESEED IS CANOLA

Seeding of a revolution: Mustard becoming first GM food crop to be approved in India is seminal

Mustard is necessary to reduce the country's dependence on imported cooking oil. India imports about 15 million tonnes of cooking oil for about $10 billion a year.

Published: 03nd November 2022 

Golden future: If the DDLJ sequel were to be shot in a Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 farm, we would have a richer, more mustardy background, argues the column. 

(Photo | Screengrab)
By Vivian Fernandes

The environmental release of genetically modified (GM) mustard hybrid DMH-11 and its parents with the bar, barnase and barstar genes is a momentous event. Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11) is the first GM food crop to be approved in India. The only other crop that was approved -- in 2002 -- was the boll-borer resistant Bt cotton. The end of policy paralysis is welcome.

Anti-GM activists have once again sprung into action. They are questioning the yield claims made for DMH-11. The developers, a team of Delhi University scientists led by its former vice chancellor Deepak Pental, say that measured against Varuna, a mega variety, DMH-11 yielded 28 per cent more in three field trials that were conducted between 2010 and 2015. Against the best performing zonal varieties, it gave a 37 per cent higher yield.

Of more importance than the yield of DMH-11 is the method of developing mustard hybrids.

Mustard is a self-pollinating plant. Its flowers have both male and female sexual organs. To produce hybrids through cross-pollination, the flowers must be emasculated so that they can accept the pollen of another mustard variety of interest (for high yield, pest and pathogen resistance or climate resilience).

The conventional way of producing mustard hybrids is through cytoplasmic genetic male sterility (CGMS). Male sterile plants occur in nature as a result of spontaneous mutation. Male sterility can also be induced through, say, chemicals. Without going into the technical details, this system requires three lines: a male sterile line, a male sterility maintainer line and a fertility restorer line. This method takes a lot of time and effort. The male sterile lines may not always be fully sterile. Sterility can also break down in, say, very low temperatures.

ALSO READ | GM mustard: Farmers gear up for protest in Karnataka

With GM technology, only two lines are needed to produce hybrids. Any mustard line can be made male sterile using the barnase gene obtained from a soil bacterium. It produces an enzyme that degenerates pollen and makes it unviable. The other parent has a barstar gene also obtained from the same bacterium, which reverses the action of the barnase gene. The resultant seed is fertile and can germinate. The herbicide tolerant bar gene is inserted into both parents so that when sprayed with the herbicide glufosinate ammonium (popular brand name Basta), only the offspring resistant to the herbicide, but containing the barnase and barstarr genes, will survive. This is a more efficient way of creating mustard hybrids. Pental had combined the Indian variety with an East European variety -- Early Hira 2 -- to obtain a higher-yielding hybrid.

Mustard yield has increased from 368 kgs per hectare in 1950-51 to 1,422 kg per hectare. Much of this has been due to pure line breeding. To raise the yield significantly and even double it, GM hybridisation technology is needed.

Herbicide tolerance is also a useful trait. Glufosinate is not allowed to be used on mustard. It should be. Rajasthan produces about half of the country's mustard output of 9 million tonnes. But it is infested with a weed that preys on mustard plant roots. Yield and output will increase when this weed is controlled.

Mustard is necessary to reduce the country's dependence on imported cooking oil. India imports about 15 million tonnes of cooking oil – about 55-60 percent of its consumption – for about $10 billion a year.

Oil palm yields the highest amount of oil, about four tonnes per hectare. In August last year, India launched the oil palm mission to expand the cultivation of oil palm and production of palm oil. Mustard is no match for oil palm, but it has a high oil content of up to 46 percent. A hectare of mustard can yield about 600 kg of oil.

The association of edible oil producers has been urging the government to launch Mission Mustard and incentivise its cultivation in Punjab with subsidies. This will also serve the purpose of crop diversification in that state. The cultivation of mustard should also be encouraged in rice fallows in eastern India.

The regulator for GM crops had recommended to the government in May 2017 the environmental release of DMH-11. But environment minister Harsh Vardhan did not accept the advice and suggested that studies on the impact on honeybees and other pollinators should be conducted first. Those studies were done during biosafety trials. They were not repeated. But the hybrid has been recommended for release with the condition that the impact study on honeybees should be done post-release.

Nothing has changed in the last five years, except that high global commodity prices have made the government realise that ideological whims come at a cost. Even this time, the regulator has only made a recommendation for environmental release. There is no express acceptance of the recommendation by the government. Acceptance of the advice or permission for environmental release is said to be implied in the environment minister's approval of the minutes of the regulator's meeting where the decision on environmental release was taken. The government has taken overt ownership of the decision. Perhaps the government does not want to affront RSS affiliates - the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch - which oppose GM mustard.

Canada approved GM canola (rapeseed, related to mustard) and its transgenic lines in 1996. The US and Australia approved them in 2002 and 2003 respectively. It's a tested technology that has been found to be safe so far.

(Vivian Fernandes is a freelance journalist. These are the writer's views.)

What Stands in the Way of Transgenic

Mustard Becoming India’s First GM FooCrop?

(Photo by: ross tek/Unsplash)

 Aathira Perinchery
— OCT 29, 2022

On October 18, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee, a regulatory body under the environment ministry, approved the “environmental release” of the mustard DMH-11.

DMH-11, a mustard hybrid, is the product of work by scientists at the Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants, University of Delhi.

One of the techniques used to create DMH-11 was cytoplasmic male sterility – a very useful tool to create hybrids, especially in self-pollinating species like mustard.

Support for DMH-11 is centred on India’s high import bill for edible oil and the prospect of a crop resilient to the vagaries of climate change.

Opposition for DMH-11 comes from the government’s obstructionist approach to regulating transgenic crops, questions about the yield and about biosafety.

Kochi: India’s Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee has permitted the environmental release of genetically-modified (GM) mustard.

At this point, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) will conduct field trials of the seeds. If they are successful, and if its developers obtain other clearances as well – including a final ‘okay’ from the Union government – GM mustard will become India’s first GM food crop, and in two years, farmers could have GM mustard seeds in hand to cultivate.

But while agriculture and plant scientists have welcomed the move, activists are not pleased. The Wire Science delves into what GM mustard is, what gains it could bring to India and its farmers, and why activists are raising concerns about the hybrid.

Creating GM mustard

On October 18, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), a regulatory body under the Union environment ministry, approved the “environmental release” of the mustard hybrid DMH-11 at its 147th meeting. Environmental release is the deliberate introduction of a GM organism – i.e. whose genes have been tweaked using genetic engineering techniques – into the environment in small trials, so that scientists can measure and monitor its impact.

The mustard hybrid DMH-11 – where the letters are for ‘Dhara Mustard Hybrid’ – is the product of work by scientists at the Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants, University of Delhi.

A ‘hybrid’ is a variety developed by crossing two seeds of the same species but with different traits – such as if one seed has higher yield than the other. Traditionally, scientists achieved this by selection or cross-breeding. ‘Selection’ is where farmers would simply select plants with desirable traits as the progenitors of future crops and cull the rest. In cross-breeding, two plants of choice would be bred together to produce offspring seeds with the desirable traits.

Today, scientists have an option in transgenic breeding – where they introduce genes, representing some traits, from other organisms into existing crop varieties to increase their yield, improve nutritive merits, lower pesticide use, etc.

This is how the Bt crops of cotton and brinjal were born. Here, scientists integrated some genes from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) into the crop varieties, to help the resulting plants produce a protein that is toxic to insect pests. As a result, these crops were less vulnerable to being damaged by these pests.

Scientists did something similar to create DMH-11. They integrated two genes – called barnase and barstar – found in the soil bacterium Bacillus amyloliquefaciens in two mustard varieties, ‘Varuna’ and ‘Early Heera-2’.

The ‘barnase’ gene in Varuna effectively made it sterile, preventing inbreeding within this variety. This is called cytoplasmic male sterility – and is a very useful tool to create hybrids, especially in self-pollinating species like mustard plants. The barstar gene in the other variety, ‘Early Heera-2’, blocked the action of the barnase gene in ‘Varuna’.

Then they crossed the varieties with each other. The result is that the final hybrid – DMH-11 – is both high-yielding and fertile.

Benefits?

Experts have said that GM mustard will increase the productivity of this crop in the country. Indian Express reported that per ICAR’s contained field trials, DMH-11 will have 28% more yield than the popular Indian mustard variety ‘Varuna’. No information from the trials – other than this figure – is available in the public domain, however.

Higher yield is crucial for food security. India is currently one of the world’s biggest importers of edible oils, with imports meeting around 60% of India’s needs. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting disruption in global supply had also increased edible oil prices, thus increasing India’s import bill.

Scientists – including the director of the Indian Agriculture Research Institute, Ashok Kumar Singh – have said that approving GM mustard could help India bring this bill down.

Crop varieties with desirable traits are also important in the context of climate change. Extreme weather events such as drought and excess rainfall have destroyed standing crops and decreased crop output. (There is also evidence that higher amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increasing surface temperature affect crop growth and yield.)

Scientists have expressed hope that approving GM mustard will also ease the approval process for other genetically-engineered crops, such as Bt brinjal, which has faced stiff resistance from environmental activists and farmers’ bodies. In fact, the environmental release of transgenic mustard could be used to develop new hybrids as well, under the supervision of ICAR, the GEAC noted in its meeting.

This means more such hybrids – which utilise the benefits that cytoplasmic male sterility provides – can be developed by scientists for commercial use.

Risks?

Opposing new technology is the least of activists’ worries. Their current biggest concern appears to be the GM mustard plants’ potential impact on bees.

There is no scientific data yet on whether bees and other pollinators will visit GM mustard flowers in India. If they don’t, it could directly shrink the population of pollinators. Pollinators are insects that help plants fertilise each other, thus enabling the latter to produce fruits, including commercially important ones like apples.

According to the minutes of the GEAC meeting, which approved the environmental release of GM mustard, the body noted “it seems unlikely” that the use of Bacillus amyloliquefaciens genes will have “an adverse impact on honey bees and other pollinators” based on evidence collected in studies in other countries and “per the recommendations of concerned ministries”.

As a follow-up, the GEAC has also suggested that ICAR conduct field demonstration studies to examine the effects of the mustard hybrid on bees and other pollinators to “generate scientific evidences in Indian agro-climatic situation and also as a precautionary mechanism”.

There are also rules in place to revoke the council’s approval “if any evidences regarding harmful effects of the approved GE mustard, such as damage to the environment, nature or health as could not be envisaged when the approval was given,” per the minutes.

Then there are fears that DMH-11 is herbicide-tolerant, Kavitha Kuruganti, co-convenor of Coalition for a GM-Free India, told Down To Earth. This concern is rooted in the presence of a third ‘bar’ gene in the hybrid, which reportedly makes its plants tolerant of a herbicide called glufosinate ammonium.

The implied consequence is that farmers could use herbicides to kill other plants without fearing for their impact on the GM mustard crops – which in turn could encourage the overuse of this substance.

Next, in a letter to Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav on October 28, the Swadeshi Jagran Manch – affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – wrote that DMH-11 lacks evidence of superior yield. The body has thus called the move “dangerous” and urged the Union government to not permit GM mustard seeds to be planted “now or ever”. The Trinamool Congress has also joined the fray of parties opposing the clearance.

Opposition to GM mustard is not new. The Indian government issued a similar clearance to a GM mustard hybrid in May 2017, after trials by Punjab Agricultural University and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. But activists and farmers’ bodies approached the Supreme Court.

The court asked the government to make an “informed” decision in the matter. Specifically, the court said it would hear the activists’ plea if the government approved GM mustard first. But the environment ministry didn’t respond – and the matter remained pending.

Not a thing has changed from 2017 to now, Kuruganti told Business Standard, and the government is yet to address the concerns she and others had raised then.

 FORVERTS IN ENGLISH

VIDEO: Hear Yiddish spoken on ‘Sesame Street’

In this clip from a 1974 episode, storekeeper Mr. Hooper surprises Big Bird and the other characters by answering the phone in Yiddish.

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By Rukhl SchaechterNovember 13, 2022

This past Thursday, Nov. 10, marked the anniversary of the day that the iconic children’s TV program “Sesame Street” premiered in 1969.

In this surprising clip from a 1974 episode, we see the owner of the neighborhood candy store, Mr. Hooper, speaking on the phone to his aunt in Yiddish. Mr. Hooper was played by Will Lee, a Jewish actor from Brooklyn who appeared in numerous television and film roles, as well as the Broadway show, “The World of Sholom Aleichem.”

Lee was blacklisted during the McCarthy era but made a big comeback with his role as Mr. Hooper. According to a survey reported by The New York Times, Lee’s Mr. Hooper ranked ahead of all live cast members in recognition by young audiences. As Joan Ganz Cooney, president of the Children’s Television Workshop, put it: “He gave millions of children the message that the old and the young have a lot to say to each other.”

 

JEWISH ANARCHISTS IN NEW YORK WERE THE LAST TO KEEP A YIDDISH NEWSPAPER PUBLISHING IN THE SIXTIES. THEY HAD A YIDDISH LIBRARY AND A FREE SCHOOL AS WELL. YIDDISH REMAINS THE SECULAR LANGUAGE OF EUROPEAN JEWS, AS ZIONISTS HAVE MADE

RELIGIOUS HERBRAIC THE LINQUA FRANCA OF THEIR ZIONIST STATE OF ISRAEL.

U.S. intel report says key Gulf ally meddled in American politics

John Hudson

November 14, 2022

The United Arab Emirates steered U.S. foreign policy in its favor through a series of legal and illegal exploits, according to an unprecedented U.S. intelligence document.

U.S. intelligence officials have compiled a classified report detailing extensive efforts to manipulate the American political system by the United Arab Emirates, an influential, oil-rich nation in the Persian Gulf long considered a close and trusted partner.

The activities covered in the report, described to The Washington Post by three people who have read it, include illegal and legal attempts to steer U.S. foreign policy in ways favorable to the Arab autocracy.

It reveals the UAE’s bid, spanning multiple U.S. administrations, to exploit the vulnerabilities in American governance, including its reliance on campaign contributions, susceptibility to powerful lobbying firms and lax enforcement of disclosure laws intended to guard against interference by foreign governments, these people said. Each spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified information.

The document was compiled by the National Intelligence Council and briefed to top U.S. policymakers in recent weeks to guide their decision-making related to the Middle East and the UAE, which enjoys outsize influence in Washington.

The report is remarkable in that it focuses on the influence operations of a friendly nation rather than an adversarial power such as Russia, China or Iran. It is also uncommon for a U.S. intelligence product to closely examine interactions involving U.S. officials given its mandate to focus on foreign threats.

“The U.S. intelligence community generally stays clear of anything that could be interpreted as studying American domestic politics,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served on the National Intelligence Council in the 1990s.

“Doing something like this on a friendly power is also unique. It’s a sign that the U.S. intelligence community is willing to take on new challenges,” he said. Lauren Frost, a spokeswoman at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, declined to comment when asked about the report.

The UAE’s ambassador to Washington, Yousef Al Otaiba, said he is “proud of the UAE’s influence and good standing in the U.S.”

“It has been hard earned and well deserved. It is the product of decades of close UAE-US cooperation and effective diplomacy. It reflects common interests and shared values,” he said in a statement.

The relationship is unique. Over the years, the United States has agreed to sell the UAE some of its most sophisticated and lethal military equipment, including MQ-9 aerial drones and advanced F-35 fighter jets, a privilege not bestowed on any other Arab country over concern about diminishing Israel’s qualitative military edge.

Some of the influence operations described in the report are known to national security professionals, but such activities have flourished due to Washington’s unwillingness to reform foreign-influence laws or provide additional resources to the Department of Justice. Other activities more closely resemble espionage, people familiar with the report said.

The UAE has spent more than $154 million on lobbyists since 2016, according to Justice Department records. It has spent hundreds of millions of dollars more on donations to American universities and think tanks, many that produce policy papers with findings favorable to UAE interests.

There is no prohibition in the United States on lobbyists donating money to political campaigns. One U.S. lawmaker who read the intelligence report told The Post that it illustrates how American democracy is being distorted by foreign money, saying it should serve as a wake-up call.



“A very clear red line needs to be established against the UAE playing in American politics,” said the lawmaker. “I’m not convinced we’ve ever raised this with the Emiratis at a high level.”

Both the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the State Department declined to comment on whether they have addressed the issue with senior UAE counterparts.

The U.S. government’s muted public response follows President Biden’s impassioned pitch to midterm elections voters last week that American democracy is under threat from powerful interests and needs concerted safeguarding.

“With democracy on the ballot, we have to remember these first principles: Democracy means the rule of the people — not the rule of monarchs or the moneyed, but the rule of the people,” Biden said during a speech in Washington.

The National Intelligence Council, or NIC, is the intelligence community’s premier analytic hub. Its products draw on information from the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies to speak with one voice on pressing national security issues.

People who shared information about the report declined to provide a copy of it. They said the activities attributed to the UAE in the report go well beyond mere influence peddling.

One of the more brazen exploits involved the hiring of three former U.S. intelligence and military officials to help the UAE surveil dissidents, politicians, journalists and U.S. companies. In public legal filings, U.S. prosecutors said the men helped the UAE break into computers in the United States and other countries.

Last year, all three admitted in court to providing sophisticated hacking technology to the UAE, agreeing to surrender their security clearances and pay about $1.7 million to resolve criminal charges. The Justice Department touted the settlement as a “first-of-its-kind resolution.”

It did not involve prison time, however, and critics viewed the financial penalty as paltry given the substantial payments received by the former U.S. officials for their work, raising concerns it did little to dissuade similar future behavior.

Those seeking reform also note the federal trial of Thomas Barrack, a longtime adviser to former president Donald Trump, who was acquitted this month of charges alleging he worked as an agent of the UAE and lied to federal investigators about it.

U.S. prosecutors accused Barrack of exploiting his access to Trump to benefit the UAE and working a secret back channel for communications that involved passing sensitive information to Emirati officials.

The evidence introduced in court included thousands of messages, social media posts and flight records, as well as communications showing that Emirati officials provided him with talking points for media appearances in which he praised the UAE. After one such interview, Barrack emailed a contact saying, “I nailed it … for the home team,” referring to the UAE.

Barrack, who never registered with the U.S. government to lobby for the gulf state, vehemently denied the charges, and prosecutors failed to convince a jury that his influence-peddling gave rise to crimes. An assistant of his, Matthew Grimes, was also acquitted. Barrack, though a spokesman, declined to comment.

The UAE is far from alone in using aggressive tactics to try to bend the U.S. political system to its liking. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel, Taiwan and scores of other governments run influence campaigns in the United States in an effort to impact U.S. policy.

But the intelligence community’s scrutiny of the UAE indicates a heightened level of concern and a dramatic departure from the laudatory way the country is discussed in public by U.S. secretaries of state and defense and presidents, who routinely emphasize the “importance of further deepening the U.S.-UAE strategic relationship.”

The UAE is a federation of sheikhdoms with more than 9 million people including the city-states of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Since 2012, it has been the third-biggest purchaser of U.S. weapons and built what many consider the most powerful military in the Arab world by cultivating close ties to the U.S. political, defense and military establishment.

The UAE’s armed forces have fought alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The country also hosts 5,000 U.S. military personnel at al-Dhafra Air Base and U.S. warships at the Jebel Ali deep-water port.

Boosters of the gulf state in U.S. think tanks and military circles often hail it as “Little Sparta” for its military prowess while sidestepping its human rights record and ironclad kinship with Saudi Arabia.

There are no elections or political parties in the UAE, and no independent judiciary. Criticism of the government is banned, and trade unions and homosexuality are outlawed. Freedom House ranks the gulf state among the least free countries in the world. A princess raced to escape Dubai’s powerful ruler. Then her phone appeared on the list.

The stifling political environment stands in stark contrast to the country’s opulent cosmopolitan offerings, including the world’s tallest building, ski slopes inside a shopping mall and Ferrari World, a theme park inspired by the Italian sports car manufacturer.

Its largest city, Dubai, is a tax-free business hub with glitzy five-star hotels, nightclubs and DJ concerts that feel incongruous to the nearby religious zeal of Saudi Arabia. In recent years, U.S. officials and independent watchdogs have warned that smuggling and money-laundering in the UAE have allowed criminals and militants to hide their wealth there.

Focus on the UAE’s role in Washington grew following the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey. The CIA concluded his killing was done at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, a revelation that caused Washington lobbying firms and think tanks to sever their financial ties to Riyadh.

Though the UAE had no involvement, the crown prince’s status as a protege of Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates known as MBZ, invited greater scrutiny.

“MBZ was a big part of the crowd who said the Saudi crown prince would be a reformer, make Saudi Arabia a more normal country, give women the right to vote — all of which crashed when Khashoggi was killed,” Riedel said. UAE agency put spyware on phone of Khashoggi’s wife months before his murder, forensics show.

Concerns about the UAE among human rights groups grew with its military involvement in the brutal war in Yemen, from which it has since withdrawn.

The gulf state also angered U.S. officials after the Defense Department’s watchdog said the UAE may have been financing the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary army close to the Kremlin that has been accused of atrocities in Libya, Ukraine and Africa. The UAE denies the charge.

Though the UAE has maintained strong bipartisan support in the United States, it cultivated a particularly close connection to the Trump administration, which approved the $23 billion sale of F-35s, MQ-9s and other munitions to the gulf state.

The transfer, which has faced resistance by congressional Democrats, has not moved forward yet but is supported by the Biden administration.

Last month, The Post revealed the UAE’s extensive courtship of retired high-ranking U.S. military personnel. The investigation showed that over the past seven years, 280 retired U.S. service members have worked as military contractors and consultants for the UAE, more than for any other country, and that the advisory jobs pay handsomely.

Instrumental to the UAE’s success in Washington has been Otaiba, an ambassador who has forged strong connections with powerful politicians and business leaders across the political spectrum.

The intelligence report is careful not to identify specific individuals, according to people who have read it, but it mentions several meetings and conversations involving U.S. and Emirati officials. One passage refers to a meeting of a senior U.S. and senior UAE official who commended each other for “single-handedly” salvaging the U.S.-UAE relationship. One person who read the report said it was an unmistakable reference to Otaiba.

When asked about the intelligence community’s findings, Otaiba said he has been “honored to be among a group of serious people with good intentions in both countries that have built a full and lasting partnership that has made the UAE, the U.S. and the region more secure, more prosperous, and more open-minded.”

Some U.S. lawmakers in both parties have proposed legislation to curb foreign influence in U.S. politics. A bill introduced last year by Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) would prohibit political campaign committees from accepting money from lobbyists registered with a foreign country.

Other reform proposals include increasing disclosure requirements, providing more resources to the Justice Department’s foreign influence unit and standardizing filing data, said Anna Massoglia, a foreign-influence expert at OpenSecrets, an organization that tracks political spending, “While the U.S. does have some disclosure rules in place, there are still a number of loopholes that allow individuals to work on behalf of foreign interests in this country without disclosing their work,” Massoglia said.

John Hudson is a national security reporter at The Washington Post covering the State Department and diplomacy. He has reported from a mix of countries including Ukraine, Pakistan, Malaysia, China, and Georgia.

Lebanese MPs accuse Hezbollah of undermining state

By News desk
-November 14, 2022

MP Ibrahim Mneimneh said: “The one undermining the state is the one who uses his weapons at home and in the region.

“He is the one who left the borders loose, and he is the one who disrupted the constitutional deadlines, such as the presidential elections and the formation of governments. He is the one who protects the corrupt.

“What undermined the state is them covering your weapons while you cover their corruption. All of the corrupt are working for the benefit of foreign agendas and projects.”

The MP stressed that Oct. 17 would remain a historic day marking a cross-sectarian national uprising. In his Friday speech, Nasrallah accused the Lebanese who took to the streets of treason.

He boasted that Hezbollah was behind suppressing these protests and confronting what he said was the chaos planted by the US in Lebanon.

Independent MP Abdel Rahman Bizri told Arab News: “The Lebanese, from different sects and affiliations, took to the streets on Oct. 17 to remind the world that the state is theirs, not the politicians.”

Commenting on Nasrallah’s speech, Bizri added: “We had hoped for internal understanding on the next president by finding common ground around a candidate who may not be supported by everyone but does represent everyone. This would have been better than waiting for a decision by foreign parties. We have already tested such decisions regionally and internationally, and we have suffered the results.

“We, as MPs, feel as though we have failed to elect a president, and we are embarrassed in front of the people who elected us.—AN

NATO NATION BUILDING POST RAPE MURDER OF QADDAFI 

There is no clear end in sight to Libya’s deadlock

Hafed Al-Ghwell
November 14, 2022

Just two weeks ago, the UN’s 10th special envoy in the past 11 years, Abdoulaye Bathily, acknowledged in a briefing to the Security Council an already well-known fact: There is no clear end in sight to Libya’s deadlock.

It is an extremely frustrating, albeit inevitable assessment of the futility of a woefully managed international “peace” process that continues to resist recalibration to better communicate its priorities, red lines, strategies for long-term resolutions, and more importantly, a practicable “end state” welcomed by all actors.

For nearly a decade, Libya has remained locked in this perpetual cycle where every two to three years following some political agreement, challenges, divisive narratives and loud criticisms suddenly flood the national discourse over who holds legitimate power, resulting in either a return to arms or new political roadmaps.

Bathily’s appointment, barely two months long, has already become a missed opportunity for a troubled UN Support Mission in Libya to leverage its role as an effective impartial arbiter, seeking cohesion among divergent actors or interests (where possible) while upholding human rights and expanding meaningful engagement with a mostly sidelined but still influential Libyan civil society.

Unfortunately, by again focusing too much on achieving a semblance of stability in fancy meetings instead of tacking the root causes of the country’s quagmire — looking to exploit shortcuts to a long-term settlement — the landscape was simply made fertile for the sort of rife opportunism typical of the many attempts to forge some kind of “path” forward in Libya’s hellscape.

As a result, a rash of activity and clever ruses are yet again underway as the same cast of characters look to shift the status quo, buoyed by the tacit endorsement of a fatigued, disinterested and distracted international community.

The most notable development to date was the controversial trip by Karim Khan, the first International Criminal Court prosecutor to visit the war-torn country in a decade, supposedly to meet families of victims of mass killings by militias at what are now sites of mass graves in western Libya.

This visit also involved meetings with several Libyan officials, including Khalifa Haftar, commander of the self-styled Libyan Arab Armed Forces that is affiliated with the notorious militias responsible for the bodies in the Tarhuna mass graves.

As alarming as that meeting was, Khan is no stranger to controversy. Before taking over as the ICC’s lead prosecutor, he defended Seif Al-Islam Gaddafi, whose arrest the court is seeking for crimes against humanity committed in February 2011.

Naturally, Khan’s meeting with Haftar was widely panned by several civil society organizations and activist groups appalled by the callous disregard by so-called guardians of international justice, entrusted with holding those most responsible for war crimes in Libya to account.

To them, if the ICC can openly meet with alleged mass murderers, it severely undermines the court’s impartiality and credibility while also erasing any trust victims held in its ability to investigate crimes and dispense justice.

The alarm is warranted, since such a meeting also helps grant some international legitimacy to, and recognition of, Haftar’s bid to remain a relevant actor in Libya.

An emboldened Haftar is yet again mulling a return to arms in anticipation of a weak reaction from an international community preoccupied by the war in Ukraine.

More importantly, it is yet another example of the international community’s problematic approach to, and handling of, the country’s affairs by ignoring legitimate concerns of the Libyan public in its continued engagement with malign actors to secure a fragile “peace” and sidestep messy armed conflicts.

This visit also came as no surprise as Haftar, like other prominent figures, is yet again jostling for an alternative pathway to staying relevant after Fathi Bashagha and his Government of National Stability failed to upend the status quo politically or through military means.

It is unclear whether some form of new government of national something will eventually emerge. But what is clear, given the recent glad-handing and flurry of brokered meetings amid the international community’s quiet consent, is that the rehabilitation of certain characters means Libya is poised for even more upheaval in the coming months.

In fact, Bathily’s remarks came after statements by the head of the High Council of State, Khalid Al-Mishri, hinting at forming a third government along with Aguila Saleh, speaker of the eastern-based Libyan Parliament — introducing yet another rival power pole in a very crowded field.

The aim is to create a new government with the country’s most influential actors by granting them renewed legitimacy without the consent of the Libyan public via elections.

All leading actors lack the name recognition, influence, authority and reach to insist on holding elections. Instead, there is a preference for some kind of power-sharing deal that would then be anointed by sham elections.

It dovetails rather curiously with the fact that no external actors are genuinely pushing for, or actively working toward, organizing Libyan elections. Instead, there is some vague affirmation of the international community’s preference for elections, but not exactly what kind or by what metric they will be respected and deemed legitimate.

On the other hand, Haftar has resorted to rehashing reckless, bellicose declarations about “liberating” the country and marching to Tripoli again. This despite a heavy Turkish presence in northwestern Libya with significant military hardware that can deter any future aggression by the LAAF or other armed groups opposed to Ankara’s designs for the North African country.

But Haftar, much like with Bashagha’s failed attempts, is likely banking on exploiting the internal divisions among the militias that back the Government of National Unity, since some armed groups are not exactly opposed to facilitating renewed clashes in order to wrest control from the UN-recognized interim authority headed by Abdul Hamid Dbeibah.

These declarations are neither alarming nor novel: Even Libya’s fault lines are now somewhat different from the usual east-west parallelism.

Haftar tends to bank on the extreme and outlandish to reverse a perceived decline in his relevance in a political landscape now dominated by the Dbeibah, Bashagha and emergent Mishri-Saleh camps that share some claim of legitimacy.

Two of those three camps have some support from Ankara, and with rumors swirling of Turkey pushing for a unity government that includes Bashagha, Haftar will be isolated and unable to reward Russia, Egypt and, to some extent, France for their steadfast support.

Bashagha, on the other hand, is fully aware that sparking any new conflicts will decimate any recognition he still has that could be leveraged for a senior leadership role in this envisioned unity government, especially considering how Dbeibah’s cast of backers both in and outside Libya seem poised to adapt to emergent realities.

However, as fortuitous as these developments are, an emboldened Haftar is yet again mulling a return to arms in anticipation of a weak reaction from an international community preoccupied by the war in Ukraine.


Hafed Al-Ghwell  is a Senior Fellow and Executive Director of the Ibn Khaldun Strategic Initiative (IKSI) at the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) of the Johns Hopkins university school of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington DC and the former Advisor to the dean of the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank Group.

Indigenous Peoples’ Law: UN Special Rapporteur’s Report Shows Serious and Persistent Gaps in Costa Rica

The report on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Costa Rica is now available.

November 13, 2022 by Pressenza Leave a Comment


By Nicolas Boeglin

On 28 September 2022, the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, following his on-site visit to Costa Rica at the end of 2021, was released. Special Rapporteurs on specific human rights issues are non-conventional mechanisms within the United Nations, and the one dedicated to examining the rights of indigenous peoples was established in 2001 (see official link).

The report on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Costa Rica is now available in the various official UN languages at this link.

It is noteworthy that the official delegate of Costa Rica indicated in his intervention (see official UN press release of 28 September 2022) that:

“Costa Rica reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to the protection of all under its jurisdiction, and their exercise of their human rights, without discrimination. Costa Rica worked to eliminate discrimination, and had accepted and analysed international recommendations, strengthening mechanisms for dialogue and interaction with indigenous peoples, leading to a better understanding of the impediments to their socio-economic development and exercise of their rights. Their land rights should be respected, as one of the main causes of violence was the lack of certainty in the property system. The bedrock of the identity of indigenous peoples was nourished through their unique ties to their indigenous lands. Costa Rica had made progress with respect to the recovery of indigenous lands, and had filed formal cases, undergoing due process and ensuring continuing recovery”.

We do not have access to the Spanish version of what the representative of the Costa Rican State said, in order to be able to clarify possible doubts regarding the English translation made by the official interpreters of the United Nations.

On some preoccupying findings

Beyond the things one sometimes hears from a Costa Rican delegate in an international forum, a comprehensive and detailed reading of the report as such is suggested: indeed, it contains a great deal of very valuable data collected by this UN independent expert during his visit to Costa Rica.

By the time he concluded his visit in December 2021, he had already expressed some very preliminary concerns (see official press release at the end of his visit to Costa Rica, which was not widely reported in the Costa Rican press).

There are many issues in his report in which the Rapporteur highlights government initiatives and the erratic behaviour of the Costa Rican state when it comes to implementing them. Thus, the report states that:

“33. In 2016, Costa Rica launched the National Plan for the Recovery of Indigenous Territories led by the Institute for Rural Development. The Special Rapporteur notes that, although the plan promotes land titling, to date it has not resulted in any restitution. In the various meetings with indigenous peoples, the existence of several obstacles that prevent this plan from guaranteeing the effective, fair and equitable restitution of their territories was raised”.

Similarly, the report states:

“48. The social conflict has been exacerbated after more than 40 years of occupation of indigenous territories by non-indigenous people, without an effective state policy of land restitution, which has led to a situation of systematic violence by some farmers, particularly in the south (Cabagra, China Kichá, Salitre and Térraba).

49. Despite the follow-up to the early warnings and the international community’s continuous calls for the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples, including the precautionary measures imposed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in favour of the Teribe (Brörán) and Bribri indigenous peoples of Salitre, attacks against indigenous peoples have not ceased. According to a report, a total of 86 acts of violence against indigenous peoples were documented in 2020”.

We recommend reading the entire document, which shows a very detailed analysis of the reality faced by Costa Rican indigenous communities: it is, in our opinion, a very well documented analysis by the Rapporteur and his team, who were able to meet with various state and non-state entities familiar with this reality during their visit.
On some of the recommendations made to Costa Rica

The conclusions at the end of the report are of great interest to social sectors and should be able to encourage reflection within some state entities. In the concluding part of the report, the Special Rapporteur states:

“91. The Special Rapporteur notes that the structural causes of violations of the rights of indigenous peoples are to be found in the lack of an adequate land restitution policy and a legal framework that ensures the recognition of indigenous peoples and their own authorities. Of particular preoccupation is the structural racism that permeates state institutions, particularly at the local level, the non-implementation of their economic, social and cultural rights and the lack of effective measures to protect human rights defenders”.

Among the numerous recommendations made to the Costa Rican state, and which should be of interest to various state entities, in paragraph 98, the Rapporteur recommends that Costa Rica:

“(f) Investigate, prosecute and condemn those responsible for attacks, including threats against indigenous leaders;

(g) Ensure the administrative and judicial investigation, prosecution and condemnation of those responsible for the alleged abuse of force by the police in March 2020 against indigenous land recuperators in China Kichá;

h) Provide adequate individual and collective reparation measures by the State for the indigenous victims, in particular the Bribri de Salitre and Brörán de Térraba indigenous peoples for the murders of indigenous leaders Sergio Rojas Ortiz and Jehry Rivera, including, but not limited to:

(i) Guarantees of non-repetition through preventive schemes and early warning with the participation of the Defensoría de los Habitantes;

ii) Measures of satisfaction such as public apologies;

i) Ratify the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean”.

The international instrument to which the Rapporteur refers in this point i) is better known as the Escazú Agreement (Note 1), which was signed in Costa Rica in March 2018. This treaty was recently the subject of a new ratification in 2022 (Chile), following Argentina and Mexico (which ratified it in 2021). We had the opportunity to analyse the increasingly uncomfortable situation that each new accession to this cutting-edge regional agreement, adopted on Costa Rican soil, means for Costa Rica: see our brief note on the subject entitled “Escazú Agreement: Chile is now officially the 13th State Party. This is yet another of the many appeals already made to Costa Rica from the international ambit, and if followed, it would allow Costa Rica to show itself to be more consistent and coherent with the international image it intends to project to the world in the area of human rights.

It should be recalled that the violent actions suffered by indigenous leaders in Costa Rica, and the fact that two of them lost their lives in less than a year (Sergio Rojas, March 2019 and Jerhy Rivera, February 2020) without the judicial authorities having condemned those responsible for these two serious acts, place Costa Rica in a rather unusual situation, particularly from an international human rights perspective (Note 2).

At the same time, an outrageous climate of impunity persists, which has a chilling effect on many Costa Rican indigenous communities: from this precise perspective, the “public apology” recommended in point h), ii) of the aforementioned paragraph 98 by the UN Rapporteur to the Costa Rican State takes on much greater relevance.

In June 2020, another UN expert had stated in a press release (see text) that, in Costa Rica, impunity prevails in an extremely preoccupying way when it comes to indigenous victims:

“It seems that perpetrators of intimidations, threats, shootings and killings often walk free when their victims are indigenous human rights defenders,” the Special Rapporteur said. Impunity increases the impact of human rights violations committed against human rights defenders, as it conveys a lack of recognition for their role in society and constitutes an invitation to continue violating their rights, she said”.

Another apology, this time for the so-called “dragging” experienced in the Legislative Assembly building in August 2010 by members of several Costa Rican indigenous communities, could also facilitate the dialogue process (see our brief note published on the 10th anniversary of this sad episode that marked, and continues to mark deeply, the Costa Rican indigenous communities).

Finally, in 2020, when analysing the processing by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of a petition by indigenous Térraba people in relation to the El Diquis hydroelectric project, we wrote in a brief note (see link) that:

“While the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) announced in 2018 that it was “closing” the PHDiquis (see note in Semanario Universidad), it never proceeded to carry out any consultation with the indigenous communities impacted by this megaproject. Nor has there been any public recognition of the State’s responsibility for disrespecting the rights of indigenous communities. The fact that ICE has withdrawn from this project for reasons unrelated to the claims of the indigenous populations does not mean that in the years prior to 2018, damage had not been caused to these communities, to the natural environment in which their culture is inscribed and to the spiritual value that some natural spaces have for them, which can now be assessed by the IACHR”.

In this regard, a previous report in 2011 by another UN expert entitled “The situation of indigenous peoples affected by the El Diquís hydroelectric project in Costa Rica” (see link) highlighted the shortcomings of the Costa Rican state when, this time, it comes to carrying out a mega-project that negatively impacts Costa Rican indigenous populations.

A recent decision related to a monoculture plantation in Paraguay by a conventional mechanism of the United Nations such as the Human Rights Committee (see text of the opinion of October 2021) should be of interest to some communities in Costa Rica that suffer negative impacts from monoculture plantations (in particular what can be read in paragraphs 8.6-8.8 of the aforementioned opinion). It is worth noting that this opinion is of interest to many other indigenous communities in Latin America that live in situations very similar to that of the courageous and persevering community of Campo Agua’ẽ, of the Ava Guaraní people.

This new report from the United Nations provides a very complete picture of the situation of total vulnerability and defencelessness of many indigenous communities in Costa Rica. By the date of this year 2022, which is the international commemoration of indigenous peoples, the United Nations office in Costa Rica had warned that:

“… in Costa Rica poverty reaches 23% of households, however, in the case of indigenous peoples, the figures increase considerably. For example: in the Cabécar people it is 94%; in the Ngäbe people 87% and in the Brörán people 85%” (see one of the few articles in the Costa Rican press referring to this communiqué).

It should be borne in mind that this UN report was released after the Inter-American Court of Human Rights adopted a historic judgment against Argentina in 2020 (see the Lahka Honhat judgment), which expanded the scope of jurisprudence in this area in a remarkable way, particularly with regard to ESCR (Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights) (Note 3). The former President of this regional jurisdiction did not hesitate to write in his reasoned opinion that this judgment constitutes a true “milestone”:

“The Lhaka Honhat case represents a landmark in inter-American jurisprudence fundamentally for three reasons. Firstly, it is the first occasion on which the Inter-American Court has ruled autonomously on ESCR concerning indigenous peoples and communities. Secondly, unlike the precedents it has had the opportunity to hear, the Judgment declares the violation of four ESCR that can be derived from and protected by article 26 of the Pact of San José – the right to cultural identity, in relation to participation in cultural life, the right to a healthy environment, the right to food, and the right to water. Thirdly, the reparations ordered are focused in a differentiated manner, seeking to restore the violation of each of the social, cultural and environmental rights declared to have been violated in the Judgment” (see paragraph 4 of his vote, available afterwards the text of the judgment, page 2).

As is well known, the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights does not limit itself to ordering measures to the incriminated State in a specific case, but calls upon the other States of the American hemisphere and invites them to remedy the inadequacies and gaps in their respective national legal systems: not remedying them constitutes a veiled invitation to international litigation before the organs of the Inter-American system.

Leaving aside the Inter-American human rights system, it is to be hoped that these new recommendations coming from the United Nations will be widely disseminated and known by many different sectors in Costa Rica.

And that, at some point, they will be able to inspire political decision-makers about the urgent need to gradually remedy the grave situation suffered by Costa Rica’s indigenous communities. The profound mistrust with which many of them live on a daily basis is an obstacle that must be overcome little by little: in this sense, this UN report offers valuable guidelines and tools to various Costa Rican state entities.

In addition, civil society organisations and the social movement in favour of the rights of these communities can activate the various international mechanisms in order to force the Costa Rican state to comply with the various international human rights obligations it has assumed, without extending their benefit to indigenous communities, as this report forcefully details.
Notes

Note 1: We refer our esteemed readers to this recent collective work that explains the scope of this innovative regional treaty approved in Costa Rica in March 2018: ATILIO FRANZA J. & PRIEUR M. (dir.), Acuerdo de Escazú: enfoque internacional, regional y nacional, Editorial Jusbaires, Buenos Aires, 2022, 670 pgs. Work available in full at this link.

Note 2: In relation to the murder of Sergio Rojas on 18 March 2019, we had the opportunity to examine the letters made public by the United Nations regarding the specific requirements requested of the Costa Rican authorities in relation to the murder of Sergio Rojas (see our note published on the website of the University of Costa Rica – UCR). Several of these UN requirements (which were requested in March 2019) sought to ensure that similar events would never happen again in Costa Rica (see UN document, page 5): on 24 February 2020, another indigenous leader in Salitre, Jerhy Rivera, was murdered.

Note 3: The patience and perseverance of the affected Argentinean communities is noteworthy: this ruling culminates a 36-year claim by several indigenous communities in the province of Salta in Argentina, whose objective was to obtain title to their land. In 1991, the indigenous communities formed the “Lhaka Honhat Association” and initiated their claim to their ancestral territories. Subsequently, in 1998, they decided to denounce the state before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The IACHR issued its report on the merits in 2012, issuing a series of recommendations to Argentina. Given the failure to comply with its recommendations, the IACHR referred the case to the IACHR Court in February 2018, which issued its judgment in February 2020.

The original article can be found here

Twitter cuts outsourced content moderators as Musk further guts misinformation team

By Barbara Ortutay & Matt O'brien 

The Associated Press
November 13, 2022


With Elon Musk's Twitter takeover, sweeping changes have come through to the social media platform. Global's Anne Gaviola unpacks these changes with The Peak Daily co-host Brett Chang, which includes the pausing of the new Twitter Blue subscriptions program due to an influx in verified imposter accounts. Plus, similar to Twitter, tech companies are slashing positions in mass layoffs and instituting hiring freezes. And why cryptocurrency giant Binance decided not to bail out faltering FTX company.

Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk is further gutting the teams that battle misinformation on the social media platform as outsourced moderators learned over the weekend they were out of a job.

Twitter and other big social media firms have relied heavily on contractors to track hate and enforce rules against harmful content.

READ MORE: Twitter Blue ‘probably’ coming back by end of next week: Elon Musk

But many of those content watchdogs have now headed out the door, first when Twitter fired much of its full-time workforce by email on Nov. 4 and now as it moves to eliminate an untold number of contract jobs.

Melissa Ingle, who worked at Twitter as a contractor for more than a year, was one of a number of contractors who said they were terminated Saturday. She said she’s concerned that there’s going to be an increase in abuse on Twitter with the number of workers leaving.

“I love the platform and I really enjoyed working at the company and trying to make it better. And I’m just really fearful of what’s going to slip through the cracks,” she said Sunday.

Ingle, a data scientist, said she worked on the data and monitoring arm of Twitter’s civic integrity team. Her job involved writing algorithms to find political misinformation on the platform in countries such as the U.S., Brazil, Japan, Argentina and elsewhere.

Ingle said she was “pretty sure I was done for” when she couldn’t access her work email Saturday. The notification from the contracting company she’d been hired by came two hours later.

“I’ll just be putting my resumes out there and talking to people,” she said. “I have two children. And I’m worried about being able to give them a nice Christmas, you know, and just mundane things like that, that are important. I just think it’s particularly heartless to do this at this time.”

Content-moderation expert Sarah Roberts, an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who worked as a staff researcher at Twitter earlier this year, said she believes at least 3,000 contract workers were fired Saturday night.

Twitter hasn’t said how many contract workers it cut. The company hasn’t responded to media requests for information since Musk took over.

At Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters and other offices, contract workers wore green badges while full-time workers wore blue badges. Contractors did a number of jobs to help keep Twitter running, including engineering and marketing, Roberts said. But it was the huge force of contracted moderators that was “mission critical” to the platform, said Roberts.

READ MORE: Twitter Blue subscriptions paused after surge in verified imposter accounts

Cutting them will have a “tangible impact on the experience of the platform,” she said.

Musk promised to loosen speech restrictions when he took over Twitter. But in the early days after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in late October and dismissed its board of directors and top executives, the billionaire Tesla CEO sought to assure civil rights groups and advertisers that the platform could continue tamping down hate and hate-fueled violence.

That message was reiterated by Twitter’s then-head of content moderation, Yoel Roth, who tweeted that the Nov. 4 layoffs only affected “15% of our Trust & Safety organization (as opposed to approximately 50% cuts company-wide), with our front-line moderation staff experiencing the least impact.”

Roth has since resigned from the company, joining an exodus of high-level leaders who were tasked with privacy protection, cybersecurity and complying with regulations.

Louisiana churches leave Methodist denomination amid schism

The United Methodist Church has cut ties with 58 churches in its Louisiana conference amid a nationwide schism within the Protestant denomination

ByThe Associated Press
November 13, 2022, 3:05 PM

NEW ORLEANS, La. -- The United Methodist Church, a mainstay of the American religious landscape, has cut ties with 58 churches in its Louisiana conference amid a nationwide schism within the Protestant denomination.

The disaffiliations, approved in a virtual conference session Saturday, were the latest in a series of decisions that many Louisiana churches have made in recent weeks to leave the national congregation. Internal tensions over sexuality and theology have roiled the church.

The congregation’s delegates voted 487-35 in favor of the departures. The disaffiliations required support from two-thirds of the delegates.

Six churches leaving the conference are from the New Orleans area. Another seven churches are from the Baton Rouge area. St. Timothy, which at 6,000 members is one of the largest Methodist congregations in Louisiana, voted to pursue disaffiliation on Nov. 1, The Advocate reported.

The United Methodist Church is the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations in the U.S. to begin fracturing amid debates over sexuality and theology. The flashpoints are the denomination’s bans on same-sex marriages and ordaining openly LGBTQ clergy — though many see these as symptoms of deeper differences in views on justice, theology and scriptural authority.

The denomination has repeatedly upheld these bans at legislative General Conferences, but some U.S. churches and clergy have defied them. This spring, the Church's conservative wing launched a new Global Methodist Church, where they are determined to maintain and enforce such bans.

A proposal to amicably divide the denomination and its assets, unveiled in early 2020, has lost its once-broad support after years of pandemic-related delays to the legislative General Conference, whose vote was needed to ratify it. Now the breakup and the negotiations are happening piecemeal — one regional conference at a time.

In annual regional gatherings across the U.S. earlier this year, United Methodists approved requests of about 300 congregations to quit the denomination, according to United Methodist News Service. Special meetings in the second half of the year are expected to vote on as many as 1,000 more, according to the conservative advocacy group Wesleyan Covenant Association.

Those departing are still a fraction of the estimated 30,000 congregations in the United States alone, with nearly 13,000 more abroad, according to recent UMC statistics.

The Louisiana disaffiliations will take effect after Dec. 31, church officials said. The Louisiana conference will also see a new bishop in the new year, Delores Williamston. She is the conference’s first Black female bishop.

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark 

- Pandora's Box

SCENES FROM THE SILENT BW FILM USED

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Best of OMD: https://goo.gl/dhrWz8

Music video by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark performing Pandora's Box. (P) 1991 The copyright in this audiovisual recording is owned by Virgin Records Ltd

Silent Movies in a Nutshell - Pandora's box (Pabst, 1929)

 

Irish Examiner view: Reasons to be cheerful — three setbacks for demagogues and a despot

People who believe in democracy will cheer the push back against Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Vladimir Putin

MON, 14 NOV, 2022 - 02:03

It’s been a bad month for demagogues with bloody noses applied to Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Vladimir Putin and cause for cheer for everyone who believes in democracy. Except in Russia, of course, where they don’t have a choice.

While the Democrats confounded the pundits and pollsters by retaining control of the US Senate, the final fate of the House of Representatives has not yet been settled. Full mastery of Congress would allow the US president the opportunity to advance his priorities which include codifying abortion rights.

Seven out of 10 voters said the Roe v Wade US Supreme Court decision was an important factor in their polling booth decisions. Six out of 10 said they favoured a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion across the nation.

Democracy the way it is meant to work: Outgoing Republican Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker congratulates incoming governor Maura Healey. Ms Healey's grandparents emigrated to the US from Kilgarvan in Kerry and Macroom in Cork. Picture: Steven Senne/AP

Both Trump and Biden are highly polarising figures and after two years of further turbulence in the world the nation may yearn for someone who can bring unity and reconciliation.

Although the candidates favoured by Trump failed to deliver in these mid-terms it may be a mistake to conclude that the results constitute a comfortable mandate for Joe Biden to run successfully in 2024. And the former POTUS is still suggesting he will announce a third run for the White House tomorrow at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. 

Across the globe in dangerous Eastern Europe, Vladimir Putin has suffered the worst week of his war — some achievement given his dismal record so far — with the withdrawal from Kherson, the first major city captured in the territories annexed by Moscow in March. 

While the retreat signals the end of Russia’s hopes of controlling the southern coastline of the Black Sea and seizing the cities of Odessa and Mykolaiv, the retreat of 30,000 troops to defensive positions on the left bank of the Dnipro River mitigates the certainty of urban battles of attrition in the mincing machine of the regional capital.

While Ukraine can rightly celebrate the liberation of their people from the yoke of the Russian army, and collaborators can fear for their futures, Moscow, over the course of centuries, has learned the merits of trading space for time. 

The sight of yellow and blue flags decorating Freedom Square and Russian soldiers fleeing across a pontoon next to the Antonivskyi bridge do not in themselves constitute victory. But they are huge progress in the most challenging of circumstances. More will be needed.