Sunday, December 04, 2022

“Respect for Marriage?” Not Really.

On November 16, the Respect for Marriage Act achieved 62 votes for “cloture” in the US Senate, meaning that it will proceed to floor debate and likely — after reconciliation with the House version, which passed in July — become law.

That’s a good thing, but let’s not make it more than it is. The long title of the bill reveals its true purpose: “A bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and ensure respect for State regulation of marriage, and for other purposes.”

The bill has two core provisions.

First, it applies the US Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit clause to “marriage between two individuals.” If two people — ONLY two people — get married in Massachusetts then move to Texas, Texas has to recognize them as married.

Second, it requires the federal government to recognize a marriage “if that individual’s marriage is valid in the State where the marriage was entered into.”

Both provisions are all well and good, but “respect for state regulation of marriage” isn’t the same thing as “respect for marriage.”

Actual respect for marriage would involve getting both federal and state governments completely out of the business of deciding who can be, or is, married. Not just “on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals,” but completely.

Marriage is one or both of two things: A personal commitment (often, but not always, with religious implications) and/or a contract.

The personal commitment side is not and never has been any of government’s business.

As to the contract side, if there’s any role for government at all, it’s in adjudicating disputes between the contract’s parties with respect to the contract’s terms — and the number of parties to that contract is irrelevant to that governmental role.

If I get in a car, turn the key, and start moving down the road, am I driving? Yes, I am — even if I don’t have a license from the government to drive.

Likewise, if I get married, I’m married whether or not I have a license from the government to be. I’ve been married for 22 years. No government license, and no need for one. It just so happens that I’m married to one other person rather than, say, five other people, but in the latter case I’d still be married, whether government “recognized” that or not.

The only relevant questions, where government is concerned, surround whether the parties to a contract consented (and were competent to consent) to and complied with its terms.

If truth in advertising laws applied to Congress, the “Respect for Marriage Act” would be called the “Respect for Continued, Slightly Less, Government Meddling in Marriage Act.”

Good start. But let’s take this all the way.

NOVEMBER 22, 2022

Thomas L. Knapp is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: The Sanctity of Marriage Debate

Sudan's military and pro-democracy coalition to sign framework agreement

Sudan's military and a faction of the pro-democracy coalition announced on Friday that they have reached a framework agreement to end the country's political crisis.

In separate statements, the Sovereign Council and the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), said the preliminary deal on restoring a civilian-led democratic transition will be signed on Monday in Khartoum.

The military seized power in Sudan in a coup on 25 October 2021 that toppled a joint military-civilian administration and derailed a delicate democratic transition that began after the 2019 removal of Omar Al Bashir. The FFC was the military's partner in that transitional government.

The coup sparked a wave of street protests demanding an end to military rule. About 120 protesters were reported killed and more than 6,000 injured at the hands of security forces.

Friday's announcement followed months of closed-door talks between the army generals and representatives of the FFC.

Both the Sovereign Council and the FFC said the decision to sign the deal followed a meeting earlier on Friday between the group's representatives and military ruler Gen Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, who led last year's coup, and his second in command on the military-led council Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

The meeting, they added, was attended by politicians from several parties as well as representatives of the UN, US, European Union, Britain and Saudi Arabia.

The two statements suggested that the deal was more of a draft roadmap that is open for discussion with other political forces and will later be fine-tuned and fleshed out.

The statement from the Sovereign Council said it would take only weeks to reach a final accord and constitutional arrangements to serve as a prelude to the creation of a civilian administration that leads the transition until free elections are held.

Generals Al Burhan and Dagalo have repeatedly pledged to step down, hand over power to civilians and leave politics altogether.

PM Barzani’s visit to London ‘transformed’ UK-KRI ties, says envoyHunt highlighted the “strong” relations between the sides, particularly following Barzani’s visit to the UK in April.

Kurdistan 24

Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani (right) during his meeting with outgoing British Consul General David Hunt in Erbil, Dec. 4, 2022. (Photo: KRG)
Kurdistan Iraq Kurdistan Region

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The official visit of Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani to the United Kingdom in April “transformed” the Erbil-London bilateral ties, the outgoing British envoy to the Kurdish region, told the premier on Sunday.

Barzani received the outgoing Consul General David Hunt in Erbil, where they discussed bilateral relations.

The premier thanked the British envoy who had worked to foster ties between the UK and the Kurdish region, wishing him success in his future endeavor, a statement from Barzani’s office read.

Hunt highlighted the “strong” relations between the sides, particularly following Barzani’s visit to the UK in April.

The visit “transformed” the development of UK-KRI relations, Hunt said, thanking the relevant Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) authorities for their cooperation with his mission.

The officials also discussed the ongoing KRG reform, the importance of resolving the outstanding issues between Erbil and Baghdad as well as protecting the sovereignty and security of Iraq and its Kurdish region.

In his visit to London, Barzani met with then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and a number of top officials from the former premier’s cabinet members.

Launching the KRG Digital Transformation Strategy in October, Barzani expressed his gratitude for the support of the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office as well as the British Consul General in Erbil David Hunt for their support in devising the Strategy.

Tunisia powerful labour union ups the ante with president Saied

“We will not abide by secret agreements the government has with the International Monetary Fund,” the leader of the union said.

Saturday 03/12/2022

The Secretary-General of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), Noureddine Taboubi, gives a speech in Tunis, November 30, 2022. (AFP)

TUNIS –

Tunisia’s powerful labour union attacked the president’s political and economic agenda on Saturday, including elections this month, saying it will no longer accept what it called a threat to democracy in its clearest challenge to him yet.

The UGTT union says it has more than a million members and has proven able to paralyse the economy with strikes. It has at times backed President Kais Saied after he seized most powers last year, but on other occasions has voiced tepid opposition.

“We no longer accept the current path because of its ambiguity and individual rule, and the unpleasant surprises it hides for the fate of the country and democracy,” UGTT’s leader Noureddine Taboubi said in a speech to thousands of supporters.

“We will not hesitate to defend rights and freedoms whatever the cost,” he added, in his strongest criticism yet of the president.

Saied has recently abandoned a policy of indifference, with which he dealt with the outbidding of some leaders of the UGTT, particularly that of the union’s Secretary-General Noureddine Taboubi.

Saied received, on Thursday the Head of Government Najla Bouden at the Carthage Palace, according to a press release from the Presidency relayed by Tunisia’s state agency TAP.

“As part of the exercise of its role in the consecration of social justice, the State does not give up subsidising basic products contrary to what has been relayed on this subject,” the president said.

He emphasised the imperative of constantly working to lower prices and specified the following:

“Those who are active in raising prices or illicitly stocking certain products have designs that oppose the claims rights of the Tunisian people to work, freedom, and national dignity,” Saied said.

While reaffirming his attachment to the social role of the State, the president noted that there was no room to sell public companies and establishments and that they had to be cleaned up and the causes that led to the situation in which the majority of them find themselves.

“Social justice is the very essence of stability and can only be achieved through the equitable distribution of wealth and the eradication of corruption which plagues many businesses,” he said, according to the same source.

Saied shut down the elected parliament last year and moved to rule by decree before writing a new constitution that was passed this summer in a referendum with low turnout, setting up elections for a new, weakened legislature on December 17.

Most political parties are boycotting the poll, saying the new parliament will have no power and faulting procedures the president has decreed, which include bringing the electoral commission under his purview.

Taboubi said the December election would “have no colour and taste” as a result of Saied’s constitution and that the vote lacked national unanimity.

The president’s critics have held repeated street protests. Saied says his actions were necessary to save Tunisia.

Though the UGTT has previously voiced concern, it has stopped short of openly opposing his agenda, except for a strike in the summer over wages and spending cuts.

This year, as the economy worsened, the new government Saied appointed angered the UGTT by proposing subsidy cuts and the restructuring of state-owned companies in a push for an IMF bailout needed to avert national bankruptcy.

“We will not abide by secret agreements the government has with the International Monetary Fund and the workers will stand up to it,” Taboubi said.

Turkey: Dog abuse video sparks debate over what to do with millions of stray dogs

Animal rights advocates are concerned that shelters are exacerbating the suffering of strays, while others warn against 'mass killings'

This file photo shows a worker of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality feeding stray dogs on 30 January 2019 at Sariyer, northern Istanbul (AFP)

By Yusuf Selman Inanc in Istanbul
Published date: 4 December 2022

Online footage of two men abusing a dog at a shelter in Turkey last week has sparked widespread anger and reignited the debate about the government's approach toward animal shelters and the millions of stray dogs in the country.

The horrific clip, access to which is now banned by a court order, showed one employee at the facility in the central province of Konya hitting a dog with a shovel while another was strangling it in attempt to kill the animal. The two employees have since been arrested and are facing charges punishable by up to three years in jail.

The incident last Friday has polarised the country as many see the rising number of stray dogs as a menace while others criticised what they considered as insufficient government efforts to find a sustainable solution to the problem.

The country has also witnessed a reported surge in deaths caused by stray dogs. Since the beginning of 2022, stray dogs have killed an estimated 27 people and wounded 535.

Stray dogs lie on the grass in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, on 23 August 2022 (AFP)

Last month, the death of a 10-year-old child in Bitlis in Turkey’s southeast after being bitten by a rabid dog also caused uproar across the country.

A two-year-old toddler succumbed to severe injuries in July after a dog attack in Kars, a city in the country’s east, and his sister was severely injured.

In May last year, six-year-old Ruken Yildiz was attacked by 20 stray dogs in Van, in eastern Turkey, and died immediately.

'We are against the idea of shelter. A dog can’t live in a two square metre cage. Instead, they should be in open space'
- Murat Pinar, Safe Streets Association

In an indirect death, 10-year-old Mahra Melin Pinar was hit by a truck and died in Antalya in March as a stray dog was chasing her.

Her father, Murat Pinar, is currently the head of Safe Streets Association, an NGO that aims to raise awareness about the threats posed by stray dogs, especially to children and disabled people.

According to Pinar, the only applicable solution would be round up stray dogs and provide them with an appropriate living space, rather than shelters.

"The state has huge vacant lands in Anatolia. The dogs should be put there," he told Middle East Eye. "But we are against the idea of shelters. A dog can’t live in a two-square metre cage. Instead, they should be in open space."

Regarding the concerns of animal rights defenders, Pinar said these living spaces should be monitored by animal rights associations in order to prevent incidents like the one in Konya.

"There are still at least seven dogs in the street where my daughter died," he said, accusing the municipalities of failing to meet their obligations.

Fears of mass killings of dogs

Many public figures have spoken out against the shelter incident, including Turkey’s First Lady Emine Erdogan and pop singer Tarkan, calling for harsh punishments for the perpetrators.

Meanwhile, in response to popular outrage, the government said it would launch an investigation to see whether further violations of animal rights exist in Konya and other animal shelters across the country.

Turkish man shot dead by his dog during hunting trip

Read More »

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said relevant authorities would take necessary measures to find a solution, without providing further details.

“We have taken necessary measures not to see similar incidents again,” he said on Saturday, referring to Konya.

While some people, including politicians and influential figures, call for collecting dogs and sending them to shelters, animal rights defenders are concerned this would lead to mass killings, an argument consolidated by the incident in Konya and the extermination policy advocated by a number of opponents of stray dogs.

For example, a widely-followed Twitter account campaigning for an end to the stray dogs phenomenon calls for either placing all stray dogs in temporary shelters or "putting the dogs to sleep painlessly."

But animal rights defenders refer to previous experiences when dogs were subjected to mass killing.

The most infamous campaign happened in 1910 when approximately 80,000 dogs were rounded up in Istanbul and left on Sivri Island, a small, deserted island in the Sea of Marmara, near Istanbul. Later, this island became known as "Hayirsiz" or "Wicked" island.

The dogs died of hunger and thirst, even attacking and dismembering each other. At that time, the groans of dogs were heard in Istanbul, triggering popular calls on the government to bring them back.
Is castration a solution?

According to official figures, it is estimated that the number of street animals is around 10 million in Turkey. However, the real number of dogs and cats is unknown.

A female dog usually gives birth to five puppets every six months. Ozlem Zengin, a member of parliament for the ruling Justice and Development Party claimed last year that "unless a mass castration is applied, the number of stray dogs will reach as many as 60 million in 10 years".

Turkey applies the policy of "capture, vaccinate and release," and local municipalities are required to castrate all captured stray dogs.

However, due to the failure in the implementation of this policy, the number of stray dogs continues to increase.

'This will not happen': Mo Salah decries Egyptian plan to export cats and dogs

Read More »

So are rabies cases: 87,508 people received treatment for suspected rabies infection in 2000 while this number increased to 283,185 in 2018, although the number of patients with confirmed rabies remained under five during this interval. The health ministry recently announced that 1.5 million doses of rabies vaccination would be procured.

The chairman of the Chamber of Veterinarians in Istanbul, Murat Arslan, believes stray dogs pose a threat to public health by spreading diseases. "Although local municipalities are authorised to castrate and vaccinate stray dogs, there is not sufficient budget to cope with the growing population," he said in an interview this month.

Animal rights activist Ahmet Kemal Senpolat argues that a mass castration campaign must be organised to decrease the number of stray dogs in the coming years. "The dogs must be collected, castrated, vaccinated and put in the street again," he said.

However, he believes there is no consistency among local municipalities in applying such policy. "While a municipality meticulously castrates dogs, its neighbouring municipality takes no step. As a result, we can’t see the decrease in the population.”

Yet, there are serious doubts about castration capacity. Turkey is home to 255 shelters only, which can look after less than 100,000 dogs. Moreover, castration of millions of dogs is believed to constitute a huge financial burden to the country.

Members of the Association of Protecting Animal Life (Haykader) also believe that the sale of dogs online and in pet shops must be prevented, while well-equipped shelters must be built where castration, vaccination and rehabilitation can be applied thoroughly.

Senpolat also says that the adoption culture is not common in Turkey as people seek to buy breed dogs.

Although law No 5199 bans the sale of dogs and cats in pet shops, a quick Google search shows hundreds of web pages that sell dogs.

Germany has no plan to follow U.S. ban on Chinese tech firms: official

CGTN

The German government would not follow the U.S. in generally banning new equipment sales from Chinese tech firms such as Huawei, an Economy Ministry spokesperson said on Friday.

Instead, such decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis, said the spokesperson at a regular government news conference.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission issued a ban last Friday on importing and selling telecommunications equipment made by five Chinese companies including Huawei and ZTE, alleging they pose an "unacceptable risk" to U.S. national security.

Huawei and ZTE have repeatedly opposed U.S. restrictions and denied that they threaten U.S. security.

China's Ministry of Commerce on Thursday pledged necessary measures to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.

Ministry spokesperson Shu Jueting said at a press conference that China firmly opposes the U.S. generalizing the concept of national security and abusing state power to maliciously suppress Chinese companies and urged the U.S. side to immediately correct its wrong practices.

According to Reuters, when asked whether it expected a tightening of rules or even a ban in Germany or the European Union, Huawei said on Friday it relied on constructive and facts-oriented dialogue.

"Secure use of networks is independent of a provider's country of origin and can only be ensured by means of global standards in international cooperation between industry and regulatory authorities," said Huawei.

OVERPROOF BURNS WELL IN LADA'S
Spirit with sprawling Jewish history gets UNESCO World Heritage protection

Predominantly associated with Ashkenazi Jews in Poland, slivovitz - a kind of plum brandy - became a Passover staple across Europe when it was first introduced

David Klein/JTA|

Slivovitz, a plum brandy traditionally associated with Passover by many Ashkenazi Jews, has been added to the United Nations’ list of items with “intangible cultural heritage.”

The decision was made at UNESCO’s conference in Morocco this week where France successfully campaigned for the inclusion of the baguette on the list, a complement to the regular tally of physical sites that the agency seeks to preserve.

Bottles of slivovitz
(Photo: Wikipedia)

It wasn’t Jews leading the charge for the hard-burning brandy, but rather Serbia, where the spirit is a mainstay, as it is across much of the Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe.
That’s where Jews first got turned onto the drink, according to Martin Votruba, a Slovak studies professor whose research included the history of slivovitz and who died in 2019.

“Jews would acquire this local drink after moving into European kingdoms,” Votruba told Moment magazine in 2014. “They would simply pick it up as part of the culture.”
The spirit became particularly associated with Polish Jewry in the 19th century, as Jews became prominent in the field of alcohol production and the running of inns and taverns. They found special utility in slivovitz when it came to maintaining the Jewish laws around keeping kosher.

Unlike wine, traditional brandy and some types of vodka, being made from plums (the root “sliva” means plum in several Slavic languages) meant that slivovitz was not subject to the same stringent rules that apply to grape-based alcoholic beverages.

Jewish man drikning Slivovitz
(Photo: Getty Images)

And unlike beer, whiskey and other types of vodka, it had no wheat or other grains, so it was acceptable for consumption on Passover. It was also relatively inexpensive.
As a result, the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity at Italy’s University of Gastronomic Sciences wrote in a primer on the drink, “the Polish Orthodox Jews adopted the plum brandy as [their] festive spirit,” which in some cases became known in Polish as Śliwowica Paschalna or literally Passover slivovitz.

When masses of Polish Jews arrived in America, they brought slivovitz with them, and it quickly became associated with the Jewish community. Today, much of the slivovitz sold in the United States is marketed to Jewish consumers, typically around Passover each spring.

Though its popularity has waned, it can still be found on some synagogue kiddush tables, and remains in the cultural memory of American Jewry.

Author Michael Chabon chose it as the spirit of choice for his hard-drinking, Yiddish-speaking detective, Meyer Landsman in “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union,” a crime novel set in an alt-history Jewish state in Sitka, Alaska.

(Photo: Motti Kimchi)
Meanwhile, the 1990 Barry Levinson film, “Avalon,” which tells the story of a family of Polish Jewish immigrants in the United States, presents it as the drink of choice of the main character’s father in the old country.

“He never drank water. And oh, boy, could he drink! What was that stuff called he always used to drink?” one character asks. Another answers, “Slivovitz. Slivovitz. He used to call it ‘block and fall.’ You have one drink of that, you walk one block and you fall!”
Slivovitz gradually gave way to other favored spirits as Eastern European immigrants, Jewish and otherwise, assimilated into the United States.
But the drink is having a bit of a nostalgic renaissance: It’s on the menu at several swanky bars in New York City, such as the Second Avenue Deli’s Second Floor Bar & Essen, which makes Jewish-themed cocktails with both Manischewitz and slivovitz, as well as Kafana, a high-end Serbian restaurant in Alphabet City.

ACID Gas clouds, lava released from Indonesia volcano

Indonesia's highest volcano Semeru released a column of ash over the densely populated island of East Java. Photo: AP

Stefanno Sulaiman and Angie Teo

Dec 4, 2022

Indonesia’s highest volcano on its most densely populated island has released searing gas clouds and rivers of lava in its latest eruption.

Monsoon rains eroded and finally collapsed the lava dome atop 3676m Mt Semeru, causing the eruption, according to National Disaster Management Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari.

Several villages were blanketed with falling ash, blocking out the sun, but no casualties have been reported. Several hundred residents, their faces smeared with volcanic dust and rain, fled to temporary shelters or left for other safe areas.

Thick columns of ash were blasted more than 1500m into the sky while searing gas and lava flowed down Semeru’s slopes toward a nearby river.

Increased activities of the volcano on Sunday afternoon prompted authorities to widen the danger zone to 8km from the crater, said Hendra Gunawan, who heads the Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Centre.

He said scientists raised the volcano’s alert level to the highest and people were advised to keep off the southeastern sector along the Besuk Kobokan River, which is in the path of the lava flow.

Semeru’s last major eruption was in December last year, when it blew up with fury that left 51 people dead in villages that were buried in layers of mud. Several hundred others suffered serious burns and the eruption forced the evacuation of more than 10,000 people. The government moved about 2970 houses out of the danger zone.

Semeru, also known as Mahameru, has erupted numerous times in the last 200 years. Still, as is the case with many of the 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia, tens of thousands of people continue to live on its fertile slopes.

Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 270 million people, sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines, and is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity.

-Reuters

Mount Semeru eruption: thousands evacuated in Java amid ash cloud warning

The volcano erupted last year, killing 50 people and damaging thousands of homes

The National

Dec 04, 2022

At least 2,000 people have been evacuated in East Java, Indonesia after Mount Semeru erupted, sending volcanic ash 15km into the atmosphere.

People have been relocated to 11 shelters on the island, Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) said, while search and rescue efforts were continuing on the island, about 640km east of the capital Jakarta.

One of the worst recorded eruptions of Semeru — the highest mountain on Java — was last year, killing 50 people and damaging approximately 3,000 homes and more than 20 schools.

The volcano has erupted about 55 times since the early 19th century, and while most of the eruptions have caused evacuations 11 recorded eruptions have led to deaths.

“Most roads have been closed since this morning and now it is raining volcanic ash and it has covered the view of the mountain,” community volunteer Bayu Deny Alfianto told Reuters from near the volcano.

Chile on alert as Villarrica volcano lights up night sky

Indonesia's Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, the PVMBG, raised the level of volcanic activity to its highest level and warned residents not to approach to within 8km of Semeru's eruption centre.

Hot ash clouds have drifted nearly 20km from the centre of the eruption, it said.

PVMBG chief Hendra Gunawan said a bigger volume of magma could have built up compared with previous eruptions of the volcano, in 2021 and 2020, which could mean greater danger for a larger area.

“Semeru's hot clouds could reach further and at a distance where there are many residences,” he said.

In a video sent to Reuters by police in the area, villagers were seen moving away from the slopes of the volcano, some with belongings stacked on motorbikes. A damaged bridge was covered in volcanic ash.

There are 142 volcanoes in Indonesia which has the world's largest number of people living close to a volcano, with 8.6 million people within 10km of one.

Updated: December 04, 2022, 6:04 a.m.

Hawaiians hold PELE ceremony as Mauna Loa erupts

Why Hawaii probably won’t stop lava from Mauna Loa from reaching the highway

By Zoe Sottile, CNN
Sun December 4, 2022

Lava fountains and flows illuminate the area during the Mauna Loa volcano eruption in Hawaii, U.S. November 30, 2022.

Go Nakamura/Reuters CNN —

Lava from the ongoing eruption at the Mauna Loa volcano is just miles away from a crucial highway on Hawaii’s Big Island. But despite the inconvenience of shutting down the highway, it’s unlikely any attempts will be made to redirect the lava flow, experts say.

A guide to those volcanic terms: Pele's hair, caldera, volcanic ash -- learn what they mean

As of Saturday morning, the lava was just 2.5 miles from the Daniel K. Inouye Highway, according to an alert from the US Geological Survey. It had been moving around 40 feet per hour over the last 24 hours, the agency says.

But predicting if, or when, the lava might hit the highway, which connects the west and east of the island, is difficult.

“There are many variables at play and both the direction and timing of flow advances are expected to change over periods of hours to days, making it difficult to estimate when or if the flow will impact Daniel K. Inouye Highway,” wrote the agency in its update.

This is part of the problem with attempts to redirect the lava flow: lava is unpredictable, and it’s hard to tell where it might go next.

Lava’s “tendency to flow is extremely temperature-sensitive,” Paul Segall, a professor of geophysics at Stanford University who researches earthquakes and volcanoes, told CNN. This makes it “somewhat unpredictable.”

It’s hard to say at this point whether the lava will even reach the highway, Segall explained.

Additionally, although different countries have tried in the past to redirect their flows, their efforts have mostly been expensive failures. “The history is not successful,” Segall said.

In the past decades, workers have used bulldozers to construct huge earthen walls to redirect after eruptions like that of Mount Etna in Sicily.

And in 1935, Thomas Jaggar, founder of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, called on the US Army Air Corps to bomb the source of lava flowing from Mauna Loa, which was headed towards the Wailuku River, according to the U.S. Geological Service. The army dropped two 600-pound bombs, but they missed their target and had minimal effect on the lava flows.

Some efforts to combat volcano flows have succeeded despite the odds. In 1973, for instance, the Eldfell volcanic eruption triggered a months-long crisis for the small Iceland island of Heimaey. Massive amounts of seawater were sprayed onto the lava to cool it down, which helped prevent the lava from closing off the island’s vital harbor.

Lava flow from Mauna Loa is about 2.7 miles from the highway

Segall also said that increasingly, scientists and residents of Hawaii alike view the lava flow as a natural phenomenon – not something that needs to be disrupted.

“I think there’s a fair amount of sentiment in Hawaii that you don’t mess with Pele,” he said, referring to the Hawaiian goddess of fire. “That this is a natural process.”

Uahikea Maile, an assistant professor of indigenous politics at the University of Toronto, echoed this sentiment.

For Maile, the eruption of Mauna Loa is especially resonant because of its timing. The volcano erupted on November 28th, Hawaiian Independence Day, which commemorates the signing of the Anglo-Franco Proclamation of 1843 which recognized Hawaii as a sovereign kingdom.

“Mauna Loa is erupting on Lā Kūʻokoʻa, Hawaiian Independence Day. Settler society sees her as a destructive threat for containment,” Maile wrote on Twitter. “This is true too for Hawaiian sovereignty. But we are irrepressible. It may be destructive, but it creates life to stand on for generations to come.”

“Like Mauna Loa, Hawaiian sovereignty is seen as something that needs to be contained that needs to be suppressed,” Maile told CNN.

He noted that Hawaii itself was created as a result of volcanic eruptions. Without volcanoes, there would be no Hawaii.

And rather than trying to interrupt natural phenomena like lava flows, he suggested that humans should be more mindful of their own impact on Hawaii. He highlighted petroleum contamination linked to Navy bases on Hawaii, as well as the environmental destruction caused by tourism and the November spill of “forever chemicals” at Hawaii’s Red Hill Naval Facility.

“These are forms of unnatural environmental destruction and volatility that should be considered more of a priority than the bombing of lava flow,” Maile said. “Instead of containing lava flowing from Mauna Loa, the US military should clean up their own mess at Pōhakuloa Training Area, and contain ongoing jet fuel and ‘forever chemical’ spills at Red Hill.”

In the meantime, Hawaiian officials say they have a plan to shut down the highway if the lava gets close enough to become dangerous.

Palestinians Say Killing Caught on Video Was Unjustified

Sunday, 4 December, 2022 -

A Palestinian man sits in front of doors plastered with posters showing Ammar Adili, 22, who was shot and killed by an Israeli border police officer on Friday, in his home village of Osreen, south of the West Bank city of Nablus, Saturday, Dec. 3, 2022. (AP)

Asharq Al-Awsat

A makeshift sidewalk memorial with a Palestinian flag and a mourning notice paid tribute Saturday to a 22-year-old Palestinian whose death at the hands of an Israeli border police officer — four pistol shots from close range — was captured on widely shared amateur video.

A day after the shooting in the occupied West Bank town of Hawara, Palestinians pushed back against Israeli police claims that Ammar Adili was shot in self-defense after he attacked Israelis, including a border policeman, and resisted arrest.

They said the officer killed Adili without justification, and that Israeli security forces prevented Palestinian medics from trying to save the gravely wounded man as he lay on the sidewalk of a busy thoroughfare.

The 38-second video begins with a tussle between the border police officer and three Palestinians, including Adili, on the sidewalk as traffic rushes by. The officer pulls Adili away in a choke hold and they exchange blows after Adili frees himself. He tries to grab the officer's assault rifle, which drops to the ground behind the officer, out of Adili's immediate reach. The officer then pulls his pistol and fires four shots as an unarmed Adili drops to the ground.

Immediately after Friday’s fatal shooting, police alleged that Adili had carried a knife and tried to attack two Israelis in a car, and then tried to break into the locked vehicle with a rock. It said the driver shot and wounded Adili, who then charged a group of border policemen, stabbing one in the face, police said. The border police officer tried to arrest Adili, who resisted and tried to grab the officer's weapon, police said. The officer who shot him was not hurt.

Hawara mayor Moein Dmeidy and others on Saturday cited second-hand accounts that there had been an altercation between Adili and an Israeli motorist after a car accident, but Associated Press journalists were unable to find witnesses to the events that led up to the shooting.

Dmeidy said the officer had no justification to kill Adili after he had already overpowered him. Adili was “killed in cold blood,” said the mayor, who arrived at the scene moments after the shooting. In a second video, Adili is seen moving and rolling over on the ground after being shot, and it's not clear at what point he died.

Dmeidy said a Palestinian ambulance arrived minutes after the shooting, but that security forces prevented the medics from administering aid. Dmeidy said Israel has not handed over Adili's body for burial.

Tor Wennesland, the special UN envoy to the Middle East peace process, wrote on Twitter that he was “horrified” by the shooting and sent “heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family.” He called for a thorough investigation and said those responsible must be held accountable.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon accused the envoy of distorting reality.

“This incident is a terror attack, in which an Israeli policeman was stabbed in his face and the life of another police officer was threatened and consequently he shot his assailant,” Nahshon wrote on Twitter.

On Saturday, shops along Hawara's main road were shuttered in protest over the shooting.

A makeshift memorial marked the spot where Adili died, consisting of a Palestinian flag on a short pole and a death poster leaning against it. The poster, with a photo of Adili, said the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas mourns its son “who was killed at the hands of the Zionist occupation.”

The video of Adili’s final moments was a rare documentation of one of the increasingly common violent incidents involving Israeli security forces and Palestinians, including attackers.

Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft struck several sites linked to Hamas in the Gaza Strip early Sunday, hours after Palestinian fighters fired a missile into southern Israel in a move apparently linked to rising tension in the occupied West Bank, Israel said.

The Israeli military said the airstrikes targeted a weapons manufacturing workshop and an underground tunnel belonging to Hamas, the armed movement that has controlled Gaza since 2007. The military said more projectiles were fired over the border while warplanes were hitting the Gaza sites.

Rising Israeli-Palestinian tensions have made 2022 the deadliest year in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the long-running conflict since 2006. Further escalation is likely, as the most right-wing and religious government in Israel’s history is poised to be installed in the coming weeks, with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returning to power.

More than 140 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting this year. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been gunmen. But stone-throwing youths protesting Israeli army incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

Friday’s deadly shooting came against the backdrop of months of Israeli arrest raids in the West Bank, prompted by a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the spring that killed 19 people. The military says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks, but the Palestinians say they entrench Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year. A recent wave of Palestinian attacks against Israeli targets killed an additional nine people.