Esa mulls Solaris plan to beam solar energy from space

,

Engineers would have to wirelessly transmit gigawatts of energy safely and reliably from space

By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent

Space chiefs are to investigate whether electricity could be beamed wirelessly from orbit into millions of homes.

The European Space Agency will this week likely approve a three-year study to see if having huge solar farms in space could work and be cost effective.

The eventual aim is to have giant satellites in orbit, each able to generate the same amount of electricity as a power station.

Research ministers will consider the idea at a Paris meeting on Tuesday.

While several organisations and other space agencies have looked into the idea, the so-called Solaris initiative would be the first to lay the ground for a practical plan to develop a space-based renewable energy generation system.

The programme is one of a number of proposals being considered by ministers at Esa's triennial council, which will decide the budget for the next phase of the space agency's plans for space exploration, environmental monitoring and communications.


Josef Aschbacher, who is Esa's director general, told BBC News that he believed that solar power from space could be of ''enormous'' help to address future energy shortages.

''We do need to convert into carbon neutral economies and therefore change the way we produce energy and especially reduce the fossil fuel part of our energy production," he said.

''If you can do it from space, and I'm saying if we could, because we are not there yet, this would be absolutely fantastic because it would solve a lot of problems."

Satellites with solar panels would need to be around 1.7km long - more than double the size of the world's tallest building and an order of magnitude bigger than the current largest structure in space, which is the International Space Station, measuring 110m

The Sun's energy can be collected much more efficiently in space because there is neither night nor clouds. The idea has been around for more than 50 years, but it has been too difficult and too expensive to implement, until maybe now.

The game-changer has been the plummeting cost of launches, thanks to reusable rockets and other innovations developed by the private sector. But there have also been advances in robotic construction in space and the development of technology to wirelessly beam electricity from space to Earth.

Esa is seeking funds from its member nations for a research programme it calls Solaris, to see if these developments mean that it is now possible to develop spaced-based solar power reliably and cheaply enough to make it economically viable.

"The idea of space-based solar power is no longer science fiction," according to Esa's Dr Sanjay Vijendran, who is the scientist leading the Solaris initiative,

"The potential is there and we now need to really understand the technological path before a decision can be made to go ahead with trying to build something in space."




A key focus of the Solaris programme is to establish whether it is possible to transfer the solar energy collected in space to electricity grids on Earth. This can't of course be done with an extremely long cable, so it has to be sent wirelessly, using microwave beams.

The Solaris team has already shown that is is possible in principle to transmit electricity wirelessly safely and efficiently.

Engineers sent 2 KW of power collected from solar cells wirelessly to collectors more than 30 metres away at a demonstration at the aerospace firm, Airbus in Munich in September. It will be a big step up to send gigawatts of power over thousands of miles, but according to Jean Dominique Coste, who is a senior manager for Airbus's blue sky division, it could be achieved in a series of small steps.

''Our team of scientists have found no technical show-stoppers to prevent us from having space-based solar power," he said.

Two Kilowatts of electricity was sent wirelessly from the upright metal panel on the right to another panel on the other side of the room. In space a million times more power will have to be sent a million times further

Dr Ray Simpkin, who is the chief scientist of Emrod, the firm that developed the wireless beaming system, said that the technology was safe.

''Nothing will get fried,'' he told BBC News.

"The power is spread out over a such a large area that even at its peak intensity in the centre of the beam it will not be hazardous to animals or humans."

The US, China and Japan are also advanced in the race to develop space-based solar power and are expected to announce their own plans shortly. Separately from the ESA proposal, in the UK, a company, Space Solar, has been formed. It aims to demonstrate beaming power from space within six years, and doing so commercially within nine years.




A UK government assessment, independent of the Esa plan, concluded that it might be possible to have a satellite capable of producing the same amount of electricity as a power station, around 2 GW, by 2040, which is in line with Esa's own estimates. But, according to Dr Vijendran, with increased funding and greater political support it could be done within a decade, akin to the deadline set by US President John Kennedy in 1961 to send an American astronaut to the lunar surface.

"It could be our generation's equivalent of the moon shot," he says.

Canada: Why the country wants to bring in 1.5m immigrants by 2025

About one in four Canadians came to the country as an immigrant

By Robin Levinson-King
BBC News, Toronto

Canada is betting big on immigration to fill the gap in its economy left by aging Baby Boomers leaving the workforce - but not everyone is on board with bringing in so many people from abroad.

Earlier this month, the federal government announced an aggressive plan to take in 500,000 immigrants a year by 2025, with almost 1.5 million new immigrants coming to the country over the next three years.

This plan would see Canada welcome about eight-times the number of permanent residents each year - per population - than the UK, and four-times more than its southern neighbour, the United States.

But a recent poll shows that there is also anxiety about welcoming in so many newcomers.

Canada bets big

For many years, Canada has tried to attract permanent residents - landed immigrants who have the right to stay in the country indefinitely but who are not citizens - to keep the population and the economy growing. Last year, the country took in 405,000 permanent residents - the most in its entire history.

The reasons are in, some ways, about simple math. Like many western nations, Canada has an aging population with a lower birth rate. What that means is that if the country wants to grow, instead of shrink, it will have to bring in immigrants.

Immigration already accounts for practically all of the country's labour force growth, and by 2032, it is expected to account for all of the country's population growth too, according to a government news release.

Earlier this month, the government announced that by 2025, they hope to bring in 500,000 new immigrants a year, up about 25% from 2021 numbers.

A unique place in the world

Today, about one in four Canadians have come to the country as an immigrant, the highest among G7 nations. Compare that to the US, known colloquially as the world's melting pot, where only 14% are an immigrant.

The UK also has an immigrant population of about 14%.

Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, said these numbers do not mean the UK is behind in immigration, but rather than Canada is a bit of an "outlier".

The UK, a small island with twice the population of Canada, already has high population density, while Canada, which has a population of just over 38 million and one of the largest land masses in the world, has room to grow.

"Generally the UK has not had an objective of increasing population in the same way that Canada (has) done," she said.

Geoffrey Cameron, a political scientist at McMaster University, said that while many countries, like Canada, face lower birth rates and an aging population, the success of any immigration system relies on popular support.

"The limiting factor for most countries is public opinion," he said.

In the US, where the number of migrants entering the country through the southern border has reached an all-time high, there is overall a concern about having more immigrants than there are jobs.

Pre-Brexit, a wave of European Union migrants from eastern Europe moving to the UK created a backlash against migration. But over the past several years, Ms Sumption said, popular opinion for immigration has risen, in part because people believe the country has better control over who comes in than they did before.

Canada, meanwhile, has historically had very high support for immigration.

"I think part of the reason for that is that there is a degree of public trust that immigration to Canada is well-managed by the government and also is managed in a way that serves Canada's interests," Mr Cameron said.

But that does not mean that there are no immigration concerns.

In recent years, an influx of migrants at the US border has caused some controversy, and the emergence of a new fringe right-wing party in 2018, the People's Party of Canada, kept the topic in the national conversation in the lead-up to the 2019 federal election.

Hundreds of migrants are illegally crossing the US border into Canada each day

Different parts of Canada also have different attitudes towards immigration.

When the government announced its aggressive targets of up to 500,000 new immigrants a year, the province of Quebec, which gets to set its own immigration limits, said it would not take in more than 50,000 a year. That would mean that Quebec, which has 23% of the country's population, would only be taking in 10% of the country's immigrants.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault said he is concerned more immigrants would weaken the French language in the province.

"Already at 50,000 it is difficult to stop the decline of French," he said.

And while it's true that Canada may have more room to grow, some places are still feeling the crunch. Major cities like Toronto and Vancouver - where about 10% of the population currently lives - have affordable housing crises.

In a poll of 1,537 Canadians conducted by Leger and the Association of Canadian Studies, three out of four said they were somewhat or very concerned about the affect the new plan would have on housing and social services. Almost half, 49%, said the targets were too high, while 31% said that they were the right number.

The Canadian approach

Another way that Canada is unique in the western world is its emphasis on economic immigration - about half of Canada's permanent residents are welcomed because of their skills, not under family reunification.

By 2025, the government hopes to make that 60%.

This is partly because of how the Canadian system was designed, said Mr Cameron. In the 1960s, Canada shifted from a system of quotas, where different countries were assigned different targets, to a points-based system that gave preference to highly-skilled immigrants who would more easily contribute to Canada's economy.

"The same kind of principles guide the system today," he told the BBC.

Globally, this is unique, although Australia and New Zealand have similar systems in place.

I

MAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

In the UK, a bit over one in four permanent residents are welcomed through the economic stream. In the US, only about 20% of green cards are issued for economic reasons. Both countries have signalled they hope to increase the proportion of economic immigrants entering their respective countries, but a big difference for both countries is that most economic immigrants must be sponsored by their employers.

In Canada, a job offer can count towards your total points, but it is not necessary.

While the UK recently switched to a points-based system, Ms Sumption said that in effect, it remains similar to their old system, which gave preference to immigrants who had job offers in place.

Can Canada meet its targets?

Not only does Canada take in more economic-class immigrants than other major nations, the country is also one of the top for refugee resettlement, accepting 20,428 refugees in 2021.

But while the country has set ambitious targets for the future, history has shown it does not always meet its own expectations. In 2021, Canada had a target of resettling about 59,000 refugees - almost three times as many as the country took in.

In an interview with the CBC, immigration minister Sean Fraser said the gap was largely due to Covid-related border closures both in Canada and around the globe.

By 2023, Canada aims to help resettle 76,000 refugees.

Russia’s plumbers sent to fight in Ukraine - just when they are needed to fix boilers at home

Daily Telegraph UK
By James Kilner
4 Dec, 2022 


The freezing winter could be very difficult for Russia, as well as Ukraine. Photo / Getty Images

Call-up to fight in Vladimir Putin’s war means repairmen are not available for residents facing -40C freeze with broken heating.

As Moscow bombards Ukraine’s power grid, leaving millions of households without power and heating, many ordinary Russians are facing a bleak winter of their own - because central heating repairmen have been mobilised to fight on the front lines

In Astrakhan, near Russia’s remote Caspian Sea coast, residents complained on social media that maintenance workers had been sent to fight in Ukraine with an engineering unit, even though they were needed to keep the central heating running.

“We turned to the military registration and enlistment offices and officials, explaining that the heating season is coming soon and we need people, but we never received a clear answer,” one resident told the ‘We can explain’ Telegram channel.

Built by the Soviet Union, polluting city power stations produce hot water and then pump it to apartment blocks through massive pipes that thaw out the frozen ground they run over or under.

Temperatures can drop to -40C in Siberia, which means that broken heating systems can be deadly.

The Kremlin’s mobilisation order in September drafted 320,000 men into the Russian army, but three or four times that number fled abroad. This has left Russia with a shortage of labourers.

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A survey by the Gaidar Institute in Moscow said that a third of Russia’s industries are now short of workers. Plans have been made to draft in extra workers from Central Asia to plug the shortfall, but until then many households will face freezing temperatures.

It comes as Russia has inflicted “colossal” damage to Ukraine’s power grid, said officials, causing rolling blackouts that could last until March.

An estimated 70 per cent of Ukraine’s power-generating capacity has been destroyed, the World Health Organization has said, with 10 million people in Ukraine living without power.

To conserve energy, Ukrainian authorities have asked relatively wealthy people to travel to Europe. They have also set up thousands of tents in cities with generators for people to charge their mobile phones, warm up and eat a hot meal.

AUSTRALIA

Authorities reveal why a Sydney school science experiment went horribly wrong

NO HAZARD ASSESSMENT, NO FIRE EXTINGUISHER

news.com.au
By Madeleine Achenza

The "black worm" science experiment likely got out of control due to gusty winds. Photo / VisioNil/ Nine

First responders have revealed the likely reason a science experiment at a Sydney school ended in an explosion and led to a 10-year-old girl being flown to hospital with severe burns.

Eight ambulances and two helicopters, one with a specialist medical team on board, rushed to the incident at Manly West Public School in Balgowlah at about 1pm on Monday.

11 children around the age of 10 and one adult were impacted by the “Hazmat incident”, reportedly caused by a science experiment gone wrong.

Wellbeing support was offered to students. Photo / NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

It’s understood the incident occurred during a “black worm” experiment, which involves using an accelerant to set baking soda and sugar alight.

New South Wales Ambulance said Monday’s high winds were partially to blame for the Year 5 class’ experiment going wrong.

“We received multiple triple-zero calls reporting that a number of children had sustained burns during a science experiment, which was being conducted outside,” NSW Ambulance Acting Superintendent Phil Templeman said.

Police and Safe Work NSW staff near an empty bottle of flammable liquid at the scene. Photo / NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker

“Today’s high winds have impacted the experiment and blown some of the materials around.”

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The most seriously injured child, a young girl, suffered multiple burns to her body and was flown to The Children’s Hospital at Westmead in a stable condition after receiving treatment from CareFlight’s specialist doctor and a NSW Ambulance critical care paramedic.

N. Korea’s government is still earning foreign currency through overseas workforce

The estimated 80,000 North Korean workers in Dandong alone are sending home millions of US dollars in so-called “party funds” every month

By Seulkee Jang
2022.11.22 

FILE PHOTO: North Korean women leaving a customs office in Dandong, Liaoning Province, China. (Daily NK)

North Korean authorities have sent even more workers outside the country than international estimates suggest. Accordingly, a significant amount of foreign currency may be entering North Korea in the form of contributions to the Workers’ Party of Korea. 

Daily NK recently reported that up to 80,000 North Korean workers currently reside in the Chinese city of Dandong, Liaoning Province. Chinese quarantine authorities confirmed this figure as they were administering PCR tests to all residents of the city.

According to a source in China on Wednesday, the 80,000 figure takes into account only North Korean workers communally living at local clothing companies and electronics factories, and excludes North Korean trade representatives and consulate staff.

An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 staff members of the North Korean trade delegation reside in Dandong.

If trade delegation staff and cadre-level individuals are included, more than 80,000 North Koreans may be residing in Dandong.

In particular, the 80,000 North Korean workers in Dandong alone are sending home millions of US dollars in so-called “party funds” every month.

North Korean workers overseas pay at least 50% of their monthly salary in party funds, which are contributions to North Korea’s communist party. Additionally, they send home a significant part of their salary in the form of various “taxes,” including Socialist Women’s Union of Korea dues and funds for various construction projects.

Given that factory workers in China have made an average of RMB 2,200 to 2,500 a month over the last three years – if we assume that each worker is paying at least RMB 1,100 in party funds a month – this means RMB 88 million in party funds are being sent to Pyongyang on a monthly basis.

Converted into dollars, this comes out to USD 12.28 million a month and USD 147.36 million a year, meaning North Korea is earning a huge sum of money through the workers it sends to China.

However, because this estimate is based on the bare minimum North Korean workers pay in party funds, North Korean authorities may be acquiring much more foreign currency in the form of party funds.

Meanwhile, with word spreading that 80,000 North Korean workers are in Dandong, local Chinese are saying that North Korea “can fire off missiles just from the money they are making by sending workers to China, and still have some left over.”

Meanwhile, North Korean authorities have concluded a new labor contract with Chinese companies that includes a plan to raise the wages of North Korean workers to RMB 3,300 to 3,700 a month. This means that North Korean authorities will likely make even more foreign currency, despite UN Security Council sanctions on the country. 

UN Security Council Resolution 2397, adopted in December 2017, called on UN member states to repatriate all North Korean workers who are earning incomes in their countries by 2019.

Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.

Freedom of Press is Dealt Deadly Blows by Modi's Proto-Fascist Regime in India

By C. J. Polychroniou - 
INTERNATIONAL LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS


The Wire case is yet one more example of Modi's regime trying to undermine the media landscape and, indeed, destroy dissenting media.

Since the end of the Cold War, hybrid political regimes have been steadily gaining ground across the world. Hybrid regimes rest on a form of governance which, as Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way pointed out in a 2002 essay in the Journal of Democracy, is essentially authoritarian in nature while "using formal democratic institutions" for "obtaining and exercising political authority." The term used for this type of political regime is competitive authoritarianism. In popular literature, the term "illiberal democracy" is encountered more frequently for the hybrid regimes that have emerged in the post-Cold War period, but an argument can be made against the use of such term as it weakens and stretches the definition of democracy.

In competitive authoritarian regimes, elections are held, but the electoral process is characterized by large-scale abuses of power, harassment and intimidation of opposition candidates and activists, and pro-government bias in public media. With regard to the latter aspect, comparative authoritarian regimes systematically dismantle media independence, freedom, and pluralism.

Narendra Modi's India is a classic example of a comparative authoritarian regime, though it tends to receive far less attention in western media than Hungary under Viktor Orban's rule. Modi, who has been the head of an elected government for over 20 years, has in fact turned India into an autocracy under the aegis of an extremist nationalist/racist/fascist ideology, Hindutva, which seeks to transform a secular state into an ethno-religious state. Modi's government has centralized power to an extraordinary degree, practices systematic discrimination against Muslims, stigmatizes critics of the government, and engages in constant press freedom violations. Arrests and physical attacks on journalists have increased over the last few years, while several journalists were assassinated in 2021 alone for their work.

Unsurprisingly, in the 2022 edition of the Press Freedom Index, India ranked at the 150th position, its lowest ever, out of 180 countries. So much for the world's largest democracy being actually democratic!

The latest independent media venue in India to be under government attack is The Wire, an independent media outlet "committed to the public interest and democratic values." Its office and the homes of several editors were raided by police late last month on account of a criminal complaint filed by Amit Malviya, a political figure of the ruling party. Based on an internal Instagram document, the publication had recently run a story—which later retracted—that the political figure in question "wielded special privilege to censor social media posts." The publication retracted the story, and a few follows ups, after it established that its coverage had been based on falsified documents and issued an official statement announcing that "lapses in editorial oversight" are under review. Moreover, the publication has filed a complaint against a freelance researcher, Devesh Kumar, for allegedly fabricating the details of the story with intent to harm The Wire.

The raids have been criticized by journalists and opposition politicians in India as a form of "veiled intimidation." However, the deeper concern is that the publication's editors may face long-term prison sentences by being charged with forgery and criminal conspiracy. Note that Amit Malviya has filed not a civil suit but a criminal complaint against the editors of The Wire.

The Wire case is yet one more example of Modi's regime trying to undermine the media landscape and, indeed, destroy dissenting media. The international community must pay attention to the crackdown on free press in India. A global outcry at Modi's autocratic/ proto-fascist state is long overdue.


C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His latest books are The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change (A collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky; Haymarket Books, 2021), and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (Verso, 2021).

This was first published on Common Dreams (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Image: Jhon Don via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Wanted for War Crimes in Argentina, Hiding in Plain Sight in Israel

סיפור של Judy Maltz 

Some 3,000 Jews disappeared without trace during Argentina’s ‘dirty wars’ in the 1970s and ’80s. A new documentary, ‘Bronca!,’ following a father-and-son team seeking justice for at least one of themOctober 15th, 21PM October 15th, 21PM

Ten years ago, Tomer Slutzky was gearing up for what has become a rite of passage for many young Israelis: a post-army trek through South America.

His plans were upended, however, when his father Shlomo convinced him to join him on a different sort of adventure – coincidentally, in the same part of the world.

Instead of packing up his hiking gear, Tomer would end up stuffing a camera into his bag and following his father on what he describes as a “documentary journey.”

Their mission: seeking justice for a relative whose partly cut-off face appears in a photo taken at Tomer’s grandparents’ wedding.

That relative was Samuel Slutzky, a 41-year-old physician last seen in 1977 when he was arrested by the Argentine military junta during the so-called “dirty wars.” He was taken to a torture center in the Buenos Aires suburb of La Plata, never to return.

Samuel’s son, Mariano, would end up testifying at the trial of the officers and officials who ran this notorious detention center, known as “La Cacha,” where 128 prisoners died during Argentina’s seven-year military dictatorship.

Shlomo Slutzky, a journalist and documentary filmmaker who had immigrated to Israel in 1976 (soon after the right-wing coup), had come to cover the trial, which opened in 2013 and concluded in October 2014.

His cousin Samuel was among an estimated 3,000 Jews who disappeared without trace during those years. Two dozen officers and agents would eventually be convicted, many of them sentenced to life in prison.

 

Why FBI Investigation Of Israel Is Important – OpEd

By Ramzy Baroud

This month’s decision by the US Department of Justice to open an investigation into the May killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is not a game changer, but it is important and worthy of reflection.

Based on the long trajectory of US military and political support of Israel and Washington’s constant shielding of Tel Aviv from any accountability for its illegal occupation of Palestine, one can confidently conclude that there will not be any actual investigation.

A real investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh could open up a Pandora’s box of other findings pertaining to Israel’s many other illegal practices and violations of international — and even US — law. For example, the US investigators would have to look into the Israeli use of American-supplied weapons and munitions, which are used daily to suppress Palestinian protests, confiscate Palestinian land, impose military sieges on civilian areas and so on. The US Leahy Law specifically prohibits “the US government from using funds for assistance to units of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights.”

Moreover, an investigation would also mean accountability if it concluded that Abu Akleh, a US citizen, was deliberately killed by an Israeli soldier, as several human rights groups have already concluded.

That, too, is implausible. In fact, one of the main pillars that defines the US-Israeli relationship is that the former serves the role of the protector of the latter on the international stage. Every Palestinian, Arab or international attempt at investigating Israeli crimes has decisively failed simply because Washington systematically blocks every potential investigation under the pretense that Israel is capable of investigating itself, even alleging at times that any attempt to hold Israel accountable is a witch hunt that is tantamount to anti-Semitism.

According to Axios, this was the gist of the official Israeli response to the US decision to open an investigation into the murder of the Palestinian journalist. “Our soldiers will not be investigated by the FBI or by any other foreign country or entity,” outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said, adding: “We will not abandon our soldiers to foreign investigations.”

Though Lapid’s is the typical Israeli response, it is quite interesting — if not shocking — to see it used in a context involving an American investigation. Historically, such language was reserved for investigations by the UN Human Rights Council and by international law judges, the likes of Richard Falk, Richard Goldstone and Michael Lynk. Time and again, such investigations were conducted or blocked without any Israeli cooperation and under intense American pressure.

In 2003, the scope of Israeli intransigence and blind American support of Israel reached the point of pressuring the Belgian government to rewrite its own domestic laws to dismiss a war crimes case against then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Moreover, despite relentless efforts by many US-based rights groups to investigate the murder of American activist Rachel Corrie the same year, Washington refused to even consider the case, relying instead on Israel’s own courts, which exonerated the Israeli soldier who drove a bulldozer over the 23-year-old for simply urging him not to demolish a Palestinian home in Gaza.

Worse still, in 2020, the US government went as far as sanctioning International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and other senior prosecution officials who were involved in the investigation of alleged US and Israeli war crimes in Afghanistan and Palestine.

Bearing all of this in mind, one must ask questions regarding the timing and the motivation of the US investigation.

Axios revealed that the decision to investigate the killing of Abu Akleh was “made before the Nov. 1 elections in Israel, but the Justice Department officially notified the Israeli government three days after the elections.” In fact, the news was only revealed to the media on Nov. 14, following both the Israeli and US elections on Nov. 1 and Nov. 8, respectively.

Officials in Washington were keen on communicating the point that the decision was not political, nor was it linked to avoiding angering the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington days before the US elections or to influencing the outcome of Israel’s own vote. If that is the case, then why did the US wait until Nov. 14 to leak the news? The delay suggests serious backdoor politics and massive Israeli pressure to dissuade the US from making the announcement public, thus making it impossible to reverse the decision.

Knowing that a serious investigation will most likely not take place, the US decision must have been reasoned in advance to be a merely political one. Maybe symbolic and ultimately inconsequential, the unprecedented and determined US decision was predicated on solid reasoning.

First, US President Joe Biden had a difficult experience managing the political shenanigans of then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his time as vice president in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2017. Now that Netanyahu is poised to return to the helm of Israeli politics, the Biden administration is in urgent need of political leverage over Tel Aviv, with the hope of controlling the extremist tendencies of the Israeli leader and his government.

Second, the failure of the Republican so-called red wave to marginalize the Democrats as a sizable political and legislative force in the US Congress has further emboldened the Biden administration to finally reveal the news about the investigation — that is if we are to believe that the decision was indeed made in advance.

Third, the strong showing of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian candidates in the US midterms — in both national and state legislative elections — further bolsters the progressive agenda within the Democratic Party. Even a symbolic decision to investigate the killing of a US citizen represents a watershed moment in the relationship between the Democratic Party establishment and its more progressive grassroots constituencies.

Though the US investigation of Abu Akleh’s murder is unlikely to result in any kind of justice, it is a very important moment in US-Israeli and US-Palestinian relations. It simply means that, despite the entrenched and blind US support for Israel, there are margins in American policy that can still be exploited; if not to reverse the US backing of Israel, at least to weaken the supposedly unbreakable bond between the two countries.

Ramzy Baroud

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com

 November 22, 2022 

Child Rights Balochistan demonstrates at Quetta Press Club to uphold rights of children


Balochistan [Pakistan], November 22 (ANI): On the occasion of International Children's Day, a demonstration was organized in front of the Quetta Press Club under the sponsorship of Child Rights Balochistan to uphold the rights of children.

Mir Bahram Lahri, Abdul Hai Bangalzai, and other speakers addressed the protesters and stated that children's laws are not being implemented, reported Pak vernacular media, Urdu Point.

About five lakh children are subjected to physical assaults every year in Pakistan, according to a report released by child experts.

The report is a grim reminder of Pakistan's human rights situation and rampant prevalence of child abuse in the country, reported Pak vernacular media, Sindh Express.

According to the report, around 46 lakh girl children are married at less than 15 years of their age, and about 1.90 crore children are married even before they are 18 years of age.

"We think the federal government should go for a crackdown against such malpractices; also those pressurizing children for begging be immediately arrested and be it, parents or guardians," said the report.

Mir Bahram Lahri stated that they have been struggling for the last ten years regarding the child marriage bill and they are failing because of the lack of interest of their representatives, reported Urdu Point.

November 20 is celebrated across the world as Universal Children's Day with various pledges to make the world a better place for children.

On 20 November 2022, it will be thirty-three years since the countries of the world, including Pakistan, came to a historic decision and recognized, for the first time in human history, that children have special rights and needs.

The members of the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Pakistan ratified it a year later, on 12 December 1990.

Pakistan at present has the highest percentage of children ever recorded in history. Pakistan falls behind in almost all child rights indicators whether health, education, child marriages, protection from violence, child labour etc, reported Pak Observer.

The experts' report further directed the government to take immediate concrete measures and to set up institutions or set up committees to deal with issues, reported Pak vernacular media.

Earlier, Pakistani newspaper The News International reported that the data revealed that during the past six months nearly 2,211 child abuse cases with both boys and girls were registered.

Notably, the data on the sexual abuse of children was collected from 79 newspapers. The majority of the cases can be categorised as rape, sodomy and abduction for sexual abuse, The News International reported.

Moreover, as per gender split analysis, the female reported cases of child sexual abuse are more in number than male cases.

Out of the total of 2,211 children, 1,004 were boys and 1,207 were girls, according to data collected by the publication.

The report further stated that nearly 803 boys and girls were kidnapped, and among them, 298 were boys and 243 were girls, who were allegedly either raped or sodomised, while numbers of gang rape/sodomy cases were also very high as 128 children were subjected for the physical abuse and among which 41 were girls and 87 were boys.

As many as 1,564 cases in Punjab, 338 cases in Sindh, 199 cases in Islamabad, 77 cases in KPK, and 23 cases in Baluchistan as well as 10 cases in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, were reported, the report stated.

Nearly 52 per cent of cases were reported from urban areas and 48 per cent of cases were reported from rural areas, it added.

The Human Rights Watch in its Annual World Report 2022 cited allegations of extensive rights abuses against women along with children in Pakistan, which ranks 167 out of 170 countries on the Global Women, Peace and Security Index. 

(ANI)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BALOCH 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BALOCHISTAN 

HAND OF GLORY

Dog Leads Searchers to Mass Grave in Mexico

A dog carrying a human hand has led to the exhumation of a mass grave in Mexico, where searchers have uncovered 53 bags of human remains.

By Nick Koutsobinas |

According to The Daily Star, Bibian Mendoza followed the dog during an international arts festival to the mass grave in Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. The uncovering is believed to have stemmed from a years-long war between the Jalisco cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel.

"While people from all over the world were celebrating the Cervantino festival (an international arts festival in the area), we were digging up bodies, and at the same time I thought it was useless because they were burying more people elsewhere," Mendoza, the founder of a women's collective searching for missing persons, said.

Both the festival and the grim discovery took place in October. The remains have been exhumed and analyzed. But it is not known how many of the bodies have been identified.

As the Star says, while citing unnamed officials, "most of the issues ... in Mexico, are focused around cartels — are actually drug-related."

Security expert David Saucedo says the city is part of the "fentanyl and cocaine routes."

Mendoza adds that while many politicians have promised to make the area safer, "seeing bodies lying in the streets with messages is something new for us."

"I hate hearing the [state] governor say that he is going to deliver a safer Guanajuato," she added. "I hate hearing the president [Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador] say that what is happening is not his fault.

(Newsmax) Monday, 21 November 2022