Spain votes on trans rights bill that has split the left


By AFP
Published December 21, 2022

Spanish lawmakers will vote on a transgender rights bill that allows anyone 16 and over to change gender on their ID card - Copyright AFP Thomas COEX
Hazel WARD

Lawmakers vote Thursday on a transgender rights bill that allows anyone 16 and over to change gender on their ID card, legislation that has sparked divisions within Spain’s left-wing government and its feminist movement.

The draft bill effectively simplifies the procedure for changing gender on a person’s national identity card, allowing them to request the change based on a simple statement.

But the text has sparked a bitter dispute among activists in Spain’s powerful feminist lobby and LGBTQ equality campaigners.

If it passes its first reading on Thursday, the bill will move to the Senate and if left unchanged, as expected, will become law within weeks.

It would make Spain one of the few countries in the world to allow transgender people to change their status with a simple declaration.

In Europe, Denmark was the first country to grant such a right in 2014.

Until now, only adults have been allowed to request the change in Spain and have had to provide a medical report attesting to gender dysphoria and proof of hormonal treatment for two years.

But the new law would drop that requirement and allow anyone from age 16 to freely change their designated sex on their ID card. Even those as young as 12 could apply but only under certain conditions.

After submitting the request, the applicant must confirm the demand three months later, then it will become valid.

The legislation is one of the flagship projects of the equality ministry which is held by Podemos, the radical left-wing junior partner in Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist-led coalition.

“At last this law depathologises trans lives and guarantees trans people’s rights,” said Equality Minister Irene Montero, a strong advocate of gender self-identification who has been robust in her approach to any opposition.

“Today the feminist majority in this House responds to transphobia.”

– Friction on the left –

Adopted by the cabinet in June 2021, the bill has sparked tensions between Podemos, the driving force behind the legislation, and the Socialists who have tried in vain to modify it.

It has also divided the feminist movement between those supporting Montero and the powerful feminist lobby allied with the Socialists who are implacably opposed to the text.

“The state has to provide answers for transgender people, but gender is neither voluntary nor optional,” said Carmen Calvo, who was Sanchez’s former deputy and headed the equality ministry when it was held by the Socialists.

“When gender is asserted over biological sex, it does not seem to me to be a step forward in a progressive direction; it seems to be a step backwards,” she told the El Mundo newspaper in September.

Activists fear the law will be open to abuse and erode women’s rights, allowing men who self-identify as women to compete in women’s sport or request a transfer to women’s prisons.

They have also raised the alarm about minors having the right to self-determine gender — with parental authorisation from the age of 14 and with both parental and judicial approval from 12.

Although the Socialists pushed for an amendment that would have extended judicial authorisation to include 14 to 15-year-olds, it was ultimately rejected in what was widely seen as a victory for Montero and Podemos.

Tensions around the legislation prompted Socialist LGBTQ activist Carla Antonelli — the first and only trans woman to serve as a lawmaker — to resign from the party after decades of activism.

“One more step and it will be law, the triumph of reason over hatred,” she tweeted on Wednesday.

Op-Ed: New genes show humans continuously evolving — Into what?


ByPaul Wallis
PublishedDecember 22, 2022

Conservationists fear that edited genes might be passed on to non-target species like pollinators — © POOL/AFP/File Ludovic MARIN

New research shows that humans are always evolving, and don’t stop. No less than 155 new genes are making that statement very unequivocally. These are definitely new genes.

This isn’t necessarily good news. Genes related to defects are also in the mix. According to the study published in Cell Magazine, there may be more undetected microproteins and therefore “novel” genes.

… This leads to an inevitable question: What is evolving into what?

It should be remembered that humans are a relatively young species in evolutionary terms. Just about everything else on Earth is much more evolved. Many mammals in particular are far from their genetic origins.

The usual statement that humans are 99% identical to chimpanzees (the range is anything from 96% to 99%, depending on the source) is a case in point. If a 1% of difference in genes makes so much difference, what happens in the next million years or so? What if a 5% different form of human evolves in the near future?

The changes would be fundamental. A Stanford study in 2020 indicates the human body is now about 1 degree cooler than it was 150 years ago. That’s a truly critical issue. Heat demand in organisms, particularly from the brain, is extremely important. This finding indicates more thermal efficiency in crucial systems and functions.

Applied to an entire statistical population, and in such a short time frame, it could actually mean evolution is accelerating. It also implies that other correlative changes have occurred. There’s just no getting around organic thermodynamics. In humans, when a difference of X degrees means alive or dead, being able to reduce demand for heat is a very good move.

The problem is that looking for and studying evolution, even with far more advanced tech, means doing a lot of science. You’re searching for an unknown number of needles in an unquantifiable number of haystacks. …When you have to guess whether it’s a needle or a haystack every time.

DNA. — By P99am — Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

Natural selection vs getting lucky or both?

The much-overworked science fiction cliché of something evolving just in time for a movie is pretty ridiculous, really. However, it’s not all wrong. It is possible a few stray genes can deliver positives. There’s something much more likely, though. There’s a process called speciation in which diverse groups of the same animal are separated and go their own way in evolutionary terms. They adapt to their different environs, diets, etc. Sound familiar? It should.

Does this very well-known process involve gene adaption? Of course, it does. These adaptions are much faster than the usual plodding pace of the traditional view of evolution. Speciation can happen in a few generations, through necessity.

…So Homo Sapiens, that ever-so-endearing global tourist from Africa, might pick up a few traits and genetic options in the last couple of millions of years. More likely good old Homo Sap has needed to evolve in order to adapt.

OK, now take this doggedly trudging bit of logic a nanometre further – How much more different from the original environment of humanity could the modern world be?

This leads to a few questions:

Will success spoil Homo Sapiens?
Ain’t we supposed to have brains?
You call this mess a success?
What if you screw things up faster than you can adapt to them, golly gosh gee?

For a global freeloader species, H. Sapiens has been fairly lucky in evolutionary terms. The question is now whether adaption and evolution can keep track of the mess that H. Sap has made for itself. How do you adapt to polluted air and water?

The really interesting thing (yes, humans can be interesting; you just have to look a bit harder) is the brain. You may have read a lot of commentary on brain size, for example. Small brains mean dumb.

…Or maybe highly evolved organisms which have been around for much longer than H. Sapiens have evolved much higher efficiencies in brains. Redundant structures aren’t much of an asset in evolutionary or even basic functional terms. Evolution would discard the useless bits.

To get to the degree of evolution of most other species, humans would need millions of years. The only advantage humans have is that they’re despecialized omnivores that can live anywhere. The fact that humans are also making a lot of the world uninhabitable for themselves, of course, might be a factor in evolution.

What if a new human species evolves which can live in toxic waste dumps? You can thank the food sector for that if it does. The human brain can apparently evolve to exist in an environment of pure drivel, non-information, and idiotic levels of totally unnecessary stress.

This is the challenge to science – Can humanity adapt to itself? This might be the first time we have to assess evolution as a truly unnatural process.

Canada and UK lead global national debt rankings

By Dr. Tim Sandle
Published December 22, 2022

Wall Street — © Digital Journal

With Christmas just around the corner and the cost of living on many people’s minds, credit cards are often turned to. This might seem like the best option for many in the short-term but it is something that can lead to problems in the longer-term when debts need to be repaid.

Analysts at Invezz have analysed global data looking at several debt-related factors including credit card ownership, household debt and government debt to reveal the countries with the highest levels of debt.

With the analysis, Canada comes top as the most indebted of nations, followed by the U.K. (with the U.S. in third place). Canada has the biggest overall debt problems, with a combined debt score of 8.42 out of 10, having appeared in the top 10 countries for each factor. The 10 countries with the most debt are:

Rank	Country	Credit Card Ownership	Household Debt (% of disposable income)	Government Debt (% of GDP)	Debt searches per 100,000	Overall Debt Score
1	Canada	82.74%	185.62%	87.16%	801.54	8.42
2	United Kingdom	62.11%	147.74%	83.85%	2,385.47	7.92
3	United States	66.70%	101.11%	108.80%	1,445.57	7.75
4	Norway	66.74%	246.30%	40.94%	232.25	7.09
5	Finland	65.29%	154.20%	59.59%	212.06	6.75
5	Australia	51.41%	203.02%	46.80%	1,165.99	6.75
7	Japan	69.66%	114.69%	236.14%	27.40	6.34
8	Switzerland	69.21%	222.09%	39.80%	131.99	6.33
9	Ireland	54.96%	123.64%	57.22%	733.44	6.17
9	Netherlands	37.43%	228.20%	47.56%	433.90	6.17

When it comes to the UK, the research reveals that despite the relatively high position, the U.K. has the most debt-conscious population, at least if Internet activity is a good measure. The data suggests that the U.K. has the most searches per 100,000 people for debt and credit-related terms.

The U.K. has also been revealed as the most debt-conscious country in the world. There are 2,385.47 searches per 100,000 people. This indicates that people in the U.K. are the most engaged with the world of debt, either by seeking new lines of credit or looking for help with managing their financial situation.

The U.K. also has by far the highest number of searches for “debt advice” per head at 44.23 per 100,000 people. The highest number of searches per head for each debt-related search term analysed. With 122.19 searches for “borrow money” per 100,000 people, as well as 2219.05 for “credit card” per 100,000. As these search rates are actually almost double that of the U.S. (which is in second place for this criterion).

The U.K. also made the top 10 for government debt, placing tenth, as well for credit card ownership, for which it placed eight. Eight place equates to 62.11 percent of the adult population owning one.

The highest percentage of credit card ownership however goes to Canada with 92.74 percent of the country owning a credit card.

ECOCIDE

Keystone pipeline raises concerns after third major spill in five years

By Karen Graham
PublishedDecember 21, 2022

TC Energy restarted a portion of the Keystone Pipeline, but the part of the pipeline where the oil spill occurred was still off line - Copyright AFP Lillian SUWANRUMPHA

TC Energy’s Keystone oil pipeline leaked an estimated 14,000 barrels of oil into a Washington County, Kansas creek on Dec. 7, 2022.

TC Energy claims its crews have recovered a total of 6,973 barrels of oil – nearly half of the 14,000 barrels released into Mill Creek on December 7. TC Energy also says it has restarted parts of the Keystone Pipeline unaffected by the leak in Washington County.

According to The Guardian, this incident was the largest onshore oil spill since at least 2013, the Keystone pipeline’s third major spill in the last five years, and the largest since it began operating in 2010.

Officials are now scrambling to clean up the mess, a mixture of heavy bitumen oil that has been diluted so that it is able to flow through the pipeline.

“This spill in Kansas is going to take years to clean up. TC Energy currently is pretending that this is going to be a two-week cleanup job and everything’s going to be fine,” said Jane Kleeb, founder, and president of Nebraska non-profit Bold Alliance, which helps communities fight fossil fuel projects.

About 22 oil spills have occurred on the Keystone pipeline in the past 12 years, with two other large incidents. TC Energy has only paid $300,000 in fines for previous spills on the Keystone pipeline, even if the spills caused more than $111 million in property damage.

Reuters points out that a review by U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) this year highlights growing questions by legislators about whether special use permits contribute to oil spills.

As it turns out, the Keystone Pipeline is the only pipeline to have a special permit to pump oil at a higher pressure. T%his has raised questions about the integrity of the pipeline itself.

The 2021 report to Congress by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that TC Energy performed worse than nationwide averages in the previous five years due to major spills in 2017 and 2019. PHMSA allowed Keystone to run at a higher pressure than other pipelines starting in 2017, subject to 51 conditions.

The latest Keystone spill raises doubts about whether PHMSA adequately assesses risk in granting special permits, said Don Deaver, a pipeline consultant.

Crypto could cause next financial crisis: India central bank chief

By AFP
Published December 21, 2022


Failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX used celebrities to promote its 'Ponzi scheme,' according a lawsuit file in US court - Copyright AFP Oliver Contreras

India’s central bank governor warned Wednesday that cryptocurrency markets risked causing the next global financial crisis, saying the recent collapse of FTX was proof of the sector’s “inherent risks”.

The comments close out a challenging year for India’s millions of crypto owners, who are already reeling from a global market collapse and steep domestic taxes.

“Unlike any other product, our main concern about crypto is that it doesn’t have any underlying (value) whatsoever,” Reserve Bank of India governor Shaktikanta Das said at an industry event.

“Our view is that it should be prohibited because … if you try to regulate it and allow it to grow, please mark my words: the next financial crisis will come from private cryptocurrencies.”

Cryptocurrencies have been under the scrutiny of Indian regulators since first entering the local market nearly a decade ago, with a rise in fraudulent transactions leading to a central bank ban in 2018.

India’s Supreme Court lifted the restrictions two years later and the market surged, backed by burgeoning local trading platforms and glitzy celebrity endorsements.

But the introduction of a 30 percent tax on profits from trading “private currencies” this year has resulted in trading volumes shrinking to a tenth of their previous size.

A sharp fall in the prices of leading tokens like bitcoin — dubbed a “crypto winter” — has wiped out more than $2 trillion from their global market value since its peak of $3 trillion in November 2021, further spooking traders.

The sudden collapse of FTX — a cryptocurrency exchange worth $32 billion before it filed for bankruptcy last month — and US fraud charges against its one-time billionaire founder Sam Bankman-Fried has intensified scrutiny of the sector.

Das said the fall in crypto prices and recent developments around FTX validated his long-held view that cryptocurrencies have “huge inherent risks for our macroeconomic and financial stability”.

The Reserve Bank of India this year introduced its own digital rupee based on blockchain technology, intended to bring down the costs of commercial transactions as the Indian economy becomes less reliant on paper currency.

Last month, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for increased regulation of private currencies to stamp out terror funding.

Modi also said last year that bitcoin presented a risk to younger generations and could “spoil our youth” if it ended up “in the wrong hands”.

Mexico Aims for Agreement with US on Genetically Modified Corn

December 16, 2022
Reuters

Corn rests on the ground on Hodgen Farm in Roachdale, Ind., Oct. 29, 2019.

MEXICO CITY —

Mexico and the United States aim to reach an agreement in January over a pending Mexican ban on imports of genetically modified (GM) corn, the Mexican Foreign Ministry said Friday after officials from the two countries held talks in Washington.

In a statement, the ministry said talks would continue in the meantime as the two sides worked to reach a "mutual understanding" that gives "legal certainty to all parties."

Mexico has a controversial presidential decree that is set to ban GM corn and the herbicide glyphosate in 2024.

U.S. officials have threatened to take action under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, arguing that the decree will harm U.S. farmers.

"The Mexican delegation presented some potential amendments to the decree in an effort to address our concerns," U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a joint statement released Friday afternoon.

"We agreed to review their proposal closely and follow up with questions or concerns in short order," they said.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told reporters the two sides were aiming to reach an agreement by the end of January.

Mexico, which imports about 17 million metric tons of U.S. corn a year, has said that the decree focuses on corn for human consumption and that GM yellow corn for animal feed would be permitted.

Mexican officials, however, have yet to announce formal modifications to the decree.

Mexico's health regulator Cofepris has not authorized new strains of glyphosate-resistant GM corn seeds for import since 2018.

Biotechnology Innovation Organization, an industry group representing biotech companies including Bayer, said Friday it would urge the U.S. government to begin taking enforcement action over Mexico’s treatment of agricultural biotechnology should the country fall short of meeting "the commitments under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement."

Emboldened Right-Wing Activists Spread Lies About Rep. Katie Porter on Twitter

Video of Rep. Katie Porter calling out right-wing activists for falsely accusing LGBTQ+ Americans of being pedophiles was misleadingly edited to accuse her of condoning pedophilia.

Rep. Katie Porter, a California Democrat, participates remotely in a congressional hearing in 2020. Photo: Pool via Getty Images

Robert Mackey

December 16 2022, 6:01 p.m.

LIES ABOUT REP. KATIE PORTER reached millions of Twitter users this week, as the California Democrat’s remarks about how the platform has been used to falsely label LGBTQ+ people as pedophiles were misleadingly edited and captioned in tweets by influential right-wing activists.

The deceptive clips of Porter’s remarks, accompanied by false claims that she had condoned pedophilia, were viewed more than 2.2 million times on Twitter after being shared by right-wing activist accounts, including Chaya Raichik’s Libs of TikTok and Jaimee Michell’s Gays Against Groomers.

Those video clips were created by Porter’s political enemies, who made it seem as if Porter, at a Congressional oversight hearing on Wednesday, had argued that pedophilia was not a crime but an identity.

Transcripts and video of Porter’s complete remarks make it clear that she was saying something entirely different — namely, that right-wing activists have inspired hatred of LGBTQ+ Americans in tweets falsely accusing them of being pedophiles, or so-called groomers.

A spokesperson for Porter also told the fact-checking service VERIFY, which works with local news stations in 29 states, that the representative “did not say that pedophilia is not a crime.”

In an irony that perfectly encapsulates the impossibility of reasoned discourse with far-right activists willing to lie, the video used to smear Porter was taken from her discussion of a report documenting how activist accounts like Libs of TikTok and Gays Against Groomers use Twitter to falsely accuse LGBTQ+ liberals of pedophilia. The report was produced by the LGBTQ+ civil rights organization Human Rights Campaign.

At the hearing, Porter prefaced a question for Kelley Robinson, the HRC president, by saying: “Your organization recently released a report analyzing the 500 most viewed, most influential tweets that identified LGBTQ+ people as so-called groomers. The ‘groomer’ narrative is an age-old lie to position LGBTQ+ people as a threat to kids. And what it does is deny them access to public spaces, it stokes fear, and can even stoke violence.”

Porter then asked Robinson if Twitter’s hateful conduct policy allows users to call LGBTQ+ people “groomers” on the platform.

After Robinson explained that those slurs are used in violation of Twitter’s poorly enforced community guidelines, she added that when people baselessly use words like “groomers” and “pedophiles” to describe LGBTQ+ people, “it is dangerous, and it’s got one purpose: It is to dehumanize us, and make us feel like we are not a part of this American society, and it has real-life consequences.”

Porter responded by saying that she agreed with Robinson that the use of such terms to smear members of LGBTQ+ communities whose politics differ from the far-right activists was intended to marginalize them.

“I think you’re absolutely right,” Porter said. “And it’s not, you know, this allegation of ‘groomer’ and of ‘pedophile,’ it is alleging that a person is criminal somehow, and engaged in criminal acts, merely because of their identity, their sexual orientation, their gender identity. So this is clearly prohibited, under Twitter’s content, yet you found hundreds of these posts on the platform.”

In addition to Raichik and Michell, whose anti-LGBTQ+ activism has previously been amplified by America’s most-watched cable news host, Tucker Carlson, misleading clips of Porter were also shared by Greg Price, a former Republican operative and Daily Caller social media editor; Sebastian Gorka, who was fired by the Trump White House; and Ian Miles Cheong, a far-right Malaysian blogger Elon Musk frequently replies to and agrees with on Twitter.

While the tweets from Cheong and Raichik — who falsely asserted that “Rep Katie Porter (D) says pedophilia isn’t a crime- it’s an identity” — were eventually flagged as misleading by Twitter users, the 1.5 million people who follow Michell, Price, or Gorka encountered no such warning.

Although he did not share the video, Rep. Ronny Jackson, a Texas Republican, also lied about what Porter said on Twitter. “Katie Porter just said that pedophilia isn’t a crime, she said it’s an ‘identity,'” Jackson claimed, falsely. “The sad thing is that this woman isn’t the only VILE person pushing for pedophilia normalization. This is what progressives believe!”

While the HRC report Porter highlighted showed that right-wing activists had violated Twitter’s hateful conduct policy repeatedly before Musk bought the platform, the previous ownership team did make some attempt to rein in Raichik, who was temporarily suspended several times.

Left-Wing Voices Are Silenced on Twitter as Far-Right Trolls Advise Elon Musk


Since Musk took control, however, “retweets of right-wing figures’ tweets that included the anti-LGBTQ ‘groomer’ slur increased substantially, as did mentions of right-wing figures in tweets containing the slur,” according to new data from LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD and Media Matters, a watchdog group that monitors right-wing misinformation.

Michell’s Gays AgainstGroomers account, the study found, “saw an increase of nearly 300% for retweets of tweets with the slur,” comparing the two months before and after Musk took control of the platform. Raichik’s Libs of TikTok “saw more than a 600% increase in its mentions,” over the same period for tweets using “groomer” slurs.

ICC Criticized for Neglecting Probe of Israeli War Crimes

Rights groups are criticizing inaction by the ICC prosecutor in a year when more than 200 Palestinians, including many children, were killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, writes Marjorie Cohn.


International Criminal Court, The Hague. (Greger Ravik, CC BY 2.0)

By Marjorie Cohn
Truthout

December 16, 2022

Nearly two years have passed since the International Criminal Court (ICC) began investigating war crimes committed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. But the ICC has yet to take concrete steps to move the investigation forward.

Frustrated with the glacial pace of the ICC’s investigation and the lack of clarity about how and when the investigation will proceed, three Palestinian human rights organizations issued a joint statement to the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute (the management body of the ICC) on Dec. 6, saying,

“We have not seen any concrete step in this investigation, no action by the Prosecutor to break the vicious cycle of impunity. The situation on the ground is deteriorating year after year, month after month, day after day. We feel that we have been left alone in our struggle. And Palestinian victims are losing hope.”

The initial news of the ICC investigation came on March 3, 2021, when Fatou Bensouda, then-chief ICC prosecutor, announced the opening of a formal investigation into war crimes committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, during and since Israel’s 2014 “Operation Protective Edge,” which killed 2,251 Palestinians.

Following a five-year preliminary examination, Bensouda found a reasonable basis to believe that Israeli forces had committed the war crimes of willful killing, willfully causing serious injury, disproportionate use of force and transfer of Israelis into Palestinian territory.

Bensouda also found there was a reasonable basis to investigate possible war crimes by Palestinians, including intentional attacks against civilians, using civilians as human shields and torture and willful killing.

Fatou Bensouda, former ICC prosecutor, in October 2021. (Wayamo Foundation, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

The three Palestinian human rights organizations that issued the joint statement this month to raise concerns about the lack of progress in the ICC investigation are the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (a group that protects human rights and promotes the rule of law in accordance with international standards), Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights (a group that protects human rights, especially economic, social and cultural rights, in the occupied Palestinian territory) and Al-Haq (which documents human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory).

“In 2021, the opening of an investigation by the Prosecutor was perceived as a huge leap forward,” the groups wrote in their joint statement. “After years of frustration, we hoped that it was the start of a new era of accountability for the grave crimes committed in occupied Palestine.”

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This year alone, the three groups added, more than 200 Palestinians, including many children, were “killed by Israel’s settler-colonial regime in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” They also noted that beloved Palestinian Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh “was assassinated in cold blood by an Israeli sniper in broad daylight” and that six prominent Palestinian civil society organizations, including Al-Haq, were shut down after being falsely designated as “terrorist organizations.”

Protesters in Lod with photos of Shireen Abu Akleh, May 22. (CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)

In spite of these events, the three organizations wrote, the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor hasn’t issued a single statement concerning Palestine. They contrasted the ICC prosecutor’s inaction on Palestine with the situation of Ukraine, about which the Office of the Prosecutor has been very proactive.

“It is also crucial that the same level of attention, activity, and resources is applied to other situations including, Palestine, to avoid perceptions of selectivity and politicization,” the groups wrote. “Victims should not be competing for justice and double standards should not have a place in justice.”

On Nov. 21, Bezalel Smotrich, head of Israel’s far right Religious Zionism Party, called Palestinian human rights organizations an existential threat to Israel. He said that the incoming Israeli government must take legal and security measures against them including “seizing their funds.”

Open Letter to Karim Khan

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan. (UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Two days later, 198 Palestinian, regional and international civil society organizations — including the National Lawyers Guild, Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Association of Democratic Lawyers — wrote an open letter to Chief ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, decrying “missed opportunities for preventive statements in the past year.”

The organizations cited Israel’s killing of Palestinians “without clear provocation” as well as raids and assaults against worshipers at the Al Aqsa Mosque and Al-Haram Al-Sharif in occupied East Jerusalem.

Three of the six designated “terrorist organizations,” the civil society organizations noted, have been providing the ICC prosecutor’s office with information about “alleged serious crimes committed by Israeli nationals within the jurisdiction of the Court.”

The groups cited the Apartheid Convention, which lists as an “inhuman act” of apartheid, the “persecution of organizations and persons by depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid.”

The civil society organizations wrote to the ICC prosecutor: “Although Israel’s targeting of these organisations could hinder the work of the ICC, there has been no public reaction by your office.” The CSOs urged the Office of the Prosecutor to:Publicly condemn and call on Israel to rescind the terrorist designations;
Publicly affirm that the Office of the Prosecutor will scrutinize Israel’s crimes during its unprovoked military offensive in August 2022;
Urgently expedite the ICC investigation into the Situation of Palestine, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution; and
Issue preventive statements to deter Israel’s crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu is assembling “Israel’s most extreme right-wing government to date,” attorney Diana Buttu, former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization, wrote Tuesday in an op-ed in The New York Times.

Netanyahu’s government will likely be receptive to Smotrich’s suggestion to persecute Palestinian human rights organizations even more severely than the prior government that designated them “terrorist” and shut down their offices.

Washington Pressure

U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid in Jerusalem in July. (White House, Adam Schultz)

Moreover, the chief enabler of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, the U.S. government — which annually provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid — is implicitly exerting pressure on Khan to drag his feet on the ICC investigation of Israeli crimes.

When U.S. President Joe Biden visited Jerusalem in July, he and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid concluded an agreement affirming they would “continue to work together to combat all efforts . . . to unfairly single [Israel] out in any forum including at the United Nations or the International Criminal Court.”

Although the United States refuses to join the ICC, it has consistently tried to undermine it, expressing “serious concerns about the ICC’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel.”

But on March 15, 100 U.S. senators (who find it difficult to agree on anything) unanimously passed SR 546, which “encourages member states to petition the ICC or other appropriate international tribunal to take any appropriate steps to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Russian Armed Forces.”

To Palestinians and their allies, U.S. hypocrisy is palpable. The United States selectively criticizes some countries (such as Russia and China) for their human rights violations but pointedly ignores Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and its commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people.

Opponents of Israel’s crimes should register their strong opposition to the United States’ enabling of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians — both to their congress members and to the White House.

As long as the U.S. government receives no significant pushback, it will continue to facilitate Israel’s illegal occupation and violate the human rights of the Palestinian people. People can also join the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues. She is co-host of “Law and Disorder” radio.

This article is from Truthoutand reprinted with permission.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

Vermont's First Trans Lawmaker Gets Engaged at Rainbow-Lit White House

Vermont state Rep. Taylor Small said she wants her engagement to her partner, Carsen Russell, to show queer people that they can find the same joy

Published December 16, 2022

Courtesy Rep. Taylor Small
Vermont Rep. Taylor Small got engaged to her partner, Carsen Russell (left), after the Respect for Marriage Act signing at the White House on Tuesday.

Vermont Rep. Taylor Small, the state’s first transgender lawmaker, got engaged to her partner, Carsen Russell, while the White House was lit with rainbow lights on Tuesday.

The two traveled to the nation’s capital to attend the signing ceremony for the Respect for Marriage Act, a federal bill that will provide additional protection for same-sex marriages.

As the event was wrapping up, Russell said he asked Small if she wanted to take a photo. Then he got down on one knee. “I was just like, ‘I want to spend my life with you, and will you marry me?’” Russell told NBC News on Friday in a joint interview with Small.

Small recalled saying yes “immediately.”

Small, who was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives in 2020 and re-elected in November, said it was a “full-circle” moment for the couple, who met in Vermont’s capital, Montpelier, in December 2017 at a drag show.

WUHAN THE NEW BENGAZI
Top House intel Republican says committee will subpoena intel community over COVID origins

BY KATHRYN WATSON, GRACE KAZARIAN
UPDATED ON: DECEMBER 16, 2022 /

The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee says Republicans will issue subpoenas to the intelligence community to gather information about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

GOP Rep. Mike Turner told CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge that Republicans plan to examine the intelligence behind the virus' origins, which they are not currently able to access. Republicans this week released a report on the intelligence community's look at the pandemic's origins this week. Democratic investigators on the committee also released their own report alleging that intelligence agencies may have lost a key opportunity to determine the virus' origins by not securing resources earlier.

"We will be issuing subpoenas on these materials and on this information," Turner told Herridge during the interview, which aired Friday on CBS News. He said Republicans on the committee are interested in the information that formed the basis of the intelligence community's report on COVID-19, which was divided on the virus' origins.

"When the Biden administration's report was issued from the intelligence community, in group, we asked, 'Show us the information that you looked at that substantiates your conclusions and your assessment,'" Turner said.

All of the agencies agreed that there were two possible hypotheses – natural exposure to an infected animal or a laboratory-associated incident.

Republicans will have subpoena power after they take the House in January, and Turner will likely be the committee's chairman. Republicans are planning to hold hearings on the pandemic's origins, some of which Turner said won't be public.

On the topic of Russia's war on Ukraine, Turner said Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be "doubled down" rather than reaching a breaking point, with no intention of changing course. Turner believes Russia will recover some of its strength and resources over the winter.

Putin is "not going to just look at the failure that's happening in Ukraine and change at all," Turner said. After the winter, Turner predicted, Putin "will have regrouped — he will have ... replenished his military, and the conflict will probably continue."

Herridge asked whether the risk of nuclear war is increasing, given the Russian military's recent release of a video depicting a possible intercontinental ballistic missile being primed.

"I think it's been high and constant," Turner responded. "And this is this is a thing that I believe needs to to change our policy and European policy as we go into the next year." He said that the U.S. and allies had wanted "to be hesitant to deploy missile defense technology" in order to maintain a stance of deterrence.

Turner said the U.S. and Europe need to step up to deploy missile defense technology to protect the West and the U.S.

The interview took place on "Weekender," which airs Friday on the CBS News Streaming network.