MONTES, ASSANGE, MANNING, SNOWDEN

Cuba spy Ana Belen Montes released after 20 years behind bars


An undated handout image shows Ana Belen Montes receiving a national intelligence certificate of distinction from George Tenet

Fri, January 6, 2023 

(Reuters) - Ana Belen Montes, one of the highest-ranking U.S. officials ever proven to have spied for Cuba, has been released from prison early, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons confirmed Friday, after she spent more than two decades behind bars.

Montes, 65, had in 2002 pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage after she was accused of using her leading position as a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) official to leak information, including identities of some U.S. spies, to Havana.

Aged 45, she was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

A U.S. citizen of Puerto Rican descent, Montes began working for the DIA in 1985 and rapidly climbed its ranks to become the agency's top Cuba analyst.

Prosecutors said during this time Montes received coded messages from Havana over a short-wave radio as strings of numbers, which she would type onto a decryption-equipped laptop to translate to text.

She was accused of supplying the identity of four U.S. spies to Cuba, as well as other classified information.

Montes was arrested on Sept. 21, 2001, shortly before the United States invaded Afghanistan. Her lawyer, a leading espionage specialist, had argued she had cooperated without reservation.

At her sentencing a year later, Montes argued that she had obeyed her conscience and that U.S. policy to Cuba was cruel and unfair. "I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it," she said.

Ricardo Urbina, the sentencing judge, ruled she put fellow U.S. citizens and the "nation as a whole" at risk.

On her release from prison, Urbino had ordered Montes should be placed under supervision for five years, with her internet access monitored and a ban from working for governments and contacting foreign agents without permission.

Under President Joe Biden, the United States has eased some sanctions on Cuba but maintained its Cold War-era embargo on the island and stepped up restrictions on illegal migrants, arriving in record levels amid raging inflation and medicine shortages.

(Reporting by Sarah Morland and Eric Beech; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

ONE OF MANY
Military Investigation Reveals How the U.S. Botched a Drone Strike in Kabul

Azmat Khan
Fri, January 6, 2023

Relatives and neighbors on Aug. 30, 2021, at the site of a U.S. drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 civilians. (Jim Huylebroek/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — In the chaotic final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, U.S. military analysts observed a white Toyota Corolla stop at what they believed was an Islamic State compound.

The Americans were already on edge. Three days earlier, a suicide bomber had killed scores of Afghans and 13 U.S. troops at a main gate of the Kabul airport. Now, officials had intelligence that there would be another attack there, and that it would involve a white Corolla.

They tracked the car around Kabul for the next several hours. After it pulled into a gated courtyard near the airport, they authorized a drone strike. Hours later, U.S. officials announced they had successfully thwarted an attack.

As reports of civilian deaths surfaced later that day, they issued statements saying they had “no indications” but would assess the claims and were investigating whether a secondary explosion may have killed civilians.

But portions of a U.S. Central Command investigation obtained by The New York Times show that military analysts reported within minutes of the strike that civilians may have been killed, and within three hours had assessed that at least three children were killed.

The documents also provide detailed examples of how assumptions and biases led to the deadly blunder.

Military analysts wrongly concluded, for example, that a package loaded into the car contained explosives because of its “careful handling and size,” and that the driver’s “erratic route” was evidence that he was trying to evade surveillance.

The investigation was completed a week and a half after the strike and was never released, but the Times has obtained 66 partially redacted pages of it through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against Central Command.

Central Command declined to provide additional comment beyond statements it had previously made about the strike. The Pentagon previously acknowledged that the strike was a “tragic mistake” that killed 10 civilians, and told the Times that a new action plan intended to protect civilians drew on lessons learned from the incident.

Among those killed was Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime aid worker and the driver of the car.

Responding to a description of the document released to the Times, Hina Shamsi, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing families of victims, said the investigation “makes clear that military personnel saw what they wanted to see and not reality, which was an Afghan aid worker going about his daily life.”

The Attack

On Aug. 29, 2021, an American MQ-9 Reaper drone shot a Hellfire missile at a white Toyota Corolla in a neighborhood near the Kabul airport.

Within 20 minutes, multiple military officials and members of the strike team learned that analysts had seen possible civilian casualties in video feeds, according to their sworn statements for the investigation.

Two to three hours after the attack, analysts who had reviewed the footage frame by frame assessed that three children had been killed. An officer then shared that information with two top commanders in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, the ground force commander, and Rear Adm. Peter G. Vasely.

In sworn statements, six of nine witnesses described learning immediately after the strike that civilians were in the area and may have been killed.

Later that day, Central Command said in a statement that officials were “assessing the possibilities of civilian casualties” but had “no indications at this time.”

An update several hours later noted that powerful subsequent explosions may have caused civilian casualties but did not mention that analysts had already assessed three children were killed.

Three days later, Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the strike was “righteous” and had killed an Islamic State facilitator as well as “others,” but who they were, “we don’t know. We’ll try to sort through all of that.”

Over the next several weeks, Pentagon officials continued to say that an Islamic State target was killed in the strike, even as evidence mounted to the contrary.

On Sept. 10, a Times investigation based on video evidence and interviews with more than a dozen of Ahmadi’s co-workers and family members in Kabul found no evidence that explosives were present in the vehicle.

Ahmadi, who worked as an electrical engineer for a California-based aid group, had spent the day picking up his employer’s laptop, taking colleagues to and from work and loading canisters of water into his trunk to bring home to his family.

Officials insisted that their target had visited an Islamic State “safe house,” but the Times found that the building was actually the home of Ahmadi’s boss, whose laptop he was picking up.

A week after the Times investigation was published, military officials acknowledged that 10 civilians had been killed and that Ahmadi posed no threat and had no connection to the Islamic State.

Tracking a White Toyota

A subsequent review led by the Air Force inspector general, Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said, remains classified. But the general acknowledged that confirmation bias — a tendency to look for, analyze or remember information in a way that supports an existing belief — was an important factor in how Ahmadi became a target.

The documents obtained by the Times offer specific examples of how confirmation bias led to errors, including the military’s conclusion that the car it was looking for was the one Ahmadi was driving.

According to the documents, U.S. intelligence reports on Aug. 29 indicated that an Islamic State affiliate known as ISIS-K was planning an imminent attack on the airport that could involve suicide bombers, “rockets on timers” in the back of a vehicle, and a white Toyota Corolla.

Surveillance aircraft began tracking the white Corolla that Ahmadi was driving after it stopped at an “established ISIS-K compound.” Drones followed the car to “a second building,” where they observed Ahmadi as he “carefully loaded” a “package” into the trunk. Analysts assessed the package to be explosives “based on the careful handling and size of the material.”

Over the next several hours, analysts watched as the car made stops and dropped off “adult males,” some of whom were carrying “bags or other box-shaped objects.” At one point, an analyst described how the car was “gingerly loaded with a box carried by five adult males.”

The investigation notes the car’s other movements that day, including that it entered a mall parking garage, that “bags” and “jugs” were unloaded from the trunk, and that it stopped at a Taliban checkpoint.

Analysts said the car followed an “erratic route” that was “consistent with ISIS-K directives to avoid close circuit cameras and pre-attack posture historically demonstrated by the group.”

By the time the car pulled into an open-air garage at a house enclosed by “high walls” about 1 mile from the airport, military officials were ready to authorize the strike.

A man who was seen opening and closing the gate for the car was also assessed to be a part of the threat. “I personally believed this to be a likely staging location and the moving personnel to likely be a part of the overall attack plot,” one official recounted to investigators. “That was my perception, and it was largely based on both someone immediately shutting the gate behind the vehicle and someone running in the courtyard.”

At this point, new intelligence indicated the airport attack would be delayed until the following day, according to one of the investigation’s interviewees, but military personnel were concerned that they could lose the target.

Thinking that the walls would limit the blast radius from reaching pedestrians on the street, the strike team launched a Hellfire missile at the vehicle. Shortly after impact, witnesses said they saw large secondary explosions, which helped confirm investigators’ belief that the vehicle contained explosives.

But the documents present a less definitive understanding of the source of the secondary explosion. “Conflicting opinions from experts regarding the secondary explosion makes it inconclusive regarding the source of the flame seen after the strike,” according to the report’s findings, which recommended further investigation.

Footage of the minutes after the strike obtained by the Times shows a fireball from the blast, which expands several seconds later. On Sept. 17, after additional review, military officials said the explosion was probably a propane or gas tank.

The investigation refers to an additional surveillance drone not under military control that was also tracking the vehicle but does not specify what it observed. The Times confirmed that the drone was operated by the CIA and observed children, possibly in the car, moments before impact, as CNN had reported.

The military investigation includes recommendations for better coordination, but the documents do not mention that the CIA drone observed children before impact.

“When confirmation bias was so deadly in this case, you have to ask how many other people targeted by the military over the years were also unjustly killed,” Shamsi said.

The investigation noted that a rocket attack at the airport did occur the next day, about 200 meters from the supposed “ISIS compound” where Ahmadi first stopped — the event that triggered the initial surveillance. Times journalists identified the car from which the rockets were launched as a white Toyota.

A year later, in August 2022, the Pentagon announced a plan for preventing civilian deaths in U.S. military operations that includes imposing a new system to reduce the risk of confirmation bias and misidentifying targets.

The Pentagon is still developing the policy, which incorporates training on mitigating cognitive bias and creates “civilian harm assessment cells.” It will also give the U.S. military more ways to respond to victims, in addition to condolence payments to survivors and family members of those harmed.

None of Ahmadi’s surviving relatives have received monetary assistance from the U.S. government as a result of the strike.

One of Ahmadi’s brothers, Emal Ahmadi, whose toddler Malika was also killed in the strike, arrived in the United States last week.

“I thought the U.S. government would welcome us, meet with us,” he said. “We are waiting for them.”

© 2023 The New York Times Company

As young Gazans die at sea, anger rises over leaders' travel






Palestinian women weep during the funeral of Mohammed al-Shaer, one of eight Palestinians who drowned off the coast of Tunisia, in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022. As a rising number of Gazans are drowning in the sea en route to a better life in Europe, Gaza's Hamas rulers are moving to comfortable life in upscale Middle East hotels, prompted a rare outpouring of anger at home, where the economy collapses and 2.3 million people remain effectively trapped in the tiny, conflict-scarred territory. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair, File)

FARES AKRAM and ISABEL DEBRE
Thu, January 5, 2023


JERUSALEM (AP) — Khaled Shurrab had been waiting more than half his life to get out of Gaza.

The 27-year-old had never left the coastal enclave, which has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since 2007. He couldn’t find a job — the territory’s youth unemployment rate is over 60%. Like a growing number of Gazans, he packed his life into a suitcase and eventually made it to Turkey, where he set out on a treacherous sea voyage to Greece last October. When his rickety boat went down, his body disappeared into the sea.

A rising number of Gazans, seeking better lives abroad, are drowning at sea. The devastating procession has prompted a rare outpouring of anger against the territory’s militant Hamas rulers, a number of whom are making their own — very different — exodus.

In recent months, high-profile Hamas officials have quietly decamped to upscale hotels in Beirut, Doha and Istanbul, stirring resentment among residents who see them as leading luxurious lives abroad while the economy collapses at home and 2.3 million Gazans remain effectively trapped in the tiny, conflict-scarred territory. Four wars against Israel and dozens of smaller skirmishes over the years have taken their toll in casualties, damage and isolation.

Israel and Egypt say the tight movement restrictions are needed to keep Hamas from stockpiling more weapons. Critics say the blockade amounts to collective punishment, as residents grapple with daily blackouts and routine shortages of basic goods.

“I blame the rulers here, the government of Gaza,” said Shurrab’s mother, Um Mohammed, from her home in the southern town of Khan Younis. Her son’s body was never recovered from the Aegean Sea. “They live in luxury while our children eat dirt, migrate and die abroad.”

Hamas says the leaders who have left plan on returning. Yet the string of exits keeps growing.

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh relocated to Qatar, an energy-rich Gulf state, with his wife and several children in 2019. Political leader Fathi Hamad moved to Istanbul a year ago and frequently flies to Beirut, Lebanon's capital, where media reports have shown him in meetings at a five-star hotel.

Deputy leader Khalil al-Hayya also relocated to Turkey last year, according to news reports, including Hamas outlets that highlighted some of his travels. Since then, he has paid only two short visits to Gaza.

Former government spokesman Taher Nounou and leader Ibrahim Salah moved to Doha, the Qatari capital. Senior member Salah al-Bardawil, spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri and dozens of aides also have resettled in Doha, Istanbul, or Beirut, according to Hamas media reports and official statements.

Turkey in particular has long been a favorite destination for Hamas leaders and supporters because of the country’s lenient visa policies toward members of what the United States and Europe consider a terrorist organization.

Several children of Hamas leaders are running lucrative real estate businesses for their parents in Istanbul, according to a Palestinian businessman familiar with their enterprises. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Azmi Keshawi, Gaza analyst at the International Crisis Group, said that the movement of officials abroad has in some cases helped the group coordinate its operations with key patrons outside the territory. But he said Hamas nonetheless has a growing image problem at home.

“Ordinary Palestinians see that Hamas has gone from this humble Palestinian leadership who lived and struggled among the people to living in these comfortable zones where they are no longer suffering and seem far from the Palestinian cause and issues,” he said. “Definitely people talk about this and draw comparisons in anger.”

Wary of public backlash, Hamas does not comment on reports about its leaders leaving Gaza. As social media fills with revelations, it casts leaders' stays abroad as temporary foreign tours aimed at drumming up support. Some of these tours last for years.

Public outrage erupted last month at a mass funeral for young Gazans who drowned en route to Europe. Distraught families blamed Hamas for contributing to the collapse and chaos of Gazan life and accused the Islamic militant group of nepotism and corruption.

Mourners shouted the names of leaders including Haniyeh and Yehiyeh Sinwar, Hamas’ current leader in Gaza, and chanted, "People are the victims!”

Such defiance is rare as Hamas moves to quash nearly all hints of dissent — though it remains the most popular group in its Gaza stronghold.

A recent poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 43% of residents of Gaza would support the group if parliamentary elections were held, compared to 30% for the rival Fatah movement. The figures were nearly identical to support levels three months earlier.

The poll, conducted in December, questioned a total of 1,200 people in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank on a range of issues, and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Still, more Gazans appear to be risking everything to get out.

A report issued in November by the Council on International Relations-Palestine, a Hamas-affiliated think tank, said 60,000 young people have left Gaza in recent years.

It blamed Israel, saying “the policies of occupation and siege” have "turned the life of Gazans into unbearable hell.” The report was the first semi-official data on emigration. It did not say how the data was compiled.

Some who leave seek job opportunities in wealthy Gulf Arab states. Many, like Shurrab, fly to Turkey and attempt the perilous sea voyage to Europe in hopes of getting asylum.

Two shipwrecks in October alone made 2022 the deadliest at sea for Gazan migrants in eight years, according to rights groups. Shurrab is among 360 Gazans who have drowned or disappeared at sea since 2014, according to the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

Despite the risks, Khaled Moharreb is still contemplating the dangerous sea route. After earning a nursing diploma two years ago, the 22-year-old said he has been unable to find a job.

“I want to travel and build my life," he said. "Anything outside is better than this place where you can not do anything and where the government is indifferent."

Without directly mentioning Hamas, he said he blames “those who control and run the country” for the lack of job opportunities.

Hamas has offered no apologies. Atef Adwan, a Hamas lawmaker, recently denounced those who attempt to flee to Europe as making a perverse pilgrimage to a land of “deterioration and regression.”

Migration has long carried stigma among Palestinians, who have fought for decades to stay on their land. Haniyeh’s roots in a crowded Gaza City refugee camp are a core part of his political identity.

Amid growing scrutiny, Hamas issued an unusual statement last year announcing the return of three top officials — al-Hayyah, al-Zahar and Salah — to Gaza, reassuring the public that they “did not flee.”

Yet just two months later, news trickled out in Hamas media that al-Hayyah and Salah were on new “foreign tours” in Qatar and Iran.

___

Akram reported from Hamilton, Ontario.

New RIGHT WING Israeli government takes steps to penalize Palestinians


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023, in Jerusalem. (Atef Safadi/Pool Photo via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)


ISABEL DEBRE
Fri, January 6, 2023

JERUSALEM (AP) — In some of its first acts since coming to power, Israel's new Security Cabinet approved a series of punitive steps against the Palestinian leadership, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Friday.

According to a statement from Netanyahu's office, the move is in retaliation for Palestinians pushing the U.N.'s highest judicial body to give its opinion on the Israeli occupation. The Palestinians vowed to continue their diplomatic efforts despite the Israeli new measures.

The development underscores the hard-line approach to the Palestinians that Israel's new ultranationalist government has promised at a time of rising violence in the occupied territories.

It comes a week after the United Nations General Assembly voted to approve a resolution requesting that the International Court of Justice intervene and render an opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem.

Israel's Security Cabinet described the Palestinian Authority's request to the U.N. as a “decision to wage political and legal war against the State of Israel.”

"The current government will not sit idly by in the face of this war and will respond as necessary," it said.

In response, the Security Cabinet, packed with Netanyahu's far-right and religiously conservative allies, decided Israel would withhold $39 million from the Palestinian Authority and transfer the funds instead to a compensation program for the families of Israeli victims of Palestinian militant attacks.

It also said Israel would further deduct revenue it typically transfers to the cash-strapped PA — a sum equal to the amount the authority paid last year to families of Palestinian prisoners and those killed in the conflict, including militants implicated in attacks against Israelis. The Palestinian leadership describes the payments as necessary social welfare, while Israel says the so-called Martyrs’ Fund incentivizes violence. Israel's withheld funds threaten to exacerbate the PA's fiscal woes.

The Security Cabinet also targeted Palestinian officials directly, saying it would deny benefits to “VIPs who are leading the political and legal war against Israel.” Top PA officials receive Israeli permits that allow them to travel easily in and out of the occupied West Bank, unlike ordinary Palestinians.

“Israeli blackmailing of our tax revenues will not stop us from continuing our political and diplomatic struggle,” said Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh. He added that the Israeli measures will deepen the Palestinian financial crisis and budget shortfall.

Other measures announced Friday focused on the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. Through decades of failed peace talks, Israel has controlled the territory, which Palestinians have long demanded as part of their hoped-for state.

Israel's new far-right government has vowed to prioritize the expansion of settlements and legalize illegally built outposts. Already, Israel has constructed dozens of Jewish settlements home to around 500,000 Israelis who live alongside around 2.5 million Palestinians.

The Security Cabinet, a small group of high-level ministers who answer directly to the prime minister, also said it would freeze Palestinian construction in Area C, the 60% of the West Bank where, under interim peace accords, Israel already exercises complete control. Area C includes the settlements, as well as rural areas that are home to some 300,000 Palestinians, according to the U.N.

The final step detailed by the government Friday involves taking unspecified “action” against organizations in the West Bank that “promote terrorist activity or any hostile activity." That includes groups carrying out “political and legal action against Israel under the guise of humanitarian work,” it said.

Exactly what groups could be targeted remain unclear. Over a year ago, Israel designated six major Palestinian rights watchdogs as terrorist organizations, and raided and shuttered their offices last summer. The Palestinian groups rejected the allegations and the move drew widespread international condemnation.

___

Associated Press writers Isaac Scharf in Jerusalem and Fares Akram in Hamilton, Ontario, contributed to this report.

THE FIFTY FIRST STATE
Biden faces Israel quandary with new Netanyahu government




MATTHEW LEE
Fri, January 6, 2023 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government is little more than a week old but it's already giving the Biden administration headaches.

Just days into its mandate, a controversial member of Netanyahu’s right-wing Cabinet riled U.S. diplomats with a visit to a Jerusalem holy site that some believe may be harbinger of other contentious moves, including vast expansions of Jewish settlement construction on land claimed by the Palestinians.

And, Netanyahu's government adopted punitive measures against the Palestinians that run in direct opposition to several recent Biden moves to boost U.S.-Palestinian relations, including restoring assistance to the Palestinian Authority that had been cut during the Trump administration and allowing Palestinian officials to visit the United States.

The new government is an unwelcome complication for a Biden national security team seeking to shift attention away from the Middle East and toward rivals like China and Russia. It also comes as Republicans take control of the House of Representatives and are eager to cast Biden as unfriendly to Israel ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Bracing for more turmoil, Biden is dispatching his national security adviser to Israel in mid-January in a bid to forestall potentially deepening rifts between his administration and its top Mideast partner. That visit by Jake Sullivan may be followed by other high-level trips to Israel, including one by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to administration officials.

Their message goes beyond warnings about inflaming tensions with Palestinians: It's also about not cozying up with Russia, particularly now that Moscow is relying on Israel's main enemy, Iran, in its war on Ukraine; and not upsetting the delicate Middle East security balance.

Since Netanyahu won hotly contested elections last year with huge support from the Israeli right, U.S. officials have sought to tamp down predictions of a collision course, saying they will judge his government on actions rather than personalities. Biden himself spoke of his years-long relationship with Netanyahu.

“I look forward to working with Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been my friend for decades, to jointly address the many challenges and opportunities facing Israel and the Middle East region, including threats from Iran,” Biden said when Netanyahu took office Dec. 29.

Yet while Biden and Netanyahu have known each other for years, they are not close. Biden and former Obama administration officials who now work for Biden still harbor resentment toward the prime minister who, during his previous iteration as Israel’s leader, sought to derail their signature foreign policy achievement: the Iran nuclear deal.

Still, the administration is signaling it will engage with Netanyahu while avoiding more extreme members of his government. That approach wouldn't be unprecedented in the region: The U.S. deals with Lebanon's government while shunning members from the Hezbollah movement, a designated foreign terrorist organization that is nonetheless a domestic political power. But, it would be remarkable for the U.S. to take a similar approach with such a close ally.

“We will be dealing directly with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said this week when asked about possible contacts with Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's, whose visit to the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary prompted a major outcry.

The inclusion of Ben-Gvir, a West Bank settler leader, and other extreme right-wing figures in Netanyahu’s government who are hostile to the Palestinians and opposed to a two-state resolution has put Israel and the United States on opposite paths.

On Thursday, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, at an emergency meeting of the Security Council called by Arab states to condemn Ben-Gvir's holy site visit, underscored Biden's firm support for “the historic status quo,” especially the “Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount.”

Wood noted that Netanyahu had pledged to preserve the status quo — “We expect the government of Israel to follow through on that commitment,” he said — and stressed that the administration placed a priority on preserving the possibility of a two-state solution.

But on Friday, Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet approved a series of punitive steps against the Palestinian leadership in retaliation for the Palestinians pushing the U.N.’s highest judicial body to give an opinion on the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Those moves underscored the hardline approach to the Palestinians that Netanyahu's government has promised at a time of rising violence in the occupied territories.

The Security Cabinet decided to withhold millions of dollars from the Palestinian Authority and transfer those funds to a compensation program for the families of Israeli victims of Palestinian militant attacks. And, it will deny benefits, including travel permits, to Palestinian officials who "are leading the political and legal war against Israel.”

Meanwhile, Biden's administration is moving in a diametrically opposed direction. Since taking office, the administration has reversed the Trump ban on aid and provided more than $800 million in economic, development, security, and other assistance to the Palestinians and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

In the fall, the State Department obtained a Justice Department opinion that allows Palestinian officials to visit the United States and spend money in the U.S. despite laws barring such travel and transactions and a Supreme Court ruling that Congress has an enforceable role in the foreign policy process.

The administration “may reasonably assess that being prevented from hosting the PLO delegation in Washington would seriously impair the president’s diplomatic efforts,” the Justice Department said in a little-noticed Oct. 28th opinion.

Then, exactly one week before Netanyahu took office in late December, the State Department imposed but immediately waived terrorism sanctions against the Palestinian leadership, saying engagement with the Palestinians is a critical U.S. national security interest.

On Dec. 22, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman notified Congress that she had imposed travel bans on senior leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization because they “are not in compliance” with requirements to tamp down and publicly condemn terrorist attacks against Israelis.

But, in the same notification, the State Department said Sherman had waived the travel bans “based on her determination that such a waiver is in the national security interests of the United States.”

“An enduring and comprehensive peace between Israel and the Palestinians remains a longstanding goal of U.S. foreign policy,” the department said. “A blanket denial of visas to PLO members and PA officials, to include those whose travel to the United States to advance U.S. goals and objectives, is not consistent with the U.S. government’s expressed willingness to partner with the PLO and PA leadership.”

Despite a more-than-$3 billion annual assistance package to Israel and diplomatic backing in international forums, U.S. sway with Netanyahu appears limited.

The Biden administration has not yet followed through on its pledge to re-open the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, which had historically served as the main contact point with the Palestinians, and it has made no move to re-open the Palestinian embassy in Washington. Both facilities were shut down during the Trump administration.

Alon Liel, a former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said further U.S. rapprochement with Palestinians may be the only way to influence Netanyahu. “If they really want to inflict pressure (on Israel), Biden tomorrow should say in the coming months, we will consider reopening the Palestinian embassy in Washington. Then they will see the earth shaking here,” Liel said.

“But there is no sign of that,” he said. “As long as they say, ‘We’re worried about your democracy,’ those words are meaningless because there were so many words. There’s nothing behind the words.”

___

Laurie Kellman contributed from Jerusalem.

Netanyahu’s ‘Big Lie’ Will End Rule of Law in Israel


Noga Tarnopolsky

The Daily Beast
Thu, January 5, 2023



JERUSALEM—Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, who is on trial for corruption, ended his first week back in office embroiled in two new legal entanglements of his own creation.

On Thursday at the Supreme Court, he was forced to defend appointing a convicted tax fraud to two key posts, that of minister of interior and of minister of health.

A few hours earlier, across a Jerusalem rose garden at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Netanyahu’s justice minister announced a colossal judicial overhaul widely viewed as an attempt to overthrow Israel’s system of government, and save Netanyahu’s skin.


Former prime minister Ehud Barak, an opponent of Netanyahu, told The Daily Beast that the judicial reform was “a big lie covering up régime change.”

“He is trying to blackmail the country with threats to save himself from trial,” Barak said, adding that “it’s a straight line from [Al] Capone to where we are today.”

In an assessment echoed in some Israeli political and legal spheres, Haaretz, a liberal daily, declared that Netanyahu’s “judicial reform” amounted to “a régime coup in prime-time.”

Enacting the new judicial review, Haaretz’s political analyst wrote, will result “in a government without any checks and balances, morals or reins, that will do anything and everything that crosses its crude mind.”

In a speech on Wednesday night, Netanyahu himself said he would undertake a “fundamental revision” of all the powers of government.

Israel Is Now a Province of Red State America

Justice Minister, Yariv Levin, said that an urgent correction was necessary after years of “rampant judicial overreach.”

“There are not only judges in Jerusalem,” Levin said, reaching for a Biblical phrase, “but the Knesset is here, too.”

At the heart of Israel’s crisis is the fate of an indicted prime minister, in the midst of a trial, whose hold on power depends on a coalition with another party leader, Aryeh Deri, a convicted criminal, who served two years in jail for corruption in the early 2000s. He was also convicted of tax fraud in February, 2022, and escaped jail as part of a plea deal in which he committed to remaining out of public life.

“The problem is the Knesset is granting itself unlimited power,” said Amir Fuchs, a professor of law affiliated with the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent Jerusalem think tank.

The result of Netanyahu’s proposed reforms would grant a simple majority of 61 out of the Knesset’s 120 members almost absolute power, with no judicial review.

Thursday’s fiery Supreme Court hearing, with an unusually large panel of eleven justices helmed by Chief Justice Esther Hayut, addressed multiple petitions against Deri’s appointment to the top jobs of interior minister and health minister.

“I think we need violence,” said Oren Moda’i, 62, a techie who took a day off work on Thursday to join a few hundred protesters outside the court. “We have no other recourse. Not murder, not that kind of violence, but breaking storefronts like the ‘gilets jaunes’ did in France. The problem is, the opposition has no leadership.”

Former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, the opposition leader, left for a weekend in Paris on Thursday morning, to significant criticism from his camp. He said on Wednesday night that the government, “like a gang of crooks,” had “put a loaded gun on the table. Yariv Levin did not propose reform, but a threat. They threaten to destroy the entire constitutional structure of the State of Israel.”

A major anti-government rally is scheduled for Saturday night, in Tel Aviv.

Among the reforms announced in a hurried last-minute press conference held on the eve of the Supreme Court’s hearing Thursday is a law allowing a parliamentary majority to overrule supreme court decisions, and another eliminating the “reasonability standard,” Israel's version of a court ruling determining unconstitutionality.

Under current Israeli law, for example, the courts can disqualify as “unreasonable” any law that violates basic rights, such segregation among school children.

The coalition agreements underpinning Netanyahu’s new coalition, which includes radical extremists and religious nationalists, contain a U.S.-inspired “discrimination law” which would explicitly allow businesses and physicians to refuse service to individuals who offend their religious beliefs.

In addition, Levin—in office under a week—announced his intention to transform the Judicial Selection Committee into a largely political entity, convert ministries legal counsels (currently career civil servants) into political appointments and pass yet another law, precluding the supreme court from striking down Basic Laws, Israel’s constitutional foundations.

Netanyahu’s new coalition numbers 64 members, a majority of whom serve in double roles, as legislators and as ministers or officials of the executive branch. It is a position to pass the proposed changes into law within weeks.

Despite his victory in the November, 2022 election, Netanyahu risks losing public support over the radical changes proposed by his cabinet, which are rejected by a solid majority of Israelis. Sixty-four percent expect street demonstrations to take hold against the government.

In a Twitter Space late Wednesday night, Professor Ido Baum, Director of the Brandeis Institute for Society Economy, and Democracy near Tel Aviv, said that Netanyahu's judicial revolution “will amount to nothing less than a coup d'état. Poland and Hungary will be here. It will transform Israel’s DNA from its foundations.”

Netanyahu’s Right-Wing Blitz Is the ‘Most Corrupt’ Day in Israeli History

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Fuchs said the outcome of Netanyahu’s reforms “is that the majority coalition will be able to do what it wants, turning Israel into a questionable, illiberal democracy like what you see in Poland and in Hungary, in which the only remaining safeguard is a majority of the public, public opposition. The courts will no longer be able to protect LGBTQ rights, for example. The public will have to express its opinion.”

Fuchs said Israel’s future if the reform passes was akin to “mob rule. Absolute majority rule. A hollowed-out democracy with elections as its only defining characteristic.”

Under Israeli law, a minister, if indicted on criminal charges—cannot remain in post. Netanyahu retained his ability to serve as prime minister by arguing the role of prime minister differed essentially from the role of minister, granting him a loophole, but he remains liable to charges of conflict of interest due to his trial and involvement in the judicial review.

In a second phase of reforms, Levin is expected to create a new position, that of a public prosecutor who could decide no longer to pursue Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial, and to decriminalize fraud and breach of trust, two of the three charges for which he was indicted, along with bribery.

“We are in a state of emergency—Netanyahu has to decide if he wants to break the rules of the game or preserve the State of Israel,” said Benny Gantz, the head of another opposition party, who said the “state of emergency” triggered by the announced judicial reform demanded the formation of a committee composed of coalition and opposition legislators.

The secret ingredient in Roman concrete that means buildings can last for millennia

Sarah Knapton
Fri, January 6, 2023

The Pantheon - Loop Images

The durability of Roman concrete, which has allowed structures such as the Pantheon in Rome to remain standing for nearly 2,000 years, has long baffled experts.

But scientists now believe they have rediscovered a secret ingredient in the ancient recipe that makes the building material self-healing – quicklime.

Experts at MIT and Harvard have found that adding quicklime to the mix creates a super-hot chemical reaction that leaves calcium deposits peppered throughout the concrete.

Crucially, if cracks begin to appear at a later stage and water seeps through, it causes these calcium deposits to recrystallise into calcium carbonate, filling in the gaps. The reactions take place spontaneously, healing the cracks before they spread further and compromise the integrity of a structure.

It explains how the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome in the Pantheon, which was dedicated in 128AD, is still intact, while many modern concrete structures crumble after a few decades.

Some ancient concrete aqueducts still supply Rome with water, while large parts of Hadrian’s Wall, its core bolstered by ancient concrete, survive.

Pliny the Elder, writing in Naturalis Historia in 79AD, noted that concrete structures in harbours “become a single stone mass, impregnable to the waves, and every day stronger” despite being battered by seawater.

Hadrian’s Wall - Peter Mulligan/Getty Images Contributor

The new finding could enable modern engineers to build structures that can last millennia. It was made after experts started studying calcium deposits, known as lime clasts, in the ancient concrete. They had previously been disregarded as a product of sloppy mixing practices.

“The idea that the presence of these lime clasts was simply attributed to low quality control always bothered me,” said Admir Masic, a professor of civil and environmental engineering.

“If the Romans put so much effort into making an outstanding construction material, following all of the detailed recipes that had been optimised over the course of many centuries, why would they put so little effort into ensuring the production of a well-mixed final product? There has to be more to this story.”

To prove that the lime clasts were responsible for the durability, the team produced samples of hot-mixed concrete that incorporated both ancient and modern formulations, deliberately cracked them and then ran water through the cracks.

Within two weeks the cracks had completely healed and the water could no longer flow. An identical chunk of concrete made without quicklime never healed, and the water kept flowing through the sample.

The team is working to bring Roman concrete back as a commercial product.

“It’s exciting to think about how these more durable concrete formulations could expand not only the service life of these materials, but also how it could improve the durability of 3D-printed concrete formulations,” said Prof Masic.

The research was published in Science Advances.

India approves $2.3 billion to develop green hydrogen

Marking its biggest effort yet to make India a global hub for production, use and export of green hydrogen, the Indian federal government on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023, approved $2.3 billion funding with an aim to grow various segments of the green hydrogen sector in India. India hopes that this investment will abate 50 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)More

Thu, January 5, 2023

BENGALURU, India (AP) — The government has approved $2.3 billion to support production, use and exports of green hydrogen, aiming to make India a global hub for the nascent industry.

The funding, announced late Wednesday, i s a first step toward establishing the capacity to make at least 5 million metric tons of green hydrogen by the end of this decade.

Green hydrogen is hydrogen that is produced through the electrolysis of water, powered by electricity generated from renewable sources of energy. Most of the world’s hydrogen is produced using fossil fuels, especially natural gas.

The aim of the funding initiative is “to make green hydrogen affordable and bring down its cost over the next five years. It will also help India reduce its emissions and become a major exporter in the field,” said Anurag Thakur, India's minister for information and broadcasting.

He said the financing would also help add about 125 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2030. As of October, India had about 166 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity.

Other aims are to create more than a half million new jobs, attract more private investment into the sector, reduce fossil fuel imports and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 million metric tons.

Many of India’s leading renewable energy companies, including companies owned by the Adani Group, Reliance Industries and JSW Energy; public sector companies like Indian Oil and NTPC Limited; and renewable-only companies such as Renew power are investing in production of green hydrogen.

Green hydrogen now amounts to a small fraction of global hydrogen use, estimated to be about 70 million tons per year. Most commercially produced hydrogen is grey hydrogen, produced using fossil fuels, and blue hydrogen that is also made using fossil fuels but with the use of carbon capture systems to reduce emissions. The production of green hydrogen results in the emission of little to no greenhouse gases.

In providing policy incentives for green hydrogen production, India is following the lead of many other countries such as China, the European Union and the United States. Energy analysts expect manufacturing costs for green hydrogen to fall significantly in the next few years and estimate the green hydrogen market will grow 20-fold to $80 billion by the year 2030.

“A robust policy framework, requisite financial support and an enabling ecosystem for technology development are essential to displace the country’s conventional fuel mix with green hydrogen and enhance its industrial competitiveness in an increasingly decarbonizing world,” said Shreyans Jain, an India-based sustainable business strategy consultant who closely tracks developments in the green hydrogen industry.

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Follow Sibi Arasu on Twitter at @sibi123

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Factbox-From BlockFi to Genesis, crypto firms reel from exposure to FTX


Thu, January 5, 2023 

(Reuters) - After the collapse of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX, the industry has felt a ripple effect due to the exposure of many companies to FTX and its affiliated trading firm Alameda Research. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried on Jan. 3 pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that he cheated investors and caused billions of dollars in losses.

Here are some firms that have given information about their exposure to FTX.

BLOCKFI

BlockFi filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 28, weeks after the crypto lender said it was pausing client withdrawals. In July, FTX had signed a deal with an option to buy BlockFi for up to $240 million.

GENESIS

Genesis is working to preserve client assets and strengthen liquidity, it said in a letter to clients in December, adding that it would take "weeks rather than days" to form a plan.

The crypto lending arm of U.S. digital asset broker Genesis Trading suspended customer redemptions last month, citing the sudden failure of FTX.

Genesis said in a tweet on Nov. 10 that its derivatives business has approximately $175 million in locked funds on FTX.

However, Genesis had no material exposure to FTX's native token FTT, or any other tokens issued by centralized exchanges, the firm said in a tweet on Nov. 9.

BINANCE

Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao sparked concerns among investors on Nov. 6 when he said in a tweet that the crypto exchange would sell its holdings of FTT.

Zhao told a Twitter spaces event that Binance had previously held $580 million worth of FTT, of which "we only sold quite a small portion, we still hold a large bag."

Binance said on Nov. 13 that it had stopped accepting deposits of FTX's FTT token on its platform, urging other rival exchanges to do the same.

CELSIUS NETWORK

New York's attorney general filed a civil lawsuit accusing Celsius Network founder Alex Mashinsky of scheming to defraud hundreds of thousands of investors by inducing them to deposit billions of dollars in digital assets with his cryptocurrency company.

Between 2020 and 2022, under Mashinsky’s watch, Celsius made loans totaling roughly a billion dollars to Alameda Research, according to a filing.

COINBASE

Coinbase Global Inc said in a blog post on Nov. 8 that it had $15 million worth of deposits on FTX. It said it had no exposure to FTT or Alameda Research and no loans to FTX.

COINSHARES

Crypto asset manager CoinShares has $30.3 million worth of exposure to crypto exchange FTX, it said in a statement on Nov. 10.

CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti said the group's financial health remains "strong."

CRYPTO.COM

Singapore-based crypto exchange Crypto.com said on Nov. 14 it had moved about $1 billion to FTX over the course of a year, but most of it was recovered and exposure at the time of FTX's collapse was less than $10 million.

CEO Kris Marszalek said the firm would prove wrong all naysayers who thought the platform was in trouble, adding it had a robust balance sheet and took no risks.

GALAXY DIGITAL

Crypto financial services company Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd said in its third-quarter earnings statement on Nov. 9 - the day after FTX froze withdrawals - that it had $76.8 million worth of exposure to FTX, of which $47.5 million was "in the withdrawal process."

GALOIS CAPITAL

Hedge fund Galois Capital had half its assets trapped on FTX, co-founder Kevin Zhou told investors in a recent letter, the Financial Times reported on Nov. 11, estimating the amount to be around $100 million.

The firm on Nov. 13 confirmed that it had up to $45 million in exposure to the now collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Bloomberg News reported.

KRAKEN

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken said on Nov. 10 that it held about 9,000 FTT tokens on the FTX exchange and was not affected "in any material way".

SILVERGATE CAPITAL CORP

Silvergate Capital Corp reported a sharp drop in fourth-quarter crypto-related deposits as investors spooked by FTX's collapse pulled out more than $8 billion in deposits.

The company said on Nov. 11 FTX represented less than 10% of $11.9 billion in deposits from all digital asset customers as of Sept. 30.

The financial solutions provider to digital assets also said Silvergate has no outstanding loans or investments in FTX.

VOYAGER DIGITAL

Bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, which was set to sell its assets to FTX after a $1.42 billion deal bid by the exchange in September, had a balance of approximately $3 million at FTX.

GRAYSCALE

Crypto asset manager Grayscale, whose flagship Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) is the world's largest bitcoin fund, told investors that the recent market events have had no impact on its product operations or the security of the holdings in its funds.

(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft in London, Mehnaz Yasmin, Medha Singh Niket Nishant, and Manya Saini in Bengaluru and Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Jan Harvey and Matthew Lewis)

U.S. prosecutors launch website for Bankman-Fried alleged fraud victims

Fri, January 6, 2023 
By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government plans to launch a website for victims of FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried's alleged fraud to communicate with law enforcement.

In court papers filed on Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan for permission to use the website to notify victims, rather than contacting each individually.

FTX could owe money to more than 1 million people, making it "impracticable" to contact each, the papers said.

Federal law requires prosecutors to contact possible crime victims to inform them of their rights, including the rights to obtain restitution, be heard in court and be protected from defendants.

Kaplan has yet to rule on the request, but the website had gone live by Friday afternoon.

"If you believe that you may have been a victim of fraud by Samuel Bankman-Fried, A/K/A/ 'SBF,' please contact the victim/witness coordinator at the United States Attorney's office," the website read.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bankman-Fried, 30, has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of wire fraud and conspiracy over November's collapse of FTX.

Prosecutors have said he stole billions in FTX customer deposits to pay debts for his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and lied to investors about FTX's financial condition.

The onetime billionaire has acknowledged risk management shortcomings, but said he did not consider himself criminally liable.

Bankman-Fried's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York Editing by Leslie Adler)

Stellantis CEO warns of more auto plant closures

The logo of Stellantis is seen on a company's building in Velizy-Villacoublay near Paris

Thu, January 5, 2023 
By Joseph White and Aishwarya Nair

(Reuters) -Chrysler parent Stellantis NV Chief Executive Officer Carlos Tavares said on Thursday that more auto plant closures will happen if high prices for electric vehicles (EV) cause vehicle markets to shrink from pre-pandemic levels.

Automakers will risk losing pricing power as chip supplies recover, Tavares said at the CES technology trade show in Las Vegas.

The comments come as lack of affordability looms over the U.S. EV market at a time when top EV makers are raising prices amid high inflation.

More U.S. consumers want to buy an electric vehicle but are concerned about rising prices, a survey by consulting firm Deloitte showed on Wednesday.

"Nearly 7 in 10 prospective EV buyers in the United States expect to pay less than $50,000 for their next vehicle," according to the survey conducted between September and October 2022.

Stellantis said last month it would indefinitely idle an assembly plant in Belvidere, Illionois, citing high EV costs. Tavares told reporters said similar actions "will happen everywhere as long as we see high inflation of variable costs."

The auto industry must absorb 40% higher costs for EVs, he added.

The company had flagged that increasing costs related to the electrification of the automotive market as the most impactful challenge affecting the auto industry.

"If the market shrinks we don't need so many plants," Tavares said. "Some unpopular decisions will have to be made."

(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru and Joe White in Detroit; Editing by Rashmi Aich)