Biden faces dilemma in fight over large Alaska oil project


By BECKY BOHRER and MATTHEW BROWN

yesterday

This 2019 aerial photo provided by ConocoPhillips shows an exploratory drilling camp at the proposed site of the Willow oil project on Alaska's North Slope. The Biden administration is weighing approval of a major oil project on Alaska's petroleum-rich North Slope that supporters say represents an economic lifeline for Indigenous communities in the region but environmentalists say is counter to Biden's climate goals. A decision on ConocoPhillips Alaska's Willow project, in a federal oil reserve roughly the size of Indiana, could come by early March 2023. 

(ConocoPhillips via AP, File)

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Biden administration is weighing approval of a major oil project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope that supporters say represents an economic lifeline for Indigenous communities in the region but environmentalists say is counter to President Joe Biden’s climate goals.

A decision on ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project, in a federal oil reserve roughly the size of Indiana, could come by early March.

Q: What is the Willow project?

A: The project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, according to the company — about 1.5% of total U.S. oil production. But in Alaska, Willow represents the biggest oil field in decades. Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said the development could be “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history.”

On average, about 499,700 barrels of oil a day flow through the trans-Alaska pipeline, well below the late-1980s peak of 2.1 million barrels.

ConocoPhillips Alaska had proposed five drilling sites as part of the project. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management in early February identified up to three drill sites initially as a preferred alternative, which ConocoPhillips Alaska said it considered a viable option. But the U.S. Interior Department, which oversees the bureau, took the unusual step of issuing a separate statement expressing “substantial concerns” with the alternative and the project.

The alternative showed extracting and using the oil from Willow would produce the equivalent of more than 278 million tons (306 million short tons) of greenhouse gases over the project’s 30-year life, roughly equal to the combined emissions from 2 million passenger cars over the same time period. It would have a roughly 2% reduction in emissions compared to ConocoPhillips’ favored approach.

Q: Is there support for Willow?

A: There is widespread political support in Alaska, including from the bipartisan congressional delegation, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and state lawmakers. There also is “majority consensus” in support in the North Slope region, said Nagruk Harcharek, president of the group Voice of the Arctic Iñupiat, whose members include leaders from across much of that region. Supporters have called the project balanced and say communities would benefit from taxes generated by Willow to invest in infrastructure and provide public services.

City of Nuiqsut Mayor Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, whose community of about 525 people is closest to the proposed development, is a prominent opponent who is worried about impacts on caribou and her residents’ subsistence lifestyles. But opposition there isn’t universal. The local Alaska Native village corporation has expressed support.

U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat who is Yup’ik, said there is “such consensus in the region and across Alaska that this project is a good project.” She hoped to make a case to Biden that the project would create well-paying union jobs.

Ahtuangaruak said she feels voices like hers are being drowned out.

Q. What are the politics of the decision?

Biden faces a dilemma that pits Alaska lawmakers against environmental groups and many Democrats in Congress who say the project is out of step with Biden’s goals to slash planet-warming carbon emissions in half by 2030 and move to clean energy. Approval of the project would represent a betrayal by Biden, who promised during the 2020 campaign to end new oil and gas drilling on federal lands, environmentalists say.

Biden has made fighting climate change a top priority and backed a landmark law to accelerate expansion of clean energy such as wind and solar power, and move the U.S. away from the oil, coal and gas.

He faces attacks from Republican lawmakers who blame Biden for gasoline price spikes that occurred after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Q: Didn’t the Biden administration support Willow?

A: Justice Department attorneys in 2021 defended in court an environmental review conducted during the Trump administration that approved the project. But a federal judge later found flaws with the analysis, setting aside the approval and returning the matter to the land management agency for further work. That led to the review released in early February.

Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was concerned the Biden administration would “try to have it both ways” by issuing an approval but including so many restrictions it would render the project uneconomical.

Earthjustice, an environmental group, has encouraged project opponents to call the White House, urging Willow’s rejection.

Q: What about greenhouse gas emissions?

A: Federal officials under former President Donald Trump claimed increased domestic oil drilling would result in fewer net global emissions because it would decrease petroleum imports. U.S. companies adhere to stricter environmental standards than those in other countries, they argued.

After outside scientists rejected the claim and a federal judge agreed, the Interior Department changed how it calculates emissions.

The latest review, under the Biden administration, is getting pushback over its inclusion of a suggestion that 50% of Willow’s net emissions could be offset, including by planting more trees on national forests to capture and store carbon dioxide. Reforestation work on federal lands was something the administration already planned and needed to meet its broader climate goals, said Michael Lazarus, a senior scientist at the Stockholm Environment Institute.

“That doesn’t help you meet a reduction goal. It’s absurd,” said Lazarus, whose work was cited by the judge who overruled the Trump-era environmental review. “It doesn’t address the fact that we’re increasing global emissions by doing this project. ... We’re locking in emissions for 30 years into the future when we should be on a reduction schedule.”

Q: What about Biden’s promises to curtail oil drilling?

A: Biden suspended oil and gas lease sales after taking office and promised to overhaul the government’s fossil fuels program.

Attorneys general from oil-producing states convinced a federal judge to lift the suspension -- a ruling later overturned by an appeals court. The administration ultimately dropped its resistance to leasing in a compromise over last year’s climate law. The measure requires the Interior Department to offer for sale tens of millions of acres of onshore and offshore leases before it can approve any renewable energy leases.

The number of new drilling permits to companies with federal leases spiked in Biden’s first year as companies stockpiled drilling rights and officials said they were working through a backlog of applications from the Trump administration. Approvals dropped sharply in fiscal year 2022.

The Biden administration has offered less acreage for lease than previous administrations. But environmentalists say the administration hasn’t done enough.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in a recent interview declined direct comment on Willow but said that “public lands belong to every single American, not just one industry.”

___

Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Associated Press writer Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this story.

Wave of Poison Attacks on Schoolgirls Alarms Iranians

Tuesday, 28 February, 2023 

General view of Qom city

 WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

Asharq Al-Awsat

Hundreds of Iranian girls in different schools have suffered "mild poison" attacks over recent months, the health minister said, with some politicians suggesting they could have been targeted by religious groups opposed to girls' education.

The attacks come at a critical time for Iran's clerical rulers, who faced months of anti-government protests sparked by the death of a young Iranian woman in the custody of the morality police who enforce strict dress codes.

The poison attacks at more than 30 schools in at least four cities started in November in Iran's city of Qom, prompting some parents to take their children out of school, state media reported.

Social media posts showed some hospitalized schoolgirls, who said they had felt nauseous and suffered heart palpitations.

"Investigating where this mild poison comes from ... and whether it is an intentional move are not within the scope of my ministry," Health Minister Bahram Einollahi was quoted as saying by state media.

His deputy, Younes Panahi, said on Sunday "it was found that some people wanted schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed", according to IRNA state news agency.

One boys' school has been targeted in the city of Boroujerd, state media reported.

Lawmaker Alireza Monadi said the existence of "the devil's will" to stop girls from going to school was a "serious threat", according to IRNA.

He did not elaborate, but suspicions have fallen on hardline religious groups.

In 2014, people took to the streets of the city of Isfahan after a wave of acid attacks, which appeared to be aimed at terrorizing women who violated the country's strict Islamic dress code.

"If operatives of the acid attacks had been identified and punished then, today a group of reactionaries would not have ganged up on our innocent girls in the schools," reformist politician Azar Mansoori tweeted.

Several senior clerics, lawmakers and politicians have criticized the government for failing to end the poison attacks and giving contradicting reasons for them, with some warning that frustration among families could ignite further protests.

"Officials are giving contradictory statements ... one says it is intentional, another says it is security-linked and another official blames it on schools' heating systems," state media quoted senior cleric Mohammad Javad Tabatabai-Borujerdi as saying.

"Such statements increase people's mistrust (towards the establishment)."

A judicial probe into the poisoning cases is under way, state media reported.

Exposé: Forced Labor of Migrant Kids in US for Major Brands

 February 28, 2023

By Democracy Now

 We speak with the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Hannah Dreier, who revealed in a major New York Times investigation the widespread exploitation of migrant children in some of the most dangerous jobs in the country. In response, the Biden administration on Monday announced it would carry out a broad crackdown on the use of migrant child labor in the United States, vowing stricter enforcement of labor standards and better support for migrant children. “These kids are just on their own in these situations, with very little resources and very few ways out,” says Dreier.

We are also joined by Gregory Chen, senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, who says migrant children need better protection from unscrupulous employers and others who would seek to exploit them. “Children don’t have any knowledge or understanding of what their legal rights are,” says Chen.

Transcript

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at a shocking investigation by The New York Times exposing the forced labor of migrant children as young as 12 at factories across the United States. Over 100 unaccompanied migrant children, mostly from Central America, describe grueling and often dangerous working conditions, including having to use heavy machinery, being subjected to long hours and late-night shifts at facilities that manufacture products for major brands and retailers, such as Hearthside Food Solutions, the makers of Cheerios, Fruit of the Loom, Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, J.Crew, Frito-Lay and Ben & Jerry’s. Others were forced to work as cleaning staff at hotels, at slaughterhouses, construction sites, car factories owned by General Motors and Ford, in serious violation of child labor laws. At least a dozen migrant child workers have been killed on the job since 2017, according to The New York Times.

The disturbing revelations prompted the Biden administration to announce Monday a wide initiative to crack down on the labor exploitation of migrant children. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called The New York Times investigation “heartbreaking.”

PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: At the president’s direction, the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services announce new actions to crack down on child labor violations and ensure that sponsors of unaccompanied migrant children are vigorously, rigorously vetted. Child abuse — child labor is abuse, and it is unacceptable. Again, it is unacceptable. This administration has long been combating a surge in child exploitation, and today the Department of Labor and HHS announce that they will create a new interagency task force to combat child exploitation. They will also increase scrutiny of companies that do — that do business with employers who violate child labor laws, mandate follow-up calls for unaccompanied migrant children who report safety concerns to the HHS hotline, and audit the sponsor vetting process for unaccompanied migrant children over the next four weeks.

AMY GOODMAN: The Labor Department has already launched an investigation into Hearthside Food Solutions, which produces and packages food for other major companies, like General Mills, Frito-Lay and Quaker Oats. Democracy Now! reached out to Hearthside Food Solutions to invite a company spokesperson to join us on the program. They declined the request but sent us a statement to read on air. The statement reads, in part, “We take the allegations in the article seriously and have committed to these immediate next steps: We have engaged a renowned, global advisory firm, and an independent law firm, to conduct an independent review of Hearthside’s employment practices, third-party employee engagements, plant safety protocols, and our standards of business conduct. Following the review, we are committed to enhancing our policies and practices in line with our advisors’ recommendations,” they said.

For more, we’re joined by two guests. Hannah Dreier is the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter at The New York Times whose major investigation, published Sunday on the front page, is headlined “Alone and Exploited, Migrant Children Work Brutal Jobs Across the U.S.” Her follow-up piece, published Monday, headlined “Biden Administration Plans Crackdown on Migrant Child Labor.” She’s joining us from here in New York.

You traveled to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia for this story, speaking to more than a hundred migrant child workers in 20 states, Hannah. Can you lay out the scope of this investigation, what you found? And were you shocked by the speed of the Biden administration’s response? And your evaluation of what that is?

HANNAH DREIER: Thank you so much for having me, Amy.

I mean, when I started this reporting, I thought that we might find that some kids were working agricultural jobs, maybe dishwasher jobs. I never anticipated that we would find the scope of children working these really industrial, adult, dangerous jobs in all 50 states. So, really, what I discovered is, I think, a child labor scandal in this country. We have more and more kids coming over without their parents, and they’re being released to situations where they have to pay their own rent, provide their own living expenses. They’re under huge pressure to send money back home. And they’re ending up in some of the most brutal jobs in this country. So, I talked to kids outside of slaughterhouses when they were getting off their shifts at 7:00 in the morning. I talked to kids who are working as roofers at the top of buildings, kids who had gotten seriously injured. Like you say, we found many examples of kids who had died on these jobs.

And it’s in the supply chain of, you know, so many corporations. At the end of this reporting, I just felt like it was inescapable, like so many of the things that I personally consume, like Cheerios, have this labor somewhere in the supply chain.

And yeah, I mean, the response was overwhelming. We were told that the Biden administration worked over the weekend, and Biden approved these changes like on Sunday afternoon, a day after the story ran. It’s really gratifying. The people who I’m talking to believe that there’s still a lot to be done, but some of these changes really do seem like they will start to address this problem.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Hannah, in your investigation, how recent is this development? In other words, there was enormous pressure following the end of the Trump administration to remove unaccompanied minors from detention facilities. Is this a recent phenomena, or did this — has this been building for years now?

HANNAH DREIER: This is something that I think has been building for maybe the past 10 years, and part of it has to do with the changing nature of the children who are crossing the border. Ten years ago, there were far fewer children, maybe 6,000 children a year. Now we’re seeing 150,000 a year. And those children were often coming to reunite with their parents. So, they would cross the border and be released to a parent, who often would take care of them. Often that parent would have paid to have them brought up. And now what we’re seeing is it’s much more common for parents to be sending these children, and the children are under pressure to send back remittances. So the dynamic of who’s coming has changed.

And we’ve also seen a labor shortage. I’ve seen a couple dynamics that have sort of created a perfect storm for this phenomenon to really explode since 2021. And what the people who work with these kids out in the field are telling us is that they’ve seen this huge shift in the last three years — middle schools where every eighth-grader in the last three years has started working, federal investigators who used to focus on sex crimes and are now instead focusing on pulling 12- and 13-year-olds out of factory jobs. It’s been sort of a slow shift, and then, in the last two or three years, this really rapid change.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your story indicates that HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra did put enormous pressure on other government agencies, as well as his own agency, to move the unaccompanied minors out of the detention facilities. How do you assess the role of Secretary Becerra?

HANNAH DREIER: You know, a lot of advocates, lot of people in immigration world were really excited about Becerra and about the change that they thought might happen at HHS after the Biden administration took over. But what happened was there was this huge crunch at the border, where all of a sudden children were sort of getting piled up in jails that are run by Customs and Border Protection, because there wasn’t enough capacity in the child welfare organization that’s supposed to take care of these children. That’s Health and Human Services. So there was suddenly all of this media attention to kids sleeping on the floor, sleeping under those silver space blankets.

And what people inside HHS say is that Becerra started putting immense pressure on them to discharge these kids more quickly. So, every day would start with a call, and the call would be “How many kids have been discharged from care today? How many kids are still there?” And what people who work at all levels of that agency say is that it created a situation where kids were being pushed out too quickly to people who weren’t vetted. And a lot of people inside the agency told me, you know, “He would always say, ‘Why can’t we run this like an assembly line? We need to be more efficient. Henry Ford would never have gotten rich if he had run his assembly lines like this.’” And I was very skeptical. I mean, that’s a really intense thing to say when you’re talking about the most vulnerable children in this country. But somebody eventually leaked us a video of him sort of berating staff and saying that on tape. So, I think he himself is probably under a lot of pressure, but there’s a lot of disappointment within the agency and among immigration advocates about how that’s been handled.

AMY GOODMAN: Hannah, I’d like to ask about the children. If you could tell us some of their stories? That’s really the heart of your story, as you talk about Cristian, who works in a construction job instead of going to school, 14 years old; Carolina, who packages Cheerios at night in a factory. Talk about each of them and also how you found them. How difficult was it for you to find them?

HANNAH DREIER: I mean, these kids were not hard to find. And I think that’s part of what you’re seeing with these Department of Labor reforms. Inspectors just have not been looking for them in a proactive way. I came to — I went to different cities and towns, and usually the next day I already was speaking to children who are working these illegal, exploitive jobs.

I talked to Cristian in southern Florida. He was living in a house full of other unaccompanied minors, other kids who had come across the border without their parents. All of them were working full time. None of them had gone to school. Cristian had come when he was 12, two years ago, and immediately, the next day, started working full time in construction. He told me that he doesn’t know how to read, and he would like to learn English, he would like to learn how to read, but he can’t go to school because he has a debt to pay off, he has to pay rent. And I went to a construction site and talked to him as he was putting the roof on a building, and he told me he had already fallen twice that year. He was working with power tools. He was just sort of balancing precariously on the edge as he was trying to bend some rebar. And, I mean, he’s a child. It’s not what he wants to be doing. But he was released to this situation, and there’s just sort of no support there for him to get out of it.

And in Michigan, I talked to a lot of children who are working in a factory packaging Cheerios. They also package Lucky Charms and Cheetos. And these are kids who were in school. I met them at school. And some of the kids I met at school told me, “Oh yeah, we have to leave early now because we have to go to our factory job.” And I was just shocked. But I went to this factory, and, sure enough, there they were, walking out after the shift. And this is a place where you’re working with really industrial machinery. The machines have sliced off people’s fingers. One woman who was doing this kind of work was pulled in by a hairnet, and her scalp was ripped open. I mean, it’s a serious, adult kind of place to work. And these kids are balancing it with, you know, seven days of school, as well, so they’re exhausted.

AMY GOODMAN: And tell us about Nery Cutzal from Guatemala, how they met their sponsor. Again, these children are here legally. And then talk about the children who have died.

HANNAH DREIER: I mean, I think that’s such an important point. These are not undocumented children. They’re not children who snuck in, and nobody ever found out about them, and now they’re sort of living a subterranean life. These are children who had turned themselves in at the border, usually asked for asylum, and were released to live with somebody who the government thought would protect them. The government can’t release them unless they’re sure that it’s a trustworthy adult who is taking these kids on. And in some cases, they’re being released to complete strangers.

So, in Nery’s case, he met a man on Facebook when he was 13. The man said that if he wanted to come to the U.S., he would help him. He would let him go to school. And instead, Nery shows up; the man picks him up from the airport and immediately hands him a list of debts that this kid now has. So he’s charging him thousands of dollars for his journey to this country. He charged him for filling out the paperwork that he had to send to the government in order to get him released. He charged him $45 for the dinner of tacos that they had that night. And then he told Nery that he had to go find his own place to live, find a job, and start paying back this debt. And, you know, Nery doesn’t speak any English. He has never worked. He was in school when he was in Central America. And we’ve seen the text messages between him and this man. The man starts threatening him and saying, “You don’t matter to me. I’m going to mess you up.” He threatened Nery’s family. And these kids are just on their own in these situations, with, you know, very little resources and very few ways out.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: You mentioned that federal inspectors generally are not looking for these kinds of violations, but I’m sure that several of these workplaces that you went to were unionized, to one degree or another. Is there any sense on your part that the organized labor movement was — that leaders in some of these places were aware of this? Because they could certainly complain, and therefore trigger some kind of inspection.

HANNAH DREIER: So, many of these children are coming in through staffing agencies. I had initially thought that the unions would be a really important resource in this reporting. And when I went to them, they told me, “No, there’s no children here. You know, we have these other sort of workplace issues.” But then, in some cases, I would go back to the same workplace and see children on the night shift.

And I think part of what’s going on here is there’s sort of two labor streams. There are the official employees, and those are people who have to provide government IDs. There’s a lot more regulation and protection. And then there are these kids who come in through the staffing agencies. And that’s like a total free-for-all, where the staffing agencies — people who work at the staffing agencies have told us that they know they’re sending children to work at these factories. People who sent children to work packaging Cheerios say they knowingly did this and that the factory knowingly accepted these kids. But because there’s sort of this one layer of remove, the factories don’t get in trouble. It’s the staffing agencies that get in trouble when there’s a crackdown.

AMY GOODMAN: And the children who have died, Hannah?

HANNAH DREIER: I mean, child labor laws exist for a reason. They’re not just there because kids should go to school and they should get enough sleep. They’re really there because this work is dangerous. Kids are much more likely to get injured on the job. And they’re supposed to protect kids’, like, physical safety.

So, what we found, talking to these kids who are working jobs that they’re not supposed to be in, that are illegal for children, is that the rate of injury is extremely high. And in some cases, children have died days after being released to a sponsor. In one case in Alabama, a 15-year-old fell 50 feet off of a warehouse where he was helping replace a roof. It was his first day on the job. He had been released to his brother. Here in Brooklyn, where I live, a 14-year-old was killed on his bike. He was a food delivery worker. And he was living in a house full of strangers, trying to send money back to his family, and was hit by a car. Another case that really struck me was a 16-year-old who died when he fell out of an earth mover that he was driving. And, to me, the idea that a 16-year-old would be in a position to be driving a 35-ton vehicle is just inconceivable. But this is what happens when you have kids working the jobs that for almost a century they’ve been specifically prohibited from being in.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Greg Chen into this conversation. Hannah Dreier, who we’re talking to, is the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter who did this just jaw-dropping exposé, “Alone and Exploited.” Gregory Chen is the senior director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Can you talk about, legally, what recourse these children have?

GREGORY CHEN: Thank you so much for having me on the show here.

And this is an extremely challenging situation. And when you use the word “legally,” what recourse do these children have, the first thing that comes to mind for me, as a practicing lawyer who represented children back in the 1990s in San Francisco, is that children don’t have any knowledge or understanding of what their legal rights are. Many of these children who are coming from different countries, that have very limited English-speaking capacity or skills, and they simply won’t understand that there is legal system of labor laws to protect them. And they are also afraid that their immigration status here in the United States is going to be in jeopardy if they report any such violations.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And I wanted to ask you — in terms of response of the Biden administration, this is certainly one of the fastest responses by a government agency to an exposé that I can recall. Your sense of what some of the proposals are of the Biden administration to address this issue?

GREGORY CHEN: So, the announcements by the Biden administration are laudable in terms of the speed that they’ve implemented them or they’ve announced them. By and large, what they are talking about here is increasing Department of Labor and Health and Human Services investigations of these kinds of situations and also improving the screening and vetting of families that might sponsor these children, usually relatives who are going to take care of the children after they are released from government custody, which happens when they first arrive, and then, in addition, after these children are released, what kinds of post-release services are going to be given to these children to make sure to check on them, so that after a month or three months, you know, are they still living there, what is their health situation, are they going to school. Those are all steps that the federal government has announced they will be doing more of, because they haven’t been able to check on all these families.

What is missing here — and this is very important, given the fact that, as Hannah described — and what we’re seeing statistically is that the number of children coming to the United States, particularly from Central American countries, has increased dramatically, from — about 10 years ago, we had 13,000, 14,000 children coming every year. Now we are looking at 130,000 children that came just last year. And these are children who are fleeing persecution, violence and poverty. And many of them are afraid to come to the United States because of the challenges of crossing the border and because the United States has made it much more difficult to seek asylum. And when they get here, if they don’t have stable humanitarian legal release, such as asylum, they’re going to be afraid to report anything bad that happens to them while here in the U.S., including labor violations. So, what the Department of Homeland Security needs to do, and the Biden administration needs to do, is to look at more ways of ensuring asylum access and humanitarian protection for children and for other people who are coming here seeking protection.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And just briefly, because we have less than a minute on this segment, but I wanted to ask you in terms of the penalties that employers of these staffing agencies face. Just last week, the Department of Labor found a company called Packer Sanitation Services guilty of having 102 children as young as 13 years old working across eight states, and it only got a $1.5 million fine for that.

GREGORY CHEN: Yeah, so, the important thing here is that we need more resources put into investigations to ensure that fines and any other penalties can be imposed, and that Congress should be looking at this from a labor perspective. But I would also urge Congress to look at reforming our U.S. asylum laws and our U.S. immigration system overall. The fact is that the asylum system is closing, is becoming more restrictive, both because of congressional pressure and because the Biden administration is putting more blocks on asylum seekers being able to come here. And we haven’t had Congress reform our humanitarian or our family or employment-based visa system in three decades now. That’s 30 years where people who are coming here don’t have the pathways needed to have a safe, stable life here in the United States. And we have thousands, millions of people who are living here, including children, who are in that tenuous status. Anybody who is in a tenuous status that doesn’t have permanent legal status is going to be fearful of reporting labor violations like this. And that vulnerable, second-class population in the United States is not something that’s healthy for the country, even as immigrants contribute so much to our society, our communities and our economy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you both so much for being with us, Gregory Chen, with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and Hannah Dreier, for your superb exposé in The New York Times. We’ll link to your piece, “Alone and Exploited.” And just to read a few lines from that piece to underscore, “[While] H.H.S. checks on all minors by calling them a month after they begin living with their sponsors, data obtained by The Times showed that over the last two years, the agency could not reach more than 85,000 children. Overall, the agency lost immediate contact with a third of migrant children.”

THIRD WAY SOCIAL GOSPEL
Pope Francis: Economy must be social, at service of society

In interview with Belgian weekly Tertio, Francis proposes alternative economic model

Giada Zampano

 |28.02.2023
ROME

Pope Francis said the world needs to have the courage to imagine an economy that isn’t “purely liberal” but is instead “at the service of society.”

In an interview published on Tuesday by the Catholic Belgian weekly Tertio, together with the Belgian French publication Dimanche, Francis proposed an alternative model of the economy.

“We need to be prudent with the economy: if it is too focused on finance alone, on simple numbers that have no true entities behind them, then the economy is reduced to dust and can lead to a serious betrayal,” the pontiff said.

“The economy has to be a social economy,” the pope added, citing the late John Paul II, the popular pontiff from 1978 to 2005 who added “social” to the expression “market economy.”
Francis urged people to always bear in mind social issues amid deep economic crises.

“At this time, the economic crisis is undoubtedly serious, the crisis is terrible,” he said. “The majority of people in the world – the majority – does not have enough to eat, it does not have enough to live on.”

The pope also stressed that global wealth remains in the hands of a few people who lead large businesses “which are sometimes inclined to exploitation.”

“The economy has to always be social, at the service of society,” he concluded.

China says TikTok ban reflects US government insecurities

 

Mar 01 2023

US government bans on Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok reveal Washington’s own insecurities and are an abuse of state power, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday.

The US government “has been overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power to suppress other countries’ companies," Mao Ning said at a daily briefing.

“How unsure of itself can the US, the world’s top superpower, be to fear a young person's favourite app to such a degree?”

The White House is giving all federal agencies, in guidance issued Monday, 30 days to wipe TikTok off all government devices. The White House already did not allow TikTok on its devices.

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* 'A common thread': Why crochet is Gen Z's new obsession

TikTok is used by two-thirds of American teens, but there’s concern in Washington that China could use its legal and regulatory powers to obtain private user data or to try to push misinformation or narratives favouring China.

Congress and more than half of US states have so-far banned TikTok from government-issued mobile devices.

KIICHIRO SATO/AP

The White House is giving all federal agencies, in guidance issued Monday, 30 days to wipe TikTok off all government devices.

Some have also moved to apply the ban to any app or website owned by ByteDance Ltd, the private Chinese company that owns TikTok and moved its headquarters to Singapore in 2020.

China has long blocked a long list of foreign social media platforms and messaging apps, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Washington and Beijing are at odds over myriad issues including trade, computer chips and other technology, national security and Taiwan, along with the discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over the US and its shooting down earlier this month.
Canada joins US in banning TikTok from Govt devices

On Monday, Canada announced it was joining the US in banning TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices.

“I suspect that as government takes the significant step of telling all federal employees that they can no longer use TikTok on their work phones many Canadians from business to private individuals will reflect on the security of their own data and perhaps make choices,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters after the announcement.

Canadian Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said the Chief Information Officer of Canada had determined that TikTok “presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security.”

“On a mobile device, TikTok’s data collection methods provide considerable access to the contents of the phone,” Fortier said.

The European Union’s executive branch said last week it has temporarily banned TikTok from phones used by employees as a cybersecurity measure.

TikTok has questioned the bans, saying it has not been given an opportunity to answer questions and governments were cutting themselves off from a platform beloved by millions.

 

China hits out at US over TikTok ban on government devicesShare on Linked In

The TikTok building in Culver City, California. Photo: AFP

China has accused the US of overreacting after federal employees were ordered to remove the video app TikTok from government-issued phones.

On Monday, the White House gave government agencies 30 days to ensure that employees did not have the Chinese-owned app on federal devices.

The order follows similar moves by the EU and Canada in recent weeks.

A spokesperson for China's foreign ministry accused the US of abusing state power to suppress foreign firms.

"We firmly oppose those wrong actions," spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters during a news briefing on Tuesday. "The US government should respect the principles of market economy and fair competition, stop suppressing the companies and provide an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for foreign companies in the US.

"How unsure of itself can the world's top superpower like the US be to fear young people's favourite app like that," she added.

Western officials have become increasingly concerned in recent months about the popular video sharing app, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance.

TikTok has faced allegations that it harvests users' data and hands it to the Chinese government, with some intelligence agencies worried that sensitive information could be exposed when the app is downloaded to government devices.

The company insists it operates no differently to other social media companies and says it would never comply with an order to transfer data.

On Monday, the US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Shalanda Young told agencies they had to scrub the app from all state-issued phones to protect confidential data.

The agency said the guidance marked a "critical step forward in addressing the risks presented by the app to sensitive government data".

Some federal offices - including the White House and the Departments of Defence, Homeland Security and State - have already banned TikTok from their devices.

The US Federal Chief Information Security Officer Chris DeRusha said the move emphasised the Biden administration's "ongoing commitment to securing our digital infrastructure and protecting the American people's security and privacy".

Tuesday's announcement follows the passage of legislation by the US House of Representatives in December which banned the use of TikTok on state-issued phones and gave the White House 60 days to issue agency directives.

Congressional Republicans are expected to pass further legislation in the coming weeks which would give President Joe Biden the power to ban the app nationally.

"We hope that when it comes to addressing national security concerns about TikTok beyond government devices, Congress will explore solutions that won't have the effect of censoring the voices of millions of Americans," a TikTok spokesperson told the BBC.

Canada has also imposed a new ban on the app on government devices starting from Tuesday. The decision followed a review conducted by the country's chief information officer, who ruled the app presented "an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security".

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there was enough concern about security around the app to require the change.

"This may be the first step, this may be the only step we need to take," he said on Monday at a press conference near Toronto.

And the European Parliament also approved a ban on the app on staff phones, following the European Commission's move last week.

A TikTok spokesperson told the BBC that the bans had been adopted "without any deliberation" and amounted to "little more than political theatre".

- BBC

ISRAEL
Government pushes ahead with judicial overhaul in Knesset amid protests

Stun grenades, tear gas fired at crowds blocking Ayalon Highway, with several reported wounded; police use water cannons, horses in bid to break up anti-government protest

By TOI STAFF

Today,

Police clash with protesters during a demonstration against the Israeli government's planned judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, March 1, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

Protesters clash with security forces during a demonstration against the government's controversial judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv on March 1, 2023. (JACK GUEZ / AFP)

Mounted police push Israelis blocking a road to protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the judicial system, in Tel Aviv, March 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli police officers detain a protester during a demonstration against the government's controversial justice overhaul in Tel Aviv on March 1, 2023. (JACK GUEZ / AFP)

Protesters supporting women's rights dressed as characters from The Handmaid's Tale TV series traveling to a protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government to overhaul the judicial system, at a railway station in Jerusalem, March 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Police clash with protesters during a demonstration against the Israeli government's planned judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, March 1, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

Protesters clash with security forces during a demonstration against the government's controversial justice overhaul bill in Tel Aviv on March 1, 2023. (JACK GUEZ / AFP)

Police clash with protesters during a demonstration against the Israeli government's planned judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, March 1, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

Israeli police deploy horses and stun grenades to disperse Israelis blocking a main road to protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government to overhaul the judicial system, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, March 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli police deploy a water cannon to disperse Israelis blocking a main road to protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government to overhaul the judicial system, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, March 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Police clash with protesters during a demonstration against the Israeli government's planned judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, March 1, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)1

Friedman confirms opposition to judicial overhaul, but says criticism respectful
By JACOB MAGID

Then-US ambassador to Israel David Friedman during a visit in the Jewish settlement of Efrat, in Gush Etzion, February 20, 2020. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)

Former US president Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel David Friedman confirms an Axios report revealing his opposition to the judicial overhaul being advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, but says his concerns were made “respectfully” and were part of an “attempt to find common ground.”

“The tone of the conversation was not about slamming or being critical or pointing fingers, rather recognizing that this is a complicated issue,” he tells The Times of Israel.

Earlier today, Axios reported that during a private session of a conference organized by a pair of conservative think tanks, Friedman pushed back on one of the overhaul’s key architect’s claims that the proposals would make Israel more like the US.

“You compare this to the US, but it doesn’t work like that in our system,” Axios quoted him as having told Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, drawing applause from many in the room.

Friedman also singled out the so-called “override clause” that would let the government re-legislate laws struck down by the courts. He added that in the US, the courts exist to protect minority rights and that the override clause will prevent the Israeli courts from doing the same.

Speaking with The Times of Israel, Friedman adds that protecting “minority rights are an important aspect of the US government and should be for any government.”

Smotrich says media distorting his words after he called to ‘wipe out’ village

Cars burned by Jewish settlers during riots in Hawara, in the West Bank, near Nablus, February 27, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich accuses the media of distorting his words after he called to “wipe out” a Palestinian village.

The remark by Smotrich — who is the finance minister and also a minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank — came days after a terrorist from Huwara shot dead two Israeli brothers, which was followed by extremist settlers rampaging through the Nablus-area town and setting homes and cars on fire, resulting in one Palestinian shot dead and several badly hurt.

Asked at a conference why he had on Sunday evening “liked” a tweet by Samaria Regional Council deputy mayor Davidi Ben Zion that called “to wipe out the village of Huwara today,” Smotrich replied: “Because I think the village of Huwara needs to be wiped out. I think the State of Israel should do it.”

He added that “God forbid,” the job shouldn’t be done by private citizens.

Smotrich later issues a statement saying that “once again the media takes my quote and tries to create a distorted interpretation of it.”

“If they had played my words in full, you would have heard that I spoke about how Huwara is a hostile village that has become a terrorist outpost from where terrorist acts of throwing stones and shooting against Jews are launched every day. But it is forbidden in any way to take the law into one’s own hands.”

“I said that I support a disproportionate response by the IDF and the security forces to every act of terrorism. For every stone, the closing of the shops at the site; for every firebomb, arrests and deportation of the families of the terrorists; for every nest of terror, closure and exacting a painful price until the terrorists and their supporters realize that… terrorism does not pay.”

Israeli police hit protesters with stun grenades, water cannon

Israeli protesters, taking part in 'day of disruption' in Tel Aviv to show their opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's so-called judicial coup, were met with stun grenades and water cannon as authorities tried to shut the protests down.

March 1, 2023


Protesters against the Israeli government's controversial judicial reform plan today launched a "National Day of Disruption" by blocking roads and marching in cities across the country. At least 22 people have been arrested on charges including assaulting police officers, disrupting traffic and refusing orders to leave major junctions and roadways.

According to the Times of Israel, Israel Railways said that trains would not be stopping at HaShalom, Savidor or University stations because of the protests. "Over the last hour, there have been a number of intentional disruptions to the closing of the doors on some trains when they stop at stations, and as a result the trains are delayed and there are disruptions to movement and travel," said the railway company. "We ask all passengers to allow safe and regular journeys to continue."

Israeli National Security Minister, the extreme right-wing Itamar Ben-Gvir, said that he was instructing police to remove protesters who were disrupting traffic on roads and highways. "The blocking of central roads must not be allowed, and all of the anarchists' blockades must be opened," he insisted. "I am in favour of democratic protest, but we will not allow civil riots and we will not allow anarchists to block major roads."

The protests include a series of planned gatherings and marches around the country and outside the homes of coalition lawmakers and ministers. They will also include strikes at various workplaces and schools, and the blocking of roads, all laid out in detail on a dedicated website and map.

"Israel won't become a dictatorship," said the protest organiser. "The millions who have taken to the streets over the past eight weeks have made this clear and we are now moving on to direct action."

The planned judicial reform programme was proposed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin. If enacted, it would be the most radical change ever in the system of government in Israel. The changes would severely limit the power of the Supreme Court of Justice, give the government the power to choose judges, and end the appointment of legal advisers to ministries by the attorney general.

Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, defended the controversial reforms, saying that he has a mandate from millions of voters to carry out the changes. His coalition government was sworn in on 29 December following elections in November which gave his extreme right-wing bloc a simple majority.

 

North Korea’s Anti-Epidemic Robot

POSTED BY: MARTYN WILLIAMS MARCH 1, 2023

A North Korean company has produced a robot for epidemic prevention.

The device is advertised in the latest Foreign Trade magazine and is essentially an Android tablet with attached sensors packaged into a semi-humanoid form. Foreign Trade is a monthly magazine that promotes North Korean companies and overseas trade partnerships.

“This autonomous mobile intelligent robot is equipped with body temperature measurement and ultraviolet disinfection functions. It can navigate in the public places to detect persons with fever and disinfect floors, walls and other environment,” reads the brief description in the magazine.

It can measure temperatures between 34 degrees Celsius to 41degrees Celsius with 0.3 degrees Celsius accuracy and disinfect 6.8 square meters per minute, according to the specifications.

An advertisement for a anti-epidemic robot in the January 2023 edition of Foreign Trade Magazine

It is unclear whether the robot has actually been used inside the country. State television has shown numerous reports about anti-epidemic work inside North Korea, but the robot has not been featured in any of the footage I have reviewed.

The company offering the robot, the Kanghung Technology Trading Co., has made almost annual appearances in Foreign Trade magazine since at least 2014, selling various electrical products.

In 2020, the company advertised a control system for automated factory production lines; in 2019, it advertised industrial robots. In 2018, it was a hand sterilizer, and in 2017 it appeared three times with computer numerical control (CNC) control units, laser shape meters and various digital measurement units. On one of those appearances, in January 2017, it used the English name “Kanghung Technical Trading Corp.”