SAUDI ARABIA OWNS STAKE IN FIRM THAT BOUGHT DEMOCRATIC PARTY’S CAMPAIGN TECH

The Saudis had also invested in the private equity firm that sold off the tech companies that power Democratic campaigns.

Akela Lacy

THE INTERCEPT
April 23 2023

THE GOVERNMENT OF Saudi Arabia is an investor in the private company that owns a virtual monopoly on software that powers Democratic candidates — including management of the Democratic National Committee’s all-important voter list.

Sanabil Investments, the company that manages Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, recently published its first list of investments in venture capital, buyout firms, and startups. The list includes two private equity firms involved two years ago in the sale and acquisition of EveryAction and NGP VAN, the companies that make up the Democratic Party’s campaign tech apparatus.

“Saudi Arabia’s investments are definitely strategic.”

“Saudi Arabia’s investments are definitely strategic,” said Paul Rose, an associate dean at the Ohio State University’s law school, who has done research on sovereign funds in Gulf states. “This disclosure is interesting because I look at it and I think, ‘Well, why would you disclose all this?’ The Saudis are really quite shrewd about signaling to not only people in their own country but people abroad what their priorities are.”

Rose added, “Investment for them is in part a brand-building exercise.”

Sanabil runs the Public Investment Fund, the official name for the Saudi government’s sovereign wealth fund. The fund is one of the world’s largest, with $620 billion in assets.

In addition to investments in Apax Partners, which acquired NGP VAN and EveryAction in August 2021, Sanabil is also invested in Insight Partners, another venture capital and private equity firm that invested in EveryAction in 2018 and sold parts of the company to Apax in 2021. (Another company called Vista Equity Partners that sold assets to Apax as part of the 2021 acquisition is also listed as a Saudi partner.)

“Limited partners in Apax funds are passive investors with no role in the management of portfolio companies,” said a spokesperson for Apax. “While they are entitled to receive information relating to the performance of their investments at fund level, they do not have access to sensitive portfolio company information.”

Other Saudi investments disclosed recently include Blackstone, Apollo Global Management, and Andreessen Horowitz.

Federal regulations are designed to stop sovereign wealth funds from interfering in domestic politics. If a particular investment includes a national security risk, federal regulators can force the transaction to be undone through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States under the Department of the Treasury. Most of that risk is typically mitigated because sovereign wealth funds tend to be invested in companies through intermediaries like Apax or Insight Partners.


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Investment in a compny that deals with data related to voting and politics could be of potential concern to the Committee on Foreign Investment, even if the investor has no real influence over relevant data, Rose said. The committee could require the fund to use a mitigation agreement that limits interactions with the portfolio company. Rose added that the committee is quiet about its work and generally responsive to potential threats. (A spokesperson for the Treasury Department declined to comment.)

It’s not clear why Sanabil published the list of its partner venture capital and buyout firms. Any fund or investment vehicle that invests $100 million or more in publicly traded U.S. companies has to disclose those investments quarterly to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Sanabil is not required to disclose several of the investments it made because some were made in funds or companies that aren’t publicly traded.

Sanabil did not disclose the amount of money invested in each firm. (The company did not respond to a request for comment.)

THE DISCLOSURE OF Saudi Arabia’s investments comes less than three months after Bonterra, the new merged company created by the Apax acquisition, instituted layoffs at EveryAction and NGP VAN. At least 140 people were impacted by the layoffs, which Bonterra CEO Mark Layden attributed to the pursuit of “long-term, efficient growth.” (Bonterra did not respond to a request for comment.)

The Sanabil investment doesn’t mean the Saudi government has an interest in the functions of the companies.

Instead, said progressive strategist Gabe Tobias, the disclosure is a further indication that the fate of EveryAction and NGP VAN is not a priority for their owners.

“They just don’t care. It’s so, so important to the Democratic Party and to progressives organizations and it’s owned by a thing that absolutely doesn’t care about them or even know they exist,” Tobias said. “The priority that Apax puts on all the pieces of those holdings means they’re gonna continue to downgrade the services that NGP provides to political campaigns. Unless they say differently, which they never have.”

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In 2016, Saudi Arabia announced its Vision 2030 plan to transition its economy away from dependence on oil and gas and toward tech investment. Sanabil’s disclosure indicates more spending on that front, with partners including Bird and Oura. The fund invests 50 percent of its assets in venture capital firms like Insight Partners, 30 percent in private equity firms like Apax, and 20 percent in a liquid portfolio.

It’s typical for national sovereign wealth funds to invest in foreign companies as part of their strategy for growth. Apax has also sold stakes to investors from sovereign wealth funds in China, Singapore, and Australia.

Sanabil’s list of partners resembles something more like a venture capital press release than an investment disclosure by a sovereign wealth fund, Rose said.

“This is sort of what a VC firm would do,” he said. They’re trying to signal something about who they are as a brand, who they are as investors. It’s hard to know what to make of it.” The disclosure could be meant to signal their ability as savvy investors to pick good assets, he added. “But beyond that, I don’t know. Who knows what else they could be trying to signal?”

Nikki Haley Took A Stand Against The Confederate Flag. So Why Doesn’t She Want To Talk About It?

The former South Carolina governor, now a 2024 presidential candidate, isn't exactly playing up the move to voters.

Liz Skalka

HUFFPOST
Apr 23, 2023

ILLUSTRATION:JIANAN LIU/HUFFPOST PHOTO:GETTY IMAGES

Doug Brannon knows the blowback you can get for being a Southern Republican who doesn’t embrace the Confederate flag.

In the wake of the 2015 shooting at a historic Black church that killed nine people, including a state senator, Brannon, a state representative at the time, introduced the bill that would ultimately remove the Confederate flag from a monument at the South Carolina State House. The measure passed in both legislative chambers and was quickly signed into law by then-Gov. Nikki Haley.

While the move launched talk that Haley might one day run for president, Republicans like Brannon from hardcore conservative areas who backed the bill took a hit. Brannon was the first legislative Republican to join Democrats in calling to remove the flag. A year later, Brannon was primaried out of office.

In that same election, Wendy Nanney, a Republican from a less conservative neighboring district who voted against the measure, lost her seat — a sign the flag would continue to divide South Carolinians.

“She lost because she voted to leave the flag. I got beat because I voted to take it down,” said Brannon, an attorney from Spartanburg, South Carolina, the anchor city in a county where Trump won the 2016 primary and general election handily.

If Brannon’s fate revealed how ultra-conservative white Southerners feel about the Confederate flag, then it makes sense why Haley, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, isn’t making this aspect of her biography front and center to voters. The flag isn’t mentioned anywhere under Haley’s “record of results” on her campaign website. And it’s not included in the stump speech that Haley delivers to audiences of primary voters in early voting states.

In recent speeches reviewed by HuffPost, Haley mostly sticks to touting stricter voter ID laws and the economic development she oversaw as governor that made South Carolina what she calls “the beast of the Southeast.” When she gets into race issues, it’s to argue the country isn’t racist because voters elected her as the first woman of color to lead South Carolina.

“The one thing that bothers me the most is the national self-loathing that’s taken over our country. The idea that America’s rotten or that it’s bad or that it’s racist,” Haley, an Indian-American, told a crowd in Lexington, South Carolina, this month, standing in front of a gigantic American flag and neat line of hay bales. “America is not racist. America is blessed.”

Her campaign did not answer questions about why the flag isn’t included in her stump speech.

Haley has, however, answered questions about it as a presidential candidate. She told conservative writer Bari Weiss just after her campaign launch that people in South Carolina were split on whether the flag — raised at the capitol in 1962 to protest the civil rights movement — was a symbol of racial hatred or Southern pride. “My job as their governor was not to judge either side. My job was to show them that there’s a better path forward,” Haley said.

“My job as their governor was not to judge either side. My job was to show them that there’s a better path forward.”

- Nikki Haley, in 2023, on removing the Confederate flag

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Trump ally who has not endorsed yet in the 2024 primary, said Haley should be happy with how she handled that time. “It showed political smarts and courage,” he told HuffPost.

But Haley clearly has a delicate balance to strike in a presidential primary against Trump and a GOP base that includes many white extremists. “She feels pinched, obviously, by Trump’s base, specifically the white nationalists and white supremacists,” said a GOP consultant from South Carolina, who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “It’s really a tough intersection for her to talk about anything, and the notion of amazing grace or courage is not really a highly rewarded political feature these days in a GOP primary.”

In her 2019 book, Haley blames Dylann Roof, the gunman who killed nine Black parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, for hijacking the Confederate banner, giving cover to the weighty segment of white South Carolinians who still see it as a symbol of their heritage. “The evil act he had committed had robbed the good-intentioned South Carolinians who support the flag of this symbol of the heritage of service,” Haley wrote. “He had encouraged everyone’s worst stereotype for our state. Clearly, something had to be done. But at the same time, I worried that allowing the killer to define what the flag represented for everyone was a surrender.”

Ross Ward, a Republican who ran for a South Carolina House seat in 2022, told HuffPost at Haley’s February campaign launch in Charleston that he was upset with how the flag was talked about during its removal and didn’t like how Haley handled it as governor.

“You’re saying that the Confederacy was racist, and that hurts me on a lot of levels,” he said. “Could we have changed it at some point? Perhaps. I know it offends some people, and I don’t want to hurt people on that level. However, that is history, and we can’t erase history.”

Greg Perry, the former chairman of the Charleston Democratic Party and only the second person of color to ever lead that group, told HuffPost he was worshipping at a nearby church when he learned of the shooting at Mother Emanuel. At another church service that Sunday, “my eyes filled with water out of fear that someone with hatred in their heart, because of the color of my skin, could just come in and take my life,” he said. “That fear has never left me.”

Nikki Haley doesn't talk much now about signing the law that removed the Confederate banner from the South Carolina State House in 2015.
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Much of the flag saga had predated Haley’s time in office. By the time Haley became governor in 2011, the Confederate flag had been flying at the capitol for 50 years. In 2000, lawmakers reached an agreement to move it from its prominent spot on the state house dome to a ground-level monument for Confederate soldiers.

“The flag had the backing of white religion, white business people and white women, and it lost the support of all of those people in the 1990s,” said Thomas Brown, a professor at the University of South Carolina and the author of a book on Confederate monuments who cited the NCAA’s prominent boycott of the state over the flag.

Running for governor, Haley vowed not to reignite the flag issue, which lawmakers had agreed to stop discussing after the monument compromise. But the 2015 murder of state Sen. Clementa Pinckney and eight others in Charleston gave the debate new immediacy. Haley was getting squeezed to take action. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, called for the Confederate banner to come down. Not long after the shooting, Haley added her voice to those calls.

Tyler Jones, a consultant who served as the political director for the House Democratic legislative caucus when the flag fell, described it as the “bow on the top of [Haley’s] career... A lot of us in South Carolina when that happened looked at each other and said she could be president now. This was a very historic move, and it could position her perfectly in a general election. But as we’re seeing now, she doesn’t want to talk about it in this primary.”

That Haley’s decision on the flag boosted her profile within her own party then speaks to how much the GOP later changed under Trump. Whereas in 2015, Haley was celebrated for working with Democrats and demonstrating a moderate backbone, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is currently second behind Trump in a hypothetical primary matchup because he steamrolled opponents to make Florida the epicenter of the nation’s culture wars. Haley, meanwhile, is polling in single digits very early in the race, and is tied with DeSantis in South Carolina.

“Things have gotten worse, and it’s the rhetoric used in politics now,” said former South Carolina state Rep. Gary Clary, the first Republican to sign onto Brannon’s bill to remove the flag. Clary doubts whether Republican lawmakers would act as decisively on the flag today. “You’ve got plenty of angry people walking around, and some of them are serving in elected positions.”

Other Republicans told HuffPost that Haley doesn’t deserve nearly as much credit as she’s gotten for the flag coming down, and that the real courageous actors were Republicans from very conservative areas who ended their careers to get it done.

“I’m thankful that she has kinda backed off, because there was a time when Nikki said, ‘The flag came down. Look what I did. That flag is gone.’ Nikki didn’t do that,” said Brannon, who does not intend to back Haley in the presidential primary.

“I believe there are absolute truths. The sky is blue. You can’t tell me that it’s any other color but blue,” he said. “There was a time when Nikki stood up and said ‘never Trump’ and then became one of his biggest supporters. In my opinion ... Nikki might tell you the sky is not blue.”

CNN host bursts out laughing while reporting on Fox News’ legal woes

There were no attempts to stifle the laughter at CNN this week, as Fox News were made to pay the price for their election lies.

 by Tom Head

LBC
2023-04-23 




Jake Tapper allowed himself a moment of on-air hilarity this week, after it was announced that Fox News paid out almost $800 million in a major defamation case. The CNN host did nothing to hide his partisan loyalties, twisting the knife on the Murdoch-owned broadcaster.

An own goal for Rupert Murdoch, as Fox News embroiled in embarrassment

A few days ago, Fox News reached an out-of-court settlement with Dominion – a company which provided voting machines at the 2020 US Election. A load of right-wing nutjobs and Trump-devotees claimed that their machines were rigged in favour of Joe Biden and the Democrats.

Fox News gave a large amount of airtime to these unfounded claims – despite top officials at the network not believing them. It has since been revealed that hosts like Tucker Carlson, who pushed ‘The Big Lie’, secretly derided Mr. Trump and his conspiratorial beliefs.

Why Fox News have paid out to Dominion

However, in the quest for ratings and bidding to keep the Trump faction of the Republican Party onside, Fox News continued to push the false narrative. It’s an editorial decision that ended up costing them almost $1 billion.

The settlement fee is estimated to be worth somewhere between 8-to-16 times more than Dominion’s annual turnover. Although this case didn’t make it to trial, the sheer size of the payout and the swift resolution suggests that Rupert Murdoch was keen to avoid legal scrutiny.

CNN host chuckles at rival broadcaster’s statement

The whole thing has been a fiasco, and it’s little wonder that Jake Tapper and his colleagues couldn’t hide their sniggers. During a live broadcast, the veteran anchor burst into laughter while reading a Fox New statement that claimed they were still committed ‘to high journalistic standards’.

Pull the other one, guys…

“It’s one of the most ugly and embarrassing moments in journalism. Fox News have issued a statement saying they’re happy to have ‘settled’ their dispute with Dominion [laughter]. I’m sorry, this is hard to say with a straight face. Fox say they’re still committed to maintaining the highest journalistic standards.” | Jake Tapper

You can watch Jake Tapper’s hilarious delivery here:

Key Democrat fears only a market crash will resolve debt limit impasse

“I would tell the president, ‘You can negotiate ,  there’s a reason we don’t negotiate with hostage-takers, Because you’ll be doing it again real soon.”

BY MIKE LILLIS 

THE HILL

- 04/23/23 

A key Democrat is warning this week that only a stock market collapse will break the partisan stalemate over raising the debt ceiling and preventing a government default over the summer.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), a former Goldman Sachs executive and senior member of the Financial Services Committee, said the Republicans’ opposition to a debt limit hike without steep spending cuts is so entrenched that only an economy-rattling market tumble — like the crash that accompanied the financial crisis of 2008 — will shake GOP leaders to accept a bipartisan compromise.

“I fear that this ends the way the famous TARP, the Troubled Assets Relief Program, got passed in 2008. And that is when the markets finally say, ‘You guys have got to stop screwing around,’” Himes said Thursday during a wide-ranging interview in his Capitol Hill office.

TARP was Congress’s controversial response to the global financial crisis 15 years ago, providing $700 billion to stabilize teetering banks and restore faith in reeling credit markets. Championed by then-President George W. Bush and his treasury secretary — former Goldman CEO Hank Paulson, who warned of a global economic collapse if the funding was denied — the bill was killed in the House the first time it hit the floor in late September 2008.

The surprise vote sent the stock market into a freefall, pulling the Dow down 7 percent — the steepest decline since the attacks of 9/11 — and the Nasdaq down more than 9 percent. All told, the U.S. equity market lost $1.2 trillion in a day. Four days later, after making minor changes, spooked House lawmakers passed the bill and sent it to Bush’s desk.

Himes, who was first elected to Congress a month later, predicted it will require a similar scare to convince the Republicans who control the House to pass a debt ceiling increase that can also win President Biden’s signature.

“Sadly, I think it’s going to take that kind of market signal to wake my ideologically frenzied friends up and just say, ‘Let’s move on and do some real stuff,'” Himes said.

The debate surrounding the debt limit is growing more urgent as the government inches closer to the important moment when it exhausts the “extraordinary measures” it’s currently using to pay its debts — a mystery date Treasury officials say could come as early as June. Unless Congress raises that cap, the government would be unable to pay all of its existing obligations, marking the first default in U.S. history. Economists of all stripes have warned the effect on the global economy could be catastrophic.

Biden, from the start, has demanded a “clean” debt ceiling bill absent any other provisions — a stipulation Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who’s leading the Republican negotiations, has refused.

Pressured by conservatives in his conference, McCarthy is insisting on steep spending cuts to accompany the borrowing hike. As an opening bid, he introduced legislation on Wednesday to cut federal spending by $4.5 trillion over the next decade, according to GOP estimates, while raising the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or through March 2024, whichever comes first.

Republican leaders are racing to secure the support to pass the bill early next week, but they have some work to do to overcome the reservations from some GOP lawmakers — conservatives and moderates alike — who are fighting for favored changes.

Leaders are voicing confidence heading into the vote — “The cup is half full, we can get there,” McCarthy said — and even some of the most conservative GOP lawmakers are signaling their intent to support the package.

“[Democrats] certainly have been floating the notion that they didn’t think we can get to 218,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), who was among the conservatives who forced McCarthy to adopt a host of concessions — including a tougher line on deficit spending — in support for his Speakership bid in January. “I think they underestimate both where we’ve begun and what we accomplished in January to get ourselves better organized around clear ideas.”

Still, GOP leaders are reportedly short of 218 Republican votes, and Democratic leaders are warning McCarthy that he should expect no help from across the aisle.

“We’re at a point now where House Republicans are going to have to produce the votes for their extreme legislative proposal,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters Thursday.

Even if the bill passes the House, it’s dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, putting the sides closer to default without a resolution. The dilemma facing McCarthy is finding some compromise that can win bipartisan support, for the sake of avoiding a default, without angering conservatives to the extent that they attempt to topple him from power — a process he agreed to make easier as part of his deal with them in January.

Himes said the challenges facing McCarthy are much tougher than those that confronted former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who had a much larger majority to work with during the debt ceiling battle of 2011, when the U.S. credit rating was downgraded for the first time in history.

“It’s unquestionably much worse,” he said. “One hundred days of experience as Speaker, and he’s got a tiny majority. And that majority includes people who — let me be diplomatic and say are unpredictable.”

Himes, echoing a chorus of others in his party, was quick to point out that Democrats voted to raise the debt limit three times under former President Trump — and even Republican deficit hawks were largely silent when those votes occurred under a GOP president.

“Remember, three times during Donald Trump the debt ceiling got raised, and you didn’t even notice because Kevin McCarthy and all the Republicans were like, ‘Let’s not screw around here now, we’ve got a [Republican] president,’” he said. “Now all of a sudden they need to take the grenade out, pull the pin and put it on the table.”

Democrats, he added, are happy to debate the merits of federal programs and the funding provided to them. But that conversation should happen in the normal process of passing appropriations bills, he said, not with a federal default hanging in the balance. Durbin: Conversation about budget should be ‘separate’ from debt ceilingKlobuchar: Biden, McCarthy should negotiate on budget, not hold Americans’ mortgages ‘hostage’ over debt ceiling

“God bless you, if you want to cut food stamps to hungry children, if you want to make it harder to go to college, put that idea forward. But do it as part of the regular legislative process where we can debate it,” Himes said. “You don’t get to say, ‘We’re going to cut food stamps, and if you don’t do it, we’re blowing up the economy.’ Which is what the debt ceiling conversation is all about.”

Amid the debate, some moderate Democrats are quietly voicing frustrations that Biden has refused to negotiate with McCarthy. But a vast majority of the caucus is sticking with their ally in the White House, warning opening that door would set a dangerous precedent for debt ceiling debates in the future. Himes said his advice to Biden would be to hold his ground.

“I would tell the president, ‘You can negotiate. [But] there’s a reason we don’t negotiate with hostage-takers,’” Himes said. “Because you’ll be doing it again real soon.”

Opinion: Florida wants to bar schools from talking about menstruation. What would Judy Blume say?


Rachel McAdams co-stars in the new film “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” based on Judy Blume’s 1970 book about puberty.
(Chris Pizzello / Invision via Associated Press)

BY JENNIFER WEISS-WOLF

APRIL 23, 2023 

The film “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” an adaptation of Judy Blume’s iconic 1970 book about preteen firsts, debuts on the big screen this month, and in anticipation, social media has been abuzz with fans spanning generations. Many credit the book with bringing important topics like puberty and menstruation into the open.
And yet here we are 53 years later, watching lawmakers try to silence “period talk” and other facts of life — including in Blume’s home state of Florida, where on Wednesday the state’s Board of Education barred discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity at all grade levels and where first periods were recently the subject of a contentious legislative hearing.
Republican state Rep. Stan McClain acknowledged that a broadly restrictive sex education bill he sponsored would prohibit students younger than sixth grade from learning about or talking about menstruation at school. If the bill passes the state Senate as drafted and is signed into law, fourth- and fifth-graders who start their period — a common occurrence — would have to be rebuffed if they approached a trusted teacher or the school nurse for guidance.

Even without that restriction, children are quite likely to learn nothing about menstruation at school. Education about puberty and reproductive health is not federally required, and Florida is among the more than 30 states that do not require sexuality curricula to be medically accurate.
The new bill preventing discussion of periods wouldn’t just censor health teachers. It would have broad and probably unintended effects across many facets of education, such as literature, history and civics. Even Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl” could be barred solely for its references to menstruation.
Blume herself initially weighed in with a simple tweet: “Sorry, Margaret.” She later issued a full-throated rebuke of the politics behind the proposal, wishing Florida lawmakers “good luck” in their attempts to police girls in elementary school from discussing periods and puberty.


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However, state legislatures are now moving beyond policing information — and are going after proposals that would ensure students have access to period products themselves. Republican lawmakers in Idaho recently killed a bill that would have provided free pads and tampons in public schools. One female state legislator who opposed the bill remarked that the topic of menstruation is itself “embarrassing.” Another said, “I think it’s a stretch to say that we have to provide these products in order for women to be educated.” The bill was mocked for being “too liberal” and “woke.”
These are harmful statements. Among young teens, lack of support around menstruation, including accurate information and accessible products, can lead to compromised mental and physical health, lost classroom time and productivity, and even disciplinary action.

The adverse impact of ignoring or marginalizing menstruation extends beyond school buildings. Those experiencing homelessness or extreme poverty describe infections from using tampons and pads for longer than recommended, or resorting to makeshift alternatives like wadded toilet paper or discarded newspapers.

Lawmakers began to take this issue seriously starting in 2016, when New York City became the nation’s first jurisdiction to pass laws mandating free menstrual products in its public schools, shelters and jails. Since then, California has stepped up as a leader in passing menstrual access policies. It is among the now 21 states, as well as local school boards across the country, that mandate or freely provide pads and tampons in schools.
Notably, these initiatives have successfully skirted partisan rancor, with both Republican- and Democrat-led legislatures and statehouses embracing and advancing menstrual access bills.

Suddenly, though, the tide is shifting. Activists fighting to ensure menstruation does not pose a barrier to education and personal dignity may find themselves swept up in a culture war as their message is shouted down in the name of parental rights and “anti-wokeness.”

Brazil's Lula kicks off visit to European ally Portugal

By HELENA ALVES
ASSOCIATED PRESS • April 22, 2023

Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa reviewing the troops during welcome ceremony outside the 16th century Jeronimos monastery in Lisbon, Saturday, April 22, 2023. Lula da Silva is in Lisbon for a four day state visit to Portugal. (Armando Franca/AP)

LISBON — Portugal's president welcomed President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil on an official visit Saturday, as the Brazilian leader looks to strengthen ties with his country's natural partner in the European Union.

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa received Lula and Brazilian first lady Rosangela da Silva in an official ceremony at the Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon. Portugal is home to over 250,000 Brazilians, and some were on hand to cheer the visiting president.

During his first joint press conference with Sousa, Lula avoided feeding the controversy regarding his recent comments about Western military aid fueling Ukraine and Russia's conflict.

"My country took the decision long ago to condemn Russia for the occupation of the space and violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine, in the first days, and we have voted in the U.N. in this regard," he said.

The Brazilian leader reiterated his proposal that a group of nations including Brazil mediate a peaceful resolution to the war.

"I never equaled both countries, because I know what an invasion is and what territorial integrity is. And all of us think Russia is wrong and we already condemned it in every UN decision", he stated. The trip is Lula's first to a European country since he defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro and won a third non-consecutive term in October. While in Portugal, the left-wing leader aims to secure about a dozen agreements on trade and migration. The relaunch of a Portugal-Brazil summit, which was last held in 2016 when Michel Temer was Brazil's president, was planned as the diplomatic highlight of the trip. The event will be the setting for the signing of 13 bilateral agreements, including a cooperation deal between the space agencies of Brazil and Portugal.

Before departing for Spain on Tuesday, Lula's itinerary includes a prize-giving ceremony on Monday to honor renowned Brazilian musician Chico Buarque and a visit to Brazilian airline manufacturer Embraer's factory near Lisbon.

Carla Bridi contributed from Brasilia and Raquel Redondo from Madrid.

ALL CAPITALI$M IS STATE CAPITALI$M

Yoon joined by chaebol leaders on US trip amid concerns of protectionism

By Jo He-rim
Published : Apr 23, 2023

From left: Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Samsung Electronics Executive Chairman Lee Jae-yong attend a Korea-Japan business roundtable held in Tokyo on March 17 upon President Yoon Suk Yeol's summit there with his Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida. (Yonhap)

South Korea’s top conglomerate chiefs are heading to the US this week to accompany President Yoon Suk Yeol on his state visit, hoping to find a breakthrough in business uncertainties surrounding increasingly protectionist policies in the all-important market.


Taking his biggest economic delegation to date in his weeklong state visit to the US from Monday, Yoon is expected to relay the difficulties Korean companies face with the US' introduction of the CHIPS and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act, while also stressing the need to cooperate in advanced technology.

“The economic delegation plans to make tangible results in summit diplomacy centered on the economy, together with South Korea’s No. 1 salesperson, the president,” said Choi Sang-mok, senior presidential aide for economic affairs.

The economic delegation is the biggest in size for Yoon, involving the chiefs of 122 Korean companies, according to the Federation of Korean Industries.

It is also the first time for the chiefs of the country’s top five conglomerate groups -- Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin -- and all six economic organizations to accompany a presidential trip.

One of the main agenda items of the state visit is expected to focus on the uncertainties the US protectionist policies have created for Korean companies.

“Korean conglomerate chiefs are expected to address various pending issues that come in the way of their business operations in the US,” an industry official said under the condition of anonymity, explaining that Samsung and SK would likely focus on the US’ CHIPS Act and Hyundai on the IRA.

In summits and other bilateral meetings from encounters with the US President Joe Biden in international events, Yoon has relayed the industrial concerns to the US government to create favorable exceptions for Korean companies, a presidential official said under condition of anonymity.

But Korean businesses feel the US government should be able to make more adjustments, since they are making some tens of billions of dollars investments to the US, industry officials here say. This week's US trip, therefore, would provide the business leaders the opportunity to directly consult with the US on their concerns.

South Korea's chip industry, led by the world's top memory chip makers, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, has been feeling the pressure caused by the US' CHIPS Act, which was initially intended to attract foreign investment to boost the US’ semiconductor industry.

Introducing a chips support program, the US has required global chipmakers to share with them sensitive business information and excess profit in order to receive the subsidies deemed critical for operation on US soil.

With the intention to foster competitive edge in the chips industry, especially against its strategic rival China, the support program also limits the subsidy recipients from expanding production volume and investment in any "country of concern" – among which China is included -- for a decade, posing burdens for chipmakers that have production facilities in China.

Samsung, the world's top memory chip maker, has reportedly submitted an application for the US chips subsidy program. It is currently building a foundry plant in Taylor, Texas. SK hynix is also currently searching for a site for its planned $15 billion advanced chip packaging plant in the US, the company’s first production facility there.

US President Joe Biden (left) and President Yoon Suk Yeol (center) take a look around Samsung Electronics' semiconductor factory in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, under the guidance of Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong on May 20, 2022. (Yonhap)

Hyundai Motor Group will likely address its stance over the IRA, which excludes its automotive brands, Hyundai and Kia, from the tax credits available for electric vehicles sold in the US due to its protectionist production requirements.

The Korean EV maker, which produces its vehicles in Korea, was left out of the list of the total 16 EV models the US announced as eligible for consumer tax credits of up to $7,500 per unit sold.

Hyundai is speeding up the construction of its EV manufacturing plant in Georgia -- slated to be operational by the end of 2024.

While worries mounted that the Korean automaker would likely see a drastic drop in US sales following the IRA legislation, the presidential office asserted that its diplomatic efforts have led for the US government to offer subsidies for EVs on lease and rentals, securing a meaningful number of sales for Hyundai.

"As the result (of the diplomatic efforts), Hyundai's US sales has been increasing since August last year. For instance, the number of EVs exported to the US in the August was 5,500 units, and the figure increased to 14,400 units in March this year," Choi, the senior presidential secretary told reporters.

In the summit with the US president slated on Wednesday, Yoon is expected to address the overall direction of the two countries’ bilateral cooperation in advanced technology, as well as sensitive issues related to the US' policies, the official added.

Eyes are also on whether Korean companies will announce additional investment plans in the US.

Hyundai Motor is joining hands with two Korean battery makers, LG Energy Solution and SK On, to build EV battery plants in the US, with investments totaling 7 trillion won ($5.3 billion).

Samsung had also announced the investment plan of $17 billion to build the Taylor foundry when Biden visited Seoul in May last year.

Meanwhile, heads of the top Korean conglomerates are also expected to meet with their industry counterparts during their US trip.

Samsung's Lee Jae-yong, making his first business trip to the US since he became the chairman in November last year, may stay longer in the US after the official conclusion of the delegation’s trip on Sunday. His next trial date in Korea over the 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates is set on May 26.

Lee is reportedly planning to meet with Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, traveling to Silicon Valley in California in the later part of his US trip.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)

Aitkin County Dismisses Line 3 Trespassing Charges Against Winona LaDuke

Yahoo News

Two charges of trespassing against Winona LaDuke have been dismissed by a county judge in Minnesota. 

(Photo: StopLine3.org)

BY DARREN THOMPSON 

 APRIL 22, 2023

A county judge in central Minnesota dismissed two counts of trespassing against activist Winona LaDuke this week.

The charges are related to an incident on December 5, 2020, when LaDuke was charged with two counts of misdemeanor trespass for participating in a prayer lodge on the banks of the Mississippi River. On the day Line 3 construction was scheduled to begin, law enforcement posted “no trespassing” signs around a group of people conducting a ceremony and then demanded that everyone leave.

“I’m grateful for the dismissal,” LaDuke, founder and former executive director of Honor the Earth, said in an interview with Native News Online. “The charges were wrong. We are Anishinaabe and we are water protectors.”

LaDuke’s attorneys defended her right to participate in her religious freedom and alleged the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) in their court documents, “violations of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

“Judge Metzen’s prudent decision to dismiss these exaggerated charges against Ms. LaDuke once again illustrates that Winona’s rights to exercise her religious and First Amendment freedoms were not in any way criminal trespass,” Frank Bibeau, one of LaDuke’s attorneys, said in a statement.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) made agreements with Enbridge to reimburse for extra policing during the construction of the Line 3 Oil Pipeline Replacement Project. In total, both the Minnesota DNR and Aitken County Sheriff’s Office received at least $8.6 million in reimbursement funding for Line 3 related activity. Nearly 900 people were arrested during the construction of Line 3, from December 2020 to October 2021.

“Aitkin County received over $350,000 from Enbridge to turn water protectors into criminals,” LaDuke said. “There are still many other water protectors who have been charged, all while Enbridge is gunning for the Straits of Mackinac risking the Great Lakes.”

While the courts dismissed the trespassing charges against LaDuke, a White Earth Ojibwe citizen, she is still a defendant in Aitkin and Wadena counties on separate charges related to her opposition of Enbridge’s Line 3 Oil Pipeline Replacement Project.

Enbridge Line 5 was built in 1953 and is a 30-inch oil pipeline that transports crude oil from western Canada to eastern Canada, 645 miles from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario via the state of Michigan. The most controversial part of the pipeline is in the Straits of Mackinac, the narrow waterway that connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

In 2018, an anchor from a freight ship struck and damaged the Line 5 pipeline while passing through the Straits of Mackinac. While damage from the passing didn’t lead to an oil spill, then-Republican Governor Rick Snyder made an agreement with Enbridge to protect the pipeline from future damage and keep it operational. Enbridge later built a $500 million tunnel under the lake to enclose the Line 5 pipeline.

Two years later, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, ordered Enbridge to cease operations in the Straits of Mackinac, effectively shutting the Line 5 oil pipeline down.Enbridge has refused to end operations, saying it earns an estimated $2 million daily and has been operating the pipeline safely and reliably for decades.

Enbridge wants to replace the pipeline inside a utility tunnel drilled beneath the Straits, arguing that would heighten protections against environmental damages. Enbridge already received permits to build the tunnel from Michigan state environmental regulators and the Mackinac Straits Corridor Authority. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has already begun its environmental impact statement (EIS), and is expected to take several years to complete.

Scramble for clean energy metals confronted by calls to respect Indigenous rights


Protester of Thacker Pass lithium mine.

 (Image courtesy of Max Wilbert via Mongabay)

BY SARAH SAX, MONGABAY

 APRIL 22, 2023

This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, and Native News Online.

NEW YORK — When Francisco Calí Tzay, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, spoke at the world’s largest gathering of Indigenous peoples, he listed clean energy projects as some of the most concerning threats to their rights.

“I constantly receive information that Indigenous Peoples fear a new wave of green investments without recognition of their land tenure, management, and knowledge,” said Calí Tzay. His statement at the 22nd United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), and those made by other delegates, made clear that without the free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) of Indigenous people, these green projects have the capacity to seriously impede on Indigenous rights.

FPIC has always been an important topic at the UNPFII, but this year it’s taken on a renewed urgency.

“The strong push is because more and more of climate action and targets for sustainable development are impacting us,” said Joan Carling, executive director of Indigenous Peoples Rights International, an Indigenous non-profit that works to protect Indigenous peoples’ rights worldwide. Indigenous people around the world are experiencing the compounding pressures of clean energy mining projects, carbon offsets, new protected areas and large infrastructure projects on their lands as part of post-COVID-19 economic recovery efforts, according to The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) 2023 report.

As states around the world trend towards transitioning to clean energy to meet their national and international climate goals, the demand for minerals like lithium, copper and nickel needed for batteries that power the energy revolution are projected to skyrocket. The demand could swell fourfold by 2040 and by conservative estimates, pull in $1.7 trillion in mining investments. Although Indigenous delegates say they support clean energy projects, one of the issues is their land rights: more than half of the projects extracting these minerals currently are on or near lands where Indigenous peoples or peasants live, according to an analysis published in Nature.

This can either lead to their eviction from territories, loss of livelihoods or the deforestation and degradation of surrounding ecosystems.

“And yet […] we are not part of the discussion,” said Carling. “That’s why I call it green colonialism — the [energy] transition without the respect of Indigenous rights is another form of colonialism.”

However, standing at the doorway of a just clean energy transition is FPIC, say Indigenous delegates. FPIC is the cornerstone of international human rights standards like the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the International Labor Organization Convention 169 (ILO Convention 169). Though more than one hundred countries have adopted UNDRIP, this standard is not legally binding. It is rather an instrument to interpret national laws. ILO Convention 169 is legally binding, but only to the 24 states that have ratified the convention.

Because of this, delegates are calling on countries and companies to create binding policy and guidelines that require FPIC for all projects that affect Indigenous people and their lands, as well as financial, territorial and material remedies for when companies and countries fail to do so. According to Carling, this will be the mandatory inclusion of FPIC in international standards such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and putting more pressure on national governments to implement policy reforms that include accountability.

However, there is undoubtedly some pushback. The free prior, informed consent process can lead to a wide variety of outcomes, including the right for communities to decline a highly profitable project, which can often be difficult for countries, companies, and investors to abide by, explains Mary Beth Gallagher, the director of engagement of investment at Domini Impact Investments, who spoke at a side event on shareholder advocacy.

A cobalt mine in central Africa. 

Image by Fairphone via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).

Indigenous Sámi delegates from Norway drew attention to their need for legally enforceable FPIC protection as they continued to protest the Fosen Vind project farm that the country’s Supreme Court ruled was violating their rights. “We have come to learn the hard way that sustainability doesn’t end colonialism,” said a Sámi delegate during the main panel on Tuesday.

In the United States, the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, the People of Red Mountain, and members of the Fort McDermitt Tribe filed lawsuits against the Bureau of Land Management for approving the permits for an open-pit lithium mine without proper consultation with the tribes. In the Colombian Amazon, the Inga Indigenous community presented a successful appeal for lack of prior consultation from a Canadian company that plans to mine copper, molybdenum, and other metals in their highly biodiverse territory.

Consternation over governments and multinational companies setting aside FPIC has long extended over other sectors, like conservation and monoculture plantations for key cash crops. In Peru, the Shipibo-Konibo Indigenous people are resisting several large protected areas that overlap with their territory and were put in place without prior consultation. In Tanzania and Kenya, the Maasai are being actively evicted from their landsfor a trophy hunting and safari reserve. Indigenous Ryukyuan delegates condemned the ongoing use of their traditional lands and territories by the Japanese government and the United States military for U.S. military bases without their free, prior, and informed consent.

Eyes on the private sector

While delegates put a lot of emphasis on the lack of FPIC, they put equal emphasis on FPIC as a crucial part of the long-term sustainability of energy projects.

“FPIC is more than just a checklist for companies looking to develop projects on Indigenous lands,” said Carling. “It is a framework for partnership, including options for equitable benefit sharing agreements or memorandum of understanding, collaboration or conservation.”

The focus of this year’s conference has emphasized the growing role of FPIC in the private sector. Investors and developers are increasingly considering the inclusion of FPIC into their human rights due diligence standards. Select countries such as Canada have implemented UNDRIP in full, although First Nation groups pointed out irregularities in how it is being implemented. The EU is proposing including specific mandatory rights to FPIC in its corporate sustainability due diligence regulation. Side events at the UNPFII focused on topics like transmitting FPIC Priorities to the private sector and using shareholder advocacy to increase awareness of FPIC.

Gallagher of Domini Impact Investments says companies have a responsibility to respect human rights, which includes FPIC. “If they have a human rights commission or they have a commitment in their policies not to do land grabs, we have to hold them to account for that.”

In 2021, the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, published an expectation that companies “obtain (and maintain) the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples for business decisions that affect their rights.” Large banks like Credit Agricole have included FPIC in their corporate social responsibility policy. But in most cases, even when companies have a FPIC policy, it doesn’t conform to the standard outlined in UNDRIP and is not legally binding.

“It doesn’t do the work it’s supposed to do to protect self-determination. It becomes a check-the-box procedure that’s solely consultations and stakeholder consultation instead of protection of rights and self-determination,” says Kate Finn, director at First Peoples Worldwide.

If communities aren’t giving their consent, the company has to respect that, says Gallagher. “There’s obviously points of tension where investors have different agendas and priorities but ultimately, it’s about centering Indigenous leadership and working through that.”

Not properly abiding by FPIC can be costly to companies in countries that operate where it is a legal instrument. It comes with risks of losing their social operation to license, and financial damages. According to a study First Peoples Worldwide, Energy Transfer Partners and banks that financed the now-completed Dakota Access Pipeline, lost billions due to construction delays, account closures, and contract losses after they failed to obtain consent from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in the United States.

Ultimately, Indigenous people need to be part of decision-making from the beginning of any project, especially clean energy projects mining for transition minerals on their territories, said Carling. “For us, land is life, and we have a right to decide over what happens on our land.”

Indigenous Scholars Release New Report at U.N. on Determinants — and Protectants —of Indigenous Health



(photo: Jenna Kunze)

BY DARREN THOMPSON 

 APRIL 20, 2023

NEW YORK — Indigenous scholars presented a report on Tuesday on Indigenous determinants of health at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) 22nd session.

The study was delegated during UNPFII 21st session and aims to create positive health and wellness outcomes for Indigenous communities worldwide. The study also responds to the U.N.’s adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to eliminate poverty and improve health and economic development for all populations globally.

The 20-page report outlines how social determinants — genetics, behavior, environment and culture — influence the health outcomes of the world’s Indigenous populations. The authors noted that while Indigenous populations vary around the globe, they share critical commonalities: an approach to health as an “equilibrium of spirituality, traditional medicine, biodiversity and the interconnectedness of all that exists” and oppression of culture via colonization.

“The Indigenous determinants of health are varied and cannot possibly capture everybody’s need and truth in one document,” Stacy Bohlen, (Sault Ste. Marie Ojibwe) CEO of the National Indian Health Board (NIHB) said at Tuesday’s announcement. “But the one commonality we share as Indigenous peoples is colonization, and the consequences of colonization internationally have led us to common grounds of cultural erasure, intergenerational trauma, and loss of language and culture, all supported by policies designed to specifically do those things.”

Dr. Donald Warne, Co-Director for the Center for Indigenous Health at John Hopkins University and a contributor to the report, told Native News Online that the report not only highlights determinants of health that contribute to disparities but determinants that support — or “protect” — positive health outcomes, such as connectedness to language, culture, and ceremony.

“Social determinants of health are typically linked to bad health outcomes,” Warne told Native News Online. “What we want to emphasize is that for Indigenous determinants of health, is that we have some very unique strengths.”

The report pinpoints 33 Indigenous determinants and protectants of health, divided into three categories: (a) Intergenerational holistic healing; (b) Health of Mother Earth; (c) Decolonizing and re-Indigenizing culture.

Determinants include institutionalized Indigenous-specific racism, ongoing trauma exposure, erosion of traditional lifeways and more. Protectors of health include acknowledgment of sovereignty and Indigenous rights and belief systems, access to traditional medicine, and land and sacred place.

“The protective factors of Indigenous health and that needs to be promoted,” Warne said.

Scholars hope that more resources will be put toward the research to establish guiding principles of how to improve the overall health and wellness of the world’s Indigenous peoples.

“This is not a document that’s produced with hopeful aspirations, but to actually make commitments and to measure outcomes based on the work related to this,” said Warne. “We’re hoping that it leads to long-term commitment internationally so that it leads to positive Indigenous outcomes.”

At Tuesday’s discussion, the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus —comprised of Indigenous youth from all seven regions within the U.N. — supported the report.

“We strongly support and stand by the report,” Makanalani Gomes, a representative of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus, said. “We know that inclusion, cultivation, and nurturing of Indigenous youth are social determinants of youth. When we take care and honor the rights of Indigenous youth and Indigenous peoples, we in turn, take care of Earth, our Mother.”

The full report is available here.