Chile: Conservatives will now control Constitution rewrite

By EVA VERGARA and DANIEL POLITI

AP

TODAY

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José Antonio Kast, leader of the Republican party, speaks while celebrate obtaining the largest number of representatives after the election for the Constitutional Council, which will draft a new constitution proposal in Santiago, Chile, Sunday, May 7, 2023. A first attempt to replace the current Charter bequeathed by the military 42 years ago was rejected by voters during a referendum in 2022. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)



SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile seemed on the cusp of a progressive revolution last year when a committee dominated by leftists drafted a bold new constitution to replace the country’s dictatorship-era charter. But voters have put the brakes on the effort, first rejecting the proposed constitution and now giving conservatives the leading role in writing its replacement.

The far-right in Chile was the big winner of Sunday’s vote to select the members of the commission that will be tasked with writing a new constitution to replace the one imposed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

The Republican Party, which has long said it opposes a new charter, obtained 23 of the 50 seats in the commission, meaning its representatives will not only have the most seats but will also enjoy veto power over any proposals they dislike.

“It’s ironic that the sector that said it was the least enthusiastic about the process now controls it,” said Robert Funk, a political scientist at Chile University.

A coalition of left-leaning parties allied with President Gabriel Boric, Unity for Chile, won 16 seats while a center-right alliance, Safe Chile, got 11.

The dominance of right-leaning parties in the commission “indicates that the proposal will likely make few changes (to the current constitution) and could be even more conservative,” Funk said.

The results marked a big blow for Boric and Chile’s left in general which won’t be able to force any issues into the drafting of the new constitution and won’t have any power to reject anything they dislike.

“They can’t do anything, it must be extremely frustrating,” said Kenneth Bunker, a political analyst. “The only thing they have left is to try to push a moral debate to try to find a middle ground.”

Recognizing this new reality, Boric called on those who won the election Sunday to “not make the same mistake we did … in believing that pendulums are permanent.”

The proposed constitution put to Chilean voters last year had been described as the most progressive in the world, characterizing Chile as a plurinational state, establishing autonomous Indigenous territories, and prioritizing the environment and gender parity.

But critics said it was too long, lacked clarity and went too far in some of its measures. About 62% of Chileans voted to reject it, setting up Sunday’s vote to choose a committee to draft its replacement.

The victory of the right is partly explained by the “excesses of the first constitutional process that put forward a proposal that was too ideological,” Funk said, adding that the concerns of Chileans have changed and now the economy, crime and immigration are the most important issues.

If the Republican Party does “the same thing as the others did and we end up with a constitution that is too ideological, they run the risk of people rejecting it in December,” Funk said.

A key difference is that, unlike last time, the commission’s members won’t start from scratch, but rather work from a preliminary document drafted by 24 experts who were approved by Congress. The body’s proposal will face a plebiscite in December.

The big winner of Sunday’s vote was José Antonio Kast, who leads the Republican Party and lost the presidential runoff to Boric in 2021.

After his party’s victory on Sunday, Kast now “becomes the de facto head of the opposition” and will be the “orchestra director who will manage the constitutional debate,” Bunker said. That automatically puts him in the “pole position for the next presidential race,” Bunker added.

Kast’s victory comes at a time when other countries in the region are also seeing the far-right make gains.

In Paraguay, for example, far-right populist candidate Paraguayo Cubas came in an unexpectedly strong third place in presidential elections last month and obtained 23% of the vote. In Argentina, polls show far-right lawmaker Javier Milei could be a strong contender in the October presidential elections.

The path to rewriting Chile’s constitution began after violent student-led protests in 2019 that were sparked by a hike in public transportation prices but quickly expanded into broader demands for greater equality and social protections.

Congress managed to get the protests under control by calling for a referendum on whether to draw up a new constitution, which almost 80% of voters agreed was needed. Much of that early enthusiasm has waned.

China expels Canadian diplomat in tit-for-tat response

AP
TODAY

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a panel discussion at the Global Citizen NOW Summit on April 27, 2023, in New York. Trudeau's government is expelling a Chinese diplomat whom Canada’s spy agency alleged was involved in a plot to intimidate an opposition lawmaker and his relatives in Hong Kong. 

(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

BEIJING (AP) — China has announced the expulsion of a Canadian diplomat in retaliation for Ottawa’s ordering a Chinese consular official to leave over alleged threats he made against a Canadian lawmaker and his family.

The Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said China was deploying a “reciprocal countermeasure to Canada’s unscrupulous move,” which it said it “firmly opposes.”

It said the Canadian diplomat based in the business hub of Shanghai has been asked to leave by May 13 and that China “reserves the right to take further actions in response.”

Canada earlier on Tuesday said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is expelling a Chinese diplomat whom Canada’s spy agency alleged was involved in a plot to intimidate an opposition lawmaker and his relatives in Hong Kong.

A senior government official said Toronto-based diplomat Zhao Wei has five days to leave the country.

Canada, China expel diplomats in escalating row

Issued on: 09/05/2023 

Shanghai (AFP) – China said Tuesday it was expelling Canada's consul in Shanghai, in a tit-for-tat move after Ottawa announced it was sending home a Chinese diplomat accused of trying to intimidate a lawmaker.

The expulsions have plunged the two nations into a fresh diplomatic row after years of souring relations.

They follow an outcry in Canada over allegations that Chinese intelligence had planned to target MP Michael Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong with sanctions for sponsoring a motion condemning Beijing's conduct in the Xinjiang region as genocide.

In response, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said Toronto-based Chinese diplomat Zhao Wei -- who allegedly played a role in the scheme -- would have to leave the country.

Canada, she said, would "not tolerate any form of foreign interference in our internal affairs".

The Chinese foreign ministry on Tuesday condemned the decision to expel Zhao, and said it had ordered Canadian consul Jennifer Lynn Lalonde to leave the country by May 13.

"As a reciprocal countermeasure in reaction to Canada's unscrupulous move, China decides to declare Jennifer Lynn Lalonde, consul of the Consulate General of Canada in Shanghai persona non grata," the ministry said in a statement.

And foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin urged Canada to stop "unreasonable provocations".

"If the Canadian side doesn't listen to this advice and acts recklessly, (China) will take resolute and forceful retaliatory measures, and all consequences will be borne by the Canadian side," Wang told a regular press briefing.

A single police car was parked outside the Shanghai office building where the consulate is based, AFP journalists saw.

Inside, appointments appeared to be running as normal, and staff at reception said they were unaware of Tuesday's developments.

Neither Canada's foreign ministry nor its embassy in Beijing replied to requests for comment from AFP.

"We remain firm in our resolve that defending our democracy is of the utmost importance," Joly said Monday, adding that foreign diplomats in Canada "have been warned that if they engage in this type of behaviour, they will be sent home".

'Playground for interference'

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has faced growing pressure to take a hard line on China following revelations in recent months that it sought to sway Canada's 2019 and 2021 elections in his party's favour.

Relations between Beijing and Ottawa have been tense since Canada's 2018 arrest of a top Huawei executive and the detention of two Canadian nationals in China in apparent retaliation.

All three have been released, but Beijing has continued to blast Ottawa for aligning with Washington's China policy, while Canadian officials have regularly accused China of interference.

After China's ambassador was summoned last week over the latest interference allegations, Beijing on Friday slammed what it called "groundless slander and defamation" by Canada.

The Chinese foreign ministry insisted the scandal had been "hyped up" by Canadian politicians and the media.

"We have known for years that the PRC is using its accredited diplomats here in Canada to target Canadians and their families," he said, using an acronym for the People's Republic of China.

He said Canada has become "a playground for foreign interference," including the harassment of diaspora communities.

© 2023 AFP

UN report: Female Afghan UN employees harassed, detained

By RAHIM FAIEZ

TODAY

FILE - The symbol of the United Nations is displayed outside the Secretariat Building, Feb. 28, 2022, at United Nations Headquarters. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)



ISLAMABAD (AP) — Some Afghan women employed by the United Nations have been detained, harassed and had restrictions placed on their movements since being banned by the Taliban from working for the world body, the U.N. said Tuesday.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers informed the United Nations early last month that Afghan women employed with the U.N. mission could no longer report for work.

“This is the most recent in a series of discriminatory – and unlawful – measures implemented by the de facto authorities with the goal of severely restricting women and girls’ participation in most areas of public and daily life in Afghanistan,” the U.N. said in a report on the human rights situation in the south Asian country.

Taliban authorities continued to crack down on dissenting voices this year, in particular those who speak out on issues related to the rights of women and girls, the report said.

The U.N. report cited the March arrest of four women who were released the following day during a protest demanding access to education and work in the capital of Kabul and the arrest of Matiullah Wesa, head of PenPath, a civil society organization campaigning for the reopening of girls’ schools.

It also pointed to the arrest of a women’s rights activist Parisa Mobariz and her brother in February in the northern Takhar province.

Several other civil society activists have been released — reportedly without being charged — following extended periods of arbitrary detention by the Taliban Intelligence service, the report said.

The measures will have disastrous effects on Afghanistan’s prospects for prosperity, stability and peace, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA said in the report.

“UNAMA is concerned by increasing restrictions on civic space across Afghanistan,” said Fiona Frazer, the agency’s human rights chief.

The Taliban previously banned girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade and blocked women from most public life and work. In December, they banned Afghan women from working at local and non-governmental organizations — a measure that at the time did not extend to U.N. offices.

The report also pointed to ongoing extrajudicial killings of individuals affiliated with the former government. On March 5 in southern Kandahar, Taliban forces arrested a former police officer from his home, then shot and killed him, according to the report. During the same month in northern Balkh, a former military official was killed by unknown armed men in his house, it said.

“Arbitrary arrests and detention of former government officials and Afghanistan National Security and Defense Force members also occurred throughout February, March and April,” added the report.

In a separate report released Monday, the U.N. strongly criticized the Taliban for carrying out public executions, lashings and stonings since seizing power in Afghanistan, and called on the country’s rulers to halt such practices.

In the past six months alone, 274 men, 58 women and two boys were publicly flogged in Afghanistan, said the report.

The Taliban foreign ministry said in response that Afghanistan’s laws are determined in accordance with Islamic rules and guidelines, and that an overwhelming majority of Afghans follow those rules.

The Taliban began carrying out such punishments shortly after coming to power almost two years ago, despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s.

Under the first Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, public corporal punishment and executions were carried out by officials against individuals convicted of crimes, often in large venues such as sports stadiums and at urban intersections.

United Nations: Taliban's use of corporal punishment violates human rights


Taliban and their supporters held a demonstration in support of the first anniversary of the Taliban rule in Kandahar, Afghanistan on August 15, 2022. The United Nations said Monday that the Taliban government has been implementing corporal punishment since its takeover. 

File Photo by Shekib Mohammadyl/UPI | License Photo

May 8 (UPI) -- The United Nations on Monday called out the Taliban for their widespread use of corporal punishment, including public lashings and amputations, and execution in violation of international rights.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said since the Taliban seized control of the country in August 2021, their authorities have implemented corporal punishment and the death penalty.

The United Nations said the first documented use of corporal punishment since the takeover came on Oct. 20, 2021, in the Kapisa province when a man and woman received 100 lashes each by a de facto district court in front of religious scholars.

"Since this first instance in October 2021, the de facto authorities have continued to implement corporal punishment -- both following judicial decisions and on an ad hoc basis," the report said.

U.N. Security Council condemns Taliban regime's ban on female workers

The U.N. said the use of corporal punishment "increased significantly" on Nov. 13, 2022, after Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the de facto authorities tweeted the Taliban Supreme leader had met with judges to emphasize their obligation to carry out such punishments.

Lashings had been used mostly for "so-called moral crimes," including for sex outside of marriage and for girls and women "running away" from their homes, often to escape domestic violence, the report said.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people were all "at high risk" under the Taliban for public lashings.

The report said those convicted of crimes of adultery to murder have been given the death penalty, often by hanging and stoning the public.

"So long as the Taliban shows disdain for international human rights law, these barbaric practices are likely to continue," Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

"Governments engaging with the Taliban, including U.N. Security Council members, should press for an end to these abuses and make clear that international sanctions will remain in place and could be expanded if they continue."

Killing of alleged collaborator exposes Palestinian tensions

By ISABEL DEBRE

AP

TODAY

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Palestinians walk under a banner depicting militants from the Lions' Den group who were killed by Israeli forces, from left, Fadi Qufesheh, Abdulrahman Soboh, Mohammad Azizi and Mahmoud Zakari, in al-Yasmeena quarter of the Old City of Nablus, in the West Bank, Thursday, May 4, 2023. The killing of Zuhair al-Ghaleeth last month, the first slaying of a suspected Israeli intelligence collaborator in the West Bank in nearly two decades, has laid bare the weakness of the Palestinian Authority and the strains that a recent surge in violence with Israel is beginning to exert within Palestinian communities. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — There was no mourning tent for 23-year-old Palestinian Zuhair al-Ghaleeth. There were no banners with his portrait, no chants celebrating his martyrdom.

Instead, a bulldozer dropped his bullet-riddled body into an unmarked grave, witnesses said.

The day after six masked Palestinian gunmen shot and killed al-Ghaleeth over his suspected collaboration with Israel, his family and friends refused to pick up his body at the morgue, the public prosecution said. He was buried in a field cluttered with discarded animal bones and soda cans outside the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

It was a grim end to a short life. The April 8 killing in the Old City of Nablus — the first slaying of a suspected Israeli intelligence collaborator in the West Bank in nearly two decades — riveted the Palestinian public and cast a spotlight on the plight of collaborators, preyed on by both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The case has laid bare the weakness of the Palestinian Authority and the strains that a recent surge in violence with Israel is beginning to exert within Palestinian communities.

“It feels like we’re in war times,” said 56-year-old Mohammed, who heard shouting that night, followed by gunshots. He ventured out of the Ottoman-era bathhouse where he works to find his neighbor, al-Ghaleeth, motionless on the ground, his eyes rolled up and mouth agape. A crowd of Palestinians swelled around his bloodied body. “Collaborator!” they yelled. “Spy!”

The scene had an eerie familiarity, Mohammed said, as if the horrors of the First and Second Intifadas, or Palestinian uprisings, were being replayed: Paranoia turning Palestinians against each other. Rumors ruining lives. Vigilante violence spiraling out of control. Like all witnesses interviewed about the incident, Mohammed declined to give his last name for fear of reprisals.

The angry gathering around al-Ghaleeth’s body quickly turned into a protest of the Palestinian Authority, which administers most Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank. The cries against al-Ghaleeth’s betrayal took on new meaning as the crowds directed their anger toward the deeply unpopular self-rule government, which ordinary Palestinians accuse of collaboration with Israel for coordinating with Israeli security forces.

“It was chaos,” acknowledged Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority official. Palestinian security forces fired tear gas. Medics rushed al-Ghaleeth to a Nablus hospital, where they tried to resuscitate him but could not get a pulse. A medical report seen by The Associated Press said al-Ghaleeth died of gunshot wounds in his lower extremities at 10:15 p.m.

The next morning, as word spread that al-Ghaleeth had been building a house in the nearby village of Rujeib, Palestinians swarmed the construction site, poured gasoline over the unfinished walls and set them on fire.

The public prosecution is still investigating al-Ghaleeth’s killing and has yet to announce arrests.

But an independent armed group known as the Lion’s Den, which has risen to prominence in the past year, seemed to take responsibility.

In the Old City of Nablus, where al-Ghaleeth lived and died, the Lion’s Den has brought together militants from the secular nationalist Fatah party and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. The young men — disillusioned with the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process and with the undemocratic Palestinian Authority — have made the Old City a sort of private fiefdom.

After news of al-Ghaleeth’s death broke, the Lion’s Den declared that “the traitor was liquidated.”

“A traitor sells his homeland and his value as a human being for money,” commander Oday Azizi wrote on Facebook.

Lion’s Den member Tyseer Alfee said the killing was a warning. “We want all to see the fate of those who collaborate with the Israeli occupation,” he wrote in a text message when asked why al-Ghaleeth was shot publicly in the bustling marketplace, his body left for residents to find.

A grainy video purporting to show al-Ghaleeth confess to his collaboration was posted on social media and quickly garnered many views. In the four-minute clip, al-Ghaleeth — looking tired and swallowing hard several times — tells how Israeli agents used footage of him having sex with another man as blackmail.

He said an Israeli recruiter ordered him to gather intelligence on Lion’s Den leaders to help the military target them. After each mission, he said, the Israeli agent gave him 500 shekels (about $137) and a carton of Marlboro cigarettes.

Two members of the Lion’s Den, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said that after months of suspicion, they began following al-Ghaleeth around. They caught him surveilling another militant and detained him. They described a six-hour videotaped interrogation, with just a clip leaked to social media to protect sensitive information about the group. “He confessed to everything after 30 minutes, maybe in hopes we wouldn’t kill him,” one said.

The public prosecution said it filed the online video as additional evidence in the case.

But the confession raised as many questions as it answered, evoking the fraught judicial processes of grisly executions in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip — both those considered legal and those with little or no due process.

Since its 2007 takeover of the enclave, the Hamas militant group has publicly killed 33 suspected collaborators and other convicted criminals, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. During war times, Hamas gunmen have seized at least 29 alleged collaborators from detention centers and killed them in the streets, without any pretense of a trial. Their bodies were dragged through Gaza City by motorbikes and left for crowds to gawk at or stomp on.

In the occupied West Bank, killings of alleged collaborators have occurred only in periods of intense unrest. Over 900 suspected collaborators were killed in the chaos of the First Intifada that began in 1987. More than 100 were killed in the second uprising, from 2000-05, according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

“These killings are a symptom of increased violence,” said Nathan Thrall, an analyst and author of a book on Israel and the Palestinians. Without due process, he said, “there are people who will use these accusations opportunistically to eliminate rivals and settle scores.”

Now Israelis and Palestinians are in the midst of one of the region’s bloodiest phases, outside a full-blown war, in two decades. As of Tuesday, 105 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire this year, according to an AP tally, about half of them affiliated with militant groups. Palestinian attacks against Israelis have killed 20 people in that time.

In recent months, the Israeli army has killed most key commanders and founders of the Lion’s Den, it says. In an apparently rare targeted killing last fall, a bomb on a motorbike exploded as militant Tamer al-Kilani walked by. Purported security video provided by the Lion’s Den shows an unidentified man parking the motorbike and exiting the frame before the blast killed al-Kilani. During raids, Israeli special forces often adopt disguises, such as of local worshippers or laborers, to quietly slip into the Old City — most recently last Thursday.

As the deaths rose, mistrust grew in the Old City. “We are all terrified because of how many have died,” said Ahmad, a 23-year-old hotel waiter in Nablus. “There are drones and cameras. There must be spies. Everyone suspects everyone.”

On Instagram, al-Ghaleeth looks like any other 20-something Palestinian. His page is full of mirror selfies in track suits, beauty shots of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and fan photos of Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi, with captions praising Lion’s Den “martyrs” sprinkled in.

Rumors abound about how he first aroused suspicion. Some say he always covered his face with a keffiyeh scarf in the Old City, as though trying to hide. Others talk of his apparently sudden wealth that allowed him to build a large house on a hilltop even though he once swept streets for cash. A few neighbors allege he resembled the shadowy figure in security footage of al-Kilani’s killing.

“We all knew he was an agent,” said Nael, a 52-year-old cafe owner in the Old City, whose nephew, a leader in the Lion’s Den, was killed last year. “It was the way he walked and talked. We have a sense for these things.”

Despite Israel’s sophisticated technology for surveilling militants, former intelligence officials say Palestinians themselves remain a crucial tool in preventing militant attacks, allowing Israel to conduct intelligence operations at safe remove.

“People think we only target terrorists, but the person down the street is very interesting as well. You can blackmail all kinds of people even if they’re not involved,” said one former Israeli intelligence agent, among nearly four dozen operatives who refused to report for reserve duty in 2014 to protest his unit’s tactics. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “There is no military control without this kind of intelligence.”

He said relationships between recruiters and collaborators often become twisted into something else. “The gifting of a pack of cigarettes is very symbolic,” he said. “This person has to be under the impression that you care for him, that you’re just a friend who’s helping out.”

Collaboration has featured in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since before the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. Palestinians have been blackmailed into service — threatened with having behavior exposed that’s forbidden, or “haram,” in their conservative Islamic communities, such as alcohol use, gambling or homosexuality. Others are recruited when seeking permits to get medical treatment in Israel.

“If they’re gay? Absolutely,” said retired Col. Miri Eisin, a former senior intelligence officer, referring to how the Israeli military, with great leverage over Palestinians’ lives, tries to recruit them. “Family problems. Money problems. None of it makes you feel lovely in the morning, but it’s very effective.”

The Shin Bet, Israel’s main agency responsible for collecting intelligence in the West Bank and Gaza since Israel’s capture of those territories in 1967, declined to comment on its tactics or on al-Ghaleeth’s case. The Israeli military also had no comment.

Al-Ghaleeth’s family declined to be interviewed, instead sharing a statement saying that Zuhair “has nothing to do with them.”

“The history of the family is honorable in serving Palestine,” it added.

Neighbors said the family had barely scraped by, collecting garbage in the Old City.

The Palestinian Authority, which is responsible for prosecuting suspected Israeli collaborators, said it considered al-Ghaleeth’s death symptomatic of a larger failing.

“This is a dangerous sign,” the public prosecution said. “It affects the safety of citizens.”

The Palestinian leadership accuses Israel of undermining its security forces by raiding cities and villages under its control. Israel contends it has been forced to act because of the authority’s ineffectiveness in dismantling militant infrastructure.

“Our situation is very weak, and that empowers extremism,” said Daghlas, the Nablus official, describing growing Palestinian militancy he fears could render the authority irrelevant. “We are not Gaza, where such killings happen all the time. But Israeli escalations push us in that direction.”

Whether the authority will hold the gunmen accountable is unclear. Palestinian security forces are wary of acting against militants, especially after their arrest of a popular Hamas financier in Nablus last fall sparked a day of riots. Detaining gunmen with family ties to Fatah could exacerbate internal tensions.

Nael, the Old City cafe owner, was blunt when asked why al-Ghaleeth was killed rather than handed over to Palestinian security forces. “How can a collaborator investigate a collaborator?” he said.

In a pasture outside Nablus — between a horse farm and an Israeli military checkpoint — teenagers working the field steer clear of a certain patch of rocks.

“If the spy was guilty, he deserves what happened,” said 16-year-old Laith, looking toward the unmarked grave. “Only God knows the truth.”

___

Associated Press writer Fares Akram in Gaza City, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.

EU cancels Tel Aviv event in protest over radical minister

yesterday

Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir speaks at a military cemetery ceremony during a ceremony to mark the country's Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of militant attacks, in Beersheba, Israel, Tuesday, April 25, 2023. The families of people being remembered there had asked him not to attend.

 (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)


JERUSALEM (AP) — The European Union said Monday that it canceled a diplomatic reception to prevent a radical ultranationalist Israeli minister from attending.

The act of protest by the EU’s delegation to Israel against a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the most religious and ultranationalist in the country’s history, could cause a diplomatic spat between Israel and the EU.

Relations already have been strained over Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Jewish Power faction, serves as the national security minister and was assigned to represent the Israeli government at the EU’s Europe Day event on Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Sunday in a Kan radio interview that Ben-Gvir had been assigned by the government secretary to attend “not as a representative of the Jewish Power party ... but to represent the government of Israel.”

The EU said that it decided “to cancel the diplomatic reception, as we do not want to offer a platform to someone whose views contradict the values the European Union stands for.” The remainder of the public event would take place as scheduled.

Ben-Gvir is a former far-right activist and hard-line West Bank settler who has been convicted of incitement and support for a Jewish terror group. As the government’s representative at the Europe Day event, Ben-Gvir would have addressed attendees.

“It’s a shame that the EU, which pretends to represent democratic values and multiculturalism, behaves with undiplomatic gagging,” Ben-Gvir said.

Netanyahu returned to office in December at the head of a coalition that includes ultra-Orthodox parties and religious ultranationalists, including Ben-Gvir’s small Jewish Power faction. The government has put expansion of West Bank settlements as a top priority. The EU, along with most of the international community, considers Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem illegal under international law and obstacles to peace with the Palestinians.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future independent state.

Press group calls for Israeli accountability in media deaths

By JOSEF FEDERMAN

TODAY

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military has systematically evaded accountability in the deaths of 20 journalists over the past two decades, launching slow and opaque investigations that have never resulted in prosecution or punishment, an international press-freedom group said in a report Tuesday.

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued its report ahead of the one-year anniversary of the death of Shireen Abu Akleh — a Palestinian-American journalist with the Al Jazeera satellite channel who was killed while covering an Israeli military raid in the occupied West Bank.

The army has said Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli fire, but said the shooting was accidental and not announced any disciplinary action.

“The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and the failure of the army’s investigative process to hold anyone responsible is not a one-off event,” said Robert Mahoney, CPJ’s director of special projects and one of the report’s editors. “It is part of a pattern of response that seems designed to evade responsibility.”

The New York-based CPJ documented the cases of 20 journalists killed by Israeli military fire over the last 22 years. Eighteen of the dead were Palestinians, while the other two were European foreign correspondents. At least 13, including Abu Akleh, were clearly identified as journalists or traveling in vehicles marked with press insignia, it said.

“No one has ever been charged or held responsible for these deaths,” the report said. “The impunity in these cases has severely undermined the freedom of the press, leaving the rights of journalists in precarity.”

The report found a “routine sequence” in the deaths of journalists. Israeli officials typically discount evidence or witness claims while cases are still under investigation, and journalists are accused of terrorism without providing any evidence. Probes can drag on for months or years and clouded in secrecy before they are closed, and families of the dead have little legal recourse.

“Israel’s procedure for examining military killings of civilians such as journalists is a black box,” it said. “There is no policy document describing the process in detail and the results of any probe are confidential.”

It found that the army tends to launch more robust investigations in cases such as Abu Akleh’s, when the journalist holds a foreign passport, but even those do not result in prosecution.

It called for criminal investigations into three cases: Yasser Murtaja, a well-known Palestinian journalist killed while covering protests along the frontier with Israel in 2018; Yousef Abu Hussein, a reporter with the Hamas militant group’s Al-Aqsa radio station who was killed in an Israeli strike on his home during a May 2021 war; and Abu Akleh.

Israeli officials have said that Abu Hussein was a legitimate military target and claimed without giving evidence that Murtaja was a militant.

In the case of Abu Akleh, the army said there was a “very high probability” that she was shot by an Israeli soldier who had misidentified her as a militant. But it held out the possibility that she had been shot by a Palestinian militant, though it gave no evidence to support that claim.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it “regrets any harm to civilians during operational activity and considers the protection of the freedom of the press and the professional work of journalists to be of great importance.”

It said it operates in a “complex security reality” and does not intentionally target noncombatants, using live fire only as a last resort. It said criminal investigations are typically opened in cases of civilian deaths, “unless the incident occurred in an active combat situation or if there is no suspicion of a crime having been committed by IDF soldiers.”

Abu Akleh, who was 51, was shot while covering an Israeli raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank on May 11, 2022. The area is known to be a stronghold of Palestinian militants.

The Israeli military frequently operates in the camp and said its soldiers had been involved in intense gunbattles with militants that morning. But it has provided no evidence that Palestinian gunmen were in the vicinity of Abu Akleh.

A number of independent investigations, including one by The Associated Press, concluded that Abu Akleh was almost certainly killed by Israeli fire and found no evidence of militant activity in the area. Witness accounts and amateur videos have also shown the area to be quiet before she was shot.

The United States concluded that an Israeli soldier likely killed her by mistake, but it did not explain how it reached that conclusion. A U.S.-led analysis of the bullet last July was inconclusive as investigators said the bullet had been badly damaged.

The Palestinian Authority, Al Jazeera and her family have accused the army of intentionally killing Abu Akleh, a veteran journalist well known across the Arab world for documenting the harsh realities of life under more than half a century of Israeli military rule.

The report said the shooting has had a chilling effect on press freedom.

“Many reporters covering similar raids and tensions — which have risen markedly since Shireen’s killing — are afraid of being shot,” said Guillaume Lavallee, chairman of the Foreign Press Association at the time of the shooting, told CPJ. He said the feeling of vulnerability is especially strong among Palestinian colleagues.

The FPA represents dozens of international media organizations operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories, including The Associated Press.

In its report, the CPJ called on the Israeli military to reform its rules of engagement to prevent the targeting of journalists, to guarantee swift, independent and transparent investigations and to make their findings public.

It also called on the U.S. to issue an update on the status of a reported FBI investigation into Abu Akleh’s killing and to put pressure on Israel to reform its rules of engagement.

How Mexico City’s mural movement transformed walls into art

By MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ

May 6, 2023

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A tourist takes a photo backdropped by the "Alegoria de la Virgen de Guadalupe" mural, in the main entrance of the Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 26, 2023. The mural was created by Mexican artist Fermin Revueltas between 1922 and 1923, when the walls of San Ildefonso became the canvases where the muralist movement came to life. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Across the main entrance of a former Jesuit college in the heart of Mexico City, a bright-colored mural depicting Our Lady of Guadalupe represents both the Indigenous religiosity and the Christianity that shaped the culture of post-colonial Mexico.

The mural was created by Mexican artist Fermín Revueltas between 1922 and 1923, when the walls of Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso became the canvases for the country’s emerging muralist movement.

To honor the art of Revueltas, Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, who among others led the artistic movement a century ago, the baroque building that currently serves as a museum hosts an exhibition that reflects on the significance of their monumental art.

The exhibit, which is regularly updated, recently welcomed a contemporary mural created by Mexican craftsmen who were inspired by the old masters and will run through June 12. That mural, called “La Muerte de las Culturas” (“The Death of Cultures”), depicts how Mexicans of African descent struggled for freedom and equality, and how the community’s identity was forged from that.

Jonatan Chávez, historian of San Ildefonso, said that muralism arose in a highly politicized context.

Many of the wall paintings criticize political leaders, inequality or the Catholic Church because the young muralists were influenced by revolutionary nationalism and academic scholarship that transformed their ideas about the Indigenous population.

Some artists expressed their social and political views by painting divine figures or religious references.

A 1924 fresco that José Clemente Orozco titled “La Alcancía” (“The Piggy Bank”) shows two slender hands depositing coins into a box that is open at the bottom and drops the money into another hand that looks more powerful and represents the Catholic Church.

For a few other muralists – such as Revueltas and Fernando Leal – the goal was to find new ways to portray what the military and spiritual conquest led by the Spaniards meant.

“San Ildefonso has that reminiscence where the religious is present because it is part of the cultural identity of the people,” Chávez said.

It is no coincidence that muralism was born in this place. Hundreds of years before 1923, when the earliest murals were finished, this was the place where the Jesuits led their educational work.

The Jesuits arrived in the capital half a century after the Spanish conquest, in 1572, and a few years later they founded San Ildefonso, a school for seminarians and missionaries. Their objective was to educate the descendants of Spaniards – the “criollo” – who were born in the colony, Chávez said.

Before they were expelled from the Spanish Empire in 1767, the Jesuits travelled extensively. According to Chávez, these priests visited remote towns and sought to understand the worldview of the “criollo” people, whose Indigenous spiritual practices intertwined with new Christian customs and beliefs.

“They went beyond these branches of spiritual identity or the diffusion of faith,” Chávez said.

This dynamic allowed the Jesuits to teach the “criollo” arts and crafts, but it also strengthened the concept of “criollo” identity throughout the territory, a theme that muralists portrayed in the 20th century.

“Alegoría de la Virgen de Guadalupe” (“Allegory of the Virgin of Guadalupe”) is an example. In the mural created by Revueltas, the Catholic image of Virgin Mary is in the top center and her children – men and women with different skin tones – pray around her.

The painting is not meant to inspire devotion, Chávez said, but to portray how Our Lady of Guadalupe unifies people of different races and origins.

A few steps away, two murals are in dialogue with each other and share a common theme.

On the right side of the main stairs of San Ildefonso, a piece by Jean Charlot illustrates the massacre that the Spaniards led in the most sacred site of the Aztec empire – Templo Mayor – in 1521. On the opposite wall, Leal portrays what came after the conquest and the imported Christianity of the Spanish: religious festivities where sacred and profane symbols blend.

In a recent article published in a digital magazine from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, art historians Rita Eder and Renato González explain that these murals praise the country’s ancient cultures while strongly rejecting the violence brought by the Spanish conquest.

Artists like Charlot, the article says, “identify the Conquest as the most significant process in the history of Mexico, and its characterization as a struggle between civilization and barbarism (the latter, of course, represented by the armored attackers).”

According to Chávez, these murals will never lose relevance because they are a way to understand how history triggers a constant redefinition of spaces.

“Our past is important because it speaks of our present,” he said. “These murals tell a lot about who we are and what we are made of.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

FOSSIL FOOLS

Equinor and partners to spend $9 billion tapping reserves offshore Brazil

A floating production platform will be used to process the reserves located in the Campos Basin off the coast of Brazil. 

Image courtesy of Equinor


May 8 (UPI) -- Norwegian energy company Equinor said Monday it was joined by its Brazilian counterparts in making a final investment decision to tap an offshore basin with more than 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent reserves.

Equinor was joined by Petroleo Brasileiro, better known as Petrobras, and the Brazilian subsidiary of Spanish energy company Repsol in announcing a $9 billion investment in the BM-C-33 project off Brazil.

Located in the resource-rich Campos Basin, and situated beneath a thick layer of salt at the sea floor, the three prospects that make up the project contain more than 1 billion barrels of natural gas and an ultra-light form of oil called condensate.

"BM-C-33 is one of the main projects in the country to bring new supplies of domestic gas, being a key contributor to the further development of the Brazilian gas market," said Veronica Coelho, Equinor's country manager in Brazil. "Gas exported from the project could represent 15% of the total Brazilian gas demand at start-up."

Partners will tap BM-C-33 using a floating production storage and offloading vessel that was designed to lower the environmental impact of the drilling campaign.

Equinor has long considered Brazil -- one of the largest oil and gas producers outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries -- to be among its core areas of interest. Five years ago, it estimated it would be producing as much as 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030.

Operations at BM-C-33 are expected to commence in 2028, some 18 years after the initial discovery.

U$A
New pipeline agency rule aimed at cutting methane leaks

By MATTHEW DALY

May 5, 2023

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A MarkWest Liberty natural gas pipeline and fracking well cap is seen in Valencia, Pa., Oct. 14, 2020. The federal agency that regulates pipelines on Friday, May 5, 2023, announced new rules aimed at reducing leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from a network of nearly 3 million miles of natural gas pipelines that crisscross the country. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal agency that regulates pipelines announced new rules Friday aimed at reducing leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from a network of nearly 3 million miles of natural gas pipelines that crisscross the country.

The proposal by the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration would significantly improve the detection and repair of leaks from gas pipelines, keep more product in the pipes and prevent dangerous accidents, officials said.

If finalized, the rules would eliminate up to 1 million metric tons of methane emissions by 2030, equivalent to emissions from 5.6 million gasoline-powered cars, the agency said. Overall, the rule would reduce emissions from covered pipelines by up to 55%.

“Quick detection of methane leaks is an important way to keep communities safe and help curb climate change,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “We are proposing a long-overdue modernization of the way we identify and fix methane leaks, thereby reducing emissions and strengthening protections for the American people.”

GAS FLARING NEEDS TO STOP!

The proposal is aimed at cutting methane emissions from more than 2.7 million miles of gas transmission, distribution and gathering pipelines nationwide; 400 underground natural gas storage facilities; and 165 liquefied natural gas facilities, the agency said.

The rule would update decades-old federal leak detection and repair standards that rely solely on human senses in favor of new requirements that use commercially available, advanced technologies to find and fix methane leaks and other flammable, toxic and corrosive gases, officials said.

The rules will improve health and safety in poor and minority communities where gas pipelines and related infrastructure are disproportionately located, the agency said.

The proposal is part of a broader effort by the Biden administration to restrict methane emissions and follows proposed rules by the Environmental Protection Agency and Interior Department to strengthen methane leak detection and limit emissions from oil and gas production.

“Natural gas pipelines are ubiquitous in our neighborhoods, cities, parks and rural communities, and pipeline leaks are both safety risks and a source of methane pollution that accelerates climate change,” said Erin Murphy, a senior attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, which has pushed for stricter methane standards.

PHMSA’s proposal is “a welcome step” that will help “unlock” use of advanced technologies to find and fix more pipeline leaks, Murphy said.

“Strong federal standards to reduce pipeline leaks are critical for delivering on the Biden administration’s commitment to curb climate-warming methane pollution while increasing public health and safety,” she said.

Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas that is far more powerful than carbon dioxide in the near-term. Leakage from natural gas pipelines is a major source of methane emissions that contribute to global warming.

The Associated Press reported last year that researchers identified more than 500 methane “super emitters,” including pipelines, wells, tanks and compressor stations, during a 2021 aerial survey of the oil-rich Permian Basin in New Mexico and Texas. The sites leak massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere, according to Carbon Mapper, a partnership of university researchers and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The EPA is now conducting helicopter flyovers in the region using special infrared cameras that can detect emissions of hydrocarbon vapors invisible to the naked eye.

The new pipeline rule was developed as a result of the bipartisan PIPES Act of 2020, which created a series of regulatory mandates targeting pipeline safety, including methane leaks. Transmission, storage and distribution of oil and gas accounts for about one-third of oil-and-gas emissions, according to EPA data.

GO SLOW IS NOT AN OPTION
Shipping lobby group advises caution on climate targets

By ED DAVEY

May 3, 2023

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 A ship is docked at the Port of Los Angeles on Nov. 21, 2022. 

A confidential document obtained by The Associated Press shows the International Chamber of Shipping advised its national branches in March that member companies should "give careful consideration to the possible implications" before committing to a new plan to reduce maritime emissions.

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

An influential shipping industry group has quietly warned shippers to think carefully before they sign up for a new plan to reduce pollution and eventually eliminate their contribution to climate change.

The International Chamber of Shipping represents four fifths of the world’s commercial fleet, and in 2021 committed to the Paris Agreement’s target to reduce greenhouse gases down to zero by 2050. “Talk is cheap, action is difficult,” chairman Esben Poulsson said at the time.

But a confidential document obtained by The Associated Press shows the International Chamber of Shipping advised its national branches in March that member companies should “give careful consideration to the possible implications” before committing to a new plan to reduce maritime emissions.

Under the plan, shipping companies will declare all their vessels with their emissions, inputting them into a new software tool. That includes pollution starting at the oil well all the way to the engines, said Jean-Marc Bonello, a naval architect at UMAS, a for-profit maritime consultancy launched by experts from University College London, who helped design the tool. Shippers will then have to improve efficiency or use cleaner fuel to reduce their emissions 60% by 2036.

Shipping accounts for almost 3% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Maritime Organization. A European Parliament report has warned that share could increase dramatically by 2050.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has drawn up plans tailored to numerous industries including chemicals, oil and gas and aviation. It’s a partnership between several nonprofits and the United Nations Global Compact, an initiative launched by the U.N. Secretary General. The maritime SBTi, published last fall, says the shipping industry must cut its emissions 45% by 2030 to keep on track with Paris goals which try to limit total temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

Stuart Neil, director of communications for the International Chamber of Shipping, said in a phone interview the group acted after some of its member companies asked how the system would affect their businesses. It wasn’t a case of warning the shipping companies off, he said, pointing to another line in the memo that says the targets are an important initiative. The group was simply concerned about shipping companies signing on without proper analysis. “It has to be properly thought through,” he said.

One objection of the industry lobby group is that the target would force shippers to count their indirect emissions, including those produced while making marine fuels, and doesn’t take into account that more energy gets used navigating in bad weather.

Responding to the claim the group was reluctant to act, Neil said it had put forward various decarbonization proposals of its own. It has suggested a $5 billion research and development fund to accelerate decarbonization, and calling on the International Maritime Organization to up its net-zero-by-2050 ambitions.

But some marine climate advocates are incensed.

John Maggs, shipping policy director at Seas At Risk and president of the Clean Shipping Coalition, said by email that the SBTi plan was the “absolute minimum” to keep warming below 1.5 degrees.

“Without immediate action and deep cuts before 2030, the task becomes almost impossible without significant industry disruption.”

The group has “always been the least ambitious, lowest common denominator ship industry actor,” Maggs said, “and the thought that they might actually have to do something significant soon horrifies them.”

A target thirty years in the future is not sufficient, Maggs warned, something echoed by scientists and international agencies. Targets for 2030 and 2040 are necessary. He said more research and development is not needed, because technology and knowledge to clean up shipping already exists.

For example, a 10% reduction in speed would lead to a 27% decline in emissions, he said. Hybrid ships that run on a combination of wind power and marine fuels could also dramatically cut emissions. Ships retrofitted with sails might save 10-30% in emissions, he said, and ships built to be cleaner from the start could save 50-70%. He listed eight vessels under design or in construction that claim such reductions.

Michael Prehn is a diplomat for the Solomon Islands, which is urging the International Maritime Organisation to adopt the SBTi targets. The Pacific islands are among the worst affected nations from rising sea levels. Prehn agreed the SBTi targets were the bare minimum to keep global warming to 1.5 C.

“We often hear from various industries they want to do something that is ‘feasible,’” he said. “Usually not feasible just means very expensive.”

If nothing changes it will result in a climate catastrophe devastating to the lives of Pacific islanders, he warned. “We’ve already had storms which are much more violent than they used to be. If there’s no transition, we are going to drown, or have to move the population somewhere else.”

Bonello of the maritime consultancy called the lobby group’s action shortsighted. He said the evidence shows the plans are realistic and achievable.

“Watering it down is a dangerous strategy,” he added.

But Neil said the science-based targets will definitely have an effect on business operations.

“We do not want companies to sign up to an initiative on a PR basis.”

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