War on Gaza: Israeli failures, US charades and a negotiated truce

By APR editor -

 

November 24, 2023

The Gaza temporary truce takes effect after 7 weeks of war and 14,850 killed Palestinians - the majority women and children. Image: AJ screenshot APR

ANALYSIS: By Mouin Rabbani

In the early hours of November 22, Qatar formally announced that an agreement had been reached for an Israeli-Palestinian exchange of captives — and it came into force today.

The available details suggest it largely reflects the proposal offered by Hamas several weeks ago that was initially rejected by Israel.

Тhe announcement was made just a week after Israeli tanks and soldiers stormed into the al-Shifa Hospital compound in Gaza City, causing international outrage.

Israel had claimed that there was a Hamas command centre there and repeatedly vowed to destroy it. As it happened, the only facility to be found within the compound was a hospital.

The United States fully supported Israel’s violation of al-Shifa’s sanctity and even claimed it had independent intelligence about a Palestinian Pentagon beneath it but produced no evidence in support of this assertion.

At the time, this led to speculation that these events may have been the product of an informal US-Israeli agreement: The Biden administration would support Israel’s seizure of al-Shifa and would cover for this war crime politically and diplomatically with lies of its own, thus allowing an Israeli military with few achievements since October 7 to have its “Iwo Jima moment” atop “Mount Shifa”.

But once it would become clear that there was nothing of military significance within the premises, the US would proceed to finalise a deal with Hamas and Israel would have to agree to its implementation.

Deal largely the Hamas offer
It does indeed appear to be the case that in exchange for US support for Israel’s systematic destruction of the health sector in the Gaza Strip, a deal with Hamas has been reached.

A Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majid Bin Mohammed Al Ansari announces the Gaza temporary truce details. Image: AJ screenshot APR

The agreement is significant in several respects. Perhaps most importantly, the US and Israel, which repeatedly vowed to eradicate Hamas, are now negotiating with the Palestinian movement and reaching agreements with it.

Qatari-Egyptian mediation, while indispensable, is ultimately a formality. The US and Israel are not negotiating with Egypt and Qatar but with Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and architect of the October 7 attacks.

The tenor of Israeli press reports in recent days has been that Hamas is desperate for a respite, however brief and at almost any price, from the ferocious Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip.

Yet the available reports about the deal suggest otherwise:

• Israel has committed to releasing three times as many imprisoned women and children as the Palestinians;
• No Israeli soldiers are included in the exchange;
• Significantly more humanitarian supplies, including fuel, will reach the Gaza Strip;
• The exchange of captives will be implemented during a continuous four-day truce rather than one in which the slaughter is paused for a brief period each day; and
• Israeli jets and drones will be prohibited from using the airspace over the Gaza Strip for several hours each day.

Why are so many Palestinians imprisoned?

This is quite close to the deal initially offered by Hamas several weeks ago, and it appears the bulk of its demands have been conceded by Israel and the US.

If the adage that negotiations reflect reality on the ground rather than overturning it applies, Hamas — in contrast to the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, which has been Israel’s main target — seems far from desperate.

Instead, it appears sufficiently confident to stick to its priorities until these are accepted by the US and Israel.

The details of the Gaza temporary truce between Israel and Hamas mediated by Gaza, Egypt and the United States. Image: AJ screenshot APR

US, Israel forced to concede
“Pursuant to the agreement, Hamas has also forced the US and Israel to consent to the supply of large amounts of essential humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip.

In other words, Hamas has in one fell swoop achieved exponentially more on the humanitarian front than the much-vaunted US diplomacy to secure humanitarian relief for Gaza’s Palestinian civilians during the past month.

This confirms that the entire US effort was in essence a circus — a diversionary charade to enable Israel to continue with its mass killings and transform the Gaza Strip into a wasteland and a killing field.

It bears repeating that Hamas has forced the US and Israel to allow significant quantities of food, water, medicine and fuel to reach the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

A UN-run school in Gaza was bombed by Israeli forces shortly before the truce began today. Image: Al Jazeera screenshot APR

Yet Hamas is the anointed terrorist organisation in this equation while Israel is the light unto nations with the world’s most “moral army” and the US is the world’s greatest democracy dedicated to spreading freedom and human rights to the rest of the planet.

What happens next is difficult to assess. According to reports, only Israeli and dual nationals are to be released, presumably to help the Israeli leadership swallow this very bitter pill and to allay Israeli concerns that the release of foreign nationals would be privileged in negotiations with Hamas.

Yet by insisting on this formula, Israel has ensured that further negotiations to release foreign citizens would continue, potentially leading to an extension of the truce.

War in Israeli PM’s interests
At the same time, it is difficult to believe that the Israeli leadership can accept a temporary truce that metamorphoses into an indefinite one. It is clearly in the Israeli premier’s personal and political interest to keep this conflict going while the security establishment is also desperate to wipe away the stain of October 7.

Other members of Israel’s governing coalition partners see this war as a golden opportunity to unleash the apocalypse and want it to escalate further rather than wind down.

Although the Gaza Strip has been substantially destroyed, Hamas has yet to be significantly degraded, and the Israeli army has yet to kill more Hamas commanders than United Nations staff.

If Israel is confident it can once again flout US policy without consequences, it will. This could take the form of sabotaging the truce or resuming hostilities to ensure it is not extended. Farther afield, the Israeli-Lebanese front also seems to be rapidly heating up.

So further escalation is likely, but it is also possible that the implementation of this deal could cause Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to collapse under a combination of public pressure and internal conflicts among leaders who mutually detest and distrust each other.

The US leadership is also a question mark. With respect to the impact of this crisis on US interests in the region and beyond and particularly the question of regional escalation, US President Joe Biden appears not to care, Secretary of State Antony Blinken appears not to know while CIA Director William Burns and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin look mortified.

Which faction gains the upper hand remains an open question.

The one conclusion that can already be drawn is that the various “day after” scenarios produced by the Washington echo chamber can be safely discarded because they uniformly require the eradication of Hamas and not negotiated agreements with it.

Mouin Rabbani is a co-editor of Jadaliyya and non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha, Qatar.

Europe reels as far-right Wilders tops Dutch election poll

Ella Joyner

DW

The surprise victory of the Dutch far-right PVV party, which was trailing at fourth in the polls last week, is sending shockwaves around Europe. But what does it mean for the future?

If he becomes prime minister, Geert Wilders would be among Europe's most far-right leaders

Image: Remko de Waal/ANP/IMAGO

Geert Wilders is already known to many Europeans beyond Dutch borders for his radical anti-immigration and Islamophobic politics, his staunch Euroskepticism and of course his unmistakable blonde bouffant hairstyle.

But after Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV) emerged victorious from national elections on Wednesday off the back of a shock last-minute surge in opinion polls, Europeans will be hearing a lot more from him in the months to come as a new Dutch government is built.

PVV won by far the most seats in parliament with a projected 37 out of 150, though Wilders' is not certain to end up in government. The Netherlands is always governed by multi-party coalitions. A center-left alliance came second with 25 seats, followed by the center-right VVD party of outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte with 24, and then the newcomer centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party with 20.

Disagreements over immigration policy toppled the previous VVD-led coalition

Image: Carl Court/Getty Images

The way ahead is not self-evident, but a right-wing coalition of PVV, VVD and NSC would be possible if the more centrist parties are willing to stomach it. On Thursday morning, after the shock poll result, 60-year-old Wilders said he wanted to be the prime minister of the Netherlands, news agency Reuters reported.
Wilders' wish list: 'Nexit' vote, ban on Mosques, no more asylum

In the EU capital Brussels, Wilders' platform will undoubtedly cause concern. Some of it goes against not only Dutch but EU law. Ben Coates, an author of a book on the Netherlands, summed up the more extreme points of PVV's manifesto on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.

A "Nexit” referendum on the Netherlands' EU membership, a complete end to asylum for refugees, an end to blanket freedom of movement for EU workers, a ban on Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques, and on headscarves in government buildings, an end to military support for Ukraine and kicking Turkey out of NATO – just some of the policies Coates listed off.

From calling Moroccans "scum,"to holding competitions for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Wilders has built a career from his self-appointed mission to stop an "Islamic invasion" of the West.

The view from Brussels

Mindful of the compromises likely required to get into government, Wilders had toned down his rhetoric – particularly on Islam – in the past few weeks, Stijn van Kessel from the Queen Mary University of London explained.

In return, the center-right VVD, now led by Dilan Yesilgoz, showed more willingness to work with the far-right PVV than her predecessors.

"Wilders is happy to let these issues go or to not make that big a point of them in coalition negotiations, because, he said, there are bigger priorities now, mainly cost-of-living problems," van Kessel told DW. "But immigration has always remained a very high priority for him."

Far-right populist Geert Wilders wins big in Dutch elections  01:53

Right-wing populists, like, for example, Giorgia Meloni of Italy, often tone down their anti-EU rhetoric once in office, according to van Kessel, an expert on populism in Europe. "They don't tend to prioritize the issue of European integration that much."

Even Wilders had watered things down since 2012, when he had called for a full departure from the EU, van Kessel noted. Now he was only calling for a referendum. Whether one would ever be held under a new coalition remains to be seen.

Nonetheless, if he were to become prime minister, Wilders could significantly disrupt EU policymaking on issues like climate policy, military support for Ukraine and migration, not to mention negotiations over the shared EU budget.

How did the PVV do it?

For van Kessel, a big part of Wilders' success story lies with the center-right VVD. By putting immigration – undoubtedly a top concern among voters along with housing and the cost of living – at the heart of its campaign, Yesilgoz may have shot herself in the foot.

"Research has indicated now that ultimately, on average, it's the mainstream right that loses out if they focus more on immigration. They only legitimize the far-right message," van Kessel said. "Ultimately it is to the benefit of the populist radical right. You shift the terms of the public debate very much towards these issues," he said.

Some observers have pointed the finger at VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz for cozying up to Wilders' party

Image: Remko de Waal/ANP/AFP/Getty Images

The surprise victory also likely has a lot to do with last-minute competition between parties, according to van Kessel. Only last week, Wilders' PVV was polling fourth at around 13%, but went on to score a projected 23% in Wednesday's final poll.

Initially, the rise of the NSC was tipped to be the big story for the election, but leader Pieter Omtzigt's vagueness on certain issues – including whether he wanted to be prime minister – may have turned the tide in PVV's favor. A surprising number of voters were still undecided last week, van Kessel noted.

Bellwether for European elections

For the political scientist, these elections may serve as "a bit of a bellwether for the sentiments in Western Europe in general" ahead of next June's EU-wide poll to elect the European Parliament, as well as Belgian national elections.

The far right has grown throughout much of Europe in the past decade. Giorgia Meloni of Brothers of Italy rode to power last year, the National Rally led by Marine Le Pen came second in the 2022 French presidential election polls, and the Alternative for Germany party is currently polling second.

Far-right leaders including Hungary's Viktor Orban clearly felt vindicated on Thursday. "The winds of change are here," Orban wrote on X. His political advisor Balazs Orban, who is not a relative of the Hungarian prime minister but shares his surname, went further: "Europe is waking up! The Dutch right-wing victory put another conservative flag on the map."

In Belgium, the leader of the secessionist party for the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders welcomed the news. "While the elites are worrying about the end of the world, ordinary people are worried about the end of the month," Vlaams Belang leader Tom van Grieken told local broadcaster VRT. "Those who want change must opt to make anti-system parties like PVV or Vlaams Belang big."

For van Kessel at least, it is now up to mainstream parties, particularly those on the center-right, to stand up for liberal democracy in the face of politicians like Wilders who openly seek to exclude certain types of people. "There's no room for politicians who can claim that they alone speak in the name of the people. That is illiberal, and ultimately dangerous to democracy."

Iran's women defend themselves against state violence

Shabnam von Hein | Shora Azarnoush
DW

Violence and discrimination against women in Iran is rooted in the Islamic Republic's state structure. Those in power are now being challenged by a women's rights movement spurred by resistance to wearing headscarves.

Women in Iran who do not follow a strict dress code can face severe penalites

Image: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed every year on November 25. Launched by feminist activists in 1981, the day draws attention to the various forms of violence that women face.

In Iran, little is said officially about this day. When Iranian media takes up the topic of "violence against women," the focus is usually placed on violence against women in Western countries, where people supposedly live without the protection of religion.

They refer to statistics that ostensibly indicate a much higher level of violence against women than in Iran.

However, statistics on violence against women in Iran are difficult to find and are often incomplete. Many forms of violence against women in Iran are not even recorded, for example, the forms of violence experienced daily by women at the hands of the Iranian state.

Iran's power apparatus the biggest danger facing women

"The greatest danger for women in Iran comes from the state," Iranian legal and religious scholar Sedigheh Vasmaghi told DW.

The 62-year-old lawyer from Tehran is one of the most prominent critics of the Islamic Republic. For many years, she was the only woman to teach at the Faculty of Theology at Tehran University. Her critical attiude is a thorn in the side of those in power in Tehran.

Iranian women defy laws limiting their freedom 03:22

Vasmaghi particularly criticizes regulations that are based on a strict interpretation of Sharia law. "These laws legitimize the use of violence against women and thus give it a legal basis," she said.

The lawyer cites an example of this in a new draft law on compulsory headscarves, along with all other strict measures regarding a dress code for women, "which are enforced with naked violence on a large scale in public."

Vasmaghi, who lived in Germany between 2011 and 2017, and worked as a visiting professor at the University of Göttingen, wrote an open letter to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ali Khamenei, in April 2023.

In the letter, she questions the hijab from a theological perspective. According to her, the Islamic Republic's hijab laws have no basis in the Quran.

Punishing women who break these rules, Vasmaghi warned, has social, political and psychological consequences. Such punishments have violated the dignity of women and exacerbated social polarization.

At the end of September, Iran's Parliament passed a controversial dress code reform for women, which stipulates drastic penalties for violations, especially of the headscarf requirement.

Repeated violations could even result in prison sentences of up to 15 years. In addition, the publication of photos of women without headscarves on the internet is punishable, for example, by being barred from leaving the country. The judiciary has threatened to close shopping malls, restaurants and museums if violations are found.

Iranian women who disobey dress code live in fear

For many women who are tired of conforming and constantly wearing the headscarf, this means they live their daily lives in constant fear of being attacked or even beaten to death.

Since the tragic death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini in police custody in September 2022, and the subsequent nationwide protests, many women have nevertheless refused to wear the headscarf in public.

Iran: Family torn apart by Iranian security forces  02:34

Hossein Jalali, a member of the parliamentary culture committee, has said the headscarf represents the "flag of the Islamic Republic" for women. This symbolizes the state's discrimination against women, which is also reflected in laws and jurisdiction, inheritance law, contract law, freedom of travel and much more.

"In Iran, violence against women is a continuum," Iranian sociologist Azadeh Kian told DW. Kian lives in Paris and is director of the Center for Gender and Feminist Studies at the University of Paris.

Kian has studied the women's movement in Iran for a long time. "State violence in public is continued in domestic violence," said Kian. "If a woman in Germany or France is a victim of violence at home, she turns to the police. In Iran, the police use violence against women," she added.

In confidential conversations with DW, Iranian women who have appeared in public without their headscarves spoke about the stress they are exposed to.

A 50-year-old woman from the capital Tehran described her experience when she was caught on camera without a headscarf.

"I dropped my headscarf in my car. The surveillance cameras caught me, and my car was confiscated. But the worst thing was how rudely the vice squad spoke to me and allowed themselves to shout at me," referring to the Guidance Patrol or "morality police" which enforces Sharia-Islamic law in Iran.

Other women spoke of similar experiences, emphasizing that the "morality police" often turn up unexpectedly and try to intimidate women with violence and brutality.
Small changes in Iran towards women's rights

"This violence will not intimidate women," says Iranian legal and religious scholar Vasmaghi.

"As a member of this society, I am observing a profound change. Belief in the hijab and the headscarf is dwindling even among many religious people, both women and men. I see more and more religious women who no longer wear the headscarf in their own circles and are supported by their husbands," she added.

Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi wins Nobel Peace Prize  02:38

Sociologist Kian also sees signs of change in Iranian society. "When women experience violence on the street, sometimes men now step in front of them and protect them."

She finds it remarkable that these changes can be seen not only happening in the traditionally more liberal capital Tehran, but also throughout the country.

There are now also restaurant and store owners who would rather close their businesses than implement the ban on serving unveiled women.

"These men and women are part of a resistance that is creating women's rights not in the law, but in the public sphere."

This article has been translated from German

 

Cuban president leads pro-Palestinian march in front of US embassy in Havana

Some 100,000 people said to participate in march, including Palestinian medical students studying in Latin American nation

By AGENCIES and TOI STAFFToday, 8:51 am   0

(L-R) Cuba's Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel, and his wife Lis Cuesta take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israel's war with Hamas in Havana, Cuba on 

November 23, 2023. (Yamil Lage/AFP)

Thousands of people led by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel marched along Havana’s iconic boardwalk Thursday in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an end to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Wearing a black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh, Díaz-Canel was accompanied by Cuba’s main leaders, including Prime Minister Manuel Marrero and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.

The marchers walked for two kilometers (1.2 miles), passing in front of the US Embassy. As they passed the embassy on the seaside avenue, some yelled “fascist Yankees, you are terrorists.”

Palestinian medical students who were in Cuba as part of a cooperation program joined the rally.

“Today we are supporting the Palestinian people, supporting all those people who feel the pain of having lost a family member, a loved one due to this massacre,” said Yanquiel Cardoso, a physical culture specialist who participated. “We are asking for a ceasefire… and for Palestine to be free.”

Many young people had posters with the phrase “Free Palestine” with crude photographs of children injured by bombs or flags identifying both Cubans and Palestinians.

Others picked up chants of “free, free Palestine, Israel is genocide” and “up with Palestinian freedom,” Reuters reported.

“This march means a lot to us,” said Sami Sabala, a 26-year-old Palestinian medical student in Havana. “It raises feelings … And it makes people feel that Palestine is not alone.”

The Interior Ministry said on X, formerly Twitter, that 100,000 people took part in the hour-long march, convened by associations of youth groups in the communist-run nation.

People participating in a march in support of the Palestinian people and in opposition to Israel in Havana, Cuba on November 23, 2023. (Photo by Yamil Lage / AFP)

Israel’s war with the ruling Gaza terror group began on October 7, when some 3,000 Hamas terrorists burst through the border with Israel, unleashing the deadliest attack in the country’s history.

At least 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, and some 240 were taken hostage. Entire families were slaughtered in their homes, and over 360 people were mowed down at an outdoor music festival.

In response, Israel vowed to topple Hamas’s 15-year rule in Gaza and return the hostages, and launched an aerial offensive and subsequent ground campaign to meet those goals.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says that more than 14,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of war. However, the death toll cannot be independently verified.

This is the second time that Cuba’s top leaders have participated in solidarity rallies since the war began. Last week, the Palestinian flag was projected on the monument to José Martí, the most iconic in the Caribbean capital.

The rare march was the first of its kind in about a decade, as the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro was known to stage similar demonstrations to protest the US before his death in 2016.

Communist-run Cuba has been a longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause and hasn’t had diplomatic ties with Israel since 1973.

People take part in a march in support of the Palestinian people and against Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza in Havana, Cuba, on November 23, 2023. (Yamil Lage/AFP)

Prior to the war, Cuba was one of just two Latin American nations without ties to Israel, Venezuela being the other after it ended its relationship in 2009.

But since October 7, several other Latin American countries have joined Cuba, severing or downgrading their diplomatic ties with Israel.

On November 14, the Central American country of Belize announced that it would be suspending diplomatic ties with Israel, citing “unceasing indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza as its reason for doing so.

Two weeks prior, on November 1, Bolivia broke off relations with Israel after restoring them just three years earlier and accused the country of “carrying out crimes against humanity.”

At the same time, Chile, Colombia and Honduras have all recalled their ambassadors.

In contrast, Argentinian president-elect Javier Milei is a vocal backer of Israel and has vociferously condemned Hamas’s October 7 terror attack. In a recent interview with The Times of Israel, he cited an Argentine rabbi as his spiritual guide and said he’d move the country’s embassy to Jerusalem.

Report: Half of MSC-Certified ‘Sustainable’ Tuna Caught with Controversial Gear


Tuna fisheries often rely on fish aggregating devices (FADs), floating human-made structures that fish congregate around, which makes it relatively easy to catch them, but which have also raised concerns about high rates of bycatch, capture of juvenile tuna, and pollution.

November 24, 2023 by Mongabay

By Shreya Dasgupta

Tuna fisheries often rely on fish aggregating devices (FADs), floating human-made structures that fish congregate around, which makes it relatively easy to catch them, but which have also raised concerns about high rates of bycatch, capture of juvenile tuna, and pollution.
Despite these concerns, the number of tuna fisheries using FADs that are certified sustainable under the standards of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the largest ecolabeling scheme for wild fisheries, has soared, and FAD-fished tuna now account for more than half of all MSC-certified tuna, according to a new report from France-based nonprofit BLOOM Association.
The report contends this constitutes a weakening of MSC standards in order to meet market demands for tuna.
The MSC has refuted this claim, pointing to steps that certified fisheries are taking to reduce and study the impact of FADs.

In November 2018, Pesqueras Echebastar, a Spanish tuna fishing company, received a certificate of sustainability from the London-based nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council, the world’s largest ecolabeling scheme for wild fisheries. This was the first time a purse seine fishery using fish aggregating devices (FADs) — a controversial fishing method — had been certified by the MSC. Since then, the number of MSC-certified tuna fisheries using FADs has soared, according to a recent report by France-based nonprofit BLOOM Association.

“It’s a massive issue because FADs have not become sustainable,” Frédéric Le Manach, BLOOM’s scientific director and the author of the report, told Mongabay in an email. “It’s just the MSC standards and the way they are applied by certifiers that have gotten even weaker.”

The MSC’s senior PR manager, Susannah Henty, disagreed with the report’s findings. “We strongly refute the false and misinformed claims made by Bloom, which has a long running campaign against commercial fishing,” she told Mongabay in an email. “Fisheries obtain MSC certification by meeting a set of strict criteria on their environmental impact — only the highest-scoring fisheries will gain certification … Destructive fisheries cannot be certified as sustainable to the MSC Fisheries Standard.”
A magnet for fish

Fishers have long known that fish tend to cluster around floating structures like logs, seaweed, coconuts, and even large animals. They’ve used this knowledge to their advantage, deploying human-made structures known as fish aggregating devices, or FADs, either anchored to the seafloor or drifting, to encourage fish to gather. They then catch the fish using various gear like purse seines, longlines or hooks.

In recent decades, the number of drifting FADs, or DFADs, in the ocean has surged, partly aided by low-cost satellite-tracking buoys that allow fishers to remotely monitor the devices. Tuna fisheries in particular have turned to DFADs because they reduce the time spent searching for tuna. These devices also lead to a much higher fishing success rate for purse seiners compared to using the nets on free-swimming tuna schools. This increased fish catch can help improve food security and revenue for developing countries, according to a review of DFADs published in July.

But there are several concerns too. For example, DFADs tend to catch more juveniles of yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares) and bigeye tuna (T. obesus) than when targeting free-swimming schools. This can potentially threaten their populations, researchers say. These devices also tend to result in much higher bycatch of non-target species like sea turtles, sharks and billfishes than does targeting free-swimming tuna schools. Moreover, many of the tens of thousands of these drifting devices get lost, abandoned, or discarded. They often drag mesh nets, which continue to catch marine animals as they float around, and many end up polluting shores.
MSC embraces FADs

The first tuna fishery became MSC certified in 2007. At first, only small-scale, low-impact tuna fisheries were getting the eco-certifications, the BLOOM report notes.

“For consumers, the situation was quite clear until the end of 2011,” Le Manach said. “When buying MSC-certified tuna, you were only buying pole-and-line [or] troll tuna, so, small, coastal fisheries with very low impact gears.”

In December 2011, the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) fishery — the world’s largest tuna purse seine fishery now comprising eight island states and a territory in the South Pacific — became MSC certified. The fishery catches tuna both from free-swimming schools and by using FADs, but the certification was awarded only to the former part of its operation. At the time, the MSC noted on a webpage about the PNA that “the fishing method behind MSC certified tuna caught in the waters of the PNA nations excludes the use of fish aggregating devices, or FADs … In FAD fishing young tuna can be caught before they can reproduce, with an increased risk of other species ending up as bycatch. Tackling the problems associated with FAD fishing is critical to our ocean’s health and productivity.”


Now, though, industrial tuna purse seine fisheries using FADs account for more than half of all MSC-certified tuna, more than 1.2 million out of 2.2 million total metric tons, the BLOOM analysis found.

“When buying MSC-certified tuna now, you are most likely to buy FAD-caught tuna and tuna caught by a vessel that uses FADs most of its time,” Le Manach said. “You’re very unlikely to find an MSC-certified [tuna] can coming from the earlier small, coastal fisheries with very low impact gears, which have become lost in an ocean of unsustainable fisheries certified along [with] them.”

The MSC’s Henty, however, said it’s “misleading to suggest that all fishing on FADs is destructive.”

To be certified as sustainable, third-party certifiers — chosen and paid by the fisheries themselves — evaluate whether the fishery meets three main principles of the MSC Fisheries Standard: Fishing must be at a level that ensures the target fish stocks are sustainable; it must have low impacts on the wider ecosystem; and the fishery must have effective management that adheres to applicable laws and standards. And to become MSC certified, fisheries must provide “a great deal of data” to the organizations assessing them against the three principles, Henty said.

“In the past, few fisheries using dFADs have been assessed to the MSC Fisheries Standard due to a lack of understanding of the impacts, or high bycatch rates,” Henty added. “However, in recent years … the fishing industry, scientists, regional fisheries management organisations and conservation groups have invested significantly in reducing the environmental impacts of FADs.”


These steps, according to Henty, include improved tracking and data collection, adopting the use of biodegradable FADs, licensing and registration of FADs, using only non-entangling FADs, implementing rapid-release systems to return unwanted catch back to the sea alive, and 100% coverage by independent shipboard observers.

For instance, MSC-certified fishery Echebaster has enacted measures to better track its fleet’s deployed FADs and improve the observer coverage of its fishing trips, and it has committed to using non-entangling and biodegradable FADs. But it has yet to fully adopt these measures. There’s also a lack of consensus on what the best biodegradable and non-entangling FAD designs are. To generate more data, the MSC itself awarded Echebaster nearly 50,000 pounds (about $64,000) in 2020 — two years after its certification — to team up with AZTI, a Spain-based science and technology center, and study some risks posed by derelict DFADs. But in Echebaster’s latest assessment report, the certifying body noted that the research is still a work in progress.

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Two conservation groups raised objections to some of the certifying body’s favorable findings and scores, noting that several DFAD impacts — including how the gear affects species like silky sharks (Carcharhinus falciformis) and the extent and impacts of lost and abandoned DFADs in the ocean — had not been adequately evaluated.

The problem, the BLOOM report contends, is that tuna fisheries using FADs are being MSC certified not because they’re already sustainable at the time of assessment, but because they could be sustainable in the future.

Not everyone shares the MSC’s optimism that this sustainable future will ever arrive.

“My perspective would be that the more we understand about FADs, in fact, the lower they would perform against a sustainability standard,” Megan Bailey, who researches fisheries and seafood supply chains at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, told Mongabay in an email.

“And while it is true that the purse seine industry has invested significant amount of funding to improve FAD designs, the two issues revolving around FAD fisheries have not changed, juvenile overfishing and ecological impacts,” said Bailey, who was not involved in the BLOOM report but has collaborated with the group on research in the past.

The BLOOM report contends that since the MSC charges retailers royalties for using its ecolabel, the organization stands to gain monetarily from increased certification of industrial tuna fisheries. “Retailers are the ones contributing the overwhelming part of the MSC’s budget, but they want big volumes of cheap fish,” Le Manach said. “So, only industrial fisheries work for them.”

In response to this point, Henty defended MSC’s model. “The MSC’s market-based funding model is important because consumer demand for sustainable seafood products helps to drive reform of the fishing industry and incentivises the take-up of sustainable fishing practices,” she said. ”All of the income from licensing use goes back into our programme of work, including supporting small-scale fisheries worldwide.”

In any case, consumers wanting to buy sustainable tuna will likely end up buying tuna caught with FADs since that’s most of the certified catch by volume, Bailey said.

“For many consumers that will be fine with them because it carries the blue logo and thus they ‘know’ they are eating sustainable seafood,” she said. “For other consumers, however, they’d likely want to know if what they are buying is actually the ‘best environmental choice’ as the MSC used to proclaim about itself.”

—

This post was previously published on news.mongabay.com and under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.

Caste equality advocates in the US vow not to give up

Leah Carter in Los Angeles

California's governor vetoed a historic bill to add caste as a protected category, but efforts to recognize discrimination in the United Statescontinue to pick up steam.

Prem Pariyar (far right) and other members of Californians for Caste Equity pose together

Image: Prem Pariyar

When Prem Pariyar arrived in the US from Nepal in 2015, he didn't expect that he would be sleeping in a van or on couches in employee housing due to his caste affiliation.

"I thought caste discrimination does not exist here. I was very depressed," Pariyar told DW.

Pariyar, a descendant of a family in the Hindu Dalit caste, sometimes referred to discriminatorily as the "Untouchables", is one of many South Asian advocates pushing forward efforts to legally recognize caste discrimination in the US.

While caste is commonly referred to in the context of Hinduism and India, it is a social hierarchy system that is thousands of years old and recognized in several countries across the region, including Nepal, where Pariyar grew up.

"We need to educate everyone so that this system will be stopped," he told DW. "We are isolated generation to generation. There is intergenerational trauma."
Caste discrimination crossing borders

Pariyar decided to come to the US after his family was violently attacked because of their caste in the middle of the night in their home in the capital, Kathmandu.

When he tried to file charges against the assailant, the authorities did nothing, and even threatened him for taking action.

He proceeded to find a job at a restaurant in the US, where his employer offered to house him. However, his colleagues in the house wouldn't share a room with him, making casteist claims and slurs. So, he slept on the couch, instead.

Pariyar, who is now on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Social Workers, California Chapter, said his story is not unique. While he had hoped to leave this form of discrimination behind in Nepal, he said he and several others have faced significant hurdles in employment and even safety upon coming to the US.

India: Dalit journalist fights caste injustices and bias  03:17

There are over 5.4 million South Asians in the US, with the majority concentrated in California. They are one of the largest growing demographic groups in the country, with many people coming to work in the tech industry in California's Silicon Valley.

Many US-based Dalits say the system of discrimination has followed them, resulting in harassment, sabotage in the workplace and even violence.

In recent years, activists have united under new groups such as the Californians for Caste Equity Coalition and Equality Labs, which were both instrumental in the push for legal recognitions.

Legal setback

Last month, following over a year of advocacy and a month-long hunger strike, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 403, which would have made the state the first to include caste in the list of protected classes under civil rights laws.

The bill would have offered employment and housing protections alongside categories such as race, gender and sexual orientation.

However, despite an overwhelming majority (31-5 in the Senate), Newsom called the bill "unnecessary," saying that protections against caste-based discrimination are covered legally under already existing protections that "shall be liberally construed."

The veto created an uproar on both sides of the South Asian community, spurring rallies at the capitol, lobbying lines through hallways, and a hunger strike in favor of the bill.

Those opposing the bill, such as the Hindu American Foundation, called it both racist and a potential "constitutional disaster," which would have "put a target on hundreds of thousands of Californians simply because of their ethnicity or racial identity."

Critics of Newsom's veto decision have said that he made the move in order to maintain relations with a growing Hindu voting base, which largely upholds the caste system.

"Through this process, we shined a light on a long-hidden form of discrimination that persists across multiple communities in California," said Senator Aisha Wahab, the first Muslim and Afghan American woman elected to the state legislature, and the author of the bill.

The hard life of India's Dalits on display in Berlin gallery  04:01

Efforts pick up steam

Despite the veto, Fresno, a city in California's Central Valley, unanimously agreed to ban caste-based discrimination specifically, about a week prior.

In February, Seattle became the first US city to outlaw caste-based discrimination. Educational institutions, including California State University, Harvard, Brandeis and University of California – Davis, all in recent years have made separate legal provisions on the matter.

Meanwhile, the corporate world has also added to the movement, with tech giants including Apple and IBM updating employee policies to include caste discrimination in recent years.

Those protections follow a 2020 lawsuit initiated by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing against Cisco, a $195 billion (€178 billion) company, on the grounds that a Dalit employee had been severely discriminated against by supervisors of a "higher" caste.

Had caste discrimination been recognized then, advocates say, the employee could have won the case.

For now, Pariyar says recent legal efforts have united the Dalit community and others fighting for protections.

"Many more cities are rethinking caste," he said. "Before, I was alone. Now, our people are united, and our voice is one to combat this."

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Indian-origin doctor commits $4 million for Hindu advocacy in US

Indian-origin doctor Mihir Meghani has pledged to donate $1.5 million more to the Hindu cause over the next eight years, taking the total number to $4 million.

Indian-American physician Mihir Meghani. (Photo:X)

Press Trust of India

Fremont (California),UPDATED: Nov 24, 2023 12:26 IST

Posted By: Poulami Kundu

Hinduism is not just a religion, it's a way of life, a prominent Indian-American physician, who has committed $4 million to advocate Hindu advocacy and awareness causes in the United States, has said.

Emergency care physician Mihir Meghani, who founded the Hindu America Foundation along with his friends two decades ago, at the annual Silicon Valley gala early this month of the organisation pledged to donate $1.5 million more to the Hindu cause over the next eight years.

This contribution will raise his total donations for the cause to $4 million in two decades.

The announcement by Dr Meghani possibly gives him the distinction of being the biggest Indian American donor for the Hindu cause in the United States.

“My wife, Tanvi and I, have contributed $1.5 million to the Hindu American Foundation thus far. We've also contributed a million dollars more over the last 15 years to other Hindu and Indian organisations and causes. Over the next eight years, we're making a pledge of $1.5 million to pro-India and Hindu organisations,” Dr Meghani told PTI in a recent interview.

“I say this to all of you who are viewing this to realise that I don't have a startup company. I don't have any side businesses. I'm an emergency doctor on a salary. My wife is a fitness instructor and a jewellery designer. We're not making millions of dollars a year. We don't have stock options. We're doing this because it's our Dharma, it's our duty,” he said.

Just out of university, Dr Meghani and three of his friends Aseem Shukla, an associate professor in urologic surgery; Suhag Shukla, an attorney and Nikhil Joshi, a labour law attorney co-founded the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) in September 2003, the first of its kind Hindu advocacy group in the US.

Responding to a question, Dr Meghani said Hinduism is not as easily understood by most Americans because most Americans are Christian. “They come from an Abrahamic background. When they look at different religions, they can't understand that Hinduism is not just a religion, it's a way of life. It's a way of thinking about life," he said.

Hindus who are coming from India don't quite understand that they have a Hindu identity and an Indian national identity, he said, adding: "We need to talk about that".

"What we need are Hindus to be strong in the Bharatiya or Indian identity, which is the political identity for our civilisation, but also they should be very proud and open about their Hindu identity. And when they have that, their coworkers, their friends, and neighbours will understand us better,” he said.

One of the early successes of HAF in Washington DC, he said, was to get Diwali recognised in the US.

"Now you can see that Diwali is celebrated at the White House, with the Vice President, in the US Congress and all across different state and local governments across the country. But it took time to get there,” he said about the three-year effort by them.

The Hindu American Foundation, which in its initial years was all based on volunteerism, now has an annual budget of $2.5 million and has several full-time staffers. Its goal is to increase its budget to $5 million next year and $20 million by the end of the decade, he said.

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The USA Gets High

BY RON JACOBS   NOVEMBER 24, 2023

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Since 1967, the Jefferson Airplane has been bewitching teenagers with the observation from their song “White Rabbit”: “One pill makes you larger/and one pill makes you small.…” Drug warriors have never liked this tune, while the Airplane’s lead singer Grace Slick once sarcastically remarke that the line “Feed your head” from the same song was about encouraging her listeners to go to the library and read. I suppose it could be interpreted that way, although I’m sticking with my original interpretation. In fact, I’m quite certain most people are.

The Airplane, like their fellow San Franciscans the Grateful Dead and many other rock bands from the same period, we proselytizers for LSD and other psychedelic drugs. These bands’ affinity for marijuana was well known and their advocacy of what was known as the counterculture was an unspoken truth. We understood them (and us) to be travelers to a new consciousness. Arguably, this historic episode did change the world.

In his new book Quick Fixes:Drugs in America from Prohibition to the 21st Century Binge, author Benjamin Y. Fong agrees with that premise. However, his explanation of how and why it did is not for the reasons we believed them to be fifty years ago. Instead, Fong argues that the psychedelic revolution merely made the world of capitalism and commodification easier to tolerate. Furthermore, it opened up a new market to exploit and a more expansive means to advertise the products sold to this new market.

This perspective on the nature of drugs and their usage in the United States over the past is what underpins Fong’s argument throughout the book. As he traces the history of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, narcotics, amphetamines, diazepams (Valium, etc.), anti-depressants and other psychotropics, marijuana and cocaine, it is their usefulness to the capitalist economy at particular times that informs his discussion. The history he tells is both anecdotal and comprehensive. In the telling, the role of the pharmaceutical industry and government regulatory agencies are major players.

Caffeine and tobacco remain the most unregulated legal drugs in the United States. Alcohol is a close second or third in that lineage. Utilizing Fong’s understanding that the most dispensed drugs at any particular historical moment are those that serve the needs of capitalism at the time, the continuing popularity of coffee makes almost perfect sense. After all, its consumption usually makes people more alert and more energetic; the perfect combination for maximum production in the service of capital. The rationale for tobacco is less obvious. In fact, it wasn’t until the advent of the cigarette that tobacco became a popular means to relax among the working class. A smoke lasted just about as long as a ten-minute break from the assembly line or its equivalent.

Alcohol consumption, on the other hand, was not necessarily a positive practice in terms of the new capitalist workplace. Prior to the mills, factories and other larger worksites of capitalism, alcohol usage was not usually a political issue. Sure, there were always churches and other organizations that frowned on its use and pushed to close down saloons and taverns. These campaigns were usually local. It was when the so-called industrial age became a factor in the employment sector that alcohol use began to be seen as a problem by a substantial number of powerful US citizens. Encouraged by the Temperance campaigns—which were often composed of middle class women, Progressive politicians, and various capitalists—the drive toward alcohol prohibition took off. Some of the campaigners understood that the underlying reasons for alcohol abuse lay in the terrible working conditions and the abominable living conditions many workers had to deal with. Those campaigners pushed for legislation that would address those issues while they also worked to close places where alcohol was served and manufactured. Other campaigners were more typical of other self-righteous moral campaigns. In other words, they blamed the individual, not the social conditions existing as a result of capitalism.

As Fong’s narrative continues, the reader is presented with the advent of amphetamines, first used in massive (and legal) quantities by the US military, then as a means toward greater production by individual US residents after World War Two. The explosion of US manufacturing, advertising and other elements of modern capitalism in the 1950s and 1960s carried with it an increase in what is now commonly known as anxiety. At first, psychologists correctly attributed this mental health symptom to the stresses of modern capitalist society. Those stresses were exacerbated by advertising which encouraged material consumption and ultimately a competition to see who could consume the most. According to people like the US diplomat George Kennan, anxiety was a price US residents had to pay to be free. The option, as Fong wryly notes, was between anxiety and communism and communism was out of the question. In fact, the advent of drugs designed to deal with the stresses and traumas of modern capitalist society was also the beginning of an industry dedicated to placing the onus on the individual for mental health and removing any blame from the social systems actually creating unhealthy mental states.

The penultimate chapter of the book is a discussion of marijuana’s history in the United States. After taking the reader through a condensed version of that history, one finds themselves at the door of a marijuana retail shop in 2023, at least figuratively. It is Fong’s assessment that when it came to marijuana in the United States, money won out. This is essentially true. Although the laws regarding legal marijuana in some states allow individuals to grow limited amounts of cannabis, there are others that don’t. Likewise, while some states set aside a certain number of cultivation and sales licenses for underserved populations, others don’t, thereby allowing corporate cannabis to dominate or completely control that state’s market. As a long time on again/off again marijuana smoker, I am grateful I live where I can grow my own. At the same time, I am also grateful for the retail shop a mile away. In short, although the corporatization of cannabis rubs me the wrong way, I am glad that police can no longer arrest me for smoking it.

Quick Fixes is a useful and concise history and discussion of drugs, the drug war and the less-than-honest role capitalists and their governments play in the regulation and propagation of drugs and those who partake of them. At the same time, its discussion of these phenomena shows how the drug marketplace is an almost perfect template for how modern monopoly capitalism works.

Ron Jacobs is the author of Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest offering is a pamphlet titled Capitalism: Is the Problem.  He lives in Vermont. He can be reached at: ronj1955@gmail.com.