China air pollution worsens in 2023, first time in decade


AFP
Fri, 22 December 2023 

China's air pollution worsened in 2023, the first time it has done so in a decade (Jade Gao)

China's air pollution worsened in 2023, the first time it has done so in a decade, a study released on Friday said.

"2023 is the first year that China's national average PM2.5 level has increased year-on-year since the beginning of China's 'war on pollution' in 2013," a study by independent research organisation the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said.

PM2.5 particles, if inhaled, can have serious health risks, linked to premature deaths in people with heart or lung disease, as well as a host of breathing and other health issues, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

"The overall increase in human-caused emissions has pushed the pollution level higher, in addition to unfavourable weather conditions," CREA said.

An international consortium of climate scientists said earlier this month in a separate study that China is expected to see a four percent rise in fossil fuel CO2 emissions this year, with increases in coal, oil and gas as the country continues to rebound from its Covid-19 lockdowns.

Chinese cities including the capital Beijing were once infamous for the thick smog that smothered their residents, especially in winter.

But the country ramped up its anti-pollution campaign after winning the Winter Olympics bid in 2015, shutting down dozens of coal plants and relocating heavy industries.

That has brought significant improvements, but air quality often remains below World Health Organization standards.

Lauri Myllyvirta, a researcher at CREA, told AFP that "besides the pandemic, the Winter Olympics were an important factor that kept the anti-pollution efforts going until 2021".

"Both PM2.5 and ozone are still down from 2019 levels," he said.

- Higher emissions -

CREA said on Friday that 80 percent of provincial capitals, including Beijing, recorded increased PM2.5 levels in 2023 compared to a year ago.

"Coal production and thermal power production in areas where the PM2.5 standard was not met have increased by 4.4 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively, on year, indicating a larger use of fossil energy," the Finland-based independent research organisation said.

CREA based its findings on Chinese government data, as well as a machine-learning algorithm that distinguished between the impact of weather and human emissions.

A wave of severe pollution hit northern China in late October and November, with authorities warning residents to avoid outdoor activities.

Beijing's concentrations of hazardous PM 2.5 particles were more than 20 times higher than World Health Organisation guidelines during that period, according to air quality monitoring firm IQAir.

China is the world's biggest emitter of the greenhouse gases driving climate change, such as carbon dioxide.

A recent jump in approvals for coal-fired power plants has added to concerns that China will backtrack on its goals to peak emissions between 2026 and 2030 and become carbon-neutral by 2060.

reb-tjx/ssy

Rural Welsh hamlet hit by earthquake

Sky News
Fri, 22 December 2023 


A tiny village in rural Wales has been hit by an earthquake.

It struck in the Gwynedd region in northwest Wales at around 11.30pm on Thursday night, the British Geological Society (BGS) said, with the epicentre in the village of Capel Carmel.

The quake was at a depth of 12km, and measured 1.8 on the magnitude scale.

Data shows it was felt up to two miles away.

According to local media reports, a user in the North Wales Storm Watch group on Facebook said there was a sound "like thunder" and it had "a bang" that they had not heard before from previous earthquakes in the region.

It "sounded like it was in the sky," they said.

Wales has been hit by a fair bit of tectonic activity in recent months.

In October, an earthquake measuring 1.3 on the scale hit Llanfigael in Anglesea.

While in February, a much bigger quake hit close to Merthyr Tydfil, coming in at 3.7 and a depth of only 2km, with homes as far away as Birmingham feeling the shocks.

Last month, Cornwall felt an earthquake with a 2.7 magnitude.

The UK experiences around 200 to 300 earthquakes a year, though only around 30 are felt, according to Dr David Hawthorn, a seismologist with the BGS.

Crowds gather at Stonehenge for winter solstice - as police issue roads warning

Sky News
Updated Fri, 22 December 2023 


Crowds have gathered at Stonehenge to welcome the sunrise for this year's winter solstice.

The sun rose at 8.09am, marking the shortest day and the longest night of the year.

Sunset is expected at 4.02pm.

In the northern hemisphere, the Earth's axis is tilted at its furthest point from the sun today.

The solstice is one of the key occasions where English Heritage allows people near to the stones, which make up the prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire.

The winter solstice, which has been celebrated all over the world for thousands of years, is also known as Yule, a celebration of light and the symbolic rebirth of the sun.

Wiltshire Police warned nearby roads were "extremely busy" due to people gathering to mark the occasion and the English Heritage site's car park had "reached full capacity", the BBC said.

Motorists were asked to seek alternative routes to Stonehenge, with delays expected for the duration of the morning.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; BIG PHARMA

Exclusive-India probe into bribery claim in toxic syrup tests nears completion

Thu, December 21, 2023 

People stand outside the Maiden Pharmaceuticals plant in Sonipat in the northern state of Haryana, India,

By Krishna N. Das

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is close to finishing an investigation into a "comprehensive and exhaustive" complaint that a state drug regulator, in return for a bribe, helped switch samples of cough syrups linked to the deaths of children in Gambia before the samples were tested in India, the investigator told Reuters.

While the World Health Organization (WHO) linked the syrups made by India's Maiden Pharmaceuticals to the deaths of 70 children in the African country last year, India's government says tests at an Indian government laboratory showed the syrups were not toxic. Maiden has said it had not "done anything wrong".

Reuters reported in June that in an April 29 letter to the Anti-Corruption Bureau in Haryana state, where Maiden has its factory, a lawyer named Yashpal accused the state's drug controller, Manmohan Taneja, of taking a bribe of 50 million rupees ($600,687) from Maiden to help switch the samples before they went for tests at the government laboratory.

Reuters was unable to independently establish that any bribes were paid.

Taneja did not respond to a phone call and a WhatsApp message seeking comment. He told Reuters in October that it was a "fake complaint from a fake person" and that "anyone can send any fake complaint against anyone".

Maiden did not respond to requests for comment.

But Gagandeep Singh, joint director at Haryana's Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), told Reuters on Thursday that he was thoroughly going through Yashpal's complaint, had taken the views of various sides, and was close to finishing his probe.

"The whole complaint was quite comprehensive and exhaustive," he said. "I've been given the direction by the government to have an exhaustive analysis of the whole complaint and give a consolidated report. It's in the final stages ... pretty soon it will be completed."

This is the first time a government officer has commented on the contents of the complaint and the existence of a detailed investigation into the allegations.

Singh declined to share his findings ahead of submitting the report to his boss, Haryana's FDA Commissioner Ashok Kumar Meena. He said once the report is submitted, any future steps would be taken by his superiors. Meena and India's health ministry did not respond to e-mails seeking comment.

Singh said that Yashpal, who goes by one name, had not appeared in front of him in person but his e-mailed statements standing by his complaint had been taken into account in the investigation.

"I have given him the opportunity of being heard again and again, but I have received e-mails," Singh said. "The very fact is that he did take ownership of the complaint - but he has been able to respond to me only through e-mail."

Yashpal's phone was switched off when Reuters tried to call him on Thursday and Friday.

In his complaint, Yashpal did not say where he got the information, or provide evidence for his claim about the syrups made by Maiden. He told Reuters in June he had learned about the alleged bribe in the Maiden case from at least two individuals in India's pharmaceutical industry, including one within Maiden, but declined to identify any of them for fear of retribution.

Indian-made cough syrups have been linked to the deaths of at least 141 children in Gambia, Uzbekistan and Cameroon since last year, denting the image of the world's largest drug manufacturing country after the United States and China.

This year, the Indian government has stepped up inspections of factories in its $50 billion pharmaceutical industry and made tests of cough syrups mandatory at government or government-identified private laboratories before export.

($1 = 83.2380 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Analysis-Mexico's Sheinbaum spurs hope of more private investment in energy after Lopez Obrador

Thu, December 21, 2023 


Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador hands over the "baton of command" to Claudia Sheinbaum

By Dave Graham

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The favorite to be Mexico's next leader will likely be more open than her mentor President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to private investment in energy in order to help fund her renewable power push at a time of tighter public finances, aides, officials and executives said.

Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, front-runner to become Mexico's first woman president in June elections, plans to boost clean energy usage while upholding Lopez Obrador's pledge to keep at least 54% of power generation in state hands.

The president's drive to tighten state control of energy has been one of the most contentious aspects of his agenda, and the next administration's approach could go a long way to defining its economic fortunes, analysts say.

Sheinbaum has diverged little from Lopez Obrador on energy except for her vigorous advocacy of renewables.

But aides told Reuters she would have scope to lift private investment because the state should control significantly more than the 54% threshold by the time she took office.

"The role of private investment is going to be really important," a close ally of Sheinbaum said.

Sheinbaum has given few details of her energy plans, but key pointers to how she views the challenge emerged from Reuters' conversations with some two dozen serving and former officials, executives, politicians and aides privy to discussions with her.

They said they expected her to be more pragmatic about tapping private capital once in power, citing her awareness of factors including budget constraints, rising energy demand, and the need to avoid disputes like those that erupted under Lopez Obrador which could cost the state billions of dollars.

Sheinbaum has a lead of more than 20 points in most opinion polls over opposition rival Xochitl Galvez, who has pitched a more aggressive opening of the energy sector to private capital.

Responding to a request for comment, her campaign said Sheinbaum saw state control of at least 54% of power generation as "fundamental" and that she had no intention of changing it.

"In that sense, she guarantees there will be room for public and private investment," it said in a statement to Reuters, which had sought comment on the key points of this article.

Her campaign did not address most of them, saying only there was information that was "imprecise" without elaborating.

Privately, allies of Sheinbaum said Lopez Obrador's policies have made some foreign firms wary about "nearshoring" - moving operations to Mexico from Asia or elsewhere - and that funding her renewables plan with public money alone will be tough.

Three aides noted that Lopez Obrador's recent purchase of Iberdrola energy assets should mean that as much as two-thirds of power generation is in public hands by the end of his term, giving Sheinbaum leeway to increase private investment.

Lopez Obrador has spent billions propping up Mexico's fossil fuel-dependent energy giants, oil firm Pemex and power utility CFE. Sheinbaum, an energy expert decorated for her work on climate change, is emphatic about protecting the environment.

"We will accelerate the energy transition to renewable sources of energy, guaranteeing energy sovereignty," the 61-year-old scientist said in November.

ARBITRATION

Lopez Obrador recently cut Pemex's tax burden, meaning Sheinbaum should not have to spend as much keeping the company afloat, her aides said.

Since taking office in 2018, Lopez Obrador, restricted by law to one term, has cast his government as defender of a poor majority over a wealthy, corrupt minority bent on carving up state-owned assets like Pemex and CFE for its own gain.

His policies have sparked clashes with investors. The Economy Ministry currently lists more than two dozen active or planned investor disputes against Mexico.

Most do not detail damages sought, but eight of them total over $6 billion, including $1.9 billion U.S. firm Vulcan Materials is seeking.

Beyond that are private commercial suits and a broader dispute under a North American trade deal that the U.S. and Canada launched over treatment of their energy firms which could end up costing Mexico billions, economists say.

Privately, Sheinbaum has sought to reassure investors they will have the legal certainty many feel has been lacking under Lopez Obrador, aides and executives say.

Andres Rozental, a business consultant and former Mexican deputy foreign minister who has attended closed-door business meetings with Sheinbaum, said she seemed "more cognizant of the need for Mexico to change its energy policy."

In a recent private meeting with executives in the state of Jalisco, a recording of which Reuters heard, Sheinbaum said she had never opposed private investment but that she, like Lopez Obrador, was against corruption that bred inequality.

She highlighted opportunities presented to Mexico by nearshoring and the need for infrastructure to support economic growth and social development.

NEARSHORING

Some energy firms have avoided suing Mexico, hoping the next government will be different, said Carlos Vejar, an arbitration attorney at White & Case and former Mexican trade negotiator.

But Vejar said he had never seen so many active arbitration cases against Mexico. "This all adds to the pressure for the next administration to change policy", he said.

Mexico's economy is poised to grow around 3.5% this year, lifted by signs of nearshoring investment. Still, a lack of green energy infrastructure has given pause to some multinationals eager to reduce their carbon footprints.

"I think we're not understanding the profundity of what the opportunity of nearshoring, relocalization means," Foreign Minister Alicia Barcena said last month, saying Mexico needed to "get a move on" or risk losing out to rivals like Vietnam.

In 2024, election year spending is set to widen Mexico's budget deficit, which along with the makeup of Congress, could steer political debate toward private investment.

Nearshoring has increased demand for energy infrastructure, and state firm CFE cannot meet it alone, said Rafael Espino, a senator in Sheinbaum's National Regeneration Movement (MORENA).

"Energy supply is extremely important to protect nearshoring," he said. "There's not enough public money to invest, there need to be schemes to lift private investment."

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Christian Plumb and David Gregorio)

Mexico launches coast-to-coast passenger and cargo railway

Kylie Madry
Fri, December 22, 2023 

 Inauguration of the first phase of the touristic Maya Train, in Cancun

By Kylie Madry

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico on Friday launched operations on a train line that crosses the country's narrowest point from the Gulf coast to the Pacific Ocean, kicking off a flagship government project as the administration enters its last months in office.

The "Inter-Oceanic Train," which will carry both passengers and cargo on a three-hour trip from the coastal hub of Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz state to the Pacific port of Salina Cruz, is part of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's plan to bring investment to the country's poorer south.


The government is also hoping to attract investments from carmakers, tech firms and semiconductor producers in a dozen industrial parks in the area. The two port towns are also home to major installations of state-run oil company Pemex.

Officials have pitched the train line as a potential rival to the Panama Canal, which curbed operations this year due to a historic drought.

"All the Asian countries are very interested," Lopez Obrador said on Friday, "because Panama is at capacity."

Analysts, however, estimate the rail line will be able to ship just a fraction of what the canal moves.

Other lines connecting to the train's main rail line are expected to be completed next year, officials said on Friday.

One of the branches will connect to the Mayan Train, another flagship project inaugurated last week, which will carry travelers from the southern state of Chiapas to the tourist town of Cancun once all sections are completed.

Experts, however, have warned that the Mayan Train has run nearly four times over budget and is still far from being finished.

Earlier this year, Mexican authorities seized parts of a rail line operated by conglomerate Grupo Mexico's transport division for the Inter-Oceanic Train, with the two parties later coming to a deal.

Lopez Obrador has also said he wants to get major rail operator CPKC, which operates a network through Canada and the U.S. and ends in Veracruz, on board with his rail projects to connect their lines to the government's projects in the south.

(Reporting by Kylie Madry; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Alistair Bell)

Video captures iconic high-speed ‘Whoosh’ train barreling past cars sitting in traffic — at an operating speed of 220 mph

Doric Sam
Wed, December 20, 2023 



One of the newest high-speed trains in the world was captured in a stunning video posted to YouTube.

The roughly two-minute video posted by Indo HSR showed the “Whoosh” train in Indonesia flying by with sounds resembling a TIE Fighter from Star Wars.


The train is the first high-speed railway in Southeast Asia and connects the city of Jakarta with Bandung, the capital of West Java province and a popular tourist destination.

With an operating speed of 220 mph, it cuts the travel time between the two cities from three hours to just 40 minutes, according to the Associated Press, all while making a distinctive sound.

It explains the name “Whoosh,” which stands for “Waktu Hemat, Operasi Optimal, Sistem Handal” in the Indonesian language and translates to “timesaving, optimal operation, reliable system.”

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The train officially began commercial operations in October after a lengthy construction project with multiple delays. Indonesia first broke ground on the project in 2016, and the railway was expected to begin operations in 2019.

However, the Associated Press noted that disputes over land acquisition, environmental issues, and the COVID-19 pandemic caused extensive delays, and the project’s cost ballooned from $4.3 billion to $7.3 billion.

Despite the major cost, the train’s environmental benefits are immeasurable. Its use of electrical energy will lead to a reduction in carbon emissions.

“The Jakarta-Bandung high-speed train marks the modernization of our mass transportation, which is efficient and environmentally friendly,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said when the train began operations.

“Our courage to try new things gives us confidence and the opportunity to learn and will be very useful for the future, making our human resources more advanced and our nation more independent,” he continued.

Reactions to the train were polarizing, as some enjoyed the expedited travel time while others weren’t happy with the cost.

“I tried the [test] ride only because it was free,” a 28-year-old office worker in Bekasi told Nikkei Asia. “I will still prefer the shuttle or bus in terms of cost to go to Bandung directly.”

If the fare prices can be made competitive, though, the increased speed and simplicity of travel should make a difference, with environmental benefits just being a bonus.

“The ride was very enjoyable,” a 34-year-old office worker in Cikarang, near Jakarta, said to Nikkei Asia after joining a public test ride. “I have a lot of family and friends in Bandung, so I’m considering using the train frequently.”

Putin ordered death of Wagner boss

Joe Barnes
Fri, December 22, 2023 

Russian president Vladimir Putin (R) and security services, FSB, chief Nikolai Patrushev fly by helicopter a military base in the turbulent North Caucasus mountains near Chechnya 

- MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/AFP

A plane carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner mercenary boss, was brought down by a bomb planted under its wing in a plot orchestrated by Vladimir Putin’s oldest ally, according to a new report.

Nikolai Patrushev, a former KGB officer, the powerful head of Russia’s security council, personally oversaw the planning of the operation, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Western intelligence sources and a former Russian intelligence officer.

Prigozhin died when his private jet crashed over Russia’s Tver region on Aug 23, around two months after he led an armed rebellion against Moscow’s military leadership in June, in the biggest threat to Putin’s two-decade rule.

The Kremlin has previously rejected as an “absolute lie” the suggestion by critics and Western countries that Putin had ordered the assassination in revenge for the short-lived mutiny.

Putin had claimed Prigozhin’s jet was destroyed when a hand grenade was accidentally set off on board, while he or his companions were possibly drunk or high on cocaine.
Small bomb planted under wing of private jet as it had pre-flight check

But now it has been claimed that a small bomb was planted under the wing of the Embraer Legacy 600 plane, while Prigozhin and nine others waited on the tarmac of a Moscow airport for a pre-flight check to be carried out.

No one inside the cabin appeared to notice the device being attached as they waited to take off for St Petersburg.

The jet climbed for about 30 minutes to 28,000 feet before the bomb was detonated and the aircraft crashed to the ground.

All 10 people on board were killed, including Prigozhin, his four bodyguards, three crew members and two other people who were important to the Wagner group.

“He had to be removed,” a Kremlin official told a European intelligence officer with backchannels of communication to the Russian regime after the incident.

Reports of the involvement of Patrushev offer yet more evidence that the assassination plot was coordinated by the Kremlin and had Putin’s blessing.
Patrushev and Putin were in KGB together in Seventies

Patrushev, 72, is considered one of the most influential hardliners in the Russian president’s very tight inner circle. The pair have known each other since the Seventies when they worked together for the KGB in Leningrad – now known as St Petersburg.

When Putin was made prime minister by Boris Yeltsin in 1999, Patrushev took over Russia’s Federal Security Service.

Putin’s close confidant had repeatedly warned that Moscow’s reliance on Wagner in Ukraine had handed Prigozhin too much influence that could one day threaten the Kremlin.

“Everyone told Putin it was a mistake to have a parallel army,” said one former Kremlin official, who had worked with both men.

“When he spits in the face of the military leadership every day you have yourself a problem.”

Patrushev’s warnings, which started in the summer months of 2022, largely fell on deaf ears, while Wagner was making progress on the battlefield in the brutal battle for Bakhmut.
Wagner chief marched some of is 25,000 fighters and tanks towards Moscow

Before his death, Prigozhin had been at loggerheads with Russia’s military leadership over supplies of weapons. Tensions eventually boiled over in late June when the mercenary chief marched some of his 25,000 fighters and tanks towards Moscow.

Patrushev stepped in to prevent the challenge to Putin’s leadership from spiralling out of control while the Russian president was at his villa outside the capital by contacting officers sympathetic to Prigozhin as he attempted to reach the Wagner boss.

Five calls to him went unanswered, so Patrushev resorted to contacting the leaders of Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Kazakh president Jomart Tokayev, who has distanced himself from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, refused to help. But Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko agreed to mediate between Prigozhin and Moscow.

A deal was eventually struck – the mutiny was called off and Prigozhin agreed to move his operation to Belarus in exchange for immunity.
Patrushev is China’s choice to succeed Putin as Russia’s president

Efforts by Patrushev to head off the coup demonstrated his loyalty to Putin, and the aide is seen as Beijing’s preferred choice as Russia’a next leader.

“If Putin had been deposed or killed earlier this year by Wagner Group, I suspect Beijing would have made efforts to install Patrushev as Putin’s replacement,” a former White House official said.

From the end of the mutiny, the Wagner boss was closely monitored by the Kremlin, as he travelled to Africa to keep tabs on his business in the region.

“You can see what Putin’s plan was – to keep the dead man walking so they could continue to find out what happened,” Mowatt-Larssen, a CIA station chief, told the WSJ.

At the beginning of August, Patrushev ordered his assistant to start shaping an operation to dispose of Prigozhin.

Putin was shown the plans and did not object, WSJ reported, citing Western intelligence agencies.

While the mutiny was the end of their relationship, the partnership had started souring before, after Prigozhin directly complained to Putin about the lack of supplies.

The Russian president, after the plane crash, described Prigozhin as a man who had made “serious mistakes in his life but achieved the right results”.

The Kremlin on Friday called the WSJ report “pulp fiction”.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s pokesman, refused to comment but added: “Lately, unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal has been very fond of producing pulp fiction.”

 IDF SOP

13-year-old Palestinian American was shot by Israeli soldiers and detained, his family says

Jay Gray and Doha Madani and Kayla McCormick and Rima Abdelkader
Thu, December 21, 2023 



ABU DIS, occupied West Bank — A 13-year-old American Palestinian boy was released from an Israeli prison Wednesday night after he was strip-searched, interrogated and falsely arrested without access to his family or a lawyer, his family said.

Malik Jaffal says he spent a week in Ofer military prison stuck in a small room with 12 other boys with no soap and no showers after he refused to falsely confess to throwing rocks at soldiers.

Israeli soldiers shot him in the arm on Nov. 1 as he was on his way home from playing soccer with friends, he said in an interview translated by his U.S.-born mother, Dunia Mustafa.

He said that he is accustomed to shootings in his neighborhood but that he never imagined he would end up a victim.

On Dec. 13, weeks after Malik was released from a Bethlehem hospital where he had been treated for the gunshot wound, his father, Mohammed, woke him up in the middle of the night and told him Israeli soldiers wanted to speak with him.

“They made him take off all his clothes, and he just stayed in his briefs and they checked his whole body,” Mustafa said. “And he told them that I’m cold, that I want to get dressed. They said, you know, you’re not allowed to get dressed till we finish with you.”

The soldiers asked to see Malik’s arm because they did not believe he had been shot, his mother said, and they yelled at him to tell them the truth as they interrogated him about other injuries, like a bruise on his knee, and another injury he received when he fell off a motorbike.

Malik was afraid the soldiers were trying to trick him, but he was comforted knowing his father was with him, Mustafa said. At one point, Mohammed suggested the soldiers speak with the doctors if they did not believe the boy.

Instead, Malik and his father were taken to a police station, where Malik was interrogated for two hours without a parent present, Mustafa said.

“They were showing him videos of people throwing rocks and saying that ‘that’s you’ and saying, ‘It’s you, and confess to us that’s you,’” Mustafa said. “Yelling at him, calling him a liar, and he kept saying that that’s not me.”

Asked for comment, the military referred questions to the Israel Prison Service, which has not responded to a request for comment.
‘Your son doesn’t have rights in Israel’

Mustafa said that on the night of her son’s arrest, she told an Israeli official that both she and her son were U.S. citizens.

“I looked him in the eye, and I said: ‘What about my child’s rights? He’s a minor, an underage minor that holds an American citizen passport,’” Mustafa said. “He just looked at me and he said, ‘Your son doesn’t have rights in Israel.’”

Mustafa, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, sent a message to their family group chat the next day, said her older cousin Suhair Najjar. What was shocking to Najjar was how Mustafa resigned herself to Malik’s imprisonment because she feared the family would become a target.

“We’ve seen it happen with many relatives where it’s like they’ll do one sibling, then they’ll come back for the father, then, you know, so she’s just worried about retaliation,” Najjar said.

At first, the family was told Malik would be released Sunday after a court appearance that relatives would not be allowed to attend.

But he was not released Sunday, prompting Najjar to start making phone calls, first to the United Nations, which referred her to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, then to lawyers and politicians.

She sent a letter to the U.N. and kept calling the embassy until people there eventually knew her by name. U.N. representatives said they were aware of the situation and were working on the case. Another relative created a Change.org petition and urged people to demand Malik’s release.

An outpouring of support came from the community as strangers reached out and offered to help, including people who wanted to donate money for legal support, Najjar said.

Many Palestinians and Palestinian Americans are “fed up” with the normalization of injustice, and “now our voices are getting louder,” Najjar said.

“It should never be OK for someone, for a family, to live in fear of them being a target and then accept that their son is in prison,” Najjar said. “It’s not OK, and I don’t want us to be desensitized because it’s Palestine and that’s what happens in Palestine.”

When Malik’s release was finally set for Wednesday night, his family was given the wrong information about where to pick him up, and he did not get home until more than 12 hours later, Najjar said.

Mustafa said that when the family went to pick him up, officials told her that her son had received a rare exception: His record was wiped clean.

“It makes me wonder, like, did they give him a clean file because it went viral and I was talking to these lawyers? Or is it because ... he’s American?” Mustafa said.

A spokesperson said the U.S. Embassy could not comment on specific cases because of privacy concerns.

Although he is grateful to be home, Malik remains fearful that it could happen again, his mother said, adding that just before the family arrived to pick him up, one of Malik’s friends was taken into custody.

“It breaks you knowing that your son is in constant fear, and you have to be that support system to make him think that or know that it’s going to be OK,” Mustafa said.

“But you kind of have it in the back of your mind that this is life here,” she said. “You can’t really change it.”

Jay Gray and Kayla McCormick reported from Abu Dis in the occupied West Bank. Doha Madani reported from New York.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

'This is not a pro-Hamas protest': Palestinian Americans fight charges of antisemitism

Jaweed Kaleem
Thu, December 21, 2023 

Demonstrators wave Palestinian flags from atop a car during an Oct. 28 protest for cease-fire that took place near Los Angeles City Hall. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)


Roy Alnashef walked into the crowd around Los Angeles City Hall clutching a poster in each hand.

As a Palestinian American, he was heartened that pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country were drawing hundreds of thousands of people. But he was also alarmed that some protesters were celebrating Hamas and the militant group's Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel or chanting slogans that many Jews viewed as antisemitic.

So he brought two messages to his first rally in late October.

Read more: In Bethlehem, the home of Jesus' birth, a season of grieving for Palestinian Christians

“This is not a pro-Hamas protest,” said one of his homemade signs.

The other read: “Hey Jews. If you were here, you’d be safe. We don’t hate you.”

Around him, other activists were accusing Israel of being an "apartheid state" whose bombardment of the Gaza Strip was nothing short of "genocide." Some held signs comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler.

Alnashef said he believed those criticisms were accurate.

“But I don’t know if those words help right now,” he said.

The Palestinian cause has never received as much attention or support in the United States as it has in the last two months: the massive protests, the debates roiling college campuses, the support from Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ groups.

But some in the Palestinian American community, which numbers about 220,000, say the movement has a messaging problem that leaves it vulnerable to charges of antisemitism.

Roy Alnashef, a Palestinian American who lives in Reseda, holds up his handwritten posters at a pro-Palestinian protest in downtown Los Angeles on Oct. 28. (Jaweed Kaleem / Los Angeles Times)

That is not much of a concern when it comes to the most basic demands of the protesters: a cease-fire, an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and equal rights for Palestinians. But the more far-reaching goals of some demonstrators put the movement in dicier territory. Those include allowing Palestinians to reclaim their ancestral homes in Israel and replacing Israel — home to half of the world's 16 million Jews — with a Palestinian state.

"We don't want two states, we want ’48," goes a popular chant, a call for a return to a time before the 1948 founding of Israel.

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Alnashef, a software designer from Reseda, said he worries that much of the protest rhetoric undermines the Palestinian cause because it can leave the mistaken impression that the entire movement is aligned with Hamas, which routinely calls for the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews.

"A lot of Palestinians here in America are trying to hold two thoughts together," he said. "The first is how we are angry and in pain over decades and decades of history that has hurt our people. But the other is, how can we be strategic and accomplish the goals to stop the violence against us and not give Americans more reasons to be suspicious?"

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In a recent poll of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found that 72% supported the Oct. 7 attack, in which Israel says Hamas militants killed at least 1,200 people, most of them unarmed civilians, and took more than 240 hostage.

The survey, conducted during a recent cease-fire, also found support for Hamas as a political party has nearly doubled — to 44% — as Israel continues its assault on Gaza, a campaign that health authorities there say has now killed over 20,000 people.

It is unclear how common those views are among the Palestinian diaspora, because no such polling exists.

But in interviews, some Palestinian Americans said they were acutely aware of the perception that demonstrators support Hamas — which the U.S. government designates as a terrorist organization — and the ways that could hurt the cause.

"You have to be very careful in what you say and who you associate with," said Iman Jodeh, a Palestinian American and state representative in Aurora, Colo. "Because along with the support we are getting also comes the risks."

Jodeh, 41, who maintains a family home in Ramallah in the West Bank and has relatives in Gaza, has constituents whose relatives have been killed in Gaza.

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When she began talking publicly in early October about the Hamas attack and Israel's bombardment of Gaza, she condemned the militants and called for hostages to be released.

She also described Gaza — which is blockaded by Israel and Egypt — as an "open-air prison" and blamed President Biden's "unconditional support" of Israel for a "genocide" of Palestinians.

The Denver Gazette news website responded with an editorial that called her an "antisemitic, anti-Israel, anti-American" legislator and accused her of defending Hamas.

"Some people from my Arab community think I can come off as if I'm not doing enough or I'm not being strong enough," Jodeh said. "But then people outside my community think I'm saying too much."

Particularly damaging have been the white supremacists who have shown up at various pro-Palestinian events and organized anti-Jewish demonstrations, including one in Walnut Creek, Calif., where neo-Nazis unfurled a sign over a bridge that said: "No more wars for I$rael."

Extremists "would love to be utilizing the Palestinian liberation push to further their antisemitic ideologies," said Sam Rasoul, a Palestinian American state legislator in Roanoke, Va. "We need to be cognizant of that and reject it."

A 42-year-old Democrat whose parents emigrated from Al Birah in the West Bank, Rasoul led a recent rally in his southwestern Virginia city, where he shouted into a megaphone that "Tax dollars should not be used to kill innocent people on the other side of the world."

A local blog, the Roanoke Star, said he was "parroting terrorist propaganda." He said his anger was directed at the Israeli government and U.S. foreign aid to Israel.

He and other Palestinian Americans said they are often lumped in with those who share some of their goals — including a cease-fire — but not others. Despite his belief that Israel has a right to exist, Rasoul said that he initially feared his public advocacy for Palestinians would result in him being labeled as antisemitic but that those worries have subsided as the rising death toll in Gaza brings more of the public into his camp.

The Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish civil rights group, describes much of the pro-Palestinian movement as antisemitic.

The group, which said it has logged a spike in antisemitic incidents in the U.S., says at least 905 pro-Palestinian demonstrations since Oct. 7 were anti-Jewish events with "antisemitic rhetoric, expressions of support for terrorism against the state of Israel" or anti-Zionist themes.

That rhetoric includes contested phrases such as "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Pro-Palestinian activists say the phrase is a call for equality. Most Jewish groups see it as a cry to wipe out Israel.

The ADL also considers rallies antisemitic when protesters call for "intifada," an Arabic word that means "uprising." It has long been used to describe protests against Israel, including strikes, boycotts and violent attacks.

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"The problem I'm seeing today with the vast majority of these rallies is they're not calling for a two-state solution, they're not calling for a one-state solution, they're calling for a final solution," said ADL Chief Executive Jonathan Greenblatt, suggesting that nearly all pro-Palestinian demonstrations share the Nazi desire to eliminate Jews.

Jay Ulfelder, a Harvard University political science professor whose organization, the Crowd Counting Consortium, has tracked rhetoric at thousands of rallies since Oct. 7, said celebratory messaging about "resistance" has fallen off at pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

But the damage has been done.

"There have been very few events that have straddled the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli sides, few that have made those generic calls for peace, cooperation, return of hostages and prisoners and an end to killing altogether," he said. "It is highly polarized and contentious."

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In a widely shared political cartoon, a crying mother holds a dead child as microphones from CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are shoved in her face with the caption: "But do you condemn Hamas?"

The message resonated with Taleed El-Sabawi, a 38-year-old Palestinian American law professor at Florida International University.

For most of her career, she did not talk publicly about her Palestinian background out of fear that "people would not understand where I am from" or that it would cause people to judge her "negatively."

But in October, she stopped posting on X about public health — her academic focus — to focus on the Israeli attack on Gaza that she said amounts to a "second Nakba." The word, meaning "catastrophe," describes the experience of the 750,000 Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled in 1948 from areas that are now Israel.

Her maternal grandparents were displaced that year from what was then the Palestinian town of Majdal, now the Israeli city of Ashkelon, and her parents grew up in Kuwait and Gaza.

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As dozens of her family members have died in Gaza, El-Sabawi has taken her grief and rage to social media. Fellow academics have replied that she should first speak out on the hostages taken by Hamas.

"Why do people assume that I don’t want the hostages released?" El-Sabawi wrote recently. "Just because I’m Palestinian American? ... Who says I don’t feel bad for their families or want the hostages released?"

"When we speak up as Palestinian Americans, I feel like our basic morality is questioned before we can talk about our people," said El-Sabawi.

Jodeh, the Palestinian American state representative in Colorado, said she is regularly asked about the subject. "It is not that we don't care about the hostages. Trust me, we do," she said. "It's that we are also seeing our own people killed, and we naturally end up focusing on that."

Among the dozens of groups organizing in support of Palestinians, there have been recent attempts to avoid messaging that could damage their cause.

At a November rally held by Northwestern University students in Evanston, Ill., that drew 100 demonstrators, one hoisted a green Hamas flag with white Arabic text. Organizers kicked the man out.

Two days later, a prominent Palestinian American activist used a megaphone to caution protesters at a Manhattan demonstration about the optics of pro-Palestinian participants tearing down posters that Israel supporters have put up in many American cities showing the faces of hostages being held in Gaza.

"There are provocateurs all across the city and what they are waiting for you to do is to waste your energy ripping down their little posters," Linda Sarsour, who is best-known for co-organizing the Trump-era Women's Marches, told the crowd.

"Sisters and brothers, you are better than that. ... And it ain't even helping the people of Gaza."

A prominent rabbi and pro-Israeli activists who saw video of the speech suggested it was antisemitic.

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Sarsour pushed back: "Their whole job is to take us out of context, their whole job is to try to insinuate that we are saying things that are antisemitic. That's their whole job. Why do they do that? Because they want to discredit us."

"We're always put on the defense," she said. "We are always put in a corner."

Sarsour said that the swelling of support in the U.S. made her more optimistic than ever about the Palestinian cause. At the same time, she asserted that Palestinian Americans are being unfairly tarred as antisemitic or pro-Hamas simply because of their ethnicity.

Sarsour has recently taken to Instagram to admonish activists who had spray-painted "Free Palestine" on the entrance to a Jewish after-school care center in Philadelphia.

"STOP THIS. You are NOT doing any justice to the Palestinian cause," she wrote. "Do not taint our movements for liberation. Hate is not welcome in our spaces."

Those kinds of messages are badly needed, said Alnashef, who worries that protests have becoming increasingly antagonistic, with "people pointing fingers" at perceived foes and "saying things they know will rile up people on the other side and get them angry."

"I wish we could look beyond that," he said.

Like many Palestinian Americans, he has his take on what should happen in the land where his grandparents once lived: an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza and eventually the creation of a single nation in which Palestinians have "full citizenship with all the rights and privileges that Jews experience in Israel."

But for now, he said, he only wanted "Palestinians to stop being killed.”

So he continues to show up to rallies — with one sign in each hand.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.