UK
Thousands of clothes laid across beach for children killed in Israel-Hamas conflict


Hamish Bailey
Mon, 5 February 2024

Led By Donkeys created a 5km line of children's clothes to represent children killed in the Israel-Gaze conflict. (Image: NQ Staff)

MORE than 11,000 items of children's clothes were laid across Bournemouth beach in remembrance of the children killed in the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Political campaigners Led By Donkeys have laid over 11,000 items of children's clothes across 5km of Bournemouth beach to represent the thousands of children killed in the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The line of clothes spread from near Branksome Chime to Bournemouth Pier and was completed on Monday afternoon.

James Sadri, one of the creators of Led By Donkeys, said: "This is a giant installation aimed to try and visualise the extent of the killing in Gaza. It's incredibly difficult for people to wrap their heads around that over 11,500 children have been killed since October 7.

"This concept is about helping people get to grips with the scale of what is going on and that will hopefully spur them on to lean on their political leaders to get a meaningful ceasefire."

James stated that clothes represent both Palestinian and Israeli children who have died in consequence of the conflict.

Of the clothes, 11,500 represent Palestinian children while 36 represent Israeli.

James said: "We want people to be able to focus on the individual life lost. If you walk along the beach, you can stop and look at one set of clothes that represent one child.

"You can't tell if they're Israeli or Palestinian and that's the point. All children are innocent and we should be treating them as such."

Supported by the BCP Council, all the clothes were eventually removed and will be donated to several children's and homeless charities.

The event was also captured by a helicopter so that the true extent of the line could be captured.

LBD Volunteer Ewan Marshall, 63, said: "It's distressing when you look at it and you hope there is more pressure brought on parties to make peace.

"People have come from all over the place to help with installation because there's a slaughter going on at the moment."

Ewan came with 60 other people on a coach to help create the piece with Bournemouth locals also involved.

Israel forges buffer zone inside Gaza at risk to civilians: experts

Mark Anderson
Sat, February 3, 2024 

Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but maintained near complete control over the Palestinian territory's borders (JACK GUEZ)

Israeli forces in Gaza have systematically destroyed buildings in an attempt to create a buffer zone inside the Palestinian territory, experts and rights groups told AFP, raising fears over the civilian cost.

The plan, not publicly confirmed by Israel, appears to entail taking a significant chunk of territory out of the already tiny Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, something experts as well as Israel's foreign allies have warned against.

Since Hamas militants stormed across the border on October 7, Israeli forces have targeted structures in Gaza within a kilometre (0.6 miles) of the border, said Adi Ben Nun, a professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem who has carried out an analysis of satellite imagery.

More than 30 percent of all buildings in that area have been damaged or destroyed during the war, he said.

Last month, the Israeli army's deadliest day since the ground invasion began in late October offered a glimpse of the tactics being used to clear the border area.

Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said at the time that 21 reservists were killed "during a defensive operation in the area separating the Israeli communities from Gaza" to allow for residents' "safe return".

The troops had laid out explosives to blow up buildings when they were fired upon by militants, the army said.

Displacement of Gazans including from the border area could breach the laws of war, experts said.

"We are seeing mounting evidence that Israel appears to be rendering large parts of Gaza unlivable," said Nadia Hardman, a refugee rights expert at Human Rights Watch.

"One very clear example of that may be the buffer zone -- this may amount to a war crime."

When contacted by AFP, the military declined to comment on the buffer zone.

- 'No right' -

Cecilie Hellestveit, of the Norwegian Academy of International Law, warned of "the prospect of ethnic cleansing, transfer, or lack of rebuilding, so that the Palestinians will eventually be forced out of the area entirely".

Scrutiny of Israel's actions in Gaza is likely to be heightened by last month's International Court of Justice ruling asking Israel to prevent any acts of genocide.

The United States, Israel's top ally and provider of military aid, has repeatedly said Gaza's territory should not change and that a buffer zone would breach that principle.

"When it comes to the permanent status of Gaza... we remain clear about not encroaching on its territory," said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Rights experts said Israel could use parts of its own territory to create a security zone.

"If the Israeli government wants a buffer zone, it has every right to create one in far larger Israel, but it has no right to seize land in Gaza," human rights expert Ken Roth, a professor at Princeton University, said on social media.

Border security has become a priority for many Israelis, experts said, and the return to communities near the Gaza border would be seen as a sign that Hamas no longer posed a threat.

In Nahal Oz, a kibbutz barely a kilometre from Gaza that was targeted in the October 7 attack, artillery fire rang out and smoke billowed over the Palestinian territory in the distance.

Like many Israelis who lived along the border before the attack, nearly all of the kibbutz's 400 residents were evacuated and have yet to return.

"It is still not a place to go back to with children, not yet unfortunately," Eran Braverman, a 63-year-old farmer, told AFP.

"If there really would be such a (buffer) zone... it could help a lot. I hope it happens."

- 'Back' after two decades -

Hamas's attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures, with militants also seizing hostages -- dozens of whom Israel says remain in Gaza.

In response, Israel launched a withering offensive that has killed at least 27,238 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

Israel in 2005 unilaterally withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza, ending a presence that began in 1967 but maintaining near complete control over the coastal territory's borders.

A narrow no-go area of varying width was maintained along the full length of the Israel-Gaza border, and the zone immediately beyond it on the Palestinian side has been restricted to cropland.

A crippling blockade since Hamas took power in 2007 was followed shortly after the October 7 attack with an Israeli siege of Gaza.

Egypt operates a buffer zone on its side of the border with the narrow Palestinian territory.

Although Israel decided against installing a buffer zone in the early 2000s, the idea has been revived two decades later, said Hellestveit.

"With the war and the reoccupation of Gaza, this plan from when Israel last had control over Gaza militarily has come back on the table," she said.

mca/rsc/dla/jd/ami/tym

1st Russians are fined or jailed over rainbow-colored items after LGBTQ+ 'movement' is outlawed

DASHA LITVINOVA
Updated Mon, February 5, 2024

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — The first publicly known cases have emerged of Russian authorities penalizing people under a court ruling that outlawed LGBTQ+ activism as extremism, Russian media and rights groups have reported, with at least three people who displayed rainbow-colored items receiving jail time or fines.

The Supreme Court ruling in November banned what the government called the LGBTQ+ “movement” operating in Russia and labeled it as an extremist organization. The ruling was part of a crackdown on LGBTQ+ people in the increasingly conservative country where “traditional family values” have become a cornerstone of President Vladimir Putin's 24-year rule.

Russian laws prohibit public displays of symbols of extremist organizations, and LGBTQ+ rights advocates have warned that those displaying rainbow-colored flags or other items might be targeted by the authorities.

On Monday, a court in Saratov, a city 730 kilometers (453 miles) southeast of Moscow, handed a 1,500-ruble (roughly $16) fine to artist and photographer Inna Mosina over several Instagram posts depicting rainbow flags, Russia's independent news site Mediazona reported. The case contained the full text of the Supreme Court ruling, which named a rainbow flag the “international” symbol of the LGBTQ+ “movement.”

Mosina and her defense team maintained her innocence, according to the reports. Mosina said the posts were published before the ruling, at a time when rainbow flags were not regarded by authorities as extremist, and her lawyer argued that a police report about her alleged wrongdoing was filed before the ruling took force. The court ordered her to pay the fine nonetheless.

Last week, a court in Nizhny Novgorod, some 400 kilometers (248 miles) east of Moscow, ordered Anastasia Yershova to serve five days in jail on the same charge for wearing rainbow-colored earrings in public, Mediazona reported. In Volgograd, 900 kilometers (559 miles) south of Moscow, a court fined a man 1,000 rubles (about $11) for allegedly posting a rainbow flag on social media, local court officials reported Thursday, identifying the man only as Artyom P.

The crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights in Putin's Russia has persisted for more than a decade.

In 2013, the Kremlin adopted the first legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights, known as the “gay propaganda” law, banning any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In 2020, constitutional reforms pushed through by Putin to extend his rule by two more terms included a provision to outlaw same-sex marriage.

After sending troops into Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin ramped up a campaign against what it called the West’s “degrading” influence, in what rights advocates saw as an attempt to legitimize the war. That year, the authorities adopted a law banning propaganda of “nontraditional sexual relations” among adults, effectively outlawing any public endorsement of LGBTQ+ people.

Another law passed in 2023 prohibited gender transitioning procedures and gender-affirming care for transgender people. The legislation prohibited “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” as well as changing one’s gender in official documents and public records. It also amended Russia’s Family Code by listing gender change as a reason to annul a marriage and adding those “who had changed gender” to a list of people who can’t become foster or adoptive parents.

“Do we really want to have here, in our country, in Russia, ‘Parent No. 1, No. 2, No. 3’ instead of ‘mom’ and ‘dad?’” Putin said in September 2022. “Do we really want perversions that lead to degradation and extinction to be imposed in our schools from the primary grades?”

Anti-drag queen story time protest outshone by LGBT supporters


Sarah Dalton
Sun, 4 February 2024 

Dozens of police officers separated the two protest groups outside the Wyvern Theatre (Image: Dave Cox)

A drag queen theatre show aimed at children sparked huge protests outside the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon, as a far-right group Patriotic Alternative and LGBTQ+ supporters both took to the streets to share their opposing views.

The theatre show is aimed at parents and children and involves a storytelling drag performer reading exciting and imaginative storybooks to youngsters.

A planned protest against the show saw members of Patriotic Alternative gather outside the theatre doors to demand that the show be stopped as it was ‘inappropriate’ and ‘too sexualised’ for children.

"A drag queen by its very nature is a hyper-sexualised caricature of a woman which is not only insulting to women but isn't appropriate for children to be exposed to,” said protestor Aaron Spreadbury.

Aaron Spreadbury was protesting against the drag queen show. (Image: Newsquest)

The anti-drag queen protestors had already received heavy criticism after posting unsolicited leaflets stating 'Stop Drag Story Hour' and 'Protect Our Children' through letterboxes earlier in the week.

But the 20 or so protestors were vastly outnumbered by the mass of Swindon Pride and LGBTQ+ supporters who hosted their own counter-protest outside the theatre to ‘drown out the hate’.

Supporters of the drag queen show came out in force with loud music, bubbles, rainbow flags and chants to make it clear to Swindon that they were there loud and proud.

The two protest groups had to be separated by dozens of police officers who attended the scene.

At one point, officers yelled out to 'move back' as protestors pushed and shoved to clear a path for families getting into the theatre.

Dozens of officers were policing the event. (Image: Dave Cox)

"Swindon has shown its best front today with this turnout,” said Coral, a protestor who had come over from Oxford specifically to attend.

"I think it's an amazing representation for children to have,” added Hollie, who takes her child to Drag Queen Story Hour every year.

"If people are so bothered about people dressing up then where were they during the Christmas pantos when the theatre was full of pantomime dames?

Hollie attends the show with her child every year. (Image: Dave Cox)

"Dressing up and gender expression has been a part of the theatre since Shakespeare's times and LGBT people have always been represented in theatres.

"I went last year with my child and the books they read were about goats and dinosaur poo, it's hardly pushing an LGBT agenda is it?”

"Swindon is a very diverse community and it should stay that way. We need acceptance and understanding, not hate,” added counter protestor Rob Gray.

Police reveal 'brief intervention' after 'minor disorder' at Wyvern protest


Daniel Wood
Mon, 5 February 2024 

Dozens of police officers separated the two protest groups outside the Wyvern Theatre (Image: Dave Cox)

Wiltshire Police has issued a statement after protests and counter-protests took place at a Drag Queen Story Hour show in Swindon.

The event took place on Sunday, February 4, and saw families bring their children to the Wyvern Theatre for an afternoon of story-based entertainment led by a drag queen.

But around them, a small group of members from far-right group Patriotic Alternative protested against the event while a much larger group, organised by Swindon and Wiltshire Pride, gathered to 'drown out the hate'.

Officers from Wiltshire Police were deployed to keep the two opposing groups separate, and the force released a statement afterwards to confirm that while mostly peaceful there was one small moment they had to interject.

It said: "Wiltshire Police officers took part in a pre-planned deployment outside the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon today (February 4) in anticipation of a demonstration and counter-protest.

"The theatre was the venue for a national touring event, the Drag Queen Story Hour."

Chief Inspector Al Lumley said: “I’m pleased to say that both groups engaged with officers well and overall the event passed without any issues. The vast majority of those taking part in the demonstrations did so peacefully.

“There was a minor disorder when some people from one of the groups tried to move towards another and officers briefly intervened to prevent a breach of the peace.

“This was an isolated incident in an otherwise peaceful demonstration by both groups and I’m pleased to say that there were no reported injuries or arrests at the scene.”

This is the second time the Wyvern has hosted a Drag Queen Story Hour event and the second time a protest and counter-protest has taken place, taking over Theatre Square.

A spokesperson for Swindon and Wiltshire Pride commented: "Today, Swindon & Wiltshire Pride hosted its second Drag Queen Story Hour with Aida H Dee. These events are organised to create a fun and engaging story hour, featuring children's stories that promote acceptance and kindness.

"Unfortunately, for the second year in a row, a far-right group of anti-drag queen protestors gathered outside the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon, where the Drag Queen Story Hour was taking place.

"However, I'm proud to report that they were massively outnumbered by a group of 50+ counter-protesters who brought along music to drown out the hate. Their presence helped create a safe environment for families attending the event.

"Despite the challenges, the sold-out event went exceptionally well, and as organisers are eagerly looking forward to hosting another Drag Queen Story Hour."

They added that in 2024 it was "disheartening we still have to fight for acceptance and rights".

Crack addicts dance in side show to Carnival in Brazil


AFP
Sun, 4 February 2024 

Revelers take part in a street carnival in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on February 3, 2024, in a neighborhood nicknamed Cracolandia due to the large number of crack addicts living there (NELSON ALMEIDA)

Emaciated Brazilian crack addicts danced to samba music in a rundown part of Sao Paulo as a very different kind of Carnival parade filled the street.

Brazil's legendary street party, which draws people from around the world and is known for its glittering floats and dance troupes, begins February 9.

But parades in what is called the pre-Carnival period are taking place on weekends, and Claudio Rogerio, a drug user who is missing his two front teeth, toots on a whistle as he leads a drum and tambourine corps marching in one of these early processions.

This one has taken place every year since 2015 in a sad part of Brazil's largest city called Cracolandia -- Crackland -- which is home to many crack addicts who live in the street.

The founder of the parade, a group called Blocolandia, has run the procession every year but it was Rogerio's idea to add crack addict percussionists to the roving musical show.

"We are not just drug addicts. We are intelligent people who like music," Rogerio, wearing a black baseball cap backward, told AFP during the parade Saturday.

Rogerio still uses crack but no longer lives in the street, as he did for years, residing instead in housing paid by a social welfare program.

With the Blocolandia parade he says it is like going back to his childhood in Vila Formosa, a Sao Paulo district known for its samba schools that take part in the much bigger Carnival spectacle.

Nearby in the parade stands a performer who calls herself MC Docinho, who smiles and sings. She recovered from crack addiction but did not want to sever her links with Cracolandia.

"Society thinks these people are dirty, that they are worth nothing. But I -- I am clean today -- I know what they are worth, their stories. And I absolutely want to be present to preserve this connection," said this mother of five.

The neighborhood, often hit by police raids, remains under tight surveillance as police with rifles monitor the parade.

"Carnival is a great time to shatter taboos and show society that there are people who dance samba, who sing, who have talent to create language and who have their own stories," said Laura Shdior, a psychologist who came to the parade.

"They are not the zombies that society thinks they are," she said.

fm-lg/mdl

World Bank's Banga denies IFC cover up of abuse involving Kenya school investment

Mon, 5 February 2024 


By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World Bank President Ajay Banga on Monday rejected allegations that the bank's International Finance Corp arm sought to cover up reports of sexual abuse at a for-profit school chain in Kenya in which it held a stake from 2013 to 2022.

Banga, asked during a Center for Global Development public event about the IFC's response to an independent investigation into the allegations at Bridge International Academies, said he disagreed with the characterization of a cover-up by the IFC.


Civil society groups have expressed concern that IFC ignored evidence of child sexual abuse at the some of Bridge's Kenya schools until the World Bank's Office of Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) received complaints from parents in 2018 and opened an investigation.

The IFC's Board of Executive Directors this month is expected to formally discuss an action plan following the CAO's findings related to the $13.5 million Bridge equity investment, which was divested in March 2022 as part of a plan to exit for-profit education.

The divestment came nearly a year before Banga was nominated for the World Bank's top job, but he will have to deal with its aftermath as he seeks to improve the lender's operations.

"I think there's a series of things management could have done better. And that's the discussion we're going to have with the board shortly," Banga said in response to an audience question on the matter.

"So I'm not going to pre-empt that. I just disagree that there was a legal effort to cover it up. That, I will not accept as a question," he added.

If a cover-up "is proven to be so, I will take all the action that is necessary, but merely conjecture that is in a public space, I will refuse to sign up. That's who I am, I'm sorry if you don't like it," Banga said.

Banga, a former Mastercard CEO, took office in June with a mandate to shift the World Bank's mission to fight climate change and other global crises. He has pledged to make the World Bank nimbler and more focused on improving lives in the process.

Bridge did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The firm acknowledged some cases of sexual abuse in its Kenyan schools in a study it commissioned by the Tunza Child Safeguarding consultancy, but at rates far less than in Kenyan public schools.

SEEKING TRANSPARENCY

U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Peter Welch asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a letter last October to take necessary steps to ensure that Kenya abuse allegations were thoroughly investigated.

A Treasury official said the department is "profoundly concerned, alarmed at the prospect that children may have been sexually abused in the context of an IFC project."

Treasury "vehemently condemns" violence against children and other human rights violations, the official said, and it will press for transparency and accountability in the investigation and seek policy changes based on lessons learned.

"Treasury has engaged IFC management and the CAO to understand what may have gone wrong given IFC's robust policies intended to prevent or detect any such harm. We likewise believe any threat to the independence of the CAO – be it in fact or perception – is unacceptable," the official told Reuters in an emailed statement.

'DEEPLY DISTURBED'

IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop wrote in a letter to non-profit group Inclusive Development International in November that IFC was "deeply disturbed" by the reports of child sexual abuse," saying it "does not tolerate any form of abuse in the projects we finance."

Diop said the IFC was reviewing the CAO report into abuse at Bridge and would publish a plan for "remedial actions" when it is approved by the board. He said a confidentiality agreement between the IFC and Bridge - criticized by civil society groups - was designed to allow CAO to complete its investigation after the divestment.

Bridge International Academies operates hundreds of low-cost schools in Africa and South Asia with hundreds of thousands of students.

(Reporting by David Lawder)

Opinion

We’re fast approaching the era of the trillionaire. What can we do to stop it?



Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

THE GUARDIAN
Mon, 5 February 2024 

‘The billionaire class skews the balance of power in the marketplace, in politics and in society.’

Illustration: Bill Bragg

To celebrate the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, Oxfam releases a study of how much of the world’s wealth the ultra-rich own. This year’s was a doozy. The five richest men in the world were revealed to have doubled their wealth in the years since 2020. Seven of the 10 biggest corporations in the world have a billionaire as their CEO or principal shareholder. Combined, the value of these companies – which include Apple, Microsoft and Saudi Aramco – exceeds the GDP of every single country in Africa and Latin America combined. That’s 87 countries: virtually everything bought, sold, consumed produced and dreamed up by two billion people in a whole year.

The charity also reported that, within a decade, the world will probably see its first trillionaire. A trillion is a number (it’s one followed by 12 zeros) to numb the mind. Even Ronald Reagan – a friend and ally to the ultra-rich if there ever was one – could not wrap his head around it. “A few weeks ago I called such a figure, a trillion dollars, incomprehensible, and I’ve been trying ever since to think of a way to illustrate how big a trillion really is,” he said in 1981 when talking about the US national debt. “And the best I could come up with is that if you had a stack of thousand-dollar bills in your hand only four inches high, you’d be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of thousand-dollar bills 67 miles high.”

But what does it mean for a society to mint its first trillionaire, and how is it different from the wealth of oligarchs in the past?

John Jacob Astor, a German-American businessman, is believed to have been the first American millionaire. He made his fortune in the 18th and 19th centuries by buying and selling stuff: namely fur, New York real estate and opium smuggled into China. Astor predicted trends and took advantage of geopolitics to get rich; he sold lots of things to lots of people; and his wealth generated more wealth. So far, so straightforward.

Then came John D Rockefeller, the world’s first billionaire. Rockefeller built and invested in oil refineries just as the world was getting hooked on kerosene and gasoline. He came to preside over a vast monopoly, choking the competition, which made him and his firm, Standard Oil, even richer. What Rockefeller sold to the public was more ephemeral than Astor’s furs and houses – the very nature of energy is that it gets used up. But you could still see, smell and touch it, and you could see when it was gone. For better or worse, Standard Oil’s products existed in the real world. We are all paying the environmental price.

There are about 2,640 Rockefellers in our world today, according to Forbes. They all got their start in their own unique way: founding companies, buying buildings, inheriting assets from family and so on, though young billionaires mostly work in the finance and tech sectors, profiting less directly from material things than knowledge, ideas and gambles. The way that many of these fortunes reached such dizzying proportions is through investments and speculation. The billionaire class doesn’t just work: it puts its money to work, too, and the market rewards it well.

The Bloomberg billionaires index, which ranks the world’s 500 richest people, is updated at the end of each trading day, revealing how dramatically that wealth can rise and fall. On 24 January, Elon Musk, who tops the list, lost $937m, just like that. Life is tough for the men and women at the bottom, too: the Wall Street financier Carl Icahn, No 497, was down $17.9m from a day prior. The aristocrat Hugh Grosvenor, whose fortune is in real estate, lost and gained nothing that day. He ranked No 157.

These fluctuations are instructive: they show us that the budding trillionaire’s lucre looks to be of a more speculative, more abstract, often less liquid nature. The actual sum of money they control isn’t the point – not when it can rise and fall so quickly.

The earnings of the ultra-rich are literally unearned. This isn’t a value judgment: it’s the US tax agency’s term for money made through “investment-type income such as taxable interest, ordinary dividends and capital gain distributions”. While Astor and Rockefeller surely followed the wealth-maximising maxim of buy low, sell high, and put money in trusts, charities and other vehicles to minimise taxation, we’ve seen this logic taken to the next level, without policy changes to correct for it.

Most of us pay tax on our incomes at double-digit rates; if we’re fortunate enough to own assets, we pay tax on the profits when we sell them. Billionaires, on the other hand, “can borrow against their growing investments year after year without owing a dime in taxes, allowing them to pay lower tax rates on their income than ordinary Americans pay on theirs”. That statement doesn’t come from Bernie Sanders, by the way, but from the achingly centrist White House, which in 2022 proposed a 20% minimum tax on households worth more than $100m. It went nowhere, in part because its subjects so strongly opposed it.

The impending arrival of the trillionaire signals another step backwards in the fight for a more balanced economy and healthier democracy. The billionaire class, after all, skews the balance of power in the marketplace, in politics and in society. Its members own newspapers that shape public opinion. They donate to politicians who pass the laws that they want. According to one study, 11% of the world’s billionaires have held or sought political office, with the rate of “billionaire participation” in autocracies hitting an astounding 29%. Another study shows they tend to lean to the right: positions that typically help them keep their own wealth, and that of their peers, intact.

Historically, the most significant reductions in economic inequality have come after wars, plagues and widespread immiseration. We are living through an era marked by all of those things, yet are coming out of it none the wiser: the proof is that we will soon enter the age of the trillionaire. Raising taxes, bolstering democratic institutions and seeking to redistribute resources to those who need them are all excellent initiatives worthy of widespread public support. And they should be envisioned not just nationally, but globally: inequality between countries and peoples matters, too.

But governments shouldn’t rule out more radical measures, such as limitarianism – that is, capping how much wealth a person can legally have. Once you reach a certain number of zeros, those digits on a screen are just that: digits of increasing abstraction. They don’t correspond to security, lifestyle or even pleasure. It’s time to knock a few of them off.

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian’s book The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World will be published later this year

OPINION

Republican congressmen are now talking about throwing migrants from helicopters

A TACTIC CIA & US TROOPS USED IN VIET NAM

Moustafa Bayoumi

THE GUARDIAN
Mon, 5 February 2024

Augusto Pinochet in Chile, on 1 May 1987.

Photograph: Eric BRISSAUD/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

Three years ago, the Intercept published an illuminating article about the rise of the “Hoppean snake” among far-right extremists, a meme which the Intercept labelled especially “disturbing for its frightening historical reference”. For the uninitiated, the Hoppean Snake in its various forms usually depicts a serpent wearing the military hat of the American-backed Chilean dictator Gen Augusto Pinochet in the foreground while figures are dropping out of helicopters to their death in the background.

The meme specifically refers to Pinochet’s known strategy of kidnapping, torturing, killing, and – here’s the point – throwing his political opponents out of helicopters and into the ocean to dispose of them. The Intercept noted that many groups and individuals on the far right, such as the “Boogaloo Bois, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, armed Trumpists, and the like wear T-shirts that offer ‘free helicopter rides’.” and when they do so, “they are referencing a program of extermination.”

It’s alarming to see such rhetoric from the far-right fringes; imagine seeing this kind of political violence being advocated by a sitting politician or someone seeking the highest office in the land.

Well, you don’t have to imagine it anymore. Last week, Republican congressman Mike Collins of Georgia did just that. On Twitter/X,, Collins commented on a widely circulated picture of Jhoan Boada, a man who was recently arrested for allegedly assaulting two police officers in New York City outside a migrant shelter.

Boada was one of seven men arrested, and multiple reports refer to him as a “migrant”. After leaving court, Boada was photographed raising his two middle fingers to reporters as he walked away. The picture prompted Republican congressman Anthony D’Esposito of New York to offer the racist riposte: “We feel the same way about you. Holla at the cartels and have them escort you back.”

Collins then joined in. “Or we could buy him a ticket on Pinochet Air for a free helicopter ride back,” he wrote.

As HuffPost’s Christopher Mathias, who covers the far right, put it on X: “So we have a congressman joking or not joking about extrajudicially executing a migrant arrested for a crime (allegedly assaulting a cop) that tons of non-migrant citizens get arrested for too.” Mathias also notes that the “free helicopter ride” meme has been popular with white supremacists and neo-fascists for about the last seven years.

That such rhetoric is dangerous to human life and damaging to our political culture is hardly difficult to fathom. Collins was even briefly suspended from X for violating its rules against violent speech, which considering the bevy of white supremacists and neofascists on that site is quite an accomplishment. (“Never delete. Never surrender,” he posted, after his account was reinstated.) But Collins was hardly the only American political figure recently promoting political assassination.

Lawyers for Donald Trump told a federal appeals court last month that a president would basically be immune from prosecution if the president ordered “Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival”, as a judge asked. Trump’s legal team argued that the president “would have to be impeached and convicted” before any prosecution could proceed. The New York Times called the argument “jaw-dropping”. The New Yorker wrote that we should all be worried, not because of Trump but because of how unsettled the law actually is.

Rightwing disdain for everyone but themselves fuels this authoritarian thinking, and it is readily found in the writing of Hans-Hermann Hoppe, the German American academic to whom the Hoppean snake refers. (When contacted by the Intercept in 2021 about the meme, Hoppe said: “What do I know? There are lots of crazy people out there!”) In his 2001 book Democracy: The God That Failed, the libertarian Hoppe writes that: “there can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society.”

Expulsion is also necessary, Hoppe argues, for “the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism”.

Meanwhile, far-right groups assembled this past weekend in a convoy for a “Take Back Our Border” rally in Eagle Pass, Texas. Near this border town is the standoff between Texas governor Greg Abbott and the federal government, after Abbott installed razor wire along the border and denied federal border patrol agents access to the area. Three people, a woman and two children, drowned after the razor wire was installed, and the supreme court ruled recently that the federal government could remove the razor wire. After the ruling was issued, Representative Mike Collins introduced legislation banning the government from removing the wire.

Appearing at the “Take Bake Our Border” rally was rightwing journalist Michael Yon, who offered a tirade about how the US border has become insecure because of the funders of immigration to the United States. Among his targets was HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which he described as “Jewish, right?” He continued: “This is quite interesting because [HIAS] are actually funding the people who are going to come to places like Fort Lauderdale, synagogues, and they’re going to scream ‘Allahu Abkar’ and they’re going to shoot the shit out of them. Right? And they’re coming across the border, and it’s being funded with Jewish money.”

In reality, HIAS’s work aiding immigrant Muslims and Latinos so terrified the white supremacist Robert Bowers that he – not a Muslim yelling Allahu Akbar – subsequently shot and killed 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the deadliest attack on Jewish people in US history. But why let facts get in the way of a good racist screed?

Jews, Muslims, immigrants – everything is a threat. Violence is the solution. Opponents should be assassinated. Fascists are role models. Welcome to the Republican party in the year 2024.

Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist

Chance for Italy's toxic steelworks to finally go green

Ella IDE
Mon, 5 February 2024 

The steelworks, which date from the 1960s, has been dogged by legal and political battles (Tiziana FABI)

Doctor Maria Grazia Serra's patients have been "breathing, eating and drinking" toxins from Taranto's steelworks for decades, but a dispute over the vast Italian plant could finally see its ecological conversion.

Italy's hard-right government is set to decide this week whether to place the debt-ridden former Ilva plant under state administration, in a bid to secure production and thousands of jobs in a region with crippling unemployment.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni considers the site a strategic asset, but experts, authorities, residents and doctors are urging her to look beyond short-term measures to keep the site afloat.

"If we want to try to relaunch production in compliance with European policies, we have no choice but to shut down the sources of pollution, radically converting the plant's technologies," Taranto mayor Rinaldo Melucci told parliament last week.

The steelworks, which dates from the 1960s and is one of Europe's largest, has been dogged by legal and political battles since 2012 over its killer emissions, with experts linking thousands of deaths to exposure to pollutants.

ArcelorMittal, the world's second-largest steelmaker, took control in 2018, pledging to boost production to eight million tonnes in 2025 while cleaning up the site, which runs along a stretch of the coastal city.

Among other measures, it installed giant coverings over huge stockpiles of iron-ore and coal, designed to prevent red and black toxic dust from blowing towards houses, parks and schools.

- 'Urgent modernisation' -

But relations between ArcelorMittal and Rome soured in 2019 after the then-government removed a pre-existing legal shield granting managers immunity from prosecution over the environmental disaster.

The once bright white coverings are now tinged red with dust, seen as a symbol of ArcelorMittal's failure, Serra said.

She is one of 150 doctors who last month appealed to the government not to waste the opportunity to finally turn the plant around.

"Everyday we are forced to treat an increasing number of ever more serious, ever more disabling illnesses," Serra told AFP.

As well as a rise in birth defects and cancers, a 2021 study found an alarming drop in IQs of children born or living near the plant.

The promised increase in output has not happened either.

Hit by energy price hikes and a weak global market, production fell below three million tonnes in 2023.

The government and ArcelorMittal accuse each other of failing to respect commitments.

Italy is the second-largest steel producer in Europe. Taranto is the last of its sites to produce primary rather than recycled steel, but experts say maintaining its coal blast furnaces is not a viable option.

"The existing 50-year-old facilities in Taranto have reached their natural end of life and need large investments for urgent modernisation," energy consultant Alex Sorokin said.

"Investments in outdated coal-based technology would be an enormous waste of money," he told AFP.

Transitioning from using coal to natural gas and electricity would reduce greenhouse emissions, while also costing less.

The costs associated with renewables within Europe are already lower than those of fossil fuels, according to the European Central Bank.

And dirty energy costs will rise as EU rules oblige steel plants to pay the full cost of carbon dioxide emissions by 2034.

At Taranto, natural gas could later be substituted with clean hydrogen -- technology that is currently very expensive but is already being adopted at some European steel plants.

- 'Political will' -

Chiara Di Mambro, head of decarbonisation policy at Italian climate think tank ECCO, told AFP it would cost an estimated 2.5 billion euros to build the gas and electricity-powered units to produce eight million tonnes of steel in Taranto annually.

The site could be supplied from the grid and could use surplus renewable electricity. It would cost another six billion euros to transition to green hydrogen.

The EU has earmarked nearly 800 million euros for green initiatives in the city of Taranto as part of a green transition fund.

But last year, Rome turned down one billion euros from the separate post-pandemic EU recovery fund for hydrogen conversion at the plant, saying the 2026 deadline was too tight.

Industry association Federacciai has called on the government for subsidies, pointing to Germany and France, where Thyssenkrupp and ArcelorMittal have respectively secured two billion euros and 850 million euros from state coffers to help fund decarbonisation.

Italy's industry minister, Adolfo Urso, has vowed a "dramatic intervention" to make the plant "competitive in green technology", but cash-strapped Italy has yet to show signs it is willing to invest in its conversion.

Julian Allwood, professor of engineering and the environment at Cambridge University, said it was unlikely Rome would find any private sector company willing to fund the transition alone.

"The steel industry worldwide can't make large capital investments because the margins are so low," he told AFP.

Transformation of the site will happen only if and when Italy has the "political will" to support the costly transformation.

"But as we move to more renewables, that is the only sensible future for steel making".

ide/ar/cw

Iran grants visa to pro-Palestine American porn star


Our Foreign Staff
Mon, 5 February 2024 

Whitney Wright has shared pro-Palestinian information online, including material that supports armed militancy against Israel - X/TWITTER

Iranian women have criticised the Tehran government after it granted a tourist visa to a pro-Palestinian American porn star, despite its brutal hijab crackdown.

Oklahoma-born Whitney Wright shared snippets of her trip to Tehran on social media despite her work in pornography exposing her in theory to criminal charges that carry the death penalty.

Her visit amid the imprisonment of Narges Mohammadi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and women’s rights activist, sparked criticism of the country’s attitude towards women.

Whitney Wright, a US porn star, stands outside the entrance to the former US Embassy in Tehran - X/TWITTER

As an American citizen, Ms Wright would need a visa to visit Iran. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to questions about the porn star’s trip.

Nasser Kanaani, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, was asked about Ms Wright during a Monday briefing and said he had no information about her.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency, believed to be close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, quoted an anonymous official claiming that the government issued Ms Wright a visa while not being “aware about the nature of her immoral job”.

The Iranian actress Setareh Pesiani used Ms Wright’s visit as an opportunity to criticise Iran’s hard-line government for its mandatory headscarf policy, which led to the arrest of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini and her death in police custody.

“You punish people of this country in various methods for removal of hijab but you allow a porn actress to come here for tourism!?” Ms Pesiani wrote on Instagram.

Masih Alinejad, a US-based activist who has faced assassination and kidnapping attempts by Iran, also denounced Ms Wright’s visit.

“We the women of Iran want [to] be like Rosa Parks and not Whitney Wright,” Ms Alinejad wrote, referencing the American civil rights icon. “The true warmongers are the agents of the Islamic Republic who will execute you if you be true to yourself.”

An anonymous government official said Tehran was not aware about the nature of Whitney Wright’s “immoral job” - X/TWITTER

The porn star travelled to Iran and visited the former US Embassy in Tehran, which was abandoned after the 1979 hostage crisis.

She described the embassy as a place she “HAD to visit”. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard now runs it as a museum.

Iranian students backing Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overran the compound after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

“I’m sharing exhibits from a museum that are never seen,” Ms Wright wrote on Instagram. “It’s not an endorsement of the government.”

Ms Wright has previously shared pro-Palestinian information online, including material supporting armed militancy against Israel.
‘Risk of wrongful detention’

In 2016, a British porn star known as Candy Charms travelled to Iran, prompting criticism. But there has been no media coverage of Ms Wright’s visit inside Iran, which is probably a sign of how tightly controlled journalists are after the 2022 demonstrations.

Asked about Ms Wright’s visit, the US State Department told the Associated Press that it had warned Americans to avoid travel to Iran and “exercise increased caution due to the risk of wrongful detention”.

Americans and those with Western ties can be detained and convicted in secret trials to later be used as bargaining chips by Tehran in negotiations with Washington.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is a primary driver of instability across the Middle East region, and it has been since 1979,” the State Department said.

“If Iran actually cared about peace and stability in the Middle East region, or the welfare of the people there, it would cease its support for terrorist organisations.”

Ms Wright did not respond to requests for comment from the Associated Press.

American porn star Whitney Wright sparks anger after visit to Iran

Sky News
Updated Mon, 5 February 2024 



An American porn star has sparked anger after visiting Iran - despite the risks of being detained and sentenced to the death penalty.

Whitney Wright, 32, filmed herself in Tehran and visited the abandoned US embassy which has been turned into an anti-American museum.

In remarks made on social media, Wright, whose real name is Brittni Rayne Whittington, said she "HAD to visit" the embassy where Iranian students held staff members hostage for 444 days after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.


"I'm sharing exhibits from a museum that are never seen," Wright, from Oklahoma, wrote on Instagram in a since-deleted post. "It's not an endorsement of the government."

She filmed herself throughout the Iranian capital despite her work in pornography putting her at risk in theory to criminal charges that carry the death penalty.

Wright also posted several pictures of her visit, including one that showed her in a headscarf and conservative clothing - required by law in Iran - standing next to a lowered US flag at the former embassy.

Posting on her Instagram story on Monday, the adult actress said she doesn't know "half of what is being said here, but I'm no longer in Iran, but elsewhere".

Her visit comes in the wake of Iran imprisoning Nobel Peace Prize laureate and women's rights activist Narges Mohammadi, as well as the country's mandatory headscarf law and nationwide protests over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini two years ago.

Backlash to visit

Masih Alinejad, a US-based activist who faced assassination and kidnapping attempts by Iran, condemned Wright for making the trip and for alleged remarks where the actress said "if you respect the law, you will be safe in Iran".

She wrote on X: "Iranian women don't want to obey a discriminatory law. Rosa Parks stood up against racist laws in America and became a symbol of resistance.

"We the women of Iran want be like Rosa Parks and not Whitney Wright. And by the way, the true warmongers are the agents of the Islamic Republic who will execute you if you be true to yourself."

Iranian actor Setareh Pesiani also said on Instagram: "You punish people of this country in various methods for removal of hijab but you allow a porn actress to come here for tourism!?"

Questions over visa

Under Iranian law, making pornography is illegal and can carry the death penalty.

Iran Human Rights reports that so far in 2024, some 74 people have been executed by the government.

US citizens also require a visa to visit the country, and it is unclear how the actress obtained one.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency, believed to be close to the Revolutionary Guard, quoted an anonymous official who claimed those who issued the visa were not "aware about the nature of her immoral job".

Iran's foreign affairs spokesman Nasser Kanani said during a weekly news conference: "Naturally, US citizens face no impediments in travelling to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Iranian citizens are able to travel to the US."

The US State Department, when asked about Wright's trip, said it has warned Americans to avoid travelling to Iran and "exercise increased caution due to the risk of wrongful detention".