Trump: Biden a 'Very Bad, Weak' Palestinian

By Jewish News Syndicate Staff | Friday, 28 June 2024

Israel and Jewish issues played a small but explosive role in the presidential debate between U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump on Thursday night.

In an exchange about what leverage Biden would use to get Hamas to agree to a cease-fire-for-hostages deal that he announced in May, Trump accused Biden of wanting to let Hamas remain in power.

"Israel is the one, and you should let 'em go and let 'em finish the job," Trump said. "He doesn't want to do it. He's become like a Palestinian. But they don't like him because he's a very bad Palestinian, he's a weak one."

Biden in his preceding answer claimed that he had "saved Israel," but that the Jewish state had "killed a lot of innocent people."

"We're providing Israel with all the weapons they need and when they need them," Biden said, in apparent reference to accusations that he has been slow-walking arms shipments to Israel. "They've been greatly weakened, Hamas, and they should be eliminated. But you've got to be careful when using certain weapons among population centers."

U.S. foreign policy and the Israeli response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks occupied only a fraction of the 90-minute debate, which focused largely on domestic issues and the respective records of the two presidents in office.

Biden's at-times halting and difficult-to-understand responses provoked immediate comment from Trump with obvious implications about Biden's age and fitness for a second term.

"I'm going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we can do with more border patrol and more asylum officers," Biden said in response to a question about immigration.

"I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence," Trump replied. "I don't think he knows what he said either."

The format of the CNN debate at times also seemed to help Trump with Biden cutting off his own answers mid-sentence at the end of the time limit when his microphone was about to be muted, per the rules.

"We finally beat Medicare," Biden said, as part of an unclear answer to a question about the national debt.

"He was right, he did beat Medicare," Trump replied, transitioning to illegal immigration. "Because all of these people are coming in, they're putting them on Medicare, they're putting them on Social Security. They're gonna destroy Social Security. This man is going to single-handedly destroy Social Security."

Trump faced tougher questions from Biden after the first 30 minutes of the debate, when the moderators shifted to discussing Trump's actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and his personal and legal conduct.

"How many billions of dollars do you owe in civil penalties for molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole range of things, for having sex with a porn star on a night while your wife is pregnant?" Biden asked. "What are you talking about? You have the morals of an alley cat."

The weakness of Biden's overall performance nonetheless prompted questions about whether he can remain the Democratic nominee for president.

"Mark my words … Biden will not be the Democrat nominee," former Republican candidate for president Nikki Haley wrote on social media. "Republicans, get your guard up!"

No questions in the debate referred to the explosion of antisemitism on college campuses since Oct. 7, but Trump compared that wave of Jew-hatred to the alt-right, antisemitic demonstration in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017 that Biden repeatedly alluded to in his closing remarks.

"You talk about Charlottesville, this is 100 times Charlottesville, 1,000 times Charlottesville, the whole country is exploding because of you, because they don't respect you," Trump said. "And they have to respect their president."

Trump says Biden has ‘become like a Palestinian’ in debate exchange

In a presidential debate marked by incoherence and lies, Donald Trump attacked Joe Biden, saying "he’s become like a Palestinian" for supposedly withholding total support for Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza.

BY MICHAEL ARRIA JUNE 28, 2024 

MONDOWEISS

DONALD TRUMP SPEAKING AT THE 2017 CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE (CPAC) IN NATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND. (PHOTO: GAGE SKIDMORE)


President Joe Biden and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump were asked about Israel’s assault on Gaza during Thursday night’s distressing debate.

Biden insisted that Hamas had been “greatly weakened” and said the group should be eliminated, but added that Israel “had to be careful” about dropping large bombs in heavily populated areas.

He also said that parties were nearing a ceasefire as a result of a three-phase plan.



“The first stage is trade the hostages for a cease-fire,” said Biden. “Second phase is a cease-fire with additional conditions. The third phase is for the end of the war. The only one who wants the war to continue is Hamas. They’re the only one still holding out.”

“Israel is the one. And you should let them go and let them go finish the job. He doesn’t want to do it,” responded Trump. “He’s become like a Palestinian, but they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one.”

“I’ve never heard so much foolishness,” said Biden.

“A US president just turned ‘Palestinian’ into a slur to attack another US president,” tweeted Mondoweiss Culture Editor Mohammed El-Kurd. “‘Palestinian’ was used as a slur against the person funding and enabling the genocide of the Palestinian People…. Ok.”

“Trump just throwing around ‘Palestinian’ as a pejorative,” said Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan. “Brazen anti-Palestinian racism has been normalized in America.”




“Trump just called Biden a Palestinian… ‘a bad one’,” wrote professor and author Marc Lamont Hill. “So many things are wrong and gross and despicable about this statement…”


Trump’s comment occurred amid a series of foreign policy questions, during a debate that was marked by Biden appearing incredibly weak and incoherent and Trump seeming incredibly unhinged.

Biden touted his support for Israel, which has led to the deaths of nearly 40,000 people and the utter destruction of Gaza, while Trump insisted the October 7th attack wouldn’t have happened if he had still been president.

“Israel would have never been invaded in a million years by Hamas,” said Trump. “You know why? Because Iran was broke with me.”

“I wouldn’t let anybody do business with them,” he explained. “They ran out of money. They were broke. They had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything. No money for terror. That’s why you had no terror at all during my administration. This place, the whole world, is blowing up under him.”

Trump returned to the subject during his closing remarks. “We didn’t stop Israel – it was such a horrible thing, it would have never happened, it should have never happened,” he told viewers. “Iran was broke. Anybody who did business with Iran, including China, couldn’t do business with the United States. They all passed. Iran was broke, they had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah, for terror. No money whatsoever.”

Trump also said that the recent Gaza protests were a thousand times worse than the white supremacist rallies that took place in Charlottesville during 2017.

“We have the Palestinians and everybody else rioting all over the place,” he said. “You talk about Charlottesville – this is a hundred times, a thousand times Charlottesville. The whole country is exploding because of you, because they don’t respect you.”

Trump recently told a group of Jewish donors that he would crack down on the Palestine solidarity movement if elected and even deport students who were involved. “Well, if you get me elected, and you should really be doing this, if you get me reelected, we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” he told the participants of a private round-table event.

Outside the debate, protesters rallied on the streets of Atlanta. Among the group was Gabriel Sanchez, a democratic socialist who ousted a Democratic State Representative in last month’s primary.

“I’m a Georgian. I was born and raised here in America, but I’m a human being first,” Sanchez told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Everything that’s happening in Gaza and the West Bank is horrific. We have to do everything we can to stop it.”

Trump: 'Let Israel finish the job' in Gaza

In the US presidential debate aired on CNN last night, Donald Trump called incumbent Joe Biden a 'bad Palestinian', adding that he should 'let Israel finish the job' in Gaza. Neither candidate addressed the high Palestinian civilian casualty toll since October 2023, where more than 130,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured in Gaza, or the dire humanitarian needs in the Strip in which Israel has imposed a 'man-made famine'.

June 28, 2024

UN action on gender and climate faces uphill climb as warming hurts women

At June’s Bonn talks, governments made little progress on gender equality while evidence shows women bear a heavy climate burden

By Daisy Clague

Published on 28/06/2024

In poor households without taps, the responsibility for collecting water typically falls on women and girls. As climate change makes water scarcer and they have to travel further and spend more time fetching it, their welfare suffers.

In a new study quantifying how gender shapes people’s experiences of climate change, scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) found that, by 2050, higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns could mean women globally spend up to 30% more time collecting water.

PIK guest researcher Robert Carr, the study’s lead author, explained how this results in more physical strain, psychological distress and lost time that could otherwise be spent on education, leisure or employment.

“Even when people talk about gendered climate impacts, there is very little attention on time poverty and how that affects someone’s ability to improve their life,” Carr told Climate Home.

In addition, the cost of lost working time for women affects economies, and is projected to reach tens to hundreds of millions of US dollars per country annually by 2050, the study said.

Is water provision in drought-hit Zambia climate ‘loss and damage’ or adaptation?

Carr noted that the data underpinning PIK’s study only recently became available and is a valuable tool for connecting women’s welfare issues to climate impacts, with more such analysis expected as new datasets emerge.

“But more still needs to be done to act on, and implement, research findings like ours at the local and national levels,” he added.

For that to happen, research like PIK’s has to resonate in government offices and negotiating rooms at UN climate talks, where gender activists see 2024 as a milestone year. Countries are expected to renew key global initiatives for advancing gender-responsive climate action and improving gender balance in official delegations at UN negotiations.

Gendered impacts of climate change

So far progress has been slow. After more than a decade of working towards those aims within the UN climate process, wilder weather and rising seas are still disproportionately affecting women and gender-diverse people, as global warming continues apace.

For example, female-headed rural households experience higher income losses due to extreme weather events like floods and droughts, through impacts on farming and other activities.

Rates of child marriage and violence against women and girls have been shown to increase during and after climate disasters. And studies have identified a positive correlation between drought-induced displacement and hysterectomies among female farm labourers in India.

At the same time, barriers like caring responsibilities, lack of funding, difficulties in obtaining visas and even sexual harassment in UN spaces persist, standing in the way of women’s equal participation in the climate negotiating rooms.

Yet, despite the mounting urgency, governments made little progress in talks on gender issues at the mid-year UN conference in Bonn this month.


Delegates arrive for a workshop on implementing the UNFCCC gender action plan and on future work to be undertaken on gender and climate change, at the Bonn Climate Conference on June 3, 2024. (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth)

Advocates had hoped to leave the German city with a new, stronger version of the UN’s flagship gender initiative, known as the Lima Work Programme on Gender (LWP). Instead, discussions were tense and slow, leaving the LWP – which is supposed to be renewed by 2025 – to be finalised in November at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.

No rise in women negotiators


Claudia Rubio, gender working group lead for the Women and Gender Constituency at the UN, said the LWP has enabled a better understanding of “what is prohibiting women and other genders from being in [UN negotiating] spaces”.

But Mwanahamisi Singano, senior global policy lead at the Women’s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), reminded delegates at a workshop in Bonn that “time has not been the magic ingredient in bridging disparities between women and men in participation”, which has “stagnated or even declined when it comes to COPs”.

A Flourish chart


According to data from WEDO, women made up only 34% of COP28 government delegations overall, the same percentage as 10 years ago. Azerbaijan’s initial men-only COP29 organising committee – to which women were hastily added after an international outcry – and its line-up of negotiators at Bonn were a case in point.

The UN’s own analysis of men and women’s relative speaking times at the negotiations shows that women often – though not always – speak less, and that themes such as technology and finance see consistently lower numbers for women’s participation.

Progress has been gradual even with programmes like WEDO’s Women Delegates Fund, which has financed hundreds of women – primarily from least developed countries and small island developing states – to attend UN climate talks. Since 2012, WEDO has also run ‘Night Schools’, training women in technical language and negotiation skills.
Gender in the NDCs

Increasing the gender diversity of decision-makers in UN negotiations is important in its own right, but it does not necessarily translate into more gender-responsive climate policy, experts said. Not all women negotiators are knowledgeable about the gender-climate nexus, they noted.

But having an international framework to boost gender-sensitive climate action has also “catalysed political will” at the country level, according to Rebecca Heuvelmans, advocacy and campaigning officer at Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF).


Delegates listen to discussions on the UNFCCC Gender Action Plan at the Bonn Climate Conference on June 4, 2024. (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth)

This is evidenced by an increase in the number of official National Gender and Climate Change Focal Points – up from 38 in 2017 when UN climate talks first adopted a Gender Action Plan, to 140 across 110 countries today. While the precise role of these focal points depends on country needs, advocates say they have been pivotal in spurring action on national gender priorities.

So far, at least 23 countries have national gender and climate change action plans, and references to gender in national climate plans submitted to the UN, known as NDCs, have increased since the earliest commitments in 2016. Around four-fifths now include gender-related information, according to a UN review of the plans.

In practice, this ranges from including gender-diverse people in the development of national climate plans to legislation that specifically addresses the intersection of climate change and gender.

For example, nine countries – including Sierra Leone and Jordan – have committed to addressing rising gender-based violence in the context of climate change. South Sudan acknowledged that heat exposure and malnutrition can increase infant and maternal mortality, while Côte d’Ivoire recognised that climate change hikes risks to pregnant women and those going through menopause.

Nonetheless, only a third of countries include access to sexual, maternal and newborn health services in their climate commitments, according to a 2023 report by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and Queen Mary University of London, showing how much work is yet to be done.

Next year, countries are due to submit updated NDCs, which campaigners see as a crucial opportunity to embed gender equality more deeply, including by involving women and girls in their planning and implementation, and collecting data disaggregated by sex and gender that can help shape policy.
Cross-cutting issue

Ahead of COP29, gender advocates are pushing for a stronger work programme with new language around intersectionality – the recognition that gender interacts with other parts of identity like race, class and Indigeneity to create overlapping systems of discrimination.

Angela Baschieri, technical lead on climate action at UNFPA, said gender commitments in the UN climate process must be more ambitious and include actionable targets for countries to address gender inequality.

Five things we learned from the UN’s climate mega-poll

Beyond the gender negotiations themselves, the Women and Gender Constituency wants to boost the integration of gender with other streams of work.

“Whether you’re talking about green hydrogen, climate finance or low-carbon transport, there is always a gender dimension,” said Sascha Gabizon, executive director of WECF International, a network of feminist groups campaigning on environmental issues.

“We have so much evidence now that climate policies just aren’t as efficient if they are not gender-transformative,” she added.

(Reporting by Daisy Clague; editing by Megan Rowling)

UK
Squatters take London's housing crisis into their own hands


28 June 2024 - 

BY SUBAN ABDULLA AND NATALIE THOMAS

Light shines through a window in a bedroom for squatters, in which was once a school and is now occupied by squatter activist group Reclaim Croydon, in Croydon, south London, Britain, May 16, 2024.

Image: REUTERS/Hannah McKay / File photo

In the shopping streets and housing estates of the south London town of Croydon, some once-derelict buildings are slowly coming back to life.

At a former school, peeling walls are getting a fresh coat of paint, and laundry hangs on a line to dry. Over at a disused youth centre, there is laughter in the gymnasium-turned-dormitory, and a vase of purple flowers decorates a scrubbed kitchen counter.

The Reclaim Croydon collective, a squatters group, has taken over disused commercial premises to provide beds for the homeless, saying it is providing a community-based solution to a broken housing market.

“The government is failing homeless people,” said one of the youth centre's new occupants, who goes by the name Leaf.

Leaf, who comes from the city of Reading and is nonbinary, said they had been living on the streets and in squats because rising rents had outstripped government welfare and housing benefits. Leaf argues that many of the country's disused and empty properties could be turned into homes.

“If the people in charge actually gave a damn about anyone who was struggling, they would make those houses habitable,” Leaf said. “Homelessness is a direct political choice.”

Like most of the squatters interviewed by Reuters, Leaf, 28, would only give one name, to avoid drawing the attention of authorities.

Britain has long lacked enough housing, but a 22% jump in private rents in England over the last five years has left growing numbers of people struggling to find anywhere to live. Housing routinely appears in the top five issues that pollsters report as the most important for voters ahead of Thursday's general election.

The high rents and unaffordable house prices have meant people in their 20s or 30s are still living at home with parents or in house shares. At the most acute end, growing numbers are sleeping on the streets and in empty buildings, official figures show.

Public services in areas such as mental health have taken a hit from a decade of tight spending controls and growing demand, adding to the numbers slipping into homelessness, policy analysts and homeless advocates say.

Studies have found that ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected, with a 2022 report published by the Centre for Homelessness Impact charity showing that Black people were more than three times as likely to become homeless as white people in England.

Britain's biggest political parties did not make people available to discuss the housing crisis. However, both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservatives and the main opposition Labour Party have pledged to tackle the issue by building more homes.


Labour, which is widely expected to win the election by a landslide, has said it would overhaul the country's planning system — often cited as overly complex and tilted against developers — and build 1.5 million homes over the next five years.

The Conservatives struggled to reform the planning system in the face of opposition from rural lawmakers and residents seeking to preserve green spaces and the original character of their neighbourhoods.

VACANT BUILDINGS

Housing campaigners have long argued that local councils should also use some of the roughly 700,000 vacant homes in England as a cheaper and faster solution.

“We're seeing more and more councils saying that temporary accommodation budgets for people that they theoretically have a legal duty to house are literally bankrupting them,” said Chris Bailey, campaign manager for the Action on Empty Homes charity.

London Councils, an umbrella group representing the capital's local authorities, said the number presenting as homeless increased by 14.5% in the year to September 2023, with more than 175,000 homeless and living in temporary accommodation.

The cost of providing temporary housing in hotels, hostels or house shares rose by almost 40% last year to 90 million pounds ($113.54 million) a month, London Councils said.

Since 2018, eight councils — including Birmingham, Europe's largest local authority — have effectively declared themselves bankrupt.

Croydon Council — which declared it was unable to balance its books three times between 2020 and 2022 — spent more than 38.6 million pounds on temporary accommodation in the 2022-2023 financial year, not including any rent it gets back.

The council increased council tax — paid by residents — by 15% last year. It has also raised taxes on empty properties and second homes.

“It is hoped this will help to bring more empty homes back into use,” the council said in a statement to Reuters.

The council wants to sell the occupied youth centre, which closed during the pandemic.

“We are making arrangements to repossess and secure this publicly owned building,” it said.

Croydon — a large, built-up town with high-rise apartment and office blocks — had nearly 4,000 disused properties in October 2023, according to government data.

In the main shopping streets, shuttered businesses and posters advertising closing down sales are tucked among discount stores and a bustling market.

Alex, 28, a Reclaim Croydon organiser, said the group has refurbished around 30 buildings since it was formed last year, providing homes for over 100 people.

The group first ensures the buildings are vacant and have basic necessities like running water and electricity, he said. It then carries out repairs to make them habitable, which can include installing showers and kitchens, fixing leaks and removing mould.

The people who live in the buildings come from diverse backgrounds. Squatters at the youth centre with Leaf include a student and a transport worker who couldn't keep up with London rents.

Some are trying to escape the streets, others the upheaval of living in different temporary accommodations.

“A lot of people in Britain just get stuck in homelessness limbo, and they prefer to stay with us,” Alex said.

They include Oumnia, 35, who said she was offered temporary accommodation in a hostel while she waited for her asylum application to be processed.

“It was a small room, and I have two children. It's not enough for us, and it's not healthy,” said Oumnia, who declined to give further details about herself.

Reclaim Croydon found the family a room in an ornate, red brick building that had once housed a legal firm.

But within months of their arrival, an eviction notice was pasted on the door. Reuters could not reach the owners for comment; no contact details are listed on the land deed.

The half a dozen squatters packed up and moved into a small, sparsely furnished former girl's school that had stood empty since 2020.

Oumnia and her young children now live in an outbuilding with its own small kitchen and bathroom. In the evenings, residents sometimes gather in a former gymnasium to share a plate of chicken stew and bread.

It's unclear how long they can stay, however. The building is owned by Barnardo's, a children's charity.

“We are aware that a Barnardo's-owned property in Croydon is currently being occupied by squatters. We are working with local authorities to safely resolve the situation,” the group said without elaborating.


SQUATTING CULTURE

A squatting culture has existed in Britain for hundreds of years. After World War 2, many soldiers and their families moved into empty military bases. In the 1970s, the movement took on a political edge as anarchists took over buildings in acts of protest.

Since 2012, it has been illegal to squat in residential buildings. But commercial squatting is not a criminal offence, provided no damage is done, and the squatters leave when ordered by a court.

The British Landlords Association estimates squatting in commercial buildings is up by almost 300% since December 2021, a problem its head, Sajjad Ahmad, blames on government policies rather than squatters.

“A lot of these people that you see on the street or squatting in buildings are not drug addicts,” Ahmad said. “You speak to them, and you realise that some of them are qualified individuals who still hold down jobs.”

Britain embarked on a home-building drive after World War 2, with much of its public housing stock built for lower-income families.

But some of that was sold off and not replaced under a policy by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to allow people to buy their homes from local authorities.

In 2017, the government said 300,000 new homes were needed a year in England by the mid-2020s to fix the affordability squeeze. Since then, fewer than 250,000 have been built on average each year. Some owners have also been happy to leave properties empty, benefiting from rising valuations.

Squatters told Reuters that finding a room had been transformational, restoring a sense of dignity even if they were afraid of being thrown out.

“It was the first time I felt like a human being since coming to the UK,” said Youness Elaissaoui, a 49-year-old Moroccan immigrant who spent time at the school and former solicitor's office.

Leaf, who walks with a cane, said finding a community of squatters was life-saving.

“I'm disabled. I wouldn't survive on the streets. Simple as that,” they said.

 

US Protects Alaska Lands Important To Tribes’ Hunting, Fishing

Large areas of federal land in Alaska will be protected from development to conserve fish and wildlife habitats that are important to native communities’ way of life, under two measures announced by the Biden administration on Friday.

The steps by the Interior Department are aligned with President Joe Biden’s goal to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters as part of his climate change agenda.

In a statement, Interior said it had finalized its rejection of a 211-mile (340 km) road intended to enable mine development in north central Alaska. The agency first said it would reject the project in April, citing risks to caribou and fish populations that native communities rely on for subsistence.

Interior also signaled that it would not allow development on 28 million acres (11 million hectares) of land in Alaska, reversing an effort by former President Donald Trump’s administration to strip them of protections in the final days of his presidency.

Biden’s Interior put the Trump decision on hold so it could seek public comment and analyze the impact of opening the area to mining or oil and gas development.

The final environmental analysis, published on Friday, found that allowing development would harm subsistence hunting and fishing in up to 117 native communities. A final decision by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland can be made 30 days after the release of the environmental review.

“Today, my Administration is stopping a 211-mile road from carving up a pristine area that Alaska Native communities rely on, in addition to steps we are taking to maintain protections on 28 million acres in Alaska from mining and drilling,” Biden said in a statement. “These natural wonders demand our protection.”

Most of the protected 28 million acres are able to be selected by eligible Alaska veterans of the Vietnam War for 160-acre allotments under a policy the administration unveiled in 2022.

(Reuters)

Indonesia’s Mount Ibu erupts twice, belches tower of ash

Mount Ibu is one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, erupting more than 21,000 times in 2023. PHOTO: AFP

JUN 28, 2024

JAKARTA - A volcano in eastern Indonesia erupted twice on June 28, sending a hot cloud of ash as high as 7km into the sky.

The country’s Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation shared an image of the thick column of grey ash towering among white clouds around Mount Ibu, located on the island of Halmahera in North Maluku province.

No damage or casualties were immediately reported from the two eruptions, which took place within the span of an hour.

The first occurred at 10.45am local time (9.45am Singapore time).

“The eruption is still ongoing at the time of this report,” the volcanology centre said in a statement.

Locals were urged not to go within 5km of Mount Ibu’s crater, the statement added.

Mount Ibu is currently at the second-highest level of alert after the authorities lowered the alert level last week.


Ibu is one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes, erupting more than 21,000 times in 2023.

More than 700,000 people lived on Halmahera island as at 2022, according to official figures.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”.

In May, Mount Ruang in North Sulawesi province erupted more than half a dozen times, forcing thousands of residents of nearby islands to evacuate. 

AFP

The US Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision

BY MARK SHERMAN
 June 28, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday upended a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections, delivering a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests.

The justices overturned the 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron, long a target of conservatives.

Billions of dollars are potentially at stake in challenges that could be spawned by the high court’s ruling. The Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer had warned such a move would be an “unwarranted shock to the legal system.” Chief Justice John Roberts qualified that past cases relying on the Chevron are not at issue.

The heart of the Chevron decision says federal agencies should be allowed to fill in the details when laws aren’t crystal clear. Opponents of the decision argued that it gave power that should be wielded by judges to experts who work for the government.

The court ruled in cases brought by Atlantic herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island who challenged a fee requirement. Lower courts used the Chevron decision to uphold a 2020 National Marine Fisheries Service rule that herring fishermen pay for government-mandated observers who track their fish intake.



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Conservative and business interests strongly backed the fishermen’s appeals, betting that a court that was remade during Republican Donald Trump’s presidency would strike another blow at the regulatory state.

The court’s conservative majority has previously reined in environmental regulations and stopped the Democratic Biden administration’s initiatives on COVID-19 vaccines and student loan forgiveness.

The justices hadn’t invoked Chevron since 2016, but lower courts had continued to do so.

Forty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled 6-0, with three justices recused, that judges should play a limited, deferential role when evaluating the actions of agency experts in a case brought by environmental groups to challenge a Reagan administration effort to ease regulation of power plants and factories.

“Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of government,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 1984, explaining why they should play a limited role.

But the current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas all had questioned the Chevron decision.

Opponents of the Chevron doctrine argue that judges apply it too often to rubber-stamp decisions made by government bureaucrats. Judges must exercise their own authority and judgment to say what the law is, they argued to the Supreme Court.

Defending the rulings that upheld the fees, President Joe Biden’s administration said that overturning the Chevron decision would produce a “convulsive shock” to the legal system.

Environmental, health advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, organized labor and Democrats on the national and state level had urged the court to leave the Chevron decision in place.

Gun, e-cigarette, farm, timber and home-building groups were among the business groups supporting the fishermen. Conservative interests that also intervened in recent high court cases limiting regulation of air and water pollution backed the fishermen as well.

The fisherman sued to contest the 2020 regulation that would have authorized a fee that could have topped $700 a day, though no one ever had to pay it.

In separate lawsuits in New Jersey and Rhode Island, the fishermen argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the fisherman to pay for monitors. They lost in the lower courts, which relied on the Chevron decision to sustain the regulation.

The justices heard two cases on the same issue because Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson was recused from the New Jersey case. She took part in it at an earlier stage when she was an appeals court judge. The full court participated in the case from Rhode Island.
___

Democratic Mongolia, squeezed between authoritarian China and Russia, votes for new parliament

By Associated Press AP
Jun. 28, 2024

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (AP) — Voters in the relatively young democracy of Mongolia were electing a new parliament on Friday in their landlocked country squeezed between China and Russia, two much larger authoritarian states.

At stake were 126 seats in an expanded parliament, 50 more than in the previous election in 2020. That contest was won by the Mongolian People's Party in a landslide. The governing party still appears to hold the upper hand, but other parties may be able to capitalize on voter discontent to eat into its majority.

About two dozen voters lined up on a staircase heading down to a polling station in the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar early Friday morning, some muttering complaints because it opened 10 minutes late. Some of the older voters, including community leaders, dressed up in formal silk robes sinched with large leather belts for the occasion.

Inside, voters filled out their ballots behind a small screen and then put them into an electronic vote counting machine. Before they left, a purple dot was put on one of their forefingers with a marker to prevent them from trying to vote again.

Mongolia became a democracy in 1990, ending more than six decades of one-party communist rule. While people have welcomed the freedoms that came with the end of the communist system, many have grown cynical of the parliament and its members, seeing them as working mainly to enrich themselves and their business associates.

The Mongolian People's Party has recognized those problems but largely blamed them on other political parties.

The prime minister, Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai, said Friday that democracy and trust in the parliament are weakened when personal interest is put ahead of the national interest. He called for a new page of cooperation between the government and citizens after the first three decades of democracy.

“Today, a completely new 30 years in the history of Mongolia begins,” he told a crush of reporters after casting his ballot. “Let’s all together see how this representative parliament will work and how political parties will perform.”

The polling station in the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar is in a “ger” district, where many people first lived in nomadic tents after moving to the capital. It remains a poorer area, now a cluster of mostly simple homes, some still with tents in their yards.

Many residents of the district, particularly the older generation, support the People's Party, which also ran the country during the communist era and then transformed itself into a center-left party in the democratic era.

Naranchimeg Lamjav, a 69-year-old People’s Party member and leader of the elderly community, was among a half-dozen voters in formal outfits who showed up at the polling station before its scheduled 7 a.m. opening time.

“I support the current government led by Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene, because they are establishing justice and starting the new era of 30 years,” she said, wearing an embroidered blue robe.

But some younger voters expressed disappointment with the People’s Party and said they chose younger candidates who they hoped would bring change.

Enkhmandakh Boldbaatar, 38, said he voted for neither the People’s Party nor the main opposition party, the Democratic Party, saying they also had not performed well. There are 19 parties vying for seats in the parliament.

“I’ve been living here for 38 years, yet the area is the same,” he said. “Only this road and some buildings were constructed. Things would have been different if they worked for the people.”

Corruption scandals have eroded confidence in the government and political parties. Besides the center-right Democratic Party, the HUN Party has emerged in this election as a potential third force.

In addition to corruption, major issues for voters included unemployment and inflation in an economy rocked first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by the fallout from the war in Ukraine. The country's livestock herders were also hit by a “dzud” this year, a combination of severe weather and drought, that killed 7.1 million animals.

There were 2,198 polling stations spread out across the sparsely populated country, which is large geographically but has a population of only 3.4 million people. The voting stations are to close at 10 p.m. with preliminary results expected early Saturday morning.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Moscow’s Rejection of New International Classification of Diseases Hurts Not Only Homosexuals but Russian Veterans and Others as Well, Aronov Says

Moscow’s Rejection of New International Classification of Diseases Hurts Not Only Homosexuals but Russian Veterans and Others as Well, Aronov Says

Paul Goble 

Friday, June 28, 2024

            Staunton, June 28 – Earlier this year, the Kremlin forced the Russian health ministry to reverse its decision to recognize the new International Classification of Diseases because that document asserts that homosexuality is not a disease, a position at odds with Putin’s ideas about traditional values.

            That decision sparked outrage among the gay community and its defenders both in Russia and abroad, with many concluding that this move seriously harmed the rights of homosexuals and further distanced Russia from the West (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/02/moscow-further-distances-itself-from.html).

            But now, Russian journalist Nikita Aronov who specializes on health issues says that it is important to recognize that many other groups of Russians, including most immediately Russian veterans suffering from PTSD, will he hurt as well as a result of this Kremlin move against homosexuals (theins.ru/obshestvo/272478).

            As many as 20 percent of Russian soldiers returning from Ukraine suffer from PTSD, the Russian government has admitted (vedomosti.ru/politics/characters/2024/06/18/1044406-vazhno-chtobi-veterani-voennoi-operatsii-videli-perspektivi-v-mirnoi-zhizni); and their fate depends in large measure on which classification of that illness the authorities will use.

            Under the old ICD, Aronov points out, those suffering from PTSD are “at risk of being misdiagnosed as ‘schizophrenics’ instead of receiving proper treatment,” while under the new ICD that Moscow has rejected, they would be far more likely to be accurately classified and given the treatment they need.

            The same thing is true for those suffering from a variety of other diseases, including ADHD which is not listed in the former ICD manual, he continues; but it is striking that by refusing to recognize the new ICD as authoritative, Moscow has almost certainly guaranteed that none of these people, including those Putin calls “heroes,” will get the help they need.

‘No way I can vote Labour’: Will pro-Palestine Brits sway the UK election?

Despite raging protests, those who are abandoning Labour over Starmer’s position are unlikely to affect the outcome of the general election.

Tim Flynn, a lifetime Labour voter who feels disillusioned by Keir Starmer's position on the Israel-Palestine conflict, will vote for the Green Party on July 4 

[Anealla Safdar/Al Jazeera]

By Anealla Safdar
Published On 28 Jun 2024

London, United Kingdom – Tim Flynn, a 71-year-old retired National Heath Service psychotherapist, has voted for the Labour Party all his life.

But on July 4, he plans to protest against the party, with a pencil. He will mark a cross on his ballot paper next to his local Green Party candidate.

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“There’s no way I can vote Labour this time,” he said. “It’s clear where [Labour leader Keir Starmer’s] politics lie. His politics lie with capitalism, with imperialism, with supporting Israel.

“If you don’t vote for a ceasefire, you’ve lost my vote.”

Flynn’s London constituency, Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, is a safe Labour seat. And nationally, Starmer is widely expected to win the general election with a significant majority after 14 years of Conservative rule, making him Britain’s next prime minister.

But his position on the war in Gaza has left many traditional Labour voters, like Flynn, feeling let down.

Starmer voted against a motion demanding an immediate ceasefire in November. Only last week, during a radio interview as the death toll in Gaza mounted towards 38,000 people, Starmer said he would not “pronounce that something is either genocide or not” as he reaffirmed Israel’s “right to self-defence”.

The Labour leader also said that every country including Israel “has to be properly held to account in the court of international law” and promised to review legal advice on arms sales to Israel as prime minister.

But that pledge is unlikely to dissuade voters like Flynn from giving up on the party. Flynn is regularly “locked into” coverage of Gaza and the occupied West Bank. When remembering footage of a child running away from Israeli forces in the West Bank, he choked up with emotion.

“They shot him in the back of his head … I have a grandson who’s nine, to think of him being shot in the back of the head. Yeah, and they get away with it.”

While that sentiment is expected to cost Labour some support, how much it will damage the party is unclear.

Memories of 2005 and the Iraq war

There are four main options for pro-Palestine Britons who feel neither Labour nor the Conservatives represent their views – to abstain or spoil the ballot, to back an independent candidate running on a pro-Palestine platform, to vote for the Liberal Democrats, who support a ceasefire, or, like Flynn, to give a nod to the Greens even though they are forecast to win less than 10 percent.

The Green Party says it backs an immediate ceasefire – something most Britons desire – and wants to end arms sales to Israel. The Greens also say they want to “redouble efforts” for the release of Israeli captives from Gaza, and support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

The Liberal Democrats have also supported a ceasefire for months, called for the captives to be freed and want to deliver a path a two-state solution.

A recent YouGov report suggested Labour is losing some voters in areas home to many Muslims, “in particular to the Greens”, but the impact of this trend is unlikely to affect the result.

“Whether or not any Labour MP is going to lose their seat is perhaps rather more doubtful, because those seats are pretty safe in the first place,” political scientist and polling guru John Curtice told Al Jazeera.

But Britain’s foreign policy has affected voting patterns in at least one previous election.

The late former Liberal Democrats leader Charles Kennedy is pictured in 2005, when the trustworthiness of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s version of events leading to the invasion of Iraq became a common theme for both the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in the final week of campaigning for the UK general election [Reuters]

In 2005, during the Iraq war, Labour lost ground “quite heavily amongst areas with substantial Muslim communities”, said Curtice.

Ultimately, Labour won while the Liberal Democrats made modest gains.

They “opposed the Iraq war and picked up a lot of that vote”, said Curtice. “This is not the first time that there has been a bridge between some people at least in the Muslim community and the willingness to vote for Labour.”

The sense of discontent over Britain’s unwavering support of Israel, regardless of which party is in power, has reached university campuses in a series of protests inspired by the United States movement.

‘Losing faith in the electoral system’

As dozens of students at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE) called out for a “free, free Palestine”, accompanied by the beats of a traditional drum, a moment of tension interrupted their rhythm.

“Am Yisrael Chai!” a bystander shouted in their direction, a slogan meaning, “The people of Israel live.”

But gathered in the searing afternoon heat, they continued unfazed to demand the university cuts financial ties with Israel, many masking their faces with a keffiyeh. One took to a megaphone to recite Quranic verses and recalled some of the most tragic moments that have afflicted Gaza, such as the killing of six-year-old Hind Rajab.

A pair of women up next demanded “azaadi”, a Kashmiri chant for “freedom” that is now a motif of global pro-Palestine student-led encampments.

As they occupied a square outside a campus building, university security workers watched on with scepticism. One accused the students of being “violent”. Voices were raised during disagreements, but Al Jazeera did not observe any physical clashes.

The febrile atmosphere eased a little at lunchtime, when a student unveiled a giant plate of maqlouba, an upside-down meat and rice dish that is popular in Palestine.

According to recent polling, most Britons back an immediate ceasefire in Gaza 

[Anealla Safdar/Al Jazeera]

Sadia Sheeraz, a 24-year-old LSE master’s student, said she hails from a “working-class” family in the northern city of Manchester that has always voted Labour.

“I couldn’t in good conscience vote for Labour in the upcoming election,” she said. “I’m still undecided as to whether I will vote or not, because I’m losing faith in the electoral system. But if I do vote, I probably would vote for the Green Party.”

Labour and the Conservatives are “so morally close to each other” on the “genocide committed by Israel”, she said, adding that she had hoped Starmer, a former barrister, would be able to assess the conflict “for what it is”.

“It just really makes me question not only his leadership and his authority, but also just his intellectual capacity.”

Sadia Sheeraz, who like her family has voted for Labour in the past, is yet to decide whether she will engage in the election on July 4 

[Anealla Safdar/Al Jazeera]

‘Hope he calls for a ceasefire’

A 20-year-old undergraduate LSE student, who requested anonymity, said she was backing the Green Party.

Her London constituency, Brentford and Isleworth, has been held by Labour’s Ruth Cadbury since 2015. Cadbury, who abstained from the November motion, is expected to easily keep her seat.

The student said she has emailed Cadbury several times, pleading with her to call for an immediate ceasefire.

“There are a lot of Muslims in my constituency, and we all want a ceasefire in Palestine. We’ve all been emailing our MP and saying, ‘Represent what your constituents want’. But she didn’t.”

Imagining Starmer as a prime minister, she said, “I’d hope he calls for a ceasefire. I hope he stops arms sales to Israel from the UK. But I don’t think we’re that hopeful. A lot of my generation, and a lot of Muslims as well in general, are turning towards the Greens because [Starmer] said that Israel has a right to defend itself, which is an abhorrent thing to say” amid the suffering in Gaza.

The Palestinian flag flaps in the wind outside a central London restaurant

 [Anealla Safdar/Al Jazeera]

Many of Britain’s four million Muslims, who make up about 6.5 percent of the population, have joined weekly street protests in solidarity with Gaza and boycott movements against Israel since October 7, when the historic Israel-Palestine conflict escalated after Hamas’s incursion into southern Israel.

More than 1,100 people were killed and about 250 people were taken captive during the assault led by the group that governs Gaza.

With a stated aim of crushing Hamas, Israel retaliated with its deadliest war by far on the Strip.
Gaza ‘not the the only issue’ for British Muslims

But not all Muslims think alike, warned Shabna Begum, head of the Runnymede Trust race equality think tank.

“We need to be careful not to think about Muslims as a bloc vote, as a monolith community,” she said.

“Yes, Muslim people have clearly come out in support of the Palestinian people … but the war in Gaza is not the only issue Muslim people across the country care about, and neither can we assume that such a diverse community of people will share the same perspectives on those other issues which matter to them.”

She explained that “working-class Muslim people” expect politicians to address the cost of living, access to decent and affordable housing, and healthcare.

“Political parties, across the spectrum, who do not speak convincingly to these issues can’t take for granted the so-called ‘Muslim vote’ on July 4,” said Begum.
The rise of independent candidates

A stone’s throw from the LSE protest, Luqmaan Waqar, a doctoral student at King’s College London, said he has voted for Labour in previous elections but left the party as a member in 2020.

The rise of “principled” independent candidates gives him hope, he said, since several are running on a pro-Palestine campaign and because they symbolise a gentle push towards greater political pluralism.

He had briefly considered running himself but now invests his spare time in canvassing for Leanne Mohamed, a British Palestinian candidate trying to unseat Labour’s Wes Streeting in Ilford, in East London.

In his nearby constituency, he will vote for Faiza Shaheen, but only because she is now running as an independent candidate having been blocked by Labour from standing with the party; Labour officials accused Shaheen of liking posts on X that downplayed anti-Semitism accusations.

Luqmaan Waqar, a doctoral student, is backing independent candidates running on a pro-Palestine platform 

[Anealla Safdar/Al Jazeera]

Having backed the ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a liberal and an ardent supporter of Palestinian rights, Waqar said he was never won over by Starmer.

“To be honest, you can’t put a pin between [the Conservatives and Labour],” he said. “What does Keir Starmer believe in? Nothing … I really do believe that now is the moment to support strong independents.”

In Starmer’s seat of Holborn and St Pancras, Andrew Feinstein, a Jewish former South African politician who is anti-Zionist, is busy trying to secure votes as an independent candidate.

“Many independents, despite lacking political experience and community consensus, are scrambling to mount campaigns,” said Muhammad Meman, the founder of Palitics, an online tool that uses data and AI technology to inform voters on how to challenge Labour’s predicted win.

“This disarray, combined with credible alternatives from the Greens and Lib Dems, dilutes their impact. In many areas, multiple independents are running, further splitting the vote.

But overall, he added, “Muslims are still likely to vote for Labour.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

ONE PARTY CITY STATE

Singapore charges activists over pro-Palestinian letters

By Kelly Ng and Tessa Wong, BBC News, Singapore

Transformative Justice Collective
The watermelon, which has the same colours as the Palestinian flag, has become a symbol of solidarity

Three activists in Singapore have been charged over rallying people to deliver letters to the prime minister urging him to end ties with Israel.

Singapore strictly regulates protests, and public demonstrations advocating causes of other countries are not allowed.

The war in Gaza has been a particularly sensitive issue for the tiny country that has a significant Muslim population and also maintains a close relationship with Israel.

Authorities have urged Singaporeans not to stage protests on the issue and instead participate in dialogues and donation drives.

But there has been deep concern about the war and some Singaporeans, particularly younger ones, have been vocal in expressing their views online and desiring to make themselves heard.

In February, the activists led about 70 people on a metres-long walk from a popular mall on Singapore's main shopping street Orchard Road to the presidential compound next door.

Photos of the procession posted on social media show participants carrying umbrellas looking like watermelons. The fruit, which has the same colours as the Palestinian flag, has become a symbol of solidarity.

The group stopped at the gates of the compound - which also houses the prime minister's office - and handed a sheaf of 140 letters to staff.

Authorities say the activists - Annamalai Kokila Parvathi, Siti Amirah Mohamed Asrori and Mossammad Sobikun Nahar - had organised the event without a permit. The women have not indicated yet whether they would plead guilty.

All public demonstrations in Singapore require permits from the police, who have said they would not grant any for public assemblies advocating causes of other countries or foreign entities.

The three women could be fined up to S$10,000 (£5,800, $7,300 ) or jailed for up to six months.

On Thursday when the women were released on bail, they appeared to strike a defiant note through their attire. Ms Amirah wore a shawl resembling the keffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress that has become a symbol of Palestinian activism, while Ms Annamalai wore a T-shirt with the words "Justice Now!".

Local advocacy group the Transformative Justice Collective, which Ms Annamalai co-founded, described the charges as "a continuation of the intimidation of peaceful support for Palestinian lives in Singapore".

The police also released a statement urging Singaporeans "not to engage in activities that will damage the peace, public order and social harmony" and not to "break the law to express their views, nor emulate the protesters in other countries".

Singapore and Israel have a long-standing defence partnership, which includes arms trade. Israel also helped to build up the South East Asian country's military in its early years of independence, and the two countries also cooperate in industrial research, education and business.

But Singapore has also expressed support for Palestinians and the two-state solution. It has voted in favour of recent UN resolutions calling for Israel and Hamas to cease hostilities, as well as past resolutions opposing Israel's illegal settlements.

Since the war in Gaza erupted, the government has taken a neutral stance while also making it clear it would not tolerate anything it deems as stoking social tensions.

In March, the Singapore government ordered the Israeli embassy to take down a Facebook post comparing mentions of Israel and the Palestinian territories in the Quran.

Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam called the post "insensitive and inappropriate", adding that it could "inflame tensions" and put the Jewish community in Singapore at risk.