It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, October 08, 2024
Kenya's deputy president faces impeachment vote
Agence France-Presse October 8, 2024 Deputy President Rigathi Gachagu (LUIS TATO/AFP)
Kenya's parliament was set to vote on Tuesday on impeaching Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua in a political drama that has exposed a rift in the governing party.
Lawmakers have accused the 59-year-old deputy to President William Ruto of corruption, undermining the government and practising ethnically divisive politics, among a host of other charges.
At a press conference on Monday, Gachagua denied the accusations as "outrageous" and "sheer propaganda", saying it was a scheme to hound him out of office.
Gachagua is a businessman from Kenya's biggest tribe, the Kikuyu. He weathered previous corruption scandals to become deputy leader as Ruto's running mate in a closely fought election in August 2022.
But in recent weeks, he has complained of being sidelined by his boss and been accused of supporting youth-led anti-government protests that broke out in June.
Political tensions have been running high since the sometimes deadly demonstrations erupted over unpopular tax hikes, exposing divisions between Gachagua and Ruto.
Several MPs allied with Gachagua were summoned by police last month, accused of funding the protests.
No formal charges have been lodged by prosecutors and no judicial inquiry has been opened against Gachagua.
But lawmakers have listed 11 grounds for impeachment, including accusations that he amassed assets worth 5.2 billion shillings ($40 million) since the last election, despite an annual salary of just $93,000.
Among the listed assets was Kenya's renowned Treetops Hotel, where Britain's then-Princess Elizabeth was staying when she became queen.
Gachagua says his wealth has come entirely through legitimate business deals and an inheritance from his late brother.
He has warned his removal would stir discontent among his supporters.
Kenyan lawmakers initiated the impeachment process on October 1, with 291 members of parliament backing the motion, well beyond the 117 minimum required.
Two-thirds of the lower house, the National Assembly, must back the motion for it to pass on Tuesday. It would then move to the upper house, the Senate.
If impeached, Gachagua would become the first deputy president to be removed in this way since the possibility was introduced in Kenya's revised 2010 constitution.
From Bolivia to Indonesia, deforestation continues apace
Agence France-Presse October 8, 2024 Amazon rainforest being destroyed by illegal fires in Labrea, Brazil in August
(EVARISTO SA/AFP)
Deforestation continued last year at a rate far beyond pledges to end the practice by 2030, according to a major study published Tuesday.
Forests nearly the size of Ireland were lost in 2023, according to two dozen research organizations, NGOs and advocacy groups, with 6.37 million hectares (15.7 million acres) of trees felled and burned.
This "significantly exceeded" levels that would have kept the world on track to eliminate deforestation by the end of the decade, a commitment made in 2021 by more than 140 leaders.
Forests are home to 80 percent of the world's terrestrial plant and animal species and crucial for regulating water cycles and sequestering CO2, the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.
"Globally, deforestation has gotten worse, not better, since the beginning of the decade," said Ivan Palmegiani, a biodiversity and land use consultant at Climate Focus and lead author of the "Forest Declaration Assessment" report.
"We're only six years away from a critical global deadline to end deforestation, and forests continue to be chopped down, degraded, and set ablaze at alarming rates."
In 2023, 3.7 million hectares of tropical primary forest -- particularly carbon rich and ecologically biodiverse environments -- disappeared, a figure that should have fallen significantly to meet the 2030 objective.
- Soya and nickel -
In high-risk regions, researchers pointed to backsliding in Bolivia and in Indonesia.
The report said there was an "alarming rise" in deforestation in Bolivia, which jumped 351 percent between 2015 and 2023.
The "trend shows no sign of abating", it added, with forests largely cleared for agriculture, notably for soya but also beef and sugar.
In Indonesia, deforestation slumped between 2020-2022 but started rising sharply last year.
Ironically, that is partly down to demand for materials often seen as eco-friendly, such as viscose for clothing, and a surge in nickel mining for electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy technologies.
There was better news from Brazil.
While it remains the country with the highest deforestation rates in the world, it has made key progress.
The situation has significantly improved in the Amazon, which has benefited from protective measures put in place by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
However, in the Cerrado, a key tropical savannah below the Amazon, deforestation has increased.
- Degraded forests -
The report also highlights the role of logging, road building and fires in forest degradation, when land is damaged but not razed entirely.
In 2022, the last year data was available, a forest area twice the size of Germany was degraded.
Erin Matson, senior consultant at Climate Focus, and co-author of the report, said "strong policies and strong enforcement" were needed.
"To meet global forest protection targets, we must make forest protection immune to political and economic whims," she said.
The report comes in the wake of the European Commission's proposal last week to postpone by a year (to the end of 2025) the entry into force of its anti-deforestation law, despite protests from NGOs.
"We have to fundamentally rethink our relationship with consumption and our models of production to shift away from a reliance on over exploiting natural resources," said Matson.
As election looms, 3 of 4 voters fear political violence
Common Dreams October 8, 2024 Man holds gun in front of US flag (Shutterstock.com)
Polling released Monday, less than a month away from the November 5 election, shows that nearly three-quarters of U.S. voters are worried about political violence and believe it is likely because some people will not accept the results.
The latest Civil Rights Monitor Poll, commissioned by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, is based on responses from 1,000 likely voters across the country, who were surveyed September 3-8.
Pollsters found that "81% of voters believe that democracy is under threat, and 73% are worried about political violence after the elections in November," the conference said. "Liberals are much more worried (92%) about political violence than moderates and conservatives (68% and 63%, respectively)."
"We are... elevating Project 2025 as a blueprint to undermine the very values we see supported in three years of polling."
This year's presidential contest is between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former Republican President Donald Trump, who during the 2020 cycle repeatedly lied about his loss and even incited some supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the results on January 6, 2021.
Although Trump has tried to disavow the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025, previous polling has shown a majority of Americans believe the ex-president is aligned with its policy blueprint, which was crafted by at least 140 people who worked in the first Trump administration, including six former Cabinet secretaries.
"Project 2025 has become widely known (70% can identify it), and voters are broadly cold towards it (54% rate it 0-49 on a thermometer scale of 0-100)," according to the new poll. "Cuts to overtime pay (91%), cuts to Social Security (86%), and government monitoring of pregnancies (85%) are the components of the Project 2025 agenda that voters oppose the most."
The conference said that "among the most important issues for voters in the elections this year are inflation and the economy (42%, which is up eight points from the previous year), immigration and border security (33%), and protecting our democracy and freedoms (22%)."
Similar to last year, large majorities of respondents agreed that Americans are sacrificing too much of their privacy for Big Tech (86%); diversity makes the country stronger (79%); marriage equality should be protected (77%); the government must do more to protect the civil and human rights of communities of color (69%); abortion access should be a legally protected right (64%); and sexism is a big problem in today's society (63%).
Smaller majorities said that the government should do more to lessen racial inequality in society (59%); artificial intelligence is a threat to jobs (57%); immigrants contribute more to America than they take (57%); America is on the path to another Civil War (55%); and the respondent's heritage, traditions, and cultural identity is under attack (52%).
Additionally, the conference said, "white supremacy is an issue that most voters are worried about, with more than half of respondents (52%) stating they are more worried, including 65% of Black and 64% of Hispanic voters."
The poll also shows that "an astounding 93% of voters are extremely motivated to vote this November, up seven points from last year (86%)."
Maya Wiley, the conference's president and CEO, said in a Monday statement that "voters know what's at stake in this election."
"It's clear that in this presidential year voters want to vote even while they worry about political violence and know democracy is on the ballot," she continued. "This most recent poll shows that voters want to vote more than ever despite, or perhaps because, our democracy is threatened with the dark cloud of election denial and violence. In 2024, voters must know that they will decide the outcome of the election—not a political party, extremist groups, or purveyors of disinformation."
"The civil rights community is organized and actively working on voter education, get-out–the-vote efforts, election protection, and combating disinformation, and we are also elevating Project 2025 as a blueprint to undermine the very values we see supported in three years of polling," she added. "We will continue to combat racism, xenophobia, and efforts to divide us along race and immigration lines. Democracy requires passionate persistence, and our Civil Rights Monitor Poll reassures us that the majority of Americans agree."
Pastor wanted by U.S. for sex trafficking to run for Philippine senate
Agence France-Presse October 8, 2024 Apollo Quiboloy, a detained Philippine pastor also wanted in the United States for sex trafficking children, registered Tuesday to run in next year's senate elections (Jam Sta Rosa/AFP)
A detained Philippine pastor who is also wanted in the United States for sex trafficking children registered Tuesday to run in next year's senate elections.
Apollo Quiboloy, an ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte, is a self-proclaimed "Appointed Son of God" whose sect claims millions of followers.
The 74-year-old was arrested last month and is currently detained in Manila and facing charges of child abuse, sexual abuse and human trafficking. One of his lawyers filed his candidacy paperwork.
"He wants to be a part of the solution to the problems of our country. He is running because of God and our beloved Philippines," lawyer Mark Christopher Tolentino said.
Quiboloy pledges to promote laws that are "God-centered, Philippine-centred and Filipino-centred", Tolentino told journalists after submitting the candidacy papers to election officials.
The circumstances are not without precedent.
In May 2022, Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada won a senate seat while on trial for corruption. He took up the post and was acquitted in January.
Another was rights campaigner Leila de Lima, who spent the majority of her six-year senate term in prison after being detained in 2017 on drugs charges. She was cleared this year.
Candidates are only disqualified from standing in senate elections if they have exhausted all appeals after being convicted of offences involving "moral turpitude", according to the election code which does not list specific crimes.
Quiboloy was charged by the United States in 2021 with sex trafficking of girls and women to work as personal assistants, who were allegedly required to have sex with him during what they said was their "night duty".
He is also sought by U.S. authorities for bulk cash smuggling and a scheme that brought church members to the US through fraudulently obtained visas.
They were then forced to solicit donations for a bogus charity, raising funds that were instead used to finance church operations and the lavish lifestyles of its leaders, according to the FBI.
Twelve of the 24 senate seats are up for grabs in next year's midterm polls, along with more than 18,000 congressional and local government executive posts.
Former police chief who raided Kansas newspaper returns to face criminal charges
Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector October 8, 2024 Police raided the Marion County Record office on Aug 11, 2023, after Magistrate Judge Laura Viar authorized search warrants without regard for federal and state law that prohibit the search and seizure of journalists’ materials. The newspaper office is seen here on July 25, 2024. (Grace Hills/Kansas Reflector)
MARION — Former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody returned Monday to the town where he raided a newspaper to face a dozen journalists along with a felony charge for his actions after the raid.
Cody led police in the Aug. 11, 2023, raid on the Marion County Record, the editor’s home and a councilwoman’s home under the false pretense that a newspaper reporter had committed identity theft by looking up restaurateur Kari Newell’s driving record. Special prosecutors charged Cody with one count of interference with the judicial process, a low-level felony, for asking Newell after the raid to delete text messages between the two. Cody told her he was concerned their relationship would be misinterpreted, according to court documents.
One year later, Cody is party to five federal civil lawsuits in addition to the criminal case.
Monday’s hearing, which lasted less than 10 minutes, was Cody’s first public appearance in the town since he resigned as police chief amid intense scrutiny in October 2023. In a courtroom with an audience mostly of reporters, Cody was straight-faced and silent.
District Judge Ryan Rosauer rejected Cody’s motion to dismiss the charge for lack of probable cause.
Rosauer, prosecutors and Cody’s defense agreed that Cody won’t be required to appear in court for minor hearings and case proceedings, including the case’s next scheduled hearing on Dec. 16. Court filings show Cody is believed to be living in Hawaii.
Cody and Sal Intagliata, a Wichita attorney who is defending Cody, declined to answer reporters’ questions as they left the courthouse. Intagliata said the “full story” would come out as the case is litigated in court. Cody didn’t speak.
Intagliata, as he ushered Cody into a car, told reporters: “If I have any comment at all on behalf of Mr. Cody, it would be this: that the people of Marion County, really the most important people involved in this situation, take a minute to reserve judgment, take a moment to, like, avoid jumping to conclusions, and allow the system to work.”
Cody won’t be required to pay a cash bond. Instead, Rosauer ordered a $5,000 personal recognizance bond, which Cody only will have to pay if he fails to show up to court when required.
If convicted, Cody would face presumed probation
Following the hearing, Marion County Record editor and publisher Eric Meyer answered questions from a dozen reporters who gathered outside the newspaper office across the street from the courthouse. They asked him to respond to Intagliata.
“We can take a delay of the justice system, as long as the delay actually results in proper assessment of things,” Meyer said. “We’re not in a hurry. He should have plenty of time to think about what he did.”
Meyer said Cody shouldn’t be the only one who is charged with a crime. Others, Meyer said, should have intervened — including other police officers, the sheriff, the county attorney, and the magistrate who signed the search warrants.
“Somewhere the system failed,” Meyer said. “These are the people who are supposed to protect our rights. They didn’t do it. That’s why I hate to see Gideon Cody be the fall guy for all this. Yes, he deserves a great deal of credit or blame for what went on in here, but there are others who were well aware of it.”
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and X.
RAW STORY October 7, 2024 President Donald J. Trump speaking at his campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa at Drake University's Knapp Center. (Aspects and Angles / Shutterstock.com)
A beloved building belonging to former President Donald Trump appears to be drowning in debt as problematic financial deadlines loom, according to a new financial analysis.
Trump's 63-story high rise at 40 Wall St. in New York City is currently worth $2 million less than the $118 million Trump owes on his $160 million mortgage — and its income continues to plummet, according to a recent Forbes report.
"The building is simply not earning enough money to cover the loan," Forbes reported. "Adding to the headaches: Trump, who doesn’t own the land on which the building sits, has just nine years left until his ground rent escalates dramatically."
But the building's operating income has nearly halved from about $21 million in 2018 to $12.8 million in 2023, according to Forbes.
"That leaves the Republican presidential candidate in a tough spot as the November election approaches, short on funds to save one of his prized possessions," according to Forbes.
Should Trump clear this hurdle, he'll face another in 2033, Forbes reported.
That's when the German company that owns the land underneath 40 Wall St. is scheduled to implement a near sixfold increase to the cost of Trump's lease, according to the report.
"That shift would cause Trump’s ground rent to soar from $2.8 million in 2032 to $16.3 million the following year," Forbes reported.
"If the rest of 40 Wall Street’s financial picture remained the same as it is today, that would leave Trump with a negative $5 million in net operating income in 2033."
Trump's options in July 2025 will be to seek another loan, use his own money or declare bankruptcy on the property, according to Forbes.
The Forbes analysis argued option one would represent a struggle, option two would be fiscally uncomfortable and option three would make history.
"It would be his seventh bankruptcy," Forbes reported, "although it’d break new ground for him by being his first not involving a hotel."
'Darkest chapters of world history': DHS head slams Trump's 'bad genes' remark
RAW STORY October 7, 2024 Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Department of Homeland Security participates in chat with Reverend Al Sharpton at NAN 2023 Convention at Sheraton Times Square in New York on April 12, 2023 (Photo: Lev Radin/Shutterstock)
Former President Donald Trump's insinuation that migrants have "bad genes" during his interview with right-wing talk radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday contains echoes of murderous hatred from the past, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned MSNBC's Jen Psaki.
"You are a child of immigrants yourself, also as Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, you oversee, you watch this issue closely," said Psaki, who previously served as White House press secretary. "I want to play something he said this morning and get your thoughts on that."
She played the clip.
"She has no clue," said Trump, speaking about Vice President Kamala Harris. "How about allowing people to come to an open border, 13,000 of which were murderers, many of them murdered more than one person and happily living in the United States. You know, a murderer, I believe this, it's in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now."
"I mean, that's obviously disgusting, what he just said," said Psaki. "And I want to put politics aside here and ask you, kind of on a personal level, but also if I may, as the secretary of Homeland Security: how concerned are you with repetition of that rhetoric, and how migrant communities are being targeted by his supporters?"
Mayorkas made clear it hurt and scared him deeply.
"I think, Jen, you put it powerfully just a few minutes ago, and quite pointedly: We have parents who are scared to send their children to school because of this demonization, because of the false information to the targeting of migrants," said Mayorkas. "In our darkest chapters of world history, we have seen this demonization victimize millions of people. You reference my personal story. Six million Jews were killed in World War II. My mother lost a tremendous amount of family precisely because of this type of rhetoric, and the violence that it breeds."
ALTERNET October 8, 2024 New York public workers opposed to the city's vaccine mandate protest on October 25, 2021(AFP)
Could the Covid disaster of 2020 — which Trump botched so badly that America has had more Covid deaths than any other nation in the world except Peru (whose president denied Covid was dangerous) — be what’s fueling the Trump MAGA cult? Are we, in other words, as a nation suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and that’s driving a national mental illness crisis that opened the door for Trump’s cult to grow?
— Colorado elections worker Tina Peters, for example, was just sent to prison for nine years for her role in trying to subvert the 2020 election; she’d completely bought into Trump’s lie that Democrats had stolen that election and is paying for it with the rest of her life.
— My barber was telling me this past weekend about how one of his regulars is stocking up on guns, ammunition, and dried food in anticipation of a second Civil War. This guy is now fully in the Trump cult and is thus perfectly willing to kill his neighbors for politics, once somebody declares the war is now underway (as many of these guys expect Trump to do in the next few weeks).
— All across America, families are being torn apart by the Trump cult, and sometimes the conflicts even lead to violence.
The rest of the world has figured this out. Over at the British newspaper The Independent, the headline says it all:
“She Escaped the Religious Sect She Grew Up In. Now She Says Trump’s MAGA Movement is Eerily Similar”
Although the economy right now is doing better than at any time since the 1960s, polls show a majority of Americans would rather believe Trump’s lies that inflation is still with us (it’s down to 1.7 percent now) and the historically low 4.1 percent unemployment rate is “fake news.” And tens of millions of Americans believe him.
So, what’s going on here in America? How did we get here and why?
Many otherwise normal and sane Americans seem to have gone nuts, leaping down the Qanon or Fox “News” rabbit holes in search of meaning, safety, and explanations for the feelings of doom that they just can’t shake. It’s as if some major event in their lives has created such a trauma that they’ve been knocked off balance, psychologically.
And that may be a big part of the answer, particularly given how neither our insurance industry nor our government-funded health insurance programs typically pay for mental health services that might otherwise help out people suffering from trauma-induced shock.
I still remember when I was on a flight out of New York in the late 1970s. Back then, planes took off in the middle of thunderstorms (and occasionally crashed as a result), and this 727 did exactly that. As we were climbing out through what was probably around 4,000 feet the plane was hit by a lightning strike, lighting up the cabin and killing at least one of the engines.
We started to fall out of the sky as the pilots struggled to stabilize the aircraft and restart the engine: the woman sitting next to me grabbed my arm and started sobbing; we all thought we were going to die. I was then (and still am) a licensed pilot and it scared me more than her, I’m guessing, because I knew full well everything that could go wrong to a plane in a thunderstorm, from the lightning strike taking out the jet’s electronics and engines to wind shear ripping us out of the sky. (It’s why they no longer fly through thunderstorms.)
It was at least a decade before I could get on a commercial plane without getting drunk first: That’s what untreated PTSD can do to you. (I finally did EMDR on it and am now fine on airplanes; this was a mild case, and didn’t lead me into a cult.)
Consider some of the cardinal symptoms of PTSD, something that’s often brought on by a near-death-experience, severe abuse, or surviving a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Each symptom would make a person more vulnerable to the siren song of Trump’s cult:
-— Hypervigilance and threat sensitivity, causing people to experience heightened alertness to potential and often imagined (like Trump’s lies about Haitian immigrants) threats. — Difficulty with trust, which may lead to skepticism of official sources and greater reliance on alternative information channels; vulnerability, in other words, to Trump’s lies and his claims of “fake news” when he’s fact-checked. — Emotional dysregulation, making individuals like Tina Peters, the hundreds of January 6th rioters now in jail, and other Trump followers more vulnerable to emotionally-charged misinformation and MAGA cult membership. — Cognitive changes impacting critical thinking skills needed to evaluate information that might contradict the lies Trump and his co-conspirators promulgate. — Social isolation which may limit exposure to different perspectives and fact-checking from others who try to tell MAGA members how deluded and exploited they really are. — Seeking explanations causing people to have a heightened need to understand and make sense of their experiences, making them more open to MAGA’s anti-science and politically charged explanatory narratives, even when they’re lies. — Avoidance behaviors leading people to avoid exposure to diverse information sources, keeping them trapped in Trump cult bubbles like rightwing hate radio and Fox “News.”
Multiple studies have been done on the psychological impact of the Covid pandemic, finding anywhere from 5 to 55 percent of Americans suffering in a way that could be diagnosed as PTSD. The average across the studies find 26 percent of Americans having diagnosable PTSD from Covid.
Prior to the pandemic, the national rate of diagnosable PTSD was generally considered to be around 3.5 percent: Clearly, the pandemic had an impact on our psyches that Trump has been exploiting every day since.
Remember, for almost an entire year, we were afraid that just going to the grocery store could kill us. Over a million of us — one out of every 272 Americans — died because of Trump’s incompetence and malice.
Most of us knew people who died; my best friend, Jerry Schneiderman, succumbed to the disease as did several other people close to our family. This is trauma writ large, setting millions up to believe any random BS a cult leader like Trump decides to dish out.
As the lead author of a new study on the impact of Covid, Dr. Jeff Ashby, noted:
“While many people are insulated from deaths and economic hardships related to the pandemic, there is a universal experience of fear, concern for others, and social isolation. Among our findings is that the experience of COVID-19 is a traumatic stress. It isn’t just triggering earlier trauma, it’s a traumatic experience in and of itself.”
Literally millions of people have joined Trump’s cult — it is a cult, as its members are so impervious to factual information and it’s based on the personality of a single man — and the evidence suggests that many of them may have been made vulnerable to joining MAGA because of the trauma they experienced during the worst of the pandemic.
As Dr. Stephen Schwartz wrote for the National Library of Medicine: “[T]his [million-plus Covid] death rate is directly correlated to the politicization and weaponization of anti-science throughout the MAGA world created by Donald Trump and the Republican Party. … Anti-vaxxers, and anti-maskers, usually the same people, have made fidelity to a fact-free but emotionally satisfying reality more important than life itself, and created the first American death cult. …
“There was a deliberate plan from the very outbreak of the Covid pandemic to take what should have been a fringe movement — there were the equivalent of anti-vaxxers in the Middle Ages with the Plague; there were anti-vaxxers with the 1918 Spanish Flu — and transform it into a mainstream political movement. What had been fringe became a death culture involving millions. Believers willingly subject themselves to a vastly higher risk of contracting and dying of Covid. And they do this in the face of a million dead, and 2000 people, or more, dying each day.”
The good news is that the way most cult members leave their cult is not through deprogramming or a sudden awakening (although those do happen) but, rather, because the cult leader dies or is discredited.
Trump decisively losing the 2024 election may well be that discrediting and thus liberating event in the lives of many of his followers.
The challenge for the next year or so will be — for those of us who recognize the cult-like slavish devotion to Trump of his followers — to provide support to those followers we know to make the transition from the Trump cult back into the normal world. Therapy for the PTSD that made them vulnerable in the first place will also be helpful.
America can recover from this trauma, but it’ll take time and effort.
This all assumes, of course, that Trump loses this election. And making that happen is up to us: vote!
U$A
Protesters clash with police during demonstration on anniversary of Oct. 7 Hamas attack
Pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with University of Michigan campus police Monday and at least one arrest was made during a demonstration march that marked the one year anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel.
“I don’t understand how there can be a celebration like this on the one year anniversary of [the attack],” Sean Peleg, a senior who is also Jewish told Michigan Advance. “Because one year ago today, Hamas invaded Israel. One year ago tomorrow, Israel responded. So for them to be saying this is a resistance celebration, no. This is a celebration of the terrorist attack that happened a year ago today, in my opinion.”
The protesters, members of the TAHRIR Coalition of student groups demanding the university divest itself from all financial and academic connections with Israel, began the protest in front of Rackham Auditorium before marching toward The Diag, where campus Jewish groups had set up a memorial to honor the more than 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis murdered by Hamas and those still being held hostage out of the approximately 250 taken captive that day.
As police kept the protesters at a distance from the memorial, a scuffle broke out and officers were seen escorting a handcuffed individual to a police vehicle while other protesters followed, and then surrounded the vehicle, while yelling, “Let him go! Let him go!” It is not clear what the protector was taken into custody for. A message was left with U of M officials for details.
As officers tried to escort the vehicle off the The Diag, they had to form a cordon to keep protesters at bay, while the vehicle inched along toward the street. At one point pepper spray was deployed, although it is not clear by who, with protesters seen coughing and using water to irrigate their eyes. They also crowded the driver side window, yelling obscenities at the officers inside.
“The struggle is connected everywhere we are,” said student protester Eaman Ali before the march began. “The fight for self-governance, for the people of this university to not just be listened to, but to have a say is not disconnected from the Palestinian fight for freedom, liberation, and self determination. When power is struggling to maintain its choke hold on our collective consciousness, on our ignorance, across the world, its tactics are the same. It turns to police and military violence, to the carceral state, to the weaponization of laws and regulations. We currently see this desperation from the Zionist entity itself as it is now bombing four countries all at once in a flailing attempt to save itself.”
The protests and police confrontation marked a day of discord, anger and recriminations across Michigan. Earlier in the day, vandals spray-painted graffiti at the Jewish Federation of Detroit building in Bloomfield Township, while the West Bloomfield home of University President Santa Ono and the home of Erik Lundberg, U of M’s chief investment officer, were also vandalized with spray paint.
“Antisemitic flyers in West Bloomfield on Saturday; antisemitic vandalism at the Jewish Federation on Monday. How many who have called for a ceasefire in Gaza have also called for a ceasefire against Jewish students on campus, our synagogues and institutions?,” asked state Rep. Noah Arbit (D-West Bloomfield), who is Jewish.
Meanwhile, state Sen. Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield), who is also Jewish, expressed his exhaustion on the anniversary.
“Today does not feel like a solemn annual remembrance of the horrific events on October 7, 2023 — the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust — but rather the 366th day of fresh and ongoing pain,” said Moss.
Another Jewish lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), called it a bitter anniversary that highlights a cycle of violence.
“It is hard to overstate how this crisis has roiled the state of Michigan for 365 days. And one of the saddest things about what’s happened is that, in talking to both Jewish Americans and Arab and Muslim Americans nearly each day since, both communities experienced mirror-image pain this year,” she said. “Both are pained by the sharp rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia. Both sides fear for their kids, and their experience at college. And both sides are struggling to find a path forward to feel hopeful about.”
Also speaking out was U.S. Tim Walberg (R-Tipton).
“On the anniversary of the barbaric terror attack carried out by Hamas, our hearts go out to the victims and the 97 hostages still held, including American citizens. The United States continues to stand firmly with Israel as they defend themselves and deter future aggression,” he posted.
Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt also issued a statement via social media.
“Today, we remember the innocent men, women, and children who were victims of the barbaric attack launched by cowardly, terrorist thugs (Hamas) on the people of Israel. Let’s honor the victims by standing against terrorism and striving for justice. #BringThemHome,” he posted.
Prior to the confrontation with protesters, Jack Landstein, vice president of engagement at University of Michigan Hillel, told the Advance that the memorial, which included pictures of those killed in the Oct. 7 attack, milk carton silhouettes of those still missing, and small Israeli flags arranged in a Star of David pattern, was something they had been planning for months and while it was open to all, it had a specific purpose.
“The focus is on the Jewish community, and because the community is predominantly students, we want to make sure this event, while open to the entire community, resonates with Jewish students,” he said. “The Jewish community is about love, hope, peace, and our goal with this event, in addition to just commemorating everybody who was murdered, is also to highlight humanity and recognize everybody as a life, and there’s value in every person. And it is important as a Jewish community. We’re working to better everybody.”
But for Ali, the day marked a recognition that there was not just a single narrative. It also made plain that the divide was as deep as ever.
“We see the courage and bravery of the people of Gaza, of Lebanon, and of the people around the world as they resist the colonial violence that attempts to swallow them. So how can we be afraid? We are so many. We are the people. A global movement of masses moved and called upon by the spirit and steadfastness of the Palestinian resistance,” she said.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Susan J. Demas for questions: info@michiganadvance.com. Follow Michigan Advance on Facebook and X.
CLIMATE CRISIS The world’s rivers faced the driest year in three decades in 2023, the UN weather agency says
Barges float in the Mississippi River as a portion of the riverbed is exposed, on Sept. 15, 2023, in St. Louis. The U.N. weather agency is reporting that 2023 was the driest year in more than three decades for the world’s rivers, as the record-hot year underpinned a drying up of water flows and contributed to prolonged droughts in some places. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)Read More A part of the Negro River is dry at the port in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, amid severe drought. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)
GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. weather agency is reporting that 2023 was the driest year in more than three decades for the world’s rivers, as the record-hot year underpinned a drying up of water flows and contributed to prolonged droughts in some places.
The World Meteorological Organization also says glaciers that feed rivers in many countries suffered the largest loss of mass in the last five decades, warning that ice melt can threaten long-term water security for millions of people globally.
“Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change. We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, releasing the report on Monday.
She said rising temperatures had in part led the hydrological cycle to become “more erratic and unpredictable” in ways that can produce “either too much or too little water” through both droughts and floods.
The “State of Global Water Resources 2023” report covers rivers and also lakes, reservoirs, groundwater, soil moisture, terrestrial water storage, snow cover and glaciers, and the evaporation of water from land and plants.
The weather agency, citing figures from UN Water, says some 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water for at least one month a year — and that figure is expected to rise to 5 billion by 2050. WMO says 70% of all the water that humans draw from the hydrological systems goes into agriculture.
“In the (last) 33 years of data, we had never such a large area around the world which was under such dry conditions,” said Stefan Uhlenbrook, director of hydrology, water and cryosphere at WMO.
The report said the southern United States, Central America and South American countries Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Uruguay faced widespread drought conditions and “the lowest water levels ever observed in Amazon and in Lake Titicaca,” on the border between Peru and Bolivia.
The Mississippi River basin also experienced record-low water levels, the report said. WMO said half of the world faced dry river flow conditions last year.
The data for 2024 isn’t in yet, but Uhlenbrook said the extremely hot summer is “very likely” to translate into low river flows this year, and “in many parts of the world, we expect more water scarcity.”
WMO called for improvements in data collection and sharing to help clear up the real picture for water resources and help countries and communities take action in response. JAMEY KEATEN Keaten is the chief AP reporter in Geneva. He previously was posted in Paris and has reported from Afghanistan, the Middle East, North Africa and across Europe.
