Wednesday, January 31, 2024




Analyst Rips Biden Admin for Touting Record Arms Sales Amid Gaza Carnage


Arms industry researcher William Hartung argued the U.S. should focus on "the human consequences" of its weapons transfers instead of bragging about them.




JAKE JOHNSON
COMMON DREAMS
Jan 31, 2024

An arms industry analyst criticized the U.S. State Department on Wednesday for bragging that American weapons sales surged to record levels in fiscal year 2023 as Israel continues to use U.S.-made bombs and other munitions against civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this week, the State Department announced that "the total value of transferred defense articles and services and security cooperation activities conducted under the Foreign Military Sales system was $80.9 billion" between October 1, 2022 and September 30, 2023, prior to the start of Israel's latest war on Gaza.

"This is the highest annual total of sales and assistance provided to our allies and partners," the department said in a statement, emphasizing the message with bold font. The "fact sheet" highlights the sale of Apache helicopters to Poland, battle tanks to Kuwait, helicopters to Qatar, and F-35 aircraft and munitions to South Korea.

The surge in arms sales last year led top U.S. defense contractors to boost their profit outlooks for 2024.


William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, called the State Department's celebration of record weapons transfers "tone deaf" amid mounting concerns over Israeli forces' use of American arms to commit atrocities in Gaza.

"Leaving aside the dispute about whether Israel is committing genocide or 'just' widespread war crimes, its military activities have killed over 26,000 Gazans, displaced 1.9 million people, and hindered the delivery of medical and food aid," Hartung wrote. "This could not be, and is not, in line with U.S. law or the Biden administration's stated policies."




On Monday, as Common Dreams reported, a group of Democratic lawmakers and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) demanded that the State Department explain its rationale for bypassing Congress twice to expedite the sale of arms to Israel, including 155mm artillery shells that humanitarian groups have described as "inherently indiscriminate" when used in densely populated areas like Gaza.

A State Department spokesperson dismissed the lawmakers' concerns during a press briefing on Tuesday, insisting that the arms transfers followed established procedures for "emergency" circumstances.

The U.S. is far and away Israel's top arms supplier. An Amnesty International investigation released last month found that Israeli forces used U.S.-made munitions to carry out airstrikes on a pair of homes in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 43 people—including 19 children.

Amnesty is one of more than a dozen leading human rights organizations calling on the U.S. and other Western nations to impose an arms embargo on Israel, warning that "Israel's bombardment and siege are depriving the civilian population of the basics to survive and rendering Gaza uninhabitable."

"A good start would be to withhold further transfers to Israel as leverage to force a cease-fire in Gaza."

Hartung stressed Wednesday that Israel "has been routinely exempted from U.S. human rights strictures with respect to its use of U.S.-supplied weapons." Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate killed a Sanders-led resolution that would have required the State Department to produce a report on how the Israeli government is using American weaponry in the Gaza Strip.

"To make matters worse," Hartung wrote, "the Biden administration has made it harder for Congress and the public to know what weapons it is supplying to the Israeli military by circumventing congressional notification requirements and providing weapons from stockpiles without reporting on what is being taken and transferred."

Hartung argued that "instead of bragging about the enormous value of U.S. arms transfers and providing a sanitized view of their impacts, the Biden administration should take a hard, cold look at the risks of unrestrained arm exports on the reputation and security of the United States, as well as the human consequences of their use by U.S. allies."

"A good start," he added, "would be to withhold further transfers to Israel as leverage to force a cease-fire in Gaza."


Israeli soldiers fire missiles near Gaza-Israel border structure on January 3, 2024.
(Photo: Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)





'Uniting for Peace': Chicago Now Biggest US City to Demand Gaza Cease-Fire

Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson cast a tiebreaking vote to pass the Chicago City Council resolution.


JESSICA CORBETT
COMMON DREAMS
Jan 31, 2024

A drawn-out battle in Illinois over a Chicago City Council resolution calling for a cease-fire in Israel's war on the Gaza Strip ended Wednesday when Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson cast a tiebreaking vote to pass the "Uniting for Peace" measure.

Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States by population—after New York City and Los Angeles—and now the country's biggest to demand a cease-fire nearly four months into the U.S.-backed war. Dozens of other smaller communities nationwide as well as advocacy groups, labor unions, and political leaders have issued similar calls while the death toll in Gaza has mounted.

"There are people that are still digging through the rubble, for their loved ones, for their babies."

"Why is it urgent that we pass this resolution? Over 26,000 Palestinians now have been killed. The majority of them are women and children," said resolution sponsor Ald. Rossana Rodríguez Sanchez of the 33rd Ward, according to the Chicago Tribune. "There are people that are still digging through the rubble, for their loved ones, for their babies. Weeks of digging through the rubble."

Also sponsored by Ald. Daniel La Spata of the 1st Ward, the resolution calls for "a permanent cease-fire to end the ongoing violence in Gaza" as well as "humanitarian assistance including medicine, food, and water to be sent into the impacted region, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.

The measure—which will be sent to the Illinois congressional delegation and White House—also advocates for "plans to protect civilian population in the region in particular to support the needs of women, children, persons with disabilities, and the elderly."

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Wednesday's 24-23 vote came after Johnson cleared the chambers due to disruptions during the debate over the symbolic resolution. The council previously planned to vote last week but was delayed after a request led by Ald. Debra Silverstein of the 50th Ward, the only Jewish member, related to an International Holocaust Remembrance Day resolution.

Observers interrupted Silverstein on Wednesday when she attempted to express her "disappointment and frustration" that the council was voting on what she called a "one-sided, lopsided resolution" rather than crafting one that "could have gained unanimous support."

As the Chicago Sun-Times reported:
As Silverstein spoke about the October 7 attack, a man in the audience yelled "Wadea was murdered because of your lies." The man then exited the council chambers on his own to applause and high-fives.

He was referring to Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old boy who was stabbed to death in Plainfield a week after the Hamas attack. The boy's mother, who was wounded, had called 911 to say her landlord was attacking her. Police said they were targeted because of their Muslim faith.

The Tribune noted that "the final push to pass the resolution included an endorsement Monday from powerful unions like the Chicago Teachers Union and a widespread school walkout Tuesday that included cease-fire calls from hundreds of high school students. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who attended the start of the meeting, also threw his support behind the resolution."

The city's progressive mayor personally lobbied for the resolution and called for a cease-fire at a press conference last week.

In These Timesshared some remarks from the public comment period preceding the vote in Chicago on Wednesday:
Cease-fire advocate Marty Levine, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, said, "I do this because I believe it is what I, as a Jew, must do." He continued: "The lessons we are required to learn from the Holocaust are that it can never happen again and we can never allow it to happen again. 'Never again' is not for some people, it is for all. We are taught that to save one life is to save all of humanity."

40th Ward resident Jennifer Husbands said, "We have bore witness to the mass murder of Palestinians." Noting that a majority of likely voters and three-quarters of Democrats support a cease-fire, she argued that "our tax dollars are being used to carpet bomb Palestinians" rather than fund services like housing, education, and gun violence prevention. "As Tupac said, 'They got money for war but they can't feed the poor.'"

The United States gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and since the war started, U.S. President Joe Biden has sought a new $14.3 billion package for the country while also bypassing congressional oversight to arm Israeli forces who have been accused of genocide in a South African-led case now before the International Court of Justice.

Reutersreported Wednesday that when asked for comment on Chicago's resolution, "the White House, which has said it is pressing Israel to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, referred to previous statements that a cease-fire would only benefit Hamas." Still, peace advocates welcomed the vote in the county with the country's largest Palestinian population.

"Today was a test for our city and we passed," declared CodePink co-director Danaka Katovich. "Our city took a stance firmly against genocide and in support of a cease-fire... This is just the start of what the movement for Palestine can accomplish together."

The Chicago arms of IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace said in a statement: "We are proud that Chicago City Council heeded the calls of Palestinians and over a thousand Chicago Jews to support the growing movement demanding an end to the genocide in Palestine. In the wake of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we affirm that never again means never again for anyone and will continue to organize until there is a cease-fire and the liberation of Palestinians."

Pro-Palestine demonstrators rally while the Chicago City Council debates a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip on January 31, 2024 in Illinois.

 (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Ocasio-Cortez: US Should Restore UNRWA Funding 'Immediately'

"Among an organization of 13,000 U.N. aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.


Displaced Palestinians receive food aid at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) center in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 28, 2024.
(Photo: AFP via Getty Images)


JAKE JOHNSON
COMMON DREAMS
Jan 29, 2024

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday urged the Biden administration to restore funding for the United Nations' Palestinian refugee agency without delay and condemned the decision to suspend aid as an act of collective punishment.

"Cutting off support to UNRWA—the primary source of humanitarian aid to 2 million+ Gazans—is unacceptable," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on social media. "Among an organization of 13,000 U.N. aid workers, risking the starvation of millions over grave allegations of 12 is indefensible. The U.S. should restore aid immediately."

The U.S. State Department announced last week that it would temporarily pause any additional funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East as it reviews Israel's allegations that a dozen of the agency's employees were involved in Hamas' October 7 attack on southern Israel.


Several countries have followed the U.S. in suspending aid to the UNRWA, including Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan, putting the agency's critical operations in Gaza at risk of total collapse.

Observers noted that the U.S. and other Israel allies were quick to suspend aid to the UNRWA but have refused to cut off military assistance to the Israeli government despite the overwhelming evidence that it is committing war crimes in Gaza.



U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said Sunday that nine of the 12 UNRWA employees that Israel accused of taking part in the October 7 attack have been fired, one is confirmed dead, and the "identity of the two others is being clarified."

Guterres pledged that "any U.N. employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution"—but warned that funding cutoffs to the entire UNRWA over the alleged actions of a handful of employees could have dire consequences for starving, desperate Gazans who depend on the agency's assistance.

The UNRWA's current funding levels are only enough to sustain its Gaza operations through February, Guterres said.


"While I understand their concerns—I was myself horrified by these accusations—I strongly appeal to the governments that have suspended their contributions to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA's operations," the U.N. chief added. "The abhorrent alleged acts of these staff members must have consequences. But the tens of thousands of men and women who work for UNRWA, many in some of the most dangerous situations for humanitarian workers, should not be penalized. The dire needs of the desperate populations they serve must be met."

Israel's allegations against the dozen UNRWA employees are laid out in a dossier that the Netanyahu government has reportedly provided to the Biden administration.

The New York Timesreported Sunday that one UNRWA worker "is accused of kidnapping a woman", another "is said to have handed out ammunition," and a "third was described as taking part in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people died."

A majority of those accused were teachers at UNRWA schools, according to the Times. Others were described as a clerk, a social worker, and a storeroom manager.


"Two Western officials confirmed on the condition of anonymity that they had been briefed on the contents of the dossier in recent days, but said they had not been able to verify the details," the Times reported. "Although the United States has yet to corroborate the Israeli claims itself, American officials say they found them credible enough to warrant suspending aid."

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In a statement on Saturday, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said it is "shocking to see a suspension of funds to the Agency in reaction to allegations against a small group of staff, especially given the immediate action that UNRWA took by terminating their contracts and asking for a transparent independent investigation."

"UNRWA is the primary humanitarian agency in Gaza, with over 2 million people depending on it for their sheer survival," said Lazzarini. "Many are hungry as the clock is ticking towards a looming famine. The agency runs shelters for over 1 million people and provides food and primary healthcare even at the height of the hostilities."

Lazzarini stressed that the UNRWA "shares the list of all its staff with host countries every year, including Israel," and has "never received any concerns on specific staff members."

"It would be immensely irresponsible to sanction an agency and an entire community it serves because of allegations of criminal acts against some individuals, especially at a time of war, displacement, and political crises in the region," he continued. "I urge countries who have suspended their funding to re-consider their decisions before UNRWA is forced to suspend its humanitarian response."
Corruption trial shines harsh light on Norway's biathlon boss

Oslo (AFP) – Fancy watches, hunting parties and suspicions of Russian influence-buying all figure prominently in the trial of Norway's biathlon honcho Anders Besseberg, accused of accepting improper gifts during his reign as the sport's global chief.

Issued on: 30/01/2024 - 
Prosecutors say Anders Besseberg received luxury watches and other gifts from Russian officials while president of the International Biathlon Union 
© BARBARA GINDL / APA/AFP

The 77-year-old Norwegian, who was head of the International Biathlon Union from 1992 to 2018, has been on trial near Oslo since January 9 on a charge of aggravated corruption, which he denies.

The five-week trial has been extensively covered in the Norwegian media, with a parade of more than 20 witnesses called to testify including Grigory Rodchenkov, the whistle-blower at the origin of revelations about organised Russian doping in the early 2010s.

"Why did the Russians want to corrupt Besseberg?" prosecutor Marianne Djupesland asked on the first day of the trial.

According to prosecutors, from 2008 to 2019 Besseberg was given three watches worth a total of more than 30,000 euros ($33,000), invited on trips to hunt deer and wild boar, and offered services from sex workers, all paid for by Russian official

He admits to receiving some gifts, but rejects any charges of corruption.

"I have no interest in watches nor any expertise about brands and their value," he said, describing himself a "simple farmboy."

Asked about an Omega watch worth more than 17,000 euros he received in 2011 for his 65th birthday, he said: "I did not think it was undeserved."

Despite his love of hunting, he said the organised trips did not affect any IBU decisions, over which he claims to have had little influence.

And he denies any contact with sex workers, acknowledging only what he said was a consensual affair with a 42-year-old Russian.
'Elephant in the room'

As head of the IBU when the Russian doping scandal exploded in the 2010s, Besseberg was accused of initially hiding cases of Russian doping in his sport in exchange for favours.

Prosecutors dropped that line of attack, but in Norway, receiving improper favours, even if no services are provided in exchange, is enough to constitute corruption.

Russia remains the "elephant in the room", wrote the reporter from the Verdens Gang newspaper who is following the trial.

The prosecution has presented evidence that Besseberg was suspiciously complaisant with Russians while running the IBU.

The evidence includes a wire-tapped telephone conversation in December 2017 with Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Bjorndalen, where he defended the IBU's lack of reaction to the revelations about Russian doping.

During the same period, the IBU's secretary general, Nicole Resch of Germany -- who was also accused of corruption in a 2021 report -- was caught on tape saying that Besseberg was "insanely pro-Russian".

According to an inquiry launched by Sweden's Olle Dahlin, who succeeded Besseberg as head of the IBU, Besseberg pushed to hold the 2021 biathlon world championships in Tyumen, Siberia, despite the Russian doping scandals. The contest was eventually awarded to Pokljuka in Slovenia.

Russia isn't the only shadow hanging over the trial.

According to the accusation, Besseberg also went on fully paid hunting trips in Austria and in the Czech Republic, and for seven years drove a leased BMW X5, all paid for by Infront, a marketing company that held television rights to the sport.

The trial, being held in Hokksund, a city 60 kilometres (37 miles) west of Oslo, will last until February 16.

The charge of "aggravated corruption" carries up to 10 years in prison.

© 2024 AFP

 

GMOs Will Destroy Indian Agriculture, Which is Non-GMO and Will Harm the Health of 1 Billion Indians and Their Animals

Hybrid Bt cotton, the only commercialised GM crop in India, has failed conclusively. Based on this failure and the evidence on GM crops to date, the Union of India’s proposal to commercialise herbicide-tolerant (HT) mustard will destroy not just Indian mustard agriculture but citizens’ health.

There have been five days of intense hearings on this matter in the Supreme Court (SC) — the GMO Public Interest Writ filed almost 20 years ago in 2005 by the author, which ended on 18 January 2024.

In these last 20 years, piecemeal hearings have dealt with submissions relating to individual crops like hybrid Bt cotton, the attempted commercialisation of hybrid Bt brinjal (2010) and now the attempt to commercialise hybrid HT mustard.

The evidence provided here is a distillation of the critical inputs of those 60+ submissions based on the affidavits and studies of leading, independent scientists and experts of international renown.

However, there is a serious and proven conflict of interest among our regulators, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Agriculture along with the International Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), which promote GMOs in Indian agriculture. This evidence reflects the findings of the TEC Report (Technical Expert Committee) appointed by the Supreme Court (SC) in 2012 and two Parliamentary Standing Committees of 2012 and 2017.

‘Modern biotechnology’ or genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are products where the genomes of organisms are transformed through laboratory techniques, including genetically engineered DNA (recombinant) and its direct introduction into cells. These are techniques not used in traditional breeding and selection.

GMOs create organisms in ways that have never existed in 3.8 billion years of evolution and produce ‘unintended effects’ that are not immediately apparent. This is why rigorous, independent protocols for risk and hazard identification are the sine qua non of correct regulation in the public interest. The Indian ‘Rules of 1989’ describe GMOs as “hazardous”.

Contamination by GMOs of the natural environment is of outstanding concern, recognised by the CBD (Convention on Biodiversity), of which India is a signatory. India is one of 17 listed international hot spots of diversity, which includes mustard, brinjal and rice.  India is the centre of the world’s biological diversity in brinjal with over 2500 varieties grown in the country and as many as 29 wild species.

India is a secondary centre of origin of rape-seed mustard with over 9000 accessions in our gene bank (National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources). With a commercialised GM crop, contamination is certain. The precautionary principle must apply, is read into the Constitution and is a legal precedent in India.

Hybrid Bt cotton was introduced in 2002 and remains the only approved commercialised crop in India. It has been an abject failure.

Failure of Bt cotton

India is the only country in the world to have introduced the Bt gene into hybrid Bt Cotton.  It was introduced in hybrids as a ‘value-capture mechanism’, according to Dr Kranthi, ex director of the Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR). The hybrid technology disallows seed saving by millions of small farmers. Conservative estimates indicate that Indian farmers may have paid an additional amount of Rs 14,000 crores for Bt cotton seeds during the period 2002-18, of which trait fees amounted to Rs 7337.37 crores, (Dr Kranthi). There was also a phenomenal three-fold increase in labour costs in hybrid cotton cultivation.

Prof. Andrew Gutierrez (University of California, Berkeley) is among the world’s leading entomologists and cotton scientists and provided the ecological explanation of why hybrid Bt cotton is every bit a disaster that it is in India. Most hybrid cottons are long season (180-200-day duration). This increases the opportunities for pest resurgence and outbreaks because it links into the lifecycle of the pest. The low-density planting also increases the cost of hybrid seeds substantially.

Hybrids require stable water too (therefore, irrigation, as opposed to rain-fed) and more fertiliser. Some 90% of current Bt cotton hybrids appear susceptible to sap-sucking insects, leaf-curl virus and leaf reddening, adding to input costs and loss of yield. Most telling is that India produces only 3.3 million tonnes from its irrigated area of 4.9 million hectares compared to 6.96 million tonnes from an equivalent area in China.

Hybrid Bt cotton in India has resulted in a yield plateau, high production costs and low productivity that reduce farmer revenues, correlated with increased farmer distress and suicides. It has stymied the development of economically viable high-density short-season (HD-SS) Non-Bt high-yielding straight-line varieties. The failure of hybrid Bt cotton is an abject lesson for GMO implementation in other crops.

Yet, the regulators attempted to repeat history in the form of hybrid Bt brinjal and Hybrid HT Mustard.

Field trial solutions (CICR data) of high-density short-season (HD-SS) NON-GMO pure-line (non-hybrid), rainfed cotton varieties have been developed in India that could more than double yield and nearly triple net income.

The Central Government admitted in its affidavit in the Delhi High Court (22 Jan 2016), adding, (on 23 January 2017), that Bt “cotton seeds are now unaffordable to farmers due to high royalties charged by MMBL (Mahyco Monsanto Biotech Ltd) which has a near monopoly on Bt cotton seeds and that this has led to a market failure”.

Moreover, there is no trait for yield enhancement in the Bt technology. Any intrinsic yield increase is properly attributable to its hybridisation in both Bt cotton and Bt brinjal. Lower insecticide use is the reason for introducing the Bt technology worldwide.

The pink bollworm has developed high levels of resistance against Bollgard-II Bt cotton, leading to increased insecticide usage in India, increases in new induced secondary pests and crop failures. The annual report 2015-16 of the ICAT-CICR confirms that Bt cotton is no longer effective for bollworm control

Insecticide usage on cotton in 2002 was 0.88 kg per hectare, which increased to 0.97 kg per hectare in 2013 (Srivastav and Kolady 2016).

Matters were deliberately muddied in India, leading to any hybrid vigour being attributed to the Bt technology! Yields have stagnated despite the deployment of all available latest technologies, including the introduction of new potent GM technologies, a two-fold increase in the use of fertilisers and increased insecticide use and irrigation. And yet, India’s global rank is 30-32nd in terms of yield.

In 13 years, the cost of cultivation increased 302%. In 15 years, there was 450% increase in labour costs. The costs of hybrid seed, insecticide and fertiliser increased more than 250 to 300%.

Net profit for farmers was Rs. 5971/ha in 2003 (pre-Bt) but plummeted to net losses of Rs. 6286 in 2015 (Dr Kranthi)

Regulatory failure: Bt brinjal

Regulators tried to commercialise Bt brinjal and in hybrids in 2009. The Bt gene is proven to be undeniably toxic (Profs. Schubert of the Salk Institute; Pusztai, Seralini and others have confirmed this).

In August 2008, the regulators were forced to publish the Developers’ (Monsanto-Mahyco) self-assessed bio-safety dossier on their website, 16 months after the order of the SC to make the safety dossier data public (15 Feb 2007).

Bt brinjal was the first vegetable food crop in the world to be approved for commercialisation, by the collective regulatory body and their expert committees, virtually without oversight. When the international scientific community examined the raw data, their collective comments were scathing. Prof Jack Heinemann stated that Mahyco has failed at the first, elementary step of the safety study: “I have never seen less professionalism in the presentation and quality assurance of molecular data than in this study”.

He criticised Mahyco for using outdated studies, testing to below acceptable standards and inappropriate and invalid test methods.

Prof David Andow, in his comprehensive critique of Monsanto’s Dossier, ‘Bt brinjal Event EE1’, listed 37 studies of which perhaps one had been conducted and reported to a satisfactory level by Monsanto. He concluded: “The GEAC set too narrow a scope for environmental risk assessment (ERA) of hybrid Bt brinjal, and it is because of this overly narrow scope that the EC-II is not an adequate ERA… most of the possible environmental risks of Bt brinjal have not been adequately evaluated; this includes risks to local varieties of brinjal and wild relatives, risks to biological diversity, and risk of resistance evolution in BFSB.”

The Central Government itself declared an unconditional and indefinite moratorium on Bt brinjal in Feb 2009 based on the collective responses of the scientific community.

Disaster in the making: GM Hybrid HT Mustard

Like Bt, HT is a pesticidal crop (to kill weeds). These two GMO technologies represent about 98% of crops planted worldwide, with HT crops accounting for more than 80%. Neither has a trait for yield. In its 2002 Report, the United States Department for Agriculture stated: “currently available GM crops do not increase the yield potential… In fact, yield may even decrease if the varieties used to carry the herbicide tolerant or insect-resistant genes are not the highest yielding cultivars… Perhaps the biggest issue raised by these results is how to explain the rapid adoption of GE crops when farm financial impacts appear to be mixed or even negative.” 

The developer’s (Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants University of Delhi) bio-safety dossier, in contempt of the SC orders, has never made its data public. A Right to Information (RTI) request was filed in 2016 with the Directorate of Rape-Seed Mustard Research, which conducts protocols of non-GMO mustard trials for crop improvement programmes for our farmers, for varietal stability and performance. The RTI was an eye opener. Virtually all the directorate’s norms were flouted in the field trials, making them invalid. Hybrid mustard HT DMH 11 was out yielded by more than the 10% norm by non-GMO varieties and hybrids, which forced the developers to admit this fact in their formal reply affidavit in the SC.

Hybrid HT mustard DMH 11 employs three transgenes: the male sterility gene, barnase, the female restorer gene, barstar, and the bar gene that confers tolerance to Bayer’s herbicide glufosinate ammonium or BASTA. Each of the parent lines has the bar gene that makes them both HT crops along with their resulting hybrid DMH 11. The reason for employing barnase and barstar is because mustard is a closed pollinating crop (even though it out crosses pretty well, 18%+) and this technology (a male sterility technology) makes it easier to produce mustard hybrids.  It is not a hybrid technology. Its counterpart in non-GMO male sterility technology is the CMS system (cytoplasmic male sterility). Employing male sterility in mustard allows it to be used more easily in already existing hybridisation technology.

It is curious the extent to which the regulators have tried to obfuscate the facts and muddy the waters. Their first response was that the acronym HT in mustard DMH 11 means ‘hybrid technology’. When this didn’t work, the next ‘try’ was that DMH 11 isn’t an HT crop!

This too was easily proved wrong because of the presence of the bar gene. Now, this fact has been admitted.

Furthermore, the regulators have failed either intentionally, or because they are simply unable to stop, illegal HT cotton being grown on a commercial scale for the last 15 years or so. This is the state of GMO regulation in India.

Bayer’s own data sheet states that glufosinate causes birth defects and is damaging to most plants that it comes into contact with. Like its counterpart, glyphosate, it is a systemic, broad spectrum, non-selective herbicide (it kills indiscriminately soil organisms, beneficial insects etc) and is damaging to most plants and aquatic life. The US Environmental Protection Agency classifies glufosinate ammonium as “persistent” and “mobile” and is “expected to adversely affect non-target terrestrial plant species”.

Glufosinate is not permitted in crop plants in India, under the Insecticide Act. Since it is very persistent in the environment, it will certainly contaminate water supplies in addition to food. Surfactants are used to get the active ingredients into the plant, which is engineered to withstand the herbicide, so it doesn’t die when sprayed. The herbicide and surfactant are sprayed directly on the crops and significant quantities are then taken up into the plant.  The weeds die — or used to!

The US Geological survey noted that while 20 million pounds/year of glyphosate was used prior to GE crops (1992), 280 million pounds/year was used in 2012, largely as a result of glyphosate-resistant crops. In the U.S. alone, glyphosate-resistant weeds were estimated to occupy an area of over 24 million hectares as of 2012. This is a failed and unsustainable technology anywhere, and for India it will be disastrous.

The stated objective by the regulators themselves for HT mustard is that the two HT parent lines (barnase and barstar each with the bar gene), will be similarly employed in India’s best (non-GMO) varieties to create new crosses resulting in any number of HT hybrid mustard DMH crops. Thus, Indian mustard varieties (non-GMO) in a very short time will be contaminated and Indian mustard agriculture (which is non-GMO) destroyed.

The regulators claim that GMO HT hybrid DMH 11 will create a significant dent in India’s oilseeds imports. Given that GMO mustard has no gene for yield enhancement, is significantly out yielded by non-GMO mustard hybrids and varieties, this is indeed a magic bean produced from thin air by the regulators, defying all logic and commonsense. Mustard Oil imports are virtually zero (ie rapeseed mustard as distinct from canola rape oil which is also illegal GMO).

The story of the current steep decline in oilseeds production in Indian farming must be laid at the door of a wrong policy decision that comprehensively ignored national and farmers’ interest to severely slash import duties on oilseeds of around 300% to virtually zero. In 1993-94, India imported just 3% of our oil-seed demand; we were self- sufficient. Then we happily bowed to WTO pressure and now import almost 70% of our demand in edible oils! (Devinder Sharma).  This is the real reason for our heavy import bill.

The TEC recommend a double bar on GM Mustard — for being an HT crop and also in a centre of mustard diversification and/or origin. It is hoped that our government will recognise the dangers of GMOs, bar HT crops, including GM mustard, and impose a moratorium on all Bt crops.

Aruna Rodrigues

Lead Petitioner in the GMO PIL filed in 2005 for a moratorium on GM crops.

Aruna Rodrigues is Lead Petitioner in the PIL in the Supreme Court of India for a moratorium on GMOs since 2005. She is also part of a dedicated group of researchers into COVID-19, its policies, vaccines and health impacts. She can be reached at: arunarod@gmail.com. Read other articles by Aruna.





Liberating the Palestinians


A pro-active primer


The daily grind of atrocities committed on the Palestinian people continues with one trajectory ─ extinction as a people and realignment into disbursed communities. Civil protests against the destruction, heroic actions by confrontation with the oppressor, dedication to the concepts of justice and freedom, and physical and monetary sacrifices by millions of people in the world have not deterred the killing machine from its proscribed purpose. Much is said of what is being done to the Palestinians; less is said of what needs to be done for the Palestinians and prevent their genocide. Are the Palestinians doomed?

Two difficulties that confronted the Palestinians during the British Mandate were:

(1)    They were not sufficiently prepared to react to the organizational ability and duplicity of the adversarial Zionists, and
(2)    They had no central authority to guide them.

Neither difficulty has been resolved and both exist today.

No matter the atrocity committed, Israel’s well-placed supporters have plans for action to any reactions. The organized and well-received campus demonstrations protested U.S. government support for Israel’s slaughter of Gazans and were countered by discrimination complaints from a few well-placed students, by media changing the naturally charged demonstrations into artificially charged anti-Semitic rants, and by a hastily arranged House Committee investigation into the artificial charges. University presidents fell into the “anti-Semitism” trap and their errant responses showed a lack of knowledge of how to recognize duplicity and how to protect against it. Preventing mass killings of people in Gaza was no longer an important endeavor. Focus changed to one Jewish student claiming anti-Semitism; he did not feel confident when walking to class.

The conventional and unscrupulous media replayed, replayed, and replayed the October 7 attack so it became a multiplier effect and served to conveniently change the dialogue from oppression of the Palestinians to defense of Israel, and reboot the conflict so that it started from the Autumn day. The 75 last years and its tears no longer had any role in analyzing the conflict; that conflict ended and a new conflict started when Hamas attacked Israeli civilians.

The demonstrations, misinformation corrections, enlightening articles, YouTube podcasts, and Zoom meetings that feature masses dedicated to seeking justice for the Palestinians from the river to the sea serve good purposes. However, they lack the essentials of managed expression, efficient use of resources, complementary activities, combined planning, unified strategy, and, most importantly, ability to acquire and distribute huge amounts of funds for large undertakings in place of small amounts of funds for small endeavors. Efforts are duplicated, resources are wasted, harmony is lacking, organizations compete for funds, and conflagrations become dying embers. Each tomorrow is a new day of oppression and lacks continuation of the past to a new level of strategically placed advancement. The principal effect has been to augment awareness and convert the misinformed to a proper understanding of the situation. An ever-increasing number of faithful rally and dialogue together but they cannot rally those who can change the distorted dialogues and modify the perilous situation.

These are facts and perceptions of the elements in the structures that combat the carefully prepared and disciplined structures the Zionists created to pursue their objectives. Understanding the problems facing those struggling to liberate the Palestinians from oppression is the preliminary step in learning how to work around the problems and devise a meaningful strategy. The realization leads to optimism. It is impossible that the most blatant genocide in human history, the ugliness that Israel shows to a world audience, the terrible fate that faces the world as the genocide unfolds, and the deception done to the Jewish community, its identification with the genocide, will result in an ultimate and disastrous conclusion. The pain will be great and the entire world will overdose on Fentanyl.

The genocide has had only one direction ─ toward fulfillment. Without planned, coordinated, and effective strategies that reverse the direction, can the destruction be halted? Start with thoughts, recommendations, and procedures that, hopefully, can evolve into effective strategies and change a tale of lamentations to a story of glorious rescue.

Thoughts

Developing a single central authority that governs actions and fund distributions is preferred but is too complex and will meet resistance from independent organizations, which are the principal drivers of the protests. Organizations, each with a paid staff and voluntary cadres, and each having a specific purpose are an acceptable alternative to managing the strategy. Hundreds of millions of the world’s people from every continent can be accessed to support these organizations. Some organizational recommendations.

Recommendations

Legal: Initiates lawsuits and seeks changes in laws.
Fundraising: Raises large amounts of funds and authorizes distribution of the funds for activities. Managed and staffed by the most respected, credible, and trusted people.
Information source: Gathers information from several sources and makes it available to others.
Legislative: Constructs Political Action Committees (PACS) that steer voters away from pro-Israel candidates and lobby government officials.
Media access: Issues news reports, opinions, and articles to a wide range of media.
Talking points: Provides instant access for rebuttals to misinformation.
Protests and Demonstrations: Suggests and assists protests and demonstrations so they are efficient, react quickly to events, and complement one another.
Recruiting: Solicits volunteers for each activity.
Publicity and advertising: Provides media and public with information on activities.

Procedures
Talking points

Articulation of responses to outrageous reports and comments can benefit from a distribution of “talking points,” especially important for new generations who do not have historical knowledge. One example is answering the frequent reference to Jews as a people who always had a nation and deserve a nation, and framing Palestinians as an artificial construct.

The Jews are not a people. People share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and history. Religion plays no role. Unless they demonstrate to each other that they observe the same religion, two Jews sitting in a café, one from Sweden and the other from Italy, would have no awareness of any commonality. If it were otherwise, why has Israel given its Jews the scaffolding of a new nation by giving them a common language, culture, descent, and history, and rejecting their previous languages, cultures, and histories? Should Mormons and Mennonites be classified as people? Proof positive! No matter where they live, Chinese, most of whom have no religion, are always identified as Chinese, due to skin tone, common language, and common culture.

The Palestinians are Arab people from the Levant. Post-World War I separation of the Levant Arabs into Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestine Mandate sub-titled the Arabs who lived in the common area of the Mandate as Palestinians. They were always a people and now are known as the Palestinian people.

Dual Citizenship and Immigration

Israel’s greatest weapon, even more than its military might, is infiltration into Western nations — controlling the information flow, skewing the dialogue, lobbying elected officials, and gaining intelligence

In 2010, the FBI uncovered and deported 10 unregistered Russian agents living in the U.S. as ordinary citizens and engaged in harmless activities, such as meeting people in high places to influence their attitudes and reporting American views on foreign and domestic affairs to Moscow. Multiply the number of discovered Russian agents by tens of thousands and you will have the number of Israeli expatriates in the U.S., many of whom take the opportunity to do the same for Israel, become U.S. citizens, and vote for Israel-friendly candidates. Forty years ago, synagogues refused to display the Israeli flag; after years of Israel’s infiltrators gaining positions, most synagogues display the Star of David.

A great number of Israelis have migrated to the U.S. and other Western nations in the last decades and formed a massive propaganda organization that steers Westerners to favor IsraelIsraeli government ministries and the Los Angeles-based Israeli American Council, which represents Israelis across the United States and promotes their interests, estimate between 500,000 and 800,000 Israelis live in the U.S., about 150,000 live in the New York area, 120,000 in Los Angeles, and 80,000 in Miami. What are the more important voting areas in the United States? New York, California, and Florida are significant. American-Israeli dual citizens can shape the ballot in those regions and may have done that in the disputed 2000 presidential election.

This immigration needs an intensive investigation. Exposing the schemes, identifying the culprits, seeking lawsuits against the violators, and petitioning for new laws that restrict dual citizenship and guard against knavery and trickery are the most necessary activities for combatting the Israeli threat.

Demonstrations

Large and fixed demonstrations remain confined in an area and do not confront the populace. The media gives them minimum coverage. Divide some of the larger demonstrations into hundreds of smaller walking demonstrations, activists strolling miles and miles along main boulevards and through highly populated areas. Many more people will become aware of the perilous situation.

Directed Protests

Protests directed against embassies, consulates, institutions, and media that support Israel or pedal the pro-Israel agitprop have not occurred and could have strategic significance. German embassies and consulates, representatives of a democratic country that committed genocide against the African Herero people, the African Nama people, and European Jews, and now aids and abets in the genocide of the Palestinians; British embassies and consulates, representatives of a democratic country that committed massacres in Ireland, Africa, and Asia, and now aids and abets in the genocide of the Palestinians; and the United States embassies and consulates, representatives of a democratic country that committee genocide against the indigenous Americans and slaved African peoples, and now aids and abet in the genocide of the Palestinians should be targeted to reveal their involvements and for their hypocrisies.

Germany insists its present population make amends for previous genocides in which they had no involvement and instructs them to participate in the Palestinian genocide. Advocacy groups from 12 British Commonwealth countries asked King Charles III to “acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonization of the indigenous and enslaved peoples.” The U.S., on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, respects the destruction of a foreign people in a foreign country and has no equivalent day of respect for the indigenous peoples it destroyed. Nobody asks why is an International Remembrance Day reserved for the tragedy of one ethnicity and does not include the tragedies of many other genocides. Isn’t that an insult to the other ethnicities and their descendants?

Think tanks, educational institutions, and media conglomerates that favor Israel, deceive the American people with misinformation on Israel’s role in the genocide, and actively promote the genocide deserve a daily picketing.

Confronting Legislatures

Every Representative and Senator should be confronted and asked at scheduled meetings, “Why do you commit treason by supporting a nation that is committing genocide and harms the interests of the American people? Pulverize each legislator with messages and office protests. Label them as war criminals.

Lawsuits

Lawsuits that consider defamation, violations of civil rights, violations of human rights, violations of civil laws, and recommend changes in laws challenge the genocide protection system

·         In Oakland, California, a group of American Palestinians and aid groups have filed a lawsuit against Joe Biden and accused the President of complicity in the Gazan genocide. Section 1091 of Title 18, United States Code defines genocide as violent attacks with the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Federal extraterritorial jurisdiction applies when the offender is a United States national.

·         Attempts to register AIPAC as a foreign agent have failed. More effort is needed to have the registration succeed and attend to other PACS and institutions that front for Israel. Assignment of legal organizations to do the task and raising of huge funds to support them has high priority. No room for failure.

·         In previous years, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), known for defaming those who criticize Israel, has been sued and paid damages. Charges of bigotry backfire, by George Lane, Denver Post Staff Writer, April 29, 2000

An Evergreen couple accused publicly of being anti-Semitic won a $10.5 million damage award from a federal jury Friday in a defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL accused William and Dorothy Quigley at a 1994 news conference of perpetrating the worst anti-Semitic incident in the area since the slaying of Jewish talk-show host Alan Berg 10 years earlier. They were accused of launching “Operation Aronson,” an effort to run their Jewish neighbors out of town, and threatening to commit acts such as painting oven doors on their neighbors’ home. The jury found that the statements at the news conference, and on talk radio, were defamatory and “not substantially true.”

I can think of tens of necessary lawsuits against agencies, institutions, and government officials. A lawsuit against the state of Israel and anyone who uses the expression the “Jewish state of Israel,” which defames Jews by identifying them as guilty of genocide, should be entertained.

Economic warfare

Israel has a 100 percent advantage in its bludgeoning military warfare and, by holding back Palestinian funds and access to materials, uses economic warfare to enhance the genocide. Worldwide communities and governments that sympathize with the Palestinian cause can apply economic pressure and reduce Israel’s power on the world stage. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) has had limited success; expanding its thrust into other products, sources, and recipients, including military hardware, can have a positive effect. A group devoted to seeking battlegrounds for economic warfare and interfacing with government officials to adopt economic measures, including sanctions, that can cause economic problems for Israel, is necessary. Extension of the elements of BDS to all Israel’s supporters — producers, financiers, intermediaries, marketers, retailers, and consumers tells the public that supporters of genocide cannot be tolerated.

Playing the name game

Strong and scornful words attached to an adversary leave psychological and emotional impressions that influence behavior. Israel’s media supporters always characterize Resistance groups to Israel’s oppression, namely Hezbollah and Hamas, as terrorist Hezbollah and terrorist Hamas. The juxtapositions of the spurious adjective and proper noun appear as if they are one word and the effect triggers an association with terrorism each time the Resistance group is mentioned. Although Iran has rarely engaged in international terrorism, other than maybe a tit-for-tat response to terrorism committed against its people, Iran is always, Iran, the leading sponsor of world terrorism. Throw it back at them.

For years, I have recommended and have used apartheid Israel as attached words. It is now legitimate to use genocidal Israel, as well as genocidal Britain, genocidal Germany, and genocidal United States.
The president of the U.S. is now genocidal Joe.
Mossad is international killer Mossad.
Why use the word anti-Semitism; it is a deceptive word that means against speaking a Semitic language. Why not use anti-Jewish or, as I have on occasions:

Anti-SemitismA refers to discrimination against Arab Semites from non-Arabs.
Anti-SemitismJ refers to discrimination against Jews from non-Jews.
Anti-SemitismAA refers to discrimination against Arab Semites from other Arabs.
Anti-SemitismJJ refers to discrimination against Jewish Semites from other Jews.

Strategy

Developing a strategy requires meetings, inputs, discussions, and certifications from many interested and well-informed people, well beyond what can be said in an article. A few thoughts.

The Zionist strategy of spreading false information, making the world feel guilty for any harm done to Jewish people, so they will believe that Jews will not survive unless they have their nation, bribing legislators by offering them funds and publicity if they show allegiance to Israel, coopting Evangelists into supporting Israel, swindling American governments into eliminating Israel’s adversaries, and convincing the public that by evicting, killing and suffocating defenseless people Israel is defending itself has already been successful. The Zionist strategy has prepared the Palestinians for their final moments and paralyzed the world into accepting the gruesome deed.

Strategies have clear objectives. The Zionists will continue and strengthen their present strategy. Intent to eliminate or neutralize all opposition, from the smallest group to the large Iran nation, will accompany the strategy of severe repression that is used to obtain their objectives — strip self-identity from the Palestinians, deny them ontological security, and accelerate deterioration of their community.

The strategy for rescuing the Palestinians has three objectives. Concurrently with attending to the objectives, Israel will know that If it continues with the genocide of the Palestinian people, does not halt the repression, and does not listen to United Nations’ directives, the three objectives will be pursued.

(1)    Modifying Western governments’ policies, especially the United States, from approval of genocidal Israel to opposing genocide Israel.

(2) Bringing Israel to economic ruin.

(3) Bringing Israel to social ruin.

The first objective is fulfilled by recruiting capable people to run the organizations, acquiring billions of dollars to fund the operations, and appealing to hundreds of millions of people to join in the liberation movement.

The second objective solicits governments to ban all exports and imports to and from Israel, and denies access to financial markets and The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT), the system that powers most international money and security transfers.

The third objective solicits governments to forbid all travel to Israel and from Israel and deny Israel’s participation in every international educational, scientific, medical, and cultural organization.

Rescuing the Palestinians from genocide is a tough road. Nevertheless, it’s a road that must be carefully and urgently paved and lead to a correct destination. Now, the road is foggy and is leading to an indeterminate place.

Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com. He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.

 

Gallup Poll Confirms America’s Soaring Corruption


Whereas the national corruption ratings of the various countries by the corrupt Transparency International organization, which was a spin-off from the U.S.-controlled World Bank in 1993 created by it so that countries whose leaders resist the demands by the U.S. Government will receive from TI poor corruption-ratings that scare away international investors and thereby starve their country of international capital and force up the interest-rates that those countries have to pay on their foreign debt, the people inside a given country — its own citizens there — have a much more realistic rating of their own country’s corruptness than do the hired outside ‘experts’ that TI selects to evaluate that in accord with TI’s vague criteria. Thus, the suite of Gallup polls that Gallup published on January 30th concerning Americans’ perceptions of “Honesty and Ethics” in America provides a far more accurate indication of the amount of corruptness in this country than TI’s score on this country does. So: here, I shall present the core from that Gallup article, and then will discuss it:

Line Chart: Ethics ratings for five professions in the U.S., 1976-2023.

Trust in U.S. Senators, and in what Gallup calls “Members of Congress” (which means members of both Houses, but sometimes “Congress” is misused to refer to only members of the U.S. House of Representatives) has declined precipitously since the year 2000, when, starting on 9 December 2000, the far-right U.S. Supreme Court ‘Justice’ Antonin Scalia abruptly violated the U.S. Constitution and stopped the vote-count in the Florida U.S. Presidential contest and declared that (his fellow far-right Republican) George W. Bush had won that election (against the moderate Democrat Al Gore). This decision, by the 5-to-4 Republican majority on that Court, who butchered the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Consititution (in its 14th Amendment) in order to ‘justify’ their treasonous act, led to 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq on the basis of lies, and the takeover of the U.S. Government by the military-industrial complex even more than had been the case before, and thrust America into what is virtually martial law in this country (including massive censorship for the Government) ever since that time, so that America now spends more than half of the entire world’s military costs and the U.S. armamants-manufacturers get half of all that money, which causes soaring U.S. federal debt and declining new federal spending on the health, welfare, and environment, of the American people.

In today’s news, there is another stark example of what this increasing U.S. corruptness has led to, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean: On January 28, the Financial Times headlined “Brussels threatens to hit Hungary’s economy if Viktor Orbán vetoes Ukraine aid: EU strategy aims to spook investors by cutting off funding to Budapest in stand-off over €50bn package”, and reported that the effort by Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, to halt the financial bleeding of the people of his country and even of the entire people of the EU, which is pouring unprecedentedly high sums into paying for weapons, the EU is now threatening to blacklist Hungary and drive it into an economic ailspin unless he will relent and do as they demand and approve an additional $50 billion+ in armaments and other support for Ukraine’s war with Russia. No mention is made there that the U.S. Government initiated and created the EU as part of its “Cold War” against first the Soviet Union and then (after 1991) continued it secretly against Russia. Similarly, the February 2, 2024, issue of the U.S. edition of the British The Week magazine aims to fool Americans to support further increasing the ‘defense’ budget, by posting on its front cover along with a cartoon showing an evil-looking face of Putin, the headline “Giving up on Ukraine: Will Johnson and House Republicans block desperately needed aid for Kyiv?” The story inside it says nothing about Ukraine’s having become a U.S. colony by means of Obama’s February 2014 coup there (hidden behind Kiev’s Maidan anti-corruption demonstrations) that overthrew a neutralist Government and installed a rabidly anti-Russian one that Putin finally responded to by his invasion of Ukraine on 22 February 2022. (Trust in “journalists” is shown by Gallup there as being at a record low of only 19%.)