India's top court orders probe into Pegasus snooping

Issued on: 27/10/2021 

 JOEL SAGET AFP/File

New Delhi (AFP)

India's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered an independent investigation into the alleged government use of Pegasus spyware on journalists, opposition politicians and activists with the chief justice calling the implications "Orwellian".

India was one of 45 countries where tens of thousands of numbers were targeted by the spyware made by Israeli firm NSO, according to leaked documents released this year.

More than 1,000 of the numbers were Indian and the Supreme Court order followed petitions from individuals that the chief justice N.V. Ramana said "raise an Orwellian concern".

He added that the court had accepted the petitions because "there has been no specific denial" by the government

The state cannot be given a "free pass every time the spectre of national security is raised," the court said as it named cyber and computer science experts to look into the allegations.

Phones infected with Pegasus software, which is normally only sold to governments or security agencies, give the user access to the target’s messages and photos, and track their location.

Critics say that in India it is part of a growing assault on dissent and civil liberties under the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Indian government would not deny or confirm the use of Pegasus because of national security. It offered to set up its own committee.

Soon after the Pegasus reports emerged in July, India's Parliament was disrupted by opposition calls for an investigation.

The Indian phone numbers put under surveillance reportedly included senior opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, journalists, activists, government critics and former judges.

A woman who had accused India's former chief justice of sexual harassment was also reported to be on the list.

The Washington Post said an analysis of more than 20 Indian phones on the list showed that 10 had been targeted by Pegasus, seven successfully.

© 2021 AFP

Amnesty urges immediate relief for famine-hit Madagascar

Issued on: 27/10/2021 - 

Helmine Monique Sija prepares a cactus plant called raketa, which she will boil to provide food for her 10-year-old daughter Tolie. The family live in the drought-stricken southeastern village of Atoby 

RIJASOLO AFP/File

Johannesburg (AFP)

Amnesty International on Wednesday urged Madagascar's government and the rest of the world to step up relief efforts for the island nation's drought-hit south.

More than a million people on Madagascar's parched southern tip are on the brink of famine and some are already dying, the rights watchdog said.

The months-long drought, stoked by climate change, is the worst in four decades, it said in a report released ahead of the UN's climate conference in Glasgow.

Amnesty called on rich nations to provide humanitarian aid and offer financial and technical support to help Madagascar adapt to climate change.

"The international community must immediately provide the people in Madagascar affected by the drought with increased humanitarian relief and additional funding for the losses and damages suffered," said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty's secretary general.

The drought afflicts a region where more than 90 percent of the population live in poverty, leaving many with little choice but to migrate.

"It is a grave injustice that impacts of climate change are felt by people in developing countries the most considering that they have contributed the least to the climate crisis," Amnesty said.

The United Nations has repeatedly blamed climate change for the drought, which has forced people to boil weeds and cactus to survive.

© 2021 AFP

BUDDHIST REACTIONARY RELGIO-POLITCO NATIONALISM
Controversial Sri Lankan monk heads legal reforms panel

Issued on: 27/10/2021 

Galagodaatte Gnanasara has long been accused of instigating hate crimes against minority Muslims in Buddhist-majority Sri Lanka ISHARA S. KODIKARA AFP

Colombo (AFP)

A Sri Lankan Buddhist monk long accused of fanning sectarian hatred will head a new task force on legal reforms in the ethnically and religiously fractured nation, according to a government announcement.

The 13-member "Presidential Task Force for One Country, One Law" has no representatives from the Tamil ethnic minority but does contain four Muslims, the country's second-largest minority. There are no women on the committee.

The panel was announced in a government notification late Tuesday and given four months to compile a report so that "all citizens are treated alike in the eye of the law."

The committee has been set up to replace special legislation around marriage and inheritance for Sri Lanka's minorities as well as some for the majority Sinhalese and bring all communities under one blanket law.

Many of the countries special family laws are heavily patriarchal and disadvantage women.

Galagodaatte Gnanasara has long been accused of instigating hate crimes against minority Muslims in the Buddhist-majority country. He has close ties with Wirathu, an extremist monk based in Myanmar.

Gnanasara served nine months of a six-year jail term for intimidating the wife of a missing cartoonist and contempt of court until he was given a presidential pardon in May 2019.

Opposition Tamil lawmaker Shanakiyan Rasamanickam said the committee is "the definition of irony".

"What is the purpose of establishing a committee if the existing law can't be implemented correctly? The appointment of a criminal to lead this committee is almost a joke in itself," he tweeted.

Marianne David, a senior editor of the popular financial newspaper the Daily FT, said she was "dismayed" but not surprised by the appointment of Gnanasara.

"Where is Sri Lanka headed," she asked on Twitter.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected in 2019 with strong backing from the Sinhalese majority and the powerful Buddhist clergy.

He was in charge of the military at the brutal end of Sri Lanka's 37-year Tamil separatist civil war in May 2009 after the loss of at least 100,000 lives.

Successive governments have promised but largely failed to deliver accountability for wartime atrocities and ethnic reconciliation on the island of 21 million people.

© 2021 AFP

REST IN POWER
Hiroshima nuclear bomb survivor and campaigner dies at 96


Issued on: 27/10/2021 - 

Sunao Tsuboi was among a handful of Hiroshima survivors who met Barack Obama during his historic visit to the city in 2016 JOHANNES EISELE AFP/File


Tokyo (AFP)

Hiroshima A-bomb survivor Sunao Tsuboi, who became a prominent campaigner for nuclear disarmament and met Barack Obama on his historic visit to the city, has died aged 96, his advocacy group said Wednesday.

Tsuboi was on his way to engineering school in 1945 when the first nuclear bomb attack was launched by the United States, turning the bustling metropolis into an inferno.

"I suffered burns all over my body," he told AFP in 2016. "Naked, I tried to run away for about three hours on August 6 but finally could no longer walk."

Then aged 20, he picked up a small rock and wrote on the ground "Tsuboi dies here", before losing consciousness and waking up several weeks later.

He later developed cancer and other diseases but became a prominent advocate for atomic bomb survivors and a lifelong campaigner for a nuclear-free world.

"I can tolerate hardships for the sake of human happiness. I may die tomorrow but I'm optimistic. I will never give up. We want zero nuclear weapons," he said.

Tsuboi was among a handful of Hiroshima survivors who met then US president Obama when he visited the city in 2016.

He smiled broadly as he shook Obama's hand, with the two men conversing for upwards of a minute. "I was able to convey my thoughts," a satisfied Tsuboi said afterwards.

Tsuboi "passed away on Saturday due to anaemia", an official from Nihon Hidankyo -- a group that represents survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of which Tsuboi was a key leader -- told AFP.

There are 127,755 survivors of both attacks still alive and their average age is 84, according to the health ministry.

Around 140,000 people died in the bombing of Hiroshima, a toll that includes those who survived the explosion but died soon after from radiation exposure.

Three days later the US dropped a plutonium bomb on the port city of Nagasaki, killing about 74,000 people and leading to the end of World War II.

© 2021 AFP

Hunger forces Afghans to sell young daughters into marriage

Issued on: 27/10/2021 - 

Video by: Nicholas RUSHWORTH

Fahima has wept many times since her husband sold their two young daughters into marriage to survive the drought gripping western Afghanistan. 

Child marriage has been practised in Afghanistan for centuries, but war and climate change-related poverty have driven many families to resort to striking deals earlier and earlier in girls' lives.

SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CHILD BRIDES 

China's three gorges dam: The environmental impact of mega dams' construction

Issued on: 27/10/2021 - 


Video by:Claire RUSH

The Three Gorges Dam is the largest power station in China and it is also considered the largest hydroelectric power station in the world. But the construction of these mega dams has taken a heavy toll on the environment and on the communities living nearby.

Standing up fro change: Meet the Indonesian activist fighting against plastic waste

Issued on: 27/10/2021 - 

Melati Wijsen, an 18-year-old from Bali, launched an NGO called "Bye Bye Plastic Bags” with her sister, five years ago, with the aim of dramatically reducing the number of single-use bags. This year, they reached their initial aim to have bags banned on their own island of Bali, and now want to take their movement forward to be a real youth movement for the future.

Mom Who Wanted To Ban ‘Beloved’ Featured In New Glenn Youngkin Ad

Kevin Robillard
Mon, October 25, 2021

Republican Glenn Youngkin, seen here campaigning in Virginia Beach, has made education a major issue in the Virginia governor’s race, putting him within striking distance of former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe.

 (Photo: Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images)

A GOP activist who wanted to ban the classic Toni Morrison novel “Beloved” from one of the nation’s largest school districts is featured in a new ad for Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin.

The woman, Laura Murphy, started her campaign in 2012 after her son, then a senior in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, had night terrors after reading the book in his Advanced Placement English class.

“Beloved,” told from the perspective of a mother forced to kill her 2-year-old daughter to protect her from being returned to slavery in the years after the Civil War, features scenes of bestiality and rape. It is one of the most frequently assigned books for high school English classes, and is on the American Library Association’s list of the most frequently banned books.


The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 and was adapted into a feature film starring Oprah Winfrey in 1998.

Murphy sought a temporary ban on the book until new rules governing how schools would handle books with “objectionable material” were put in place, The Washington Post reported in 2013.

In the ad, Murphy recounts how Youngkin’s opponent, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, vetoed legislation she pushed for that would have required schools to tell parents if books assigned to their children contained sexually explicit material.

“When my son showed me his reading assignment, my heart sunk. It was some of the most explicit material you could imagine,” Murphy says, adding: “[McAuliffe] doesn’t think parents should have a say.”

The Youngkin campaign would not directly answer an emailed question about whether he would support banning “Beloved” until new rules were in place, instead simply saying Youngkin would sign the legislation McAuliffe vetoed.

“Don’t be lame,” Youngkin campaign spokesman Matt Wolking wrote, accusing the reporter of using a question “written by Terry McAuliffe.” (McAuliffe did not write the question emailed to the Youngkin campaign.)

At the time, McAuliffe said schools had sufficient protections in place — including giving students the option to request alternative materials — and teachers feared advance notice would lead to parents dismissing the educational value of some books.

The ad never mentions the age or grade level of Murphy’s son, and never mentions the material she objected to was “Beloved.”

Murphy’s son, Brett, was later a White House intern during Donald Trump’s administration. He is now a lawyer for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Education has become a top issue in the contest, in which public polling shows McAuliffe with a consistent but razor-thin lead. Conservative activists, angry over both in-person school closures earlier in the pandemic and what they allege is the teaching of “critical race theory” in public schools, have relentlessly focused on local school boards, launching recalls of some members.

They’ve also focused on a comment from McAuliffe downplaying the role of parents in developing curricula — a comment the ad featuring Murphy is clearly designed to remind voters of.

“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” McAuliffe said at a debate earlier this month.

The issue has fired up GOP voters, and Republicans insist it is helping Youngkin win back at least some of the suburban voters in Northern Virginia and outside Richmond who have trended heavily toward Democrats over the past decade.

In a statement, the McAuliffe campaign deployed their most frequently used talking point, directly comparing Youngkin to Trump.

“Glenn Youngkin’s closing message during the final week of the campaign: book banning and silencing Black authors in Virginia schools,” McAuliffe spokeswoman Christina Freundlich said. “Racist dog whistles and divisive conspiracy theories have been front and center for Glenn Youngkin’s campaign, putting students right at the center of the ugliness and bigotry led by Donald Trump himself.”

CORRECTION: This story has been amended to note that the film version of “Beloved” starring Oprah Winfrey was released in 1998, not 1988.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

JAMAICA

A pastor held in connection to suspected human sacrifices was killed in a police car crash on his way to be charged

KARMA IS A BITCH, WITH A SENSE OF IRONY

Matthew Loh
Tue, October 26, 2021, 

A pastor named Kevin Smith died in a police car crash, authorities said. Douglas Sancha/Getty Images


A pastor detained over suspected human sacrifices died in a police car crash, the police said.


Kevin Smith described himself as a prophet and was said to have made his congregants kneel for him.


His church was thought to have engaged in ritual killings as well as a shootout with the police.

A pastor in Jamaica who was accused of being involved in human sacrifices died in a police car crash, the local police said Monday.

Kevin Smith, the leader of Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries, died while being transported from Montego Bay to Kingston to face charges connected to suspected ritual killings, the local news outlet Jamaica Observer reported.

The police were said to be moving Smith and another suspect in two cars, one of which overturned - killing Smith and a police officer while seriously injuring two more officers, a police representative told the Observer.


The representative, Stephanie Lindsay, the senior superintendent of police, said authorities still weren't sure exactly what happened.

"One vehicle was the pilot, and the other vehicle was behind," she said. "The vehicle that was behind, based on the account given by the pilot vehicle, there was a crashing sound, and they realized that the vehicle overturned."
Killing rituals, shootouts, and prophetic claims

Smith's death is the latest in a recent string of violent and dramatic events surrounding Pathways International.

On October 17, the police arrived at the organization's Montego Bay church after receiving reports from a member saying she had been stabbed as part of a ritual, per the news outlet Jamaica Loop.

A deadly shootout ensued and one man was fatally shot, Jamaica Loop reported, citing authorities.

The police later entered the church building and found two bodies, per Jamaica Loop - a man with gunshot wounds and a woman whose throat had been slashed. They also found a wounded man who said he was stabbed and shot in connection to a ritual.

A camera was in the room, but it's unclear whether it was used to record the killings, Jamaica Loop reported.

The Observer interviewed an unnamed woman - identified as a church member - who said she'd witnessed the woman's throat being slashed.

"It was very intense," the woman said. "When I saw blood and the young lady fell, I said: 'This is it for me.'" She said she and several other church members fled the area after witnessing the violence.

The police arrested 42 members of the congregation, including Smith, though most were later released.

The detained pastor was later seen in a widely circulated video talking to police officers, who laughed at his religious claims.

"I am the fountain of life," he said in the clip, adding: "I came as Jonah the warner, but they mocked and they scoffed at me. They surrounded me and looked at me and said, 'Who is this man?'"

A pamphlet for Pathways International addressed Smith as "former crown Ambassador of the Throne of Nubia Sheba, globe traveler to over 100 countries worldwide and Yeshu'a Hamashiach end time Prophet to the Nations," according to The Daily Beast.

A source told The Daily Beast he made his congregants call him "Crown Bishop" and kneel before him whenever they spoke with him.

Members of the church said they were shocked by the murder claims, describing Pathways International as "a regular church," per the Observer. Soon after Smith's arrest, congregants set up a GoFundMe page for his legal fees, calling Smith "His Excellency Kevin Smith 999," though it now appears to have been taken down.

Even after official confirmation of Smith's death, some of them told the Observer they thought he's still alive.

"I do not believe anything the media publish about him, not even that he is dead," one member told the news outlet.

"But if he is, he didn't die in that car accident," she said. "He was dead before."

Read the original article on Insider

The Nazis were already shooting at US warships months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor


Benjamin Brimelow
Tue, October 26, 2021, 

US Navy destroyer USS Reuben James on the Hudson River in New York, April 29, 1939. US Navy/Wikimedia Commons

On October 31, 1941, USS Reuben James became the first US warship sunk by enemy action in World War II.

It was the culmination of months of fighting between the US and German navies in the Atlantic.

The sinking didn't bring the US into the war, but it did solidify US leaders' support for the Allies.

Around 5:30 a.m. on October 31, 1941, an explosion ripped through the US Navy destroyer USS Reuben James as it and other destroyers escorted 42 merchant ships across the Atlantic to Britain.

The explosion, caused by a torpedo that detonated the destroyer's magazine, was so intense that the bow was completely blown off. The ship sank in about five minutes - so fast that no official order to abandon ship could be given.

It was the first US Navy warship sunk by enemy action in World War II, and the US wasn't even at war when it happened.

War closes in

President Franklin Roosevelt aboard a battleship. Bettmann/Getty Images

The situation on the Atlantic was tense by fall 1941. Despite the US's stated commitment to neutrality, President Franklin Roosevelt had taken a number of actions to help the Allies, especially Britain.

In October 1939, weeks after the war's start, the US had established a neutrality zone extending some 300 nautical miles off the coasts of the independent countries of North and South America. US Navy patrols would broadcast the position of German U-boats, exposing them to Allied warships.

The US also supplied food and military equipment to Britain through agreements like the Destroyers-for-Bases Deal and the Lend-Lease Program.

By the end of September 1941, the US had expanded the neutrality zone and the patrols within it as far as Greenland, the defense of which the US had taken over. The US also occupied Iceland, at the request of Britain, and began escorting convoys there from Canada.

There had also been low-level combat between US and German forces.

On April 10, 1941, the destroyer USS Niblack attacked a German U-boat with depth charges near Iceland, driving the sub away from a convoy. On September 4, a German U-boat fired a torpedo at the destroyer USS Greer without hitting it.

Neither incident caused casualties, but the attack on Greer led Roosevelt to issue a "shoot-on-sight" order for any German or Italian warships in waters deemed to be "necessary for American defense."

On October 17, 1941, the first US blood was spilled when the destroyer USS Kearny was hit by a German torpedo while escorting a convoy in the North Atlantic. Though the ship itself survived, 11 sailors were killed and 22 wounded.

USS Reuben James

US Navy destroyer USS Reuben James aground at Lobos Cay, Cuba, November 30, 1939. National Archives & Records Administration

A little more than a week after the Kearny attack, the U-boat U-552 was lurking off Iceland, approaching a convoy guarded by US warships. One of them was Reuben James, which was sent to investigate a suspicious signal near the convoy.

The US destroyer was between an ammunition ship and the U-boat when it was struck by a torpedo. It sank so quickly that in the early-morning darkness the commander of the escort force couldn't tell which ship had been attacked until Reuben James didn't respond to a check-in call.

Only two sailors from the front end of the ship survived the blast. During the five minutes Reuben James remained afloat after the attack, sailors jumped from the rear of the ship into the oil-covered water. Moments after the destroyer slipped beneath the waves, however, at least two of its depth charges detonated, killing or wounding even more sailors.

Four escort ships remained, one of which was USS Niblack. Niblack and another escort were sent to search for survivors, which the darkness, oil-covered water, and the threat of another U-boat attack made more difficult.

Of the ship's 144-man crew, only 44 survived. Ninety-three enlisted sailors and all seven officers were killed.

After the rescue, the escort ships went on the offensive, trying to attack U-552 with dozens of depth charges. The U-boat escaped, however, and the next day, the Americans turned the convoy over to the Royal Navy and headed for Iceland.

The convoy made it to England without any more attacks by U-552 or other U-boats. Reuben James was the only casualty.

'The shooting has started'

Crew aboard US Coast Guard cutter Spencer watch a depth charge explode, blasting a German submarine trying to break into a US convoy, April 17, 1943. (AP Photo)

The attack on the Kearny and the sinking of the Reuben James solidified Roosevelt's support of the Allies.

"We have wished to avoid shooting, but the shooting has started, and history has recorded who has fired the first shot," Roosevelt said in a Navy Day speech on October 27. "Our ships have been sunk and our sailors have been killed. I say that we do not propose to take this lying down."

Germany was unapologetic. Roosevelt denounced Germany and promised that escorts of Allied merchant ships to Iceland would continue. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox even called the incident "worse than piracy."

But Roosevelt knew most of the country was still against getting directly involved in the war in Europe, so the US took no further action in response to the sinking.

Only when the US and Germany declared war on each other on December 11, 1941, did the US fully commit to the war in Europe. The US Navy, though, had effectively been at war in the Atlantic for months.