These Teens Making A TikTok Found Human Remains On A Seattle Beach
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS RANDOMNESS 

IT IS SYNCHRONICITY 

Police have positively identified the remains as belonging to a man and a woman, whose deaths were ruled as homicides.

Posted on July 6, 2020, at 1:04 p.m. ET

@ughhenry/TikTok

A group of teens in Seattle stumbled upon human remains after going to a location prompted by the app Randonautica and then shared the experience on TikTok.

The TikTok, posted by user @ughhenry on June 20, shows a group of friends on a beach in Seattle who stumble upon a black suitcase that looks like it had washed up on some rocks. The teens were using the app Randonautica, which sends users random coordinates as a means of exploration.

In the TikTok, the group opens the bag to reveal a black plastic bag inside.

"As SOON as she opened it the smell was overwhelming," the TikTok caption reads.

According to the TikTok, they then called the police.

Seattle police have now confirmed that the teens had found human remains and said the group has since been interviewed.

"Police responded after receiving a call of a suspicious bag on the beach," Seattle police said in a statement on June 19. "Another bag was located in the water. Once the contents were determined to be remains, detectives responded to begin their investigation."

Local station KING 5 reported that the remains have been identified as belonging to 35-year-old Jessica Lewis and 27-year-old Austin Wenner, and said both died of gunshot wounds on June 16.

BuzzFeed News has reached out to @ughhenry on TikTok for comment.

In a statement, Randonautica told BuzzFeed News it was "shocked at the very unfortunate coincidence."

"Our first reaction was to reach out to the teenagers to make sure they were doing alright. We sent a message letting them know the intention of Randonautica is not to find something disturbing like this," it said.

The spokesperson added that Randonautica coordinates are "truly randomized" and "has no way of intercepting or providing specific locations."

"The coordinates are random so it is the user's responsibility to adventure safely!"

MORE ON THIS
A 19-Year-Old Found A Dead Body While Playing Pokémon

Julia Reinstein · July 8, 2016

Lauren Strapagiel is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Toronto, Canada.

Tanya Chen is a social news reporter for BuzzFeed and is based in Chicago.

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More Than Three Years After The Standing Rock Protests, A Judge Ordered The Dakota Access Pipeline To Shut Down
A federal judge ruled the Trump administration violated federal law when it approved the pipeline without doing a full environmental study.

Zoe Tillman BuzzFeed News Reporter
Reporting From Washington, DC
Last updated on July 6, 2020, at 1:47 p.m. ET

Robyn Beck / Getty Images
Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their supporters opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline confront bulldozers in an effort to make them stop working on the pipeline, Sept. 3, 2016.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Washington on Monday ordered a complete shutdown of the Dakota Access Pipeline after finding the US government violated federal environmental law, a major defeat for the Trump administration and the company that built the pipeline three years after it became operational.

The ruling is a long-awaited win for Native American tribes that have fought the pipeline in court for years, and who had lost when they tried to stop it from going online in the summer of 2017. They’ve argued that the pipeline could cause serious environmental harm to Lake Oahe, a large lake that spans the border of North and South Dakota.


The Obama administration had paused the project in 2016 — thousands of Native Americans and other protesters held large demonstrations at the site near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation — but the Trump administration reversed course and allowed construction to proceed.

US District Judge James Boasberg wrote Monday that even though a shutdown likely would have significant economic consequences, there was no other option until the US Army Corps of Engineers completed a full Environmental Impact Statement given the “seriousness” of the agency’s violation and the potential environmental harm the pipeline posed while it carried oil in the meantime.

“The Court does not reach its decision with blithe disregard for the lives it will affect. It readily acknowledges that, even with the currently low demand for oil, shutting down the pipeline will cause significant disruption to DAPL, the North Dakota oil industry, and potentially other states,” Boasberg wrote. “Yet, given the seriousness of the Corps’ [National Environmental Policy Act] error, the impossibility of a simple fix, the fact that Dakota Access did assume much of its economic risk knowingly, and the potential harm each day the pipeline operates, the Court is forced to conclude that the flow of oil must cease.”

Boasberg gave the pipeline company 30 days to empty the pipeline and shut it down by Aug. 5. The Trump administration could appeal Boasberg’s decision to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

“Today is a historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the many people who have supported us in the fight against the pipeline,” Mike Faith, chair of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said in a statement. “This pipeline should have never been built here. We told them that from the beginning.”

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment. Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of the pipeline project, said in a statement that they planned to pursue an expedited appeal before the DC Circuit if Boasberg refused to delay his order, and were "confident that once the law and full record are fully considered Dakota Access Pipeline will not be shut down and that oil will continue to flow."

"The economic implications of the Judge’s order are too big to ignore and we will do all we can to ensure its continued operation," the company stated. "This was an ill-thought-out decision by the Court that should be quickly remedied."

Monday’s ruling came several months after Boasberg issued a decision in March finding the US Army Corps of Engineers had violated the National Environmental Policy Act when it gave the pipeline company permission to build under Lake Oahe. The Army Corps conducted what’s known as an Environmental Assessment, and determined that a more in-depth Environmental Impact Statement wasn’t required.

Boasberg concluded at the time that the Army Corps was wrong. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, the government isn’t always required to complete an Environmental Impact Statement before granting permits for a particular project, but the law lays out factors that can trigger a requirement to do one. One is if the effect of a project on the environment is “likely to be highly controversial.” It’s a factor that turns on how much dispute there is about the “size, nature, or effect” of an action by the federal government.

Boasberg found that when it came to the Dakota Access Pipeline project, the Army Corps had failed to resolve the controversy over the environmental effects of the pipeline when it approved the construction plan.

Recognizing that ordering a full shutdown was an extraordinary move, Boasberg in March gave both sides more time to argue over what he should do.

The judge noted in Monday’s decision that the pipeline’s owners raised significant concerns about the financial cost and potential job losses that would come with shutting down the pipeline now — the company submitted declarations saying it could lose $643 million over the rest of 2020 and another $1.4 billion in 2021. The company, along with other groups that submitted briefs to the court opposing a shutdown, argued there would be ripple effects on other industries that relied on oil coming through the pipeline, as opposed to by rail or other transportation routes.

The tribes, meanwhile, responded that the pipeline company’s prediction of economic problems were “wildly exaggerated” given that oil prices had already gone down because of economic instability during the coronavirus pandemic.

Boasberg wrote that it was clear the shutdown would have economic consequences, and that he did not take the issue “lightly,” but ultimately it didn’t “tip the scales” in favor of letting the pipeline continue to operate while the Army Corps did its full environmental review. A complete shutdown would give the Army Corps incentive to stick to its estimated timeline of 13 months to complete the review, the judge wrote, and he found that siding with the pipeline company now would undermine the purpose of the environmental policy law.


“When it comes to NEPA, it is better to ask for permission than forgiveness: if you can build first and consider environmental consequences later, NEPA’s action-forcing purpose loses its bite,” Boasberg wrote.

Leading up to the pipeline going operational in June 2017, Boasberg had denied requests by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other Native American tribes for injunctions based on arguments that the pipeline plan violated the tribes’ religious freedom and historic preservation laws.

The tribes continued to press the case even after the pipeline began carrying oil. Once the agency finishes the Environmental Impact Statement, the litigation could stretch on if the tribes decided to lodge a separate challenge to the outcome of that study. The judge noted that an Environmental Impact Statement is “a separate regulatory beast” and that the final product could be subject to its own round of court review.

UPDATE
July 6, 2020, at 11:47 a.m.
Updated with comment from Energy Transfer Partners.

MORE ON THIS
The Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Is Unprecedented — And 150 Years In The Making

Anne Helen Petersen · Sept. 15, 2016

Water Cannons Deployed At Oil Pipeline Protests In North Dakota

Claudia Koerner · Nov. 20, 2016

Dakota Access Pipeline Will Be Rerouted In A Victory For Standing Rock Tribe

David Mack · Dec. 4, 2016

Zoe Tillman is a senior legal reporter with BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

Contact Zoe Tillman at zoe.tillman@buzzfeed.com.

Got a confidential tip? Submit it here.

Trump’s Consumer Watchdog Just Allowed Payday Lenders To Give Loans To People Who Can’t Afford Them

Payday loan interest rates can top 600%. #USURY

Tuesday’s rule allows payday lenders to approve people without considering if they can afford to pay them back.

Paul McLeod BuzzFeed News Reporter


Posted on July 7, 2020, 

Alex Wong / Getty Images



CFPB Director Kathleen Kraninger


WASHINGTON — The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a final rule Tuesday that makes it easier for payday lenders to give out high-interest loans to people who may not be able to repay them.

The CFPB rule undoes an Obama-era requirement that payday lenders must first assess whether someone taking out a loan can actually afford to repay it. Essentially, it would have put the same onus on payday lenders that banks have for giving out long-term loans like mortgages.

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Democrats and consumer advocates have accused the Trump administration of gutting protections for the most vulnerable consumers in the midst of a pandemic-induced economic crisis.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said the rule makes a mockery of the CFPB’s mission to protect consumers and gives the industry free rein to trap vulnerable communities in cycles of debt.

USURY BY ANY OTHER NAME 
Short-term payday loans regularly come with interest rates that top 300%; depending on state laws, they can top 500% or even 600%. Lenders often allow people to roll over their loans by paying a fee to delay repayment.
This is called “loan churn,” and it is how a two-week loan can balloon into long-term debt. The CFPB’s own analysis in 2014 found that 80% of payday loans were either rolled over or followed by another short-term loan within two weeks. Interest fees regularly surpass the original principal on the loan.
“The consequences could be devastating,” said Matt Litt, consumer campaign director at US PIRG, the federation of state public interest research groups. “If you’re already having trouble as it is, taking out a payday loan could make a bad situation worse where you’re taking out loan after loan and spiraling into a debt trap because you couldn’t afford the first one.”

The CFPB did not respond to a request for comment. In a press release, the agency's director, Kathleen Kraninger, said the move was made to provide consumers with more access to capital.

“Our actions today ensure that consumers have access to credit from a competitive marketplace, have the best information to make informed financial decisions, and retain key protections without hindering that access,” she said in the statement.

The "ability to pay" requirement was developed late in the Obama administration and finalized in October 2017. But the very next month, the Trump administration appointed Mick Mulvaney as acting director, and he announced that implementation would be delayed. The administration later began the process of getting rid of the requirement altogether.

In 2019, the Washington Post published leaked audio of payday lenders discussing the need to raise large sums of money for Trump’s reelection campaign to gain favor with the administration.

Ironically, some moves by the Trump administration to weaken the CFPB could end up being used to undo the president's policies.

The bureau was created after the 2008 financial crisis and designed to be independent of the president. Its directors would be confirmed by the Senate for five-year terms and could not be fired by the president without cause. The Trump administration argued in court that this is unconstitutional. Just last week, the Supreme Court agreed and ruled the president can fire a CFPB director at will.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden strongly hinted in a tweet that he will fire Kraninger.


Joe Biden@JoeBiden
Here’s my promise to you: I’ll appoint a director who will actually go after financial predators and protect consumers. https://t.co/LYY54KXbUk08:39 PM - 29 Jun 2020
Reply Retweet Favorite

Similarly, in 2017 the Republican-controlled Congress exploited the little-known Congressional Review Act of 1996 to roll back dozens of Obama-era rules and regulations. If the Democrats are successful in the November election, they could turn the tables and do the same to Trump's rules.

Linda Jun, senior policy counsel at Americans for Financial Reform, said if Biden wins he would have several avenues to restore the "ability to pay" requirement.

“I hope it’s high on their priority list,” she said. “Ability to repay is a common lending principle. The idea that you have to consider this like every other loan is what this rule is about. For them to say you don’t have to do that, I think that’s really disconcerting, especially when people are vulnerable.”


MORE ON THIS
New Rules Make It Harder For Payday Lenders To Put Borrowers In "Debt Trap"

Matthew Zeitlin · Oct. 5, 2017

Trump Named Someone Who Hates The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau To Lead It. The Deputy Director Is Suing To Block His Pick.

Matthew Zeitlin · Nov. 24, 2017

Paul McLeod is a politics reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in Washington, DC.

Deutsche Bank fined $150 million for failing to flag Jeffrey Epstein accounts

THE REAL DEAL NOT Q ANON BULLSHIT
THE BANK OF CHILD RAPISTS AND GRIFTERS 

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

A protester holds up signs outside the courthouse ahead of a bail hearing in U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking case in New York City, U.S. July 15, 2019. © Brendan McDermid, Reuters

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $150 million to settle claims that it broke compliance rules in its dealings with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, New York state announced Tuesday.

The penalty was announced in a release by Superintendent of Financial Services Linda A. Lacewell.

“Despite knowing Mr. Epstein’s terrible criminal history, the Bank inexcusably failed to detect or prevent millions of dollars of suspicious transactions,” Lacewell said.

According to the release, the agreement marked the first enforcement action by a regulator against a financial institution for dealings with the financier.

Epstein killed himself last August in a Manhattan federal jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

His ex-girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, was arrested last week and brought to New York City to face charges she recruited girls for Epstein to sexually abuse in the 1990s. In civil lawsuits, she has denied involvement. Her Manhattan federal court arraignment is likely next week.

In a statement, the German bank said the settlement with New York state “reflects our unreserved and transparent cooperation with our regulator."

The bank said it had invested almost $1 billion to improve its training and controls and had boosted its staff overseeing the work to more than 1,500 employees “to continue enhancing our anti-financial crime capabilities."

In a statement, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said the bank failed to prevent millions of dollars in suspicious transactions.

Lacewell said the bank failed to properly monitor Epstein's account activity despite publicly available information about Epstein's crimes.

The financier with U.S. residences in Manhattan, Florida and New Mexico, along with homes in Paris and the Virgin Islands, had pleaded guilty to criminal sex abuse charges in Florida over a decade ago and was a registered sex offender before his July 2019 arrest on federal sex crime charges.

Lacewell said the bank processed hundreds of transactions totaling millions of dollars that, “at the very least, should have prompted additional scrutiny in light of Mr. Epstein’s history."

She said some payments that should have drawn scrutiny included money paid to people publicly alleged to have been Mr. Epstein’s co-conspirators in sexually abusing young women, settlement payments totaling over $7 million, and over $6 million in legal fees for Epstein and co-conspirators.

Other payments went to Russian models and transactions for women’s school tuition, hotel and rent expenses, she said, along with suspicious cash withdrawals totaling over $800,000 in a four-year stretch.

(AP)

#WW3.0

Accident or sabotage? What we know of deadly explosion at Iran's Natanz nuclear site

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

A handout picture provided by Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation shows a damaged warehouse at the Natanz nuclear facility on July 2, 2020. © Handout Iran Atomic Organization, AFP

Text by:FRANCE 24

Two people died and another three were injured Tuesday when an explosion rocked the factory south of Tehran, Iran's official IRNA agency reported, blaming human error.

The blast in "a completely industrial zone" of Baqershahr, 23 kilometres (14 miles) from the capital, was caused by "workers being negligent whilst filling oxygen tanks", IRNA quoted the town's governor as saying.

Iran's atomic energy agency first reported that an "accident" had damaged warehouses under construction at the Natanz site, some 250 kilometres (150 miles) south of Tehran, in a confusing statement on the morning after the incident.

There were no casualties, "no nuclear material (on site) and no potential of pollution", the agency's spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told state television.

The organisation released a photo of a damaged building: a long, one-storey brick structure with few openings, part of an exterior wall blackened by fire, a collapsed section of roof and doors that appeared to have been blown outwards.

State TV showed several images of the building's exterior, but none of the inside.

On Sunday evening, Kamalvandi acknowledged to the IRNA state news agency that the incident had caused "significant financial damage", without elaborating.

But he said the damaged building had been designed to produce "advanced centrifuges", hinting that their assembly had begun prior to the "accident".

What is the Natanz nuclear complex?

The complex is central to Iran's nuclear programme and is kept under very tight security.

Israel and the United States accuse their arch-foe Iran of trying to build an atomic bomb — a charge the Islamic Republic has always denied.

Under the terms of its 2015 nuclear accord with world powers, Tehran had agreed to cap its enrichment of uranium — measured by the presence of fissile isotope Uranium-235 — to 3.67 percent.

It also limited the number of so called first-generation enrichment centrifuges to 5,060.

But a year after Washington unilaterally abandoned the pact and reimposed crushing sanctions, Iran began progressively stepping away from its commitments.

Since mid-2019 it has enriched uranium to 4.5 percent — reactor-grade but still far from the 90 percent required for military use.

Iran has also announced that it is working on developing more efficient centrifuges, without limits.

'Accurately determined'

The incident came at the end of a week marked by two explosions in Tehran, including one near a military site. Officials said the blasts were accidents, but many Iranians suspected covert Israeli operations were responsible.

On Friday, Iran's Supreme National Security Council announced that the "cause of the accident" at Natanz had been "accurately determined".

But it declined to release details, citing security reasons.

On the evening of July 2, IRNA published an editorial warning Iran's arch-foes against hostile actions, saying unnamed Israeli social media accounts had claimed the Jewish state was behind the incident.

The editorial warned Israel and the US against any attack on Iran's "security" and "interests".

A Twitter account linked to an Israeli analyst claimed in Arabic on July 1 that Israel had attacked an Iranian uranium enrichment plant.

The BBC's Persian service, which Iranian authorities consider hostile, said it received a statement "hours before" the incident from a group called the "Homeland Cheetahs" who claimed responsibility.

They claimed to be "dissidents present in Iran's security apparatus" and said the location was targeted as it was not "underground" and that therefore the alleged attack could not be denied.

Iran's civil defence chief, Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali, told state TV on Thursday night that any proven cyberattack against Iran would elicit "a response".

Israel's Defence Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz stayed ambiguous on the events.

"Iran is aiming for nuclear [weapons], we can't let it get there," he said Sunday, though adding that "not every event taking place in Iran is necessarily connected to us."

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

#WW3.0

NYT: Israel planted bomb at Iran nuclear site

July 6, 2020

The groundbreaking ceremony of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, held in Bushehr, Iran on November 10, 2019 [Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency]

July 6, 2020 

Israel was behind an explosion at an Iranian nuclear facility last week caused by a powerful bomb, according to a report in the New York Times.

Citing an unidentified “Middle Eastern intelligence official”, the report alleges that Israel was responsible for the attack on the Natanz nuclear plant on Thursday, this claim was also made by a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) who said an explosive was used.

However, Israel has not admitted its role in the attack, with Defence Minister Benny Gantz stating yesterday during a radio interview: “Everyone can suspect us in everything and all the time, but I don’t think that’s correct.”

The incident was the third of its kind in a week, including a major explosion reported near Parchin military site in north-east Tehran and an explosion at a Tehran clinic which killed 19.

READ: Israeli jets strike targets in Gaza Strip

Iran, for its part, has already threatened retaliation after what it initially labelled a cyber-attack, although the latest incident in Iran, could possibly be in response to Iran’s sophisticated, but failed cyber-attack on Israeli water systems in April, which according to the Times of Israel, aimed to increase chlorine levels in water flowing to residential areas. The head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, Yigal Unna, described the incident as “a point of change in the history of modern cyberwars”.

An Israeli retaliation previously took place two weeks later, in the form of a cyber strike temporarily disrupting operations at a busy Iranian port.

Last month, the Strategist said Iran is unlikely to be deterred from carrying out future attacks and it was likely that adversaries attempting to attack one another’s civilian infrastructure through cyber-attacks will become more common and sophisticated, in particular between Iran and Israel.

THE ISRAELI MEDIA REPORTED ON THIS BOMBING BEFORE THE IRANIAN PRESS DID

Africa locust plague: New app launched to battle swarms

Issued on: 07/07/2020 -

Locusts on a tree in the Turkana region of northern Kenya on July 2, 2O2O.
 © Reuters / France 24 Text by:FRANCE 24  Video by:Sam BALL

Vast numbers of locusts have been swarming across East Africa in recent months, devastating crops and threatening food security in the region. Now, authorities are hoping a new app could help them gain the upper hand in their battle against the pests.

Called E-Locusts, the app allows a team of ‘locust scouts’ to track the swarms and provide real-time information on their size and location.

“I go look for locusts where they are, I report, I take pictures, I upload videos of their movement and also advise them which kind of control can be used,” Achilo Christopher, a locust scout in the Turkana region of northern Kenya, told Reuters.

The information is logged in a central database and analysed by technical teams who can then decide what action to take including whether to spray pesticides either by plane or with ground teams.

The app was launched by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation in response to growing fears the locust infestations are threatening food security in the region.

The current locust infestation is the worst that's been seen for three generations, with unseasonably wet weather helping them to breed in greater numbers than usual.

Since late 2019, billions of the insects have ravaged crops in countries including Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia and spread into India, Pakistan and the Red Sea region.

An average locust swarm of around 40 million insects can travel up to 150 km a day and consume enough food in that time to feed 35,000 people.

Breaking the silence on China’s ‘two-faced’ campaign against UighursIssued on: 01/07/2020

Mamat Abdullah poses before the White House during a June 2015 trip to the US. © Handout via Subi Mamat Yuksel

Text by:Leela JACINTO

More than three years after her father, a retired government official in China’s Uighur region, was arrested, Subi Mamat Yuksel finally spoke up about her family’s ordeal. The violations may have followed official Chinese directives, but the abuse was so severe that Beijing’s use of fear as a tool to silence Uighur families has backfired.

On April 29, 2017, Subi Mamat Yuksel’s parents were at home in Urumqi, the main city in the Uighur region of northwestern China, packing for their flight to the US the next day. Her father, a retired government official, told his wife he was just stepping out to buy last-minute gifts for their grandchildren in the Virginia area. He never returned.

It was the start of an Orwellian ordeal that would plunge the family into a trauma of existential proportions, a nightmare that is likely being shared by millions of people of Chinese Uighur descent across the world as Beijing conducts a crushing human and cultural reordering in Xinjiang, China’s largest province, which borders eight countries.

Yuksel’s father, Mamat Abdullah, 75, was a longtime forestry department chief in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Zone (XUAR) and a public figure in the Uighur community, a majority Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority. His four-decades in the XUAR administrative service included a posting as mayor of Korla, Xinjiang’s second largest city.

Mamat Abdullah is also a talented musician and painter. © Handout via Subi Mamat Yuksel

Two of his three children – Yuksel and her elder brother, Iskandar Mamat – had studied and settled in the US. Ever since their children arrived in America in 2007, the couple visited frequently, bearing gifts and local delicacies for family events.

Mamat Abdullah at his youngest daughters wedding in June 2013 in the US. © Handout via Subi Mamat Yuksel

The April 2017 trip was to see the latest addition to the family, Iskandar’s newborn son, and it was not expected to be any different from past visits. Little did the family know that they were about to embark on a long, dark journey that would test their resilience and relations.

“When my Dad didn’t return, my Mum tried calling him, but there was no answer and she started worrying,” recounted the 31-year-old mother of three in a phone interview with FRANCE 24 from Virginia. “Hours later, two security officers came home and said my Dad was with them. They took my parents’ passports and told my Mum they were not going anywhere. They knew my parents were leaving for the US.”

China’s crackdown on the Uighurs and other minority ethnic groups in Xinjiang has been systematically targeted at different demographic groups since the clampdown began in 2014 following deadly attacks in the region, which Chinese authorities blamed on Uighur militants.

The Uighur crackdown intensified in 2017 – the year of Abdullah’s arrest – with mass detentions in sprawling internment camps in the remote region. Experts such as Adrian Zenz, a leading researcher on the Uighur crisis, describe the incarceration of over a million people as “probably the world’s largest internment of a ethno-religious minority group since the Holocaust”.

‘A form of demographic genocide’

Beijing initially denied the existence of the camps and later euphemistically described them as “reeducation centres”. But the real intent of China’s pacification operation has emerged in chilling detail over the past few months with the publication of leaks and open source official documents by investigative news teams.

Earlier this week, an AP investigation based on Zenz’s analysis of government statistics and documents revealed China’s measures to slash birth rates among Uighurs and other ethnic minorities using forced contraception in what experts call “a form of demographic genocide”.

In November, the New York Times published a detailed report of the orchestrated crackdown based on 403 documents leaked from inside China’s ruling Communist Party. They included an official booklet on how to deceive Uighur family members living outside the region who inquire about disappeared relatives.

The directives appear to have been systematically followed in Abdullah’s case, including the use of surveillance, fake news and fear as a tool to try to stop the Uighur diaspora from speaking out.

We can’t really chat on WeChat

Yuksel’s personal nightmare began before dawn on April 29, 2017, when her brother knocked on her door in Manassas, Virginia, to inform her their parents weren’t going to make it to the US. The details were sketchy: their older sister in Urumqi had called Iskandar and only told him to cancel the flight tickets.

“He noticed from her voice that something was wrong, but my sister couldn’t talk about the real situation and he didn’t ask much,” said Yuksel.

The family uses WeChat, the do-everything app described as “the Chinese Facebook, Twitter, Google, WhatsApp, Tinder all rolled in one”. Users know the app is a giant Communist Party surveillance tool, but they have little choice since most apps are banned in China.

Under the circumstances, communication with China-based family members is fraught with silences, blather to ward off suspicions, facial signs and codes created on the fly.

But when Yuksel finally got through to her then 61-year-old mother, there was no hiding the distress.

“My mother was sobbing. She was so scared, she was shivering,” said Yuksel, her voice quivering with the recollection. “She was shaking, she was showing me her arms, she was holding her wrists together,” to signal her husband had been arrested.

“It was 2017, we already knew things were going bad for Uighurs in the area. But we tried to stay calm. My father had worked for the government for more than 40 years, we knew the news of former department chiefs getting arrested in corruption cases. My father had retired almost 10 years ago, but my brother said may be they’re investigating something and want to question him and will then release him,” she said.

‘Two-faced’, three charges

But the accusations were a lot more serious. Abdullah – or Maimaiti Abudula in Mandarin – was charged with bribery, being “two-faced” and a separatist, Yuksel explained.

Bribery is a common accusation against Chinese government officials under President Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption drive. Since Abdullah had retired nearly a decade before the charges were filed, the family believed it was the least serious.

“Two-faced” is a term frequently used by authorities for Uighur cadres and intellectuals who have lost their old role as mediators between the Communist Party and the community. Over the past three years, several Xinjiang university professors and presidents have been fired and put into “reeducation” camps for being “two-faced” or paying lip service to the ruling party while their loyalties lie with their ethnic group.

The separatist charge, Yuksel notes was “because of me and my brother. We live in Virginia, there’s a large Uighur community here, it’s close to Washington DC, all the protests are in this area and China doesn’t like this area,” she explained.

Nowhere safe: silencing the diaspora

China’s targeting of the diaspora has been documented in an Amnesty report, “Nowhere Feels Safe”, which noted that several Uighurs abroad said they were “warned that family members would be detained if they did not return to Xinjiang or that they would not be able to see their family again if they did not provide information on other Uyghurs [sic] living in their community”.

Information on family members in the US appeared to be the focus of the questioning Yuksel’s mother and sister were subjected to for months for Abdullah’s arrest.

“For the first two months, my mother and sister were taken for questioning almost every single day for eight straight hours,” she said. “My mother and sister didn’t tell me exactly what happened, but they were mad at us because the brainwashing there is so strong. They [Chinese security officials] tell you it’s because your son and daughter abroad are enemies of the Chinese government. I cannot blame my mother and sister,” she insisted. “I could sense the questioning was so intense, they couldn’t bear it. Instead of getting angry with their interrogators, they got angry with us.”

A letter from her father in an unknown detention camp, a photograph of which was sent to Yuksel, had clearer signs of intimidation.

“My Dad is known for his beautiful handwriting in Han Chinese and our Uighur language. The letter started with his beautiful writing. But in the parts he accused us and told us to come back and apologise to the country, the handwriting was so bad, it was obvious they forced my Dad to write that letter to us,” she explained.

Guilty as planned, sentenced to life

The family in Urumqi meanwhile were not given access to Abdullah or told of his whereabouts. They only saw him more than two years later, at his first court hearing in September 2019.

It was a traumatic experience.

Yuksel’s mother was denied access into the court, but her elder sister was allowed in after kicking up a fuss. “My mother was sitting on a bench outside and she saw my Dad being taken into court in chains with other prisoners. They tried to make eye contact, but the police pushed him. He had lost weight and couldn’t balance himself. That broke my Mum’s heart seeing Dad in that state,” explained Yuksel. “My poor sister had to stay calm in court. She had to stay strong, silently, trying to make eye contact with my Dad, trying not to cry.”

The verdict was delivered at the end of the court session that barely granted her father’s lawyer the opportunity to defend his client. Abdullah was found guilty on all counts.

The family filed an appeal but heard nothing until the lawyer phoned to inform them a follow-up trial had been held in December 2019. The guilty verdict was upheld. Abdullah was sentenced to life in prison, the family was informed.

“My sister went to the lawyer and tried to get a copy or at least take a photograph of the order. But the lawyer refused, she kept pleading, ‘How can I remember this’? But the lawyer was very rude. He’s Han Chinese, there’s really no law there, it’s useless even hiring a lawyer,” she sighed.

Hunger in the Covid-19 era

The life in prison sentence, with no further course of repeal, was the final straw for Yuksel and her brother in Virginia. “For three years, we said nothing. We felt guilty, but we didn’t want to do anything that would endanger him. My mother and sister said it would be used as evidence against him. We were so afraid,” Yuksel explained.

With the sentencing, Yuksel and Iskandar concluded they had nothing left to lose. The coronavirus outbreak had by then shut down parts of China. Concerns over the spread of the disease in crowded detention camps were mounting.

The complete media blackout made it impossible to ascertain the situation inside the camps. But on the streets, the distress could not be hidden. Video clips emerged of residents screaming at officials that their families were starving. Old Uighur men caught on the streets flouting lockdown rules calmly asked officials if they were supposed to eat buildings.

On February 26, Yuksel broke her silence and spoke at a Uyghur Human Rights Project press conference in the US capital. The experience was life-changing. “I was so nervous. But after I finished, I cannot explain how I felt. It was like... it felt like a window had opened and the wind was on my chest, that I could finally breathe from my chest and not my mouth. I’m sorry, I have goosebumps, I can’t express it,” she apologised.

Subi Mamat Yuksel campaigning for her father's release in February 2020 in Washington DC. © Handout via Subi Mamat Yuksel

The trauma of Uighur families across the world silenced by fear, crushed by survivor’s guilt, cowered by an all-seeing, all-powerful state and helpless against the injustice is an overlooked aspect of China’s oppressive operations in Xinjiang.

Yuksel’s private nightmare raged as she finished her studies in business administration and coped, with her husband, with three young children. “What can I even tell people? They won’t believe such things are happening in the 21st century,” she explained.

State pushes back, but fails to intimidate

Speaking up in such cases is calculated to let oppressors know the abuse will not go unnoticed and designed to save loved ones from gross violations. But it also captures attention and in China’s case, the onslaught of the state’s aggressive “wolf warrior” push-back, including denials, deceptions and fake news campaigns.

>> Read more on China’s ‘wolf warriors’

Yuksel realised she was in the Orwellian propaganda machine’s sights last month, when the state-owned Global Times published a piece rejecting “rumors” about her testimony in “some US media reports”.

Abdullah, the article claimed, had been imprisoned for “bribery and the abuse of power” and not “for being two-faced person” [sic].

His daughter’s “accusation was completely fabricated and aimed at misleading international opinion,” said the Global Times, noting that “Corruption is a tumor to social development and is detested by people.”

Corruption is also a tool used by the Xi administration as “an effective method of pursuing political goals,” according to experts. Between 2012, when Xi came to power, and 2018, more than 1.5 million Chinese government officials were found guilty of “a variety of corruption-related charges”.

The state-owned Global Times is also led by an outspoken chief editor, Hu Xinjin, who has gained notoriety for his tirades and trolls against Beijing’s critics on Twitter – an app banned inside China.

VIDEO
https://youtu.be/wdcNHKr7dAU

But for Yuksel, a newcomer to the personalised world of Chinese propaganda, the experience was initially rattling. “We were so shocked. No two-faced, no separatist charges? I tried to call reporters to find out what’s going on. I contacted my mother and explained it carefully and she was shocked. My brother called the lawyer and asked for the final verdict but the lawyer hung up. I didn’t know what to do,” she recounted.

The Virginia mother is now wiser to the ways of the Chinese state. “They’re lying. They do anything to try to discredit you, they’re so shameless. Now the government is lying about their own lies,” she dismissed.

But while she’s happy with her decision to speak out, Yuksel is still unsure of how to proceed. “So they said it was only corruption, not “two-faced”. But they’ve also made it tricky to react. I don’t want it to just settle and for the state to have its way, which is just keeping the situation as it is,” she explained.

For now, Yuksel is sticking on-message, trying to get her father released. On Father’s Day, the young woman from Urumqi who confessed, “I wish I didn’t have to do this. I’m not a person who can speak easily in public, it’s so scary” released a video clip on Twitter asking, once again, for Abdullah’s release.

It’s been 3 long yrs I have been unable to say Happy Father’s Day to my dad #freemamatabdullah. I wanna hear his voice, I want to tell him I miss you! #China release him #FoxNews @SecPompeo @SenRubioPress @ChineseEmbinUS @ChinaDaily @StateDept @SpokespersonCHN @AmbCuiTiankai @UN pic.twitter.com/QQxGkgYpXl— Subi Mamat Yuksel (@SubiMamat) June 21, 2020

“He would always tell me, no matter what, always seek the light at the end of the tunnel,” she said looking directly at the camera. “As I face difficulties today, this is what I remember. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I miss you so much. I will see you soon at the end of the tunnel.

Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell, advocate for Palestinian rights, dies at 85

Issued on: 21/06/2020

Israeli academic Zeev Sternhell poses at home in Jerusalem in this file photo taken on February 2, 2015. © Thomas Coex, AFP Text by:NEWS WIRES

Israeli historian and political scientist Zeev Sternhell, a peace activist and one of the leading thinkers of the country's left, has died aged 85, Jerusalem's Hebrew University said Sunday.

Polish-born Sternhell, head of the university's political science department, was an outspoken champion of Palestinian rights who strongly criticised Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Hebrew University president Asher Cohen hailed Sternhell, a professor emeritus there who was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for political science in 2008, as "among the most important researchers" to emerge from the institution.

"His innovative political science research, which was translated into many languages, brought a deep change in the academic perception of ideological movements, specifically radical movements," Cohen said.

Ayman Odeh, head of the Arab-led Joint List in Israel's parliament, wrote that "during his childhood in Poland, Sternhell experienced the terrible results of fascism, and throughout his life had the courage and strength to research and fight it.

"For decades he was a significant voice for Palestinian human rights and against the occupation in the territories."

Survived Second World War

Born to a Jewish family in 1935, Sternhell survived the Second World War disguised as a Catholic. His mother and sister were murdered by the Nazis.

He moved to France after the war, then to Israel upon its creation in 1948.

Sternhell served as an Israeli soldier in the country's wars over four decades and believed in the necessity of a Jewish state, despite his opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

He was a longtime activist in the Israeli Peace Now movement, founding member Janet Aviad told AFP.

"He was a very strong and credible Zionist whose message was that we have one land for two people," she said. "That was the message he delivered in very humanistic, egalitarian, universal terms".

His academic work also delved into the "French roots of fascism" and stirred lively debate and controversy, according to former student Denis Charbit, now a lecturer at the Open University of Israel.

Sternhell was a "very demanding" professor, but also one "attentive" to his best students, Charbit told AFP.

In addition to academic writing and books, he regularly published opinion pieces in Israeli newspapers, most notably Haaretz, many of which were critical of settlers.

On one occasion Sternhell called the settlement movement a "cancer" in Israeli society, and in another instance said a settlement should be attacked with tanks.

'Fragility' of democracy

After receiving the Israel Prize in 2008, he was wounded the same year by a bomb planted outside his house by a right-wing extremist.

Sternhell himself said the attack was testimony to the "fragility" of Israeli democracy.

In an interview with Haaretz later that year, he warned of the ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories and the condition of Israel "not respecting the national rights of others".

In a 2014 interview with Haaretz, during Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza, Sternhell warned that the Jewish state's democracy was "facing collapse".

"The Israeli democracy is eroding, and the signs (of emerging fascism) exist," he said.

Tamar Zandberg, of left-wing party Meretz, said Sternhell's lasting legacy would be his work towards "a strong and not occupying Israeli democracy".

Communication Minister Yoaz Hendel offered his condolences to the Sternhell family, noting that while he didn't share many of Sternhell's opinions, "prominent intellectuals like him, from right and left, are the foundation to our existence as the people of the book".

According to Haaretz, Sternhell died as a result of complications following surgery.

He is survived by his wife, two daughters and several grandchildren.

(AFP)

Netanyahu’s annexation plan threatens Palestinian, Israeli economies already struggling after Covid-19
Issued on: 29/06/2020 -

A labourer puts up banners depicting US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, bearing the words in Hebrew, "No to a Palestinian State" and "Sovereignty Do it right!" as part of a new anti-annexation campaign by the far-right Yesha Jewish settler council, in Jerusalem, on June 10, 2020. © Ammar Awad, Reuters

Text by:Tamar SHILOH VIDON

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to begin annexing parts of the West Bank as soon as July 1 threatens to have severe repercussions on both the Palestinian and Israeli economies, which are already struggling from the effects of a global pandemic.
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The annexation – part of a peace plan unveiled by US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu at the White House in January – could mean imposing Israeli sovereignty on up to 30 percent of West Bank territory, although a final plan has not yet been unveiled.

“Truthfully, I think no one knows what will happen on July 1 or any day after. Not even Netanyahu himself,” said Elias Zananiri, vice chairman of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation) Committee for Interaction with the Israeli Society. “One thing is clear. The Palestinians will in no way accept any form of annexation,” he told FRANCE 24 on Sunday.

The plan’s opponents, in Israel and abroad, warn that it will end any chance of bringing a lasting peace to the region. The plan has also been rejected by members of Israel’s far right, who argue that it does not go far enough and that by annexing only 30 percent of the West Bank Netanyahu is setting the stage for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the rest of the territory, which they oppose.

But the territory that would be left to the Palestinians could make it impossible to establish a viable state, with isolated pockets of land disconnected from one another and Israel controlling the contour of the territory.


“No matter whether the annexation is marginal or grandiose – whoever in Israel or elsewhere tries to sell the idea of a ‘marginal annexation’, as though it is in line with previous understandings between the Palestinians and Israel on a land swap, is misleading everyone. [A] land swap should be the outcome of a mutual agreement and not a unilateral move by Israel,” Zananiri said.

Economic implications

The annexation could lead to an eruption of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end Israel’s budding cooperation with the Gulf States and bring on painful sanctions by its European trade partners – all at a time when the Israeli economy is already reeling from the effects of the coronavirus crisis.

Netanyahu has said that the plan would include only areas with Jewish settlements, and that the Palestinians would continue to be governed by the Palestinian Authority (PA).

But it is unclear how this can be achieved, when imposing Israeli sovereignty on even some of the 2.3 million West Bank inhabitants would entail extensive and immediate judicial and administrative changes that would affect both the Israeli and Palestinian economies in the long term.

“The Palestinian economy is vastly dependent on Israel's, not only since the Oslo Accord was signed in 1993 but throughout the years of occupation that started in 1967. The annexation will only exacerbate the conditions for the Palestinian economy,” Zananiri said.

In the short term, the move could lead to violent clashes and political ramifications that would also hurt Israel.

Unilateral annexation “runs the risk of a confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians”, according to analysts from the Adva Center, a Tel Aviv-based progressive think-tank, writing in a position paper published on June 17. “Such a confrontation may further exacerbate the economic crisis caused by the corona epidemic, just as the second intifada exacerbated the crisis that accompanied the bursting of the high-tech bubble in 2000.”

They noted that the economic recession that followed the second intifada was described by Israel's central bank as the longest in the country’s history.

“During the second intifada, the number of tourists entering Israel declined to fewer than a million,” according to the Adva Center analysts.

In the past few months, Israeli tourism – booming before the health crisis, with 4.6 million overseas visitors in 2019 – ground to a halt. Unemployment also spiked to 18 percent from 3.4 percent before the pandemic.

“To regain the losses caused by the corona epidemic, Israel needs not only to beat the Covid-19 virus but also to remain free of conflict,” they wrote.

Zananiri said he did not believe the Israeli move would lead to a new intifada but warned that “the future after annexation will look significantly different”.

“I do not think we will see Palestinians resort to armed struggle or attacks on Israel, but we also do not know what will happen if the PA loses control over the crowd. People are hungry for a normal life but never at the expense of national independence.”

Writing on the Ynet Israeli news website on Friday, veteran Israeli war correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai agreed. “What worries Israel the most is that Abu Mazen (Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas) will decide to react to the annexation by fully or partially halting the civilian services provided by the Palestinian Authority”, something he has threatened to do as part of a pressure campaign on Israel.

“In such a situation, according to international law, Israel will be directly responsible for the day-to-day lives of Palestinians – their health, safety and welfare.”

“The financial burden on Israel will be enormous, as will be the effort to set up the mechanisms necessary for governing 2.6 million Palestinians during the coronavirus crisis,” Ben-Yishai added.

Political repercussions

The Hamas movement has said it would consider an annexation a “declaration of war”.

“The resistance (Hamas) considers this decision to be a declaration of war upon the Palestinian people. The resistance will be the loyal and dutiful guard of the people throughout this war, acting in defence of our people, our land, and our holy sites,” a spokesman, known by his nom de guerre Abu Obeida, said in a speech on Thursday.

World leaders have also exhorted the Israeli government to abandon the plan.

“We are at a watershed moment,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told a virtual meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

“If implemented, annexation would constitute a most serious violation of international law, grievously harm the prospect of a two-state solution and undercut the possibilities of a renewal of negotiations. I call on the Israeli government to abandon its annexation plans,” he said.

And 1,080 members of parliament from 25 European countries published an open letter on Wednesday expressing strong opposition to annexation, calling the move “fatal to the prospects of Israeli-Palestinian peace” and saying it would “challenge the most basic norms guiding international relations”.

“We are profoundly concerned about the impact of annexation on the lives of Israelis and Palestinians, as well as its destabilising potential in a region on our continent’s doorstep. These concerns are no less serious at a time when the world is struggling with the Covid-19 pandemic,” they wrote.

The letter called on European leaders “to act decisively in response to this challenge”.

“We fully support this: acquisition of territory by force has no place in 2020 and must have commensurate consequences. Failure to adequately respond would encourage other states with territorial claims to disregard basic principles of international law,” they wrote.

Europe was the single largest market for Israeli exports in 2019, accounting for 43 percent of total exports, according to the Adva Center paper. If European leaders were to act in concert, they could exert enough economic leverage to undermine the Israeli economy.

Netanyahu’s window of opportunity

Some say Netanyahu regards the annexation of the Jordan Valley and the Jewish settlements in the West Bank as his historic legacy, now made possible thanks to the support of the Trump administration.

“Earlier annexations of East Jerusalem (1967) and the Golan Heights (1981) were seen as historic moves by previous heads of government,” writes Israeli journalist Sever Plocker in a Ynet op-ed. “This latest move, Netanyahu believes, will solidify Israel's hold on parts of the biblical land of Israel and ensure defensible borders for the state.”


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With American elections only months away and Trump doing poorly in the polls, the window of opportunity is small. The Democratic Party and its presumed presidential candidate, Joe Biden, have strongly criticised the plan and will not support it if they take over the White House in January.

Netanyahu’s legal troubles might also be adding to the urgency of implementing the plan. One way to deflect talk of his indictment on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust is by annexing Palestinian territories. And indeed, since the beginning of his trial on May 24, headlines on the coronavirus and impending annexation have overshadowed news about the hearings.

Netanyahu might also be wagering that opposition criticism and international pressure to stop the annexation will give credence to his claim – made in front of the courthouse on the day his trial began – that the proceedings were, in fact, a ploy against the entire Israeli right. “What is on trial today is an effort to frustrate the will of the people – the attempt to bring me down along with the right-wing flank,” he declared.

“I am not willing to adjust my policies to receive better media coverage, I am not prepared to uproot settlements, I am not willing to do all sorts of other things, and therefore I must be removed by any means,” he said.

Zananiri called for swift action from the international community. “I believe it is the duty of the international community to step in and, for once, shake the stick at Israel and tell the incumbent government that it cannot continue to behave and act above international law,” he said.