Ilhan Omar Unveils Resolution to Block 'Unconscionable' Saudi Arms Sale

"We should never be selling human rights abusers weapons, but we certainly should not be doing so in the midst of a humanitarian crisis they are responsible for."

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) speaks during a press conference in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota on April 20, 2021. (Photo: Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMONDREAMS

November 12, 2021

Rep. Ilhan Omar unveiled a resolution Friday aimed at blocking a Biden administration-approved sale of $650 million worth of missiles and other military equipment to the Saudi government, which has been bombing Yemen—often with U.S. weaponry—since 2015.

"Congress has the authority to stop these sales, and we must exercise that power."

Omar (D-Minn.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that "it is simply unconscionable to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia while they continue to slaughter innocent people and starve millions in Yemen, kill and torture dissidents, and support modern-day slavery."

"We should never be selling human rights abusers weapons, but we certainly should not be doing so in the midst of a humanitarian crisis they are responsible for," added Omar. "Congress has the authority to stop these sales, and we must exercise that power."

The U.S. State Department formally notified Congress of the weapons sale last week, meaning lawmakers now have less than a month to review it.

The new Saudi arms deal is the second that the administration has approved in recent weeks, leading anti-war critics to accuse President Joe Biden of reneging on his promise to end U.S. support for the regime's deadly assault on Yemen, where an estimated 11 million children are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

According to Omar's office, the Biden administration's latest sale would give Saudi Arabia "280 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles, along with 596 missile launchers, support equipment, spare parts, U.S. government and contractor engineering, and technical support." The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement that the "principal contractor" will be Raytheon, a massive weapons manufacturer.

Raed Jarrar, advocacy director for Democracy for the Arab World Now—an organization founded by murdered Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi—warned in a statement Friday that "these air-to-air missiles could be used in offensive operations or they could be used to enforce the Saudi blockade, which humanitarian aid groups have identified as one of the reasons behind the prices of medicine being out of reach for millions of Yemenis."

"Rather than selling more weapons," Jarrar added, "the Biden administration should compel Saudi Arabia to lift the blockade and end its war on Yemen.”

Related Content

Ilhan Omar Is Working to Stop 'Unacceptable' $650 Million Weapons Sale to Saudi Arabia

HuffPost reported Friday that progressive Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has backed Omar's resolution, but it's unclear how much more support the measure will garner in the House. The Minnesota Democrat is currently working to find "an ally in the Senate to introduce matching legislation soon," according to the outlet.

"I can't understand how we would even contemplate [the sale] before they end their involvement in the Yemen war, before they lift the blockade, and before there's some consequences for MBS," said Khanna, referring to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who U.S. intelligence agencies believe approved the operation that led to Khashoggi's gruesome murder in 2018.

Biden has faced backlash from human rights groups for refusing to punish the crown prince for his alleged role in the killing.

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The Worst Instincts at the Very Wrong Time: Fed Chair Jerome Powell Must Go

On all of the defining issues of the moment, US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has shown that his instincts are out of step with what the country needs. In deciding whom to appoint to the position next, US President Joe Biden must not be swayed by clichés about bipartisanship and continuity.


Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell walks between meetings with Senators on Capitol Hill on October 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. 

(Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

JOSEPH STIGLITZ

November 11, 2021

 by Project Syndicate

US President Joe Biden faces a critical decision: whom to appoint as chair of the Federal Reserve—arguably the most powerful position in the global economy.

The wrong choice can have grave consequences. Under Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, the Fed failed to regulate the banking system adequately, setting the stage for the worst global economic downturn in 75 years. That crisis and policymakers' response to it have had far-reaching political consequences, exacerbating inequality and nurturing a lingering sense of grievance in those who lost their houses and jobs.

Powell would say that climate issues are not included in the Fed's mandate, but he would be wrong. Part of the Fed's mandate is to ensure financial stability, and there is no greater threat to that than climate change.

There are a host of clichés about why the current chair, Jerome Powell, should be reappointed. Doing so would be a demonstration of bipartisanship. It would reinforce the Fed's credibility. We need a seasoned hand to steer us through the post-pandemic recovery. And so on. I heard all the same arguments 25 years ago when I was chair of the US President's Council of Economic Advisers and Greenspan was being considered for reappointment. They were enough to convince Bill Clinton, and the country paid a high price for his decision.

Ironically, President Ronald Reagan gave short shrift to these arguments when he effectively fired Paul Volcker in 1987, denying him reappointment after he had tamed inflation. Reagan owed Volcker a great deal, but because he wanted to pursue deregulation, he opted for Greenspan, an acolyte of Ayn Rand.

Economic policymaking requires careful judgment and a recognition of trade-offs. How important is inflation versus jobs and growth? How confident can we be that markets are efficient, stable, fair, and competitive on their own? How concerned should we be about inequality? America's two main parties have always had markedly different but clearly articulated perspectives on these matters (at least until the Republicans' descent into populist madness).

To my mind, the Democrats are right to worry more about the consequences of joblessness. The 2008 crisis showed that unfettered markets are neither efficient nor stable. Moreover, we know that marginalized groups have been brought into the economy and wage disparities reduced only when labor markets are tight.

The coming years are likely to test any Fed chair. The United States is already facing tough judgment calls concerning inflation and what to do about it. Are recent price increases mostly hiccups resulting from an unprecedented economic shutdown? How should the Fed think about the African-American employment rate, which still has not recovered to its pre-pandemic levels? Would raising interest rates (and thus unemployment) be a cure worse than the disease?

Equally, while the mispricing of mortgage-backed securities was central to the 2008 meltdown, there is now evidence of an even greater and more pervasive mispricing of assets related to climate change. What should the Fed do about that?

Powell is not the man for the moment. For starters, he supported former President Donald Trump's deregulatory agenda, risking the world's financial health. And even now, he is reluctant to address climate risk, even though other central bankers around the world are declaring it the defining issue of the coming decades. Powell would say that climate issues are not included in the Fed's mandate, but he would be wrong. Part of the Fed's mandate is to ensure financial stability, and there is no greater threat to that than climate change.

The Fed is also responsible for approving mergers in the financial sector, and Powell's record suggests that he has never seen a bad one. Such laxity is the last thing the economy needs right now. A glaring lack of competition and the absence of adequate regulation are already allowing for outsize profits, diminishing the supply of finance for small businesses, and providing the dominant players greater scope for taking advantage of others.

Some commentators have given Powell credit for the Fed's response to the pandemic. But any college sophomore would have known not to tighten monetary policy and raise interest rates during a recession. Moreover, as Simon Johnson of MIT has argued, Powell does not have a deep commitment to full employment. On the contrary, as a member of the Fed Board of Governors for the past decade, Powell has a history of misjudgments in tightening monetary policy dating back to the "taper tantrum" of 2013.

Though many Fed watchers insist that inequality is not the central bank's business, the fact is that Fed policies have major distributional effects that cannot be ignored. Just as prematurely raising interest rates can choke off growth, weak enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act allows for deeper concentrations of market power.

Finally, the recent ethics scandal involving market trades by top Fed officials has undermined confidence in the institution's leadership. Powell's seeming insensitivity to conflicts of interest has long worried me, including in the management of some of the Fed's pandemic-response programs. With four years of Trump having already weakened trust in US institutions, there is a real risk that confidence in the Fed's integrity will be undermined even further. No Fed official should need an ethics officer to decide when certain trades would appear unseemly.

The Fed is in some ways like the US Supreme Court. It's supposed to be above politics, but at least since Bush v. Gore, we've known that's not true. Trump clarified that for any doubters. The Fed, too, is supposed to be independent, but Powell and Greenspan, as they followed their party's deregulatory agenda, made clear that that also was not the case. But while the Board makes crucial decisions affecting every aspect of the economy, power historically has been concentrated in the chair—far more so than with the Supreme Court chief justice. It is the Fed chair who decides what to bring to a vote, and which issues to slow-roll or fast-track. The climate issue is just one example of where it absolutely matters who is at the head of the table.

The US needs a Fed that is genuinely committed to ensuring a stable, fair, efficient, and competitive financial sector. Anyone who thinks that we can rely on unfettered markets, or that regulation has already gone too far, is not seeing clearly. We need neither an ideologue like Greenspan nor a Wall Street-minded lawyer like Powell. Rather, we need someone who has a deep understanding of economics, and who shares Biden's values and concerns about both inflation and employment.

There are undoubtedly many figures who could meet these conditions. But Biden doesn't have to look far to find someone who has already shown her mettle. Lael Brainard is already on the Board, where she has demonstrated her competence and gained the respect of markets—without compromising her values. Biden can have his cake and eat it: a Fed chair who maintains continuity and won't roil markets, but shares his economic and social agenda.

© 2021 Project Syndicate


Joseph E. Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University. His most recent book is "Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being" (2019). Among his many other books, he is the author of "The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future" (2013), "Globalization and Its Discontents" (2003), "Free Fall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy" (2010), and (with co-author Linda Bilmes) "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict" (2008). He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 for research on the economics of information.

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

The Real Source of Inflation? Consolidated Corporate Power and Greed

This structural problem is amenable to only one thing: the aggressive use of antitrust law.


P&G faces very little competition. According to a report released this month from the Roosevelt Institute, "The lion's share of the market for diapers," for example, "is controlled by just two companies (P&G and Kimberly-Clark), limiting competition for cheaper options." 

(Photo Illustration by Thiago Prudencio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)


ROBERT REICH

November 12, 2021

 by RobertReich.org

The biggest culprit for rising prices that's not being talked about is the increasing economic concentration of the American economy in the hands of a relative few giant big corporations with the power to raise prices.

If markets were competitive, companies would seek to keep their prices down in order to maintain customer loyalty and demand. When the prices of their supplies rose, they'd cut their profits before they raised prices to their customers, for fear that otherwise a competitor would grab those customers away.

The underlying structural problem isn't that government is over-stimulating the economy. It's that big corporations are under competitive.

But strange enough, this isn't happening. In fact, even in the face of supply constraints, corporations are raking in record profits. More than 80 percent of big (S&P 500) companies that have reported results this season have topped analysts' earnings forecasts, according to Refinitiv.

Obviously, supply constraints have not eroded these profits. Corporations are simply passing the added costs on to their customers. Many are raising their prices even further, and pocketing even more.

How can this be? For a simple and obvious reason: Most don't have to worry about competitors grabbing their customers away. They have so much market power they can relax and continue to rake in big money.

The underlying structural problem isn't that government is over-stimulating the economy. It's that big corporations are under competitive.

Corporations are using the excuse of inflation to raise prices and make fatter profits. The result is a transfer of wealth from consumers to corporate executives and major investors.

This has nothing to do with inflation, folks. It has everything to do with the concentration of market power in a relatively few hands.

It's called "oligopoly," where two or three companies roughly coordinate their prices and output.

Judd Legum provides some good examples in his newsletter. He points to two firms that are giants in household staples: Procter & Gamble and Kimberly Clark. In April, Procter & Gamble announced it would start charging more for everything from diapers to toilet paper, citing "rising costs for raw materials, such as resin and pulp, and higher expenses to transport goods."

Baloney. P&G is raking in huge profits. In the quarter ending September 30, after some of its price increases went into effect, it reported a whopping 24.7% profit margin. Oh, and it spent $3 billion in the quarter buying its own stock.

How can this be? Because P&G faces very little competition. According to a report released this month from the Roosevelt Institute, "The lion's share of the market for diapers," for example, "is controlled by just two companies (P&G and Kimberly-Clark), limiting competition for cheaper options."

So it wasn't exactly a coincidence that Kimberly-Clark announced similar price increases at the same time as P&G. Both corporations are doing wonderfully well. But American consumers are paying more.

Or consider another major consumer product oligopoly: PepsiCo (the parent company of Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Quaker, Tropicana, and other brands), and Coca Cola. In April, PepsiCo announced it was increasing prices, blaming "higher costs for some ingredients, freight and labor."

Rubbish. The company recorded $3 billion in operating profits and increased its projections for the rest of the year, and expects to send $5.8 billion in dividends to shareholders in 2021.

If PepsiCo faced tough competition it could never have gotten away with this. But it doesn't. In fact, it appears to have colluded with its chief competitor, Coca-Cola—which, oddly, announced price increases at about the same time as PepsiCo, and has increased its profit margins to 28.9%.

And on it goes around the entire consumer sector of the American economy.

You can see a similar pattern in energy prices. Once it became clear that demand was growing, energy producers could have quickly ramped up production to create more supply. But they didn't.

Why not? Industry experts say oil and gas companies (and their CEOs and major investors) saw bigger money in letting prices run higher before producing more supply.

They can get away with this because big oil and gas producers don't face much competition. They're powerful oligopolies.

Again, inflation isn't driving most of these price increases. Corporate power is driving them.

Since the 1980s, when the federal government all but abandoned antitrust enforcement, two-thirds of all American industries have become more concentrated.

Monsanto now sets the prices for most of the nation's seed corn.

The government green-lighted Wall Street's consolidation into five giant banks, of which JPMorgan is the largest.

It okayed airline mergers, bringing the total number of American carriers down from twelve in 1980 to four today, which now control 80 percent of domestic seating capacity.

It let Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merge, leaving America with just one major producer of civilian aircraft, Boeing.

Three giant cable companies dominate broadband [Comcast, AT&T, Verizon].

A handful of drug companies control the pharmaceutical industry [Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck].

So what's the appropriate response to the latest round of inflation? The Federal Reserve has signaled it won't raise interest rates for the time being, believing that the inflation is being driven by temporary supply bottlenecks.

Meanwhile, Biden Administration officials have been consulting with the oil industry in an effort to stem rising gas prices, trying to make it simpler to issue commercial driver's licenses (to help reduce the shortage of truck drivers), and seeking to unclog over-crowded container ports.

But none of this responds to the deeper structural issue—of which price inflation is symptom: the increasing consolidation of the economy in a relative handful of big corporations with enough power to raise prices and increase profits.

This structural problem is amenable to only one thing: the aggressive use of antitrust law.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.


Robert Reich, is the Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. His book include: "Aftershock" (2011), "The Work of Nations" (1992), "Beyond Outrage" (2012) and, "Saving Capitalism" (2016). He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "The Common Good" (2019). He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.

SEE

Monthly Review | Monopoly Capitalism

Monthly Review | What Is Monopoly Capital?

Monthly Review | The Age of Monopoly-Finance Capital

Monthly Review | The New Imperialism of Globalized Monopoly-Finance Capital

#ABOLISHICE

We Need to Shut Down ICE's Mass Immigration Detention Machine

Effective oversight and transparency are not enough.

SELF REGULATION FAILS, OF COURSE

An ACLU analysis found that ICE's inspection system remains ineffective at identifying violations by detention facilities and ensuring compliance with detention standards. (Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP Images)

EUNICE CHO, PATRICK TAUREL, ADITI SHAH

November 14, 2021 by Speak Freely / ACLU

Every day, ICE locks up over 20,000 people in a sprawling nationwide network of more than 200 detention facilities. The ACLU believes that this system of mass incarceration of immigrants should be dismantled—it's unnecessary and inhumane. For as long as ICE maintains its detention network, though, it has a responsibility to create an oversight system that is actually effective at detecting, addressing, and deterring abuse of detained people. Our analysis of recent ICE inspection documents shows that ICE's inspection system remains ineffective at identifying violations by detention facilities and ensuring compliance with detention standards, allowing facilities with clear records of poor conditions, including some of the deadliest facilities, such as the Stewart Detention Facility in Georgia, to evade accountability.

Even facilities that are deficient in 30 or more components receive a rating of "meets standards."

Virtually all detention facilities are required to adhere to detention standards that establish consistent conditions of confinement and ensure minimum standards of care for people who are detained by ICE. ICE currently monitors compliance with these standards primarily through external audits performed by a private contractor called the Nakamoto Group. Nakamoto's fitness to serve as ICE's auditor has been called into question by multiple oversight bodies. In 2018, the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that Nakamoto's "inspection practices are not consistently thorough."

ICE employees in the field and managers at headquarters told OIG that Nakamoto inspectors "breeze by the [detention] standards" and do not "have enough time to see if the [facility] is actually implementing the policies." They also described Nakamoto inspections as being "very, very, very difficult to fail." One ICE official suggested these inspections are "useless." The House Homeland Security Committee issued a similarly scathing critique of Nakamoto. In September 2020, the committee's majority staff reported that Nakamoto "has demonstrated a lack of credibility and competence."

We reviewed every inspection report that Nakamoto issued in 2021 and found that little has changed. The same problems identified by OIG and the House Homeland Security Committee continue to plague Nakamoto's inspections.

First, virtually no facility fails their inspections. Even facilities that are deficient in 30 or more components receive a rating of "meets standards." Moreover, we found that inspections fail to account for clear indications of poor conditions. For example, Nakamoto's inspection of the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia found that the facility "meets standards," identified only one deficient component in the standard of "Correspondence and Other Mail," and stated that "there were no areas of concern or significant observation." Yet more detained people have died at Stewart than any other ICE facility in the last four years; since May 2017, eight people have died in custody at Stewart. Felipe Montes, a 57-year-old man from Mexico, died there only a few weeks before Nakamoto's inspection. Yet Nakamoto's inspection failed to note any concerns about the provision of medical or mental health care or COVID-19 protocols at the facility.

Second, Nakamoto continues to conduct only pre-announced inspections, often remotely or partially remotely, making a meaningful audit all but impossible. Pre-announced inspections permit facilities to temporarily cure or mask deficiencies to pass inspection. (This is on ICE though, because they are the ones that put this requirement into Nakamoto's contract.)

Third, Nakamoto's detainee interviews remain flawed, often occurring in nonconfidential settings where detainees will feel less free to speak their mind about detention conditions. We also found that detainee complaints are rarely taken seriously.

A meaningful inspection and monitoring system requires rigorous inspections of facilities and a commitment from the agency to impose sanctions.

Finally, Nakamoto inspectors appear to continue to trust, rather than verify, the representations of jailers and ICE officers. For example, at the Prairieland Detention Center in Texas, one detainee housed in the Special Management Unit (SMU), which is how ICE refers to segregation or solitary confinement, "stated he had not seen an ICE officer while housed in the SMU." Nakamoto accepted the facility's documentation that "ICE officers routinely visit the SMU," even though "[d]ocumentation that an ICE officer had visited this particular detainee was not available."

These and other examples make clear that Nakamoto's inspections lack integrity. As appropriators in Congress have indicated, it's past time for DHS to terminate its contract with Nakamoto.

ICE's detention oversight problem is ultimately bigger than Nakamoto. ICE must ensure that it holds facilities accountable for violating ICE's own standards. A meaningful inspection and monitoring system requires rigorous inspections of facilities and a commitment from the agency to impose sanctions, including contract termination, for facilities that do not pass inspection. And the public deserves transparency. We need to know which standards detention facilities are failing to comply with, and what consequences, if any, ICE imposes on them.

Effective oversight and transparency, though, are not enough. When the Immigration and Naturalization Service—ICE's precursor agency—first rolled out its detention standards, the then-head of the agency told the New York Times that the goal was to "provide safe, secure, and humane conditions of detention." That goal is based on the flawed premise that detention can be safe and humane. It cannot. ICE's record of abuse, neglect, and death proves that point. Ultimately, ICE must shut down its mass immigration detention machine.

© 2021 ACLU

Eunice Cho is Senior Staff Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Patrick Taurel is a senior staff attorney at the ACLU's National Prison Project.

Aditi Shah is the Borchard Fellow in the ACLU's National Prison Project, where she litigates cases challenging unlawful immigration detention conditions and pursues strategic litigation and advocacy to increase access to counsel at immigration detention facilities, with a focus on addressing the needs of older adults in detention. Aditi holds a B.A. in history and health: science, society, and policy from Brandeis University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she was a student attorney at the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and a research assistant to Professor William B. Rubenstein. Following graduation, she clerked for the Hon. Richard C. Wesley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Rights Group Says Israel Uses Settler Violence Against Palestinians to Take Over West Bank Land

"Settler violence is a form of government policy, permitted and aided by official state authorities with their active participation," according to a report from the Israeli group B'Tselem.


The Um Zuqa farm is one of six "farms" set up by settlers in the northern Jordan Valley in the past five years. It was built in 2016 on a site that housed the Palestinian village of Khirbet al-Mzoqah, which Israel demolished after occupying the West Bank. (Photo: Eyal Hareuveni, B'Tselem)


JESSICA CORBETT

November 14, 2021

The Jerusalem-based rights group B'Tselem released a report Sunday that accuses Israel's "​​apartheid regime" of using settler-colonist violence to take control of Palestinian farmland and pastureland, focusing on nearly 11 square miles in the illegally occupied West Bank.

"The settlers are not defying the state; they are doing its bidding."

"Settler violence against Palestinians serves as a major informal tool at the hands of the state to take over more and more West Bank land," says the report. "The state fully supports and assists these acts of violence, and its agents sometimes participate in them directly."

B'Tselem released its report—entitled State Business: Israel's misappropriation of land in the West Bank through settler violence—amid a recent rise in anti-Palestinian attacks enabled by what Haaretz called a "hands-off" approach of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

During the first half of 2021, there were at least 416 anti-Palestinian incidents in the West Bank, more than double the figure for the same period the previous year, and more than all of the 363 known incidents from 2019, the Israeli newspaper reported last month.

The new B'Tselem report says that "state violence—official and otherwise—is part and parcel of Israel's apartheid regime, which aims to create a Jewish-only space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea."

Israel, which has illegally occupied the West Bank since 1967, "treats land as a resource designed to serve the Jewish public, and accordingly uses it almost exclusively to develop and expand existing Jewish residential communities and to build new ones," the report continues. "At the same time, the regime fragments Palestinian space, dispossesses Palestinians of their land, and relegates them to living in small, over-populated enclaves."

State Business specifically details how Israel "has misappropriated land from Palestinian shepherding and farming communities in the West Bank through systemic, ongoing violence perpetrated by settlers living near them, with the full support of state authorities." B'Tselem collected testimonies from several Palestinians and, in its report, presents five case studies.

Muhammad 'Abiyat, a 63-year-old resident of Um Safa and father of 10, told B'Tselem that "over the last two years, settlers have showed up and chased me whenever I've tried to reach my olive groves. We haven't harvested the olives and have lost two years of income."

In August 2019, settlers from the Zvi Bar Yosef farm "attacked me and ran after me, throwing stones," he said. In October 2020, "again they threw stones at me, chased me with sticks, and threatened me with firearms."

Nisrin Harini, a 37-year-old mother of seven, told the group how the establishment of the Havat Ma'on outpost "changed our lives completely," describing a "life full of fear and daily anxiety" that she called "hell."

"Over the last year, the settler attacks have intensified. A year ago, settlers attacked our sheep and ran over my brother-in-law's son, Hussein al-Harini, with an ATV. They broke his leg," Harini said. "Settlers watch our every move. It's become a routine. They attack the sheep and the shepherds, and call the military. Then the soldiers come and chase after the shepherds, and sometimes even arrest them."

"The military does not confront violent settlers. It does not prevent the attacks, and in some cases, soldiers even participate in them."

B'Tselem spokesperson Dror Sadot told The Times of Israel that the group did not contact Israeli security forces about its findings because "we understood they do nothing about our accusations." The newspaper noted that the IDF did not respond to a request for comment about the report.

In the report, B'Tselem takes direct aim at both the Israeli government and IDF, saying that settler attacks on Palestinians "are not perpetrated by 'bands of outlaws' or 'bad seeds,' nor are they simply 'violent outbursts' or 'unusual incidents."

Instead, such attacks "are a strategy employed by the Israeli apartheid regime, which seeks to advance and complete its misappropriation of more and more Palestinian land," State Business says. "As such, settler violence is a form of government policy, permitted and aided by official state authorities with their active participation."

The Israeli state, the report explains, not only "allows settlers to live, farm, and graze livestock on land from which Palestinians have been violently ejected, and to that end pays for security, paves roads, provides infrastructure, and supports financial enterprises in these outposts through various government ministries," it also "gives settlers free rein to commit violent acts against Palestinians."

"The military does not confront violent settlers," according to the report. "It does not prevent the attacks, and in some cases, soldiers even participate in them. The Israeli law enforcement system does not take action against settlers who harm Palestinians after the fact and whitewashes the few cases it is called upon to address."

Reporting on B'Tselem's findings, the Associated Press pointed out that "last month, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz called on the military to combat rising settler attacks against Palestinians and Israeli troops in the West Bank to react 'systematically, aggressively, and uncompromisingly' to such behavior."

The rights group's report says that "the combination of state violence and nominally unofficial violence allows Israel to have it both ways: maintain plausible deniability and blame the violence on settlers rather than on the military, the courts or the Civil Administration while advancing Palestinian dispossession."

"The facts, however, blow plausible deniability out of the water: When the violence occurs with permission and assistance from the Israeli authorities and under its auspices, it is state violence," the report adds. "The settlers are not defying the state; they are doing its bidding."
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OH THE IRONY

'All faiths deserve respect': Group rallies on Parliament Hill to support Bangladeshi minorities HINDUS

"The situation of minorities in Bangladesh is less well known … We want to create awareness about it."

Author of the article:Matthew Lapierre
Publishing date:Nov 13, 2021 • 

A group gathered on Parliament Hill on Saturday for a solidarity walk to draw attention to the situation facing minorities in Bangladesh. 

PHOTO BY ASHLEY FRASER /Postmedia

Dozens of people marched on Parliament Hill on Saturday to decry increasing communal violence in Bangladesh.

The group of more than 60 people carried signs, some English, some French, some Bengali, that read “save Bangladeshi minorities,” “Protect Hindu Temples,” and “Stop Religious Extremism.”

“All faiths deserve respect,” said Ria Paul-Chowdhury, whose aunt and cousins live in Bangladesh. Her relatives are Hindu, a minority in the predominantly Muslim country. In recent weeks, Hindus have been the target of a rising wave of violence.

“I’m really scared,” Paul-Chowdhury said. “I’m anxious for them. My aunt has been telling me that she’s scared to go out when the sun sets because they’re scared for their own safety.”

Ria Paul-Chowdhury, middle, has an aunt and cousins who live in Bangladesh. Her relatives are Hindu. PHOTO BY ASHLEY FRASER /Postmedia

The recent violence began in October, during a large Hindu religious festival called Durga Puja, when allegations spread on social media that a Quran, the Muslim holy book, was disrespected inside a Hindu temple. Local media reported that groups of Muslims attacked Hindu temples.

The government reacted with a paramilitary response and the police clashed with mobs in several cities. The clashes left at least seven people dead and more than 100 wounded, according to reports in The Washington Post and The New York Times.

But the roots of the conflict go back much further, according to Hasan Mahmud Tipu, a researcher who has studied the situation in Bangladesh and who attended Saturday’s march in Ottawa. He said the conflict had its roots in the 1980s, when a military government took power in Bangladesh and changed the country’s secular constitution, establishing Islam as the state religion

.

Hasan Mahmud Tipu, a researcher who attended Saturday’s march in Ottawa says the conflict in Bangladesh has its roots in the 1980s, when a military government took power and changed the country’s secular constitution, establishing Islam as the state religion. PHOTO BY ASHLEY FRASER /Postmedia

“Religion in the constitution — the state religion being Islam — is implying power to the majority,” Mahmud Tipu said. He attended the demonstration even though his family in Bangladesh are Muslim and are largely unaffected by the violence. “Everyone has the same rights,” he said. “There should not be any discrimination regarding religion, regarding customs, regarding anything.”

There are nearly 13 million Hindus in Bangladesh, a country with a total population of more than 164 million people. They make up approximately eight per cent of the population, but that number used to be higher.

“Over the years, it has gone down,” Paul-Chowdhury said. “Almost 200,000 Hindus migrate out of Bangladesh every year because of unsettlement or because of being too scared to stay.”

Saturday’s demonstration in Ottawa followed others in cities across Canada, including Toronto, Calgary, and Winnipeg. The purpose of these marches, according to a man named Subrata, who came to Parliament Hill, but preferred to only be identified by his first name because he feared professional reprisals for speaking out on a sensitive topic, was to raise awareness about the situation in Bangladesh.

“If you think of the condition of minorities, you see a lot of coverage of minorities in many places,” he said. “The situation of minorities in Bangladesh is less well known … We want to create awareness about it.”

A group gathered on Parliament Hill on Saturday for a solidarity walk to draw attention to the situation facing minorities in Bangladesh. PHOTO BY ASHLEY FRASER /Postmedia

It was not only Hindus who needed support in Bangladesh, Subrata said. The signs he and his fellow demonstrators carried highlighted how Buddhists and other minorities, including some smaller Muslim sects, had long faced discrimination and violence.

“It’s a question of making an alliance of secularists everywhere and standing up for the minorities,” he said. “The most important thing is that 20 million people (Bangladeshi minorities) will feel at home. They won’t feel like second-class citizens in their own homeland.”

The support of the global community could go a long way towards helping Hindus and other minorities inside Bangladesh, according to Sanjay Dash, a demonstrator who also has family in Bangladesh.

“Canada has a big partnership with Bangladesh,” he said. “We want Canada to be vocal about this. Then they can demand justice and security for these minorities.”

IN HINDU DOMINATED INDIA MUSLIMS AND OTHER RELIGIOUS MINORITIES ARE PERSECUTED FOR THAT SAME REASON INDIA EXPROPRIATED MUSLIM KASHMIR AND PASSED AN ANTI MUSLIM RELIGIOUS MINORITIES LAW

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

FORTEAN PHENOMENA

As Climate Emergency Worsens, Freak Storm Sends Snow, Scorpion Plague on Egypt's Aswan

Egyptian climate scientists have no doubt that the Aswan storm was a manifestation of human-driven climate change, and they say that the old Egypt people grew up with is being altered.

In November 2021, high winds blew the deadly Egyptian black, fat-tailed scorpions from the surrounding desert into the city of Aswan. The scorpions killed three persons with their venom and left hundreds sickened. (Photo: Speedphi/Wikimedia Commons/cc)


JUAN COLE

November 14, 2021

 by Informed Comment

How freakish and biblical our climate emergency could become was illustrated this week in the Upper Egyptian city of Aswan, which was struck in November by rolling lightning storms, downpours, snow, and a plague of scorpions. High winds blew the deadly Egyptian black, fat-tailed scorpions from the surrounding desert into the city and into people’s homes. The scorpions killed three persons with their venom and left hundreds sickened, as Egyptian rescue crews tried to distribute the antidote.

Egypt is going to be one of the countries worst hit by the freakish changes in climate we are causing.

The Egyptian fat-tailed or black scorpion is one of the deadliest of its species.

Snow and scorpions and downpours. In November. In Upper Egypt.

The average high in November in Egypt is 86°F. with an average low of 61°F. Not really what you would call snow weather. The average rainfall in November in Aswan is 0.0 millimeters. That is, none, zero, zilch, nada.

I lived in Egypt for about four years of my life in total. I was rained on very briefly about three times. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus called Egypt the "gift of the Nile" for this reason. It is just a big desert and only the Nile River running through it from southeastern African down to the Mediterranean allows the country to have its present population of over 100 million (equal to 2.5 Californias).

Egypt is going to be one of the countries worst hit by the freakish changes in climate we are causing by heating and providing electricity to our homes with coal and by driving gasoline-powered automobiles. Egypt has been becoming hotter and drier on average, but also more vulnerable to abrupt downpours that cause flash flooding. You really wouldn't want Upper Egypt to be hotter than it is in the summer, when it already reaches 120°F. And as noted above, you wouldn't want it to be drier. Scientific projections show that Egypt will in fact become hotter and drier while at the same time suffering more severe, if brief, storms with the capacity to cause flash floods.

Egyptian climate scientists have no doubt that the Aswan storm was a manifestation of human-driven climate change, and they say that the old Egypt people grew up with is being altered.

Aswan has seen freak storms before, as in January 2010, when according to Egyptian scientists: "A severe hurricane thrashed the province of Aswan on the evening of 17th January, 2010, and was followed by half an hour of a continuous torrential downpour. The storm resulted in bringing down 50 high voltage electricity pylons, cutting power to Aswan province. After that, rains which had accumulated in the mountains turned into a torrent and swept away houses and people, leaving behind hundreds of destroyed properties."

This sort of thing is rare but perhaps becoming more common. They add that the "deluge was accompanied by dust storms, thunderstorm, cyclonic rain, and frequent floods in the years 1980, 1987, 2005, and 2010."

The Encyclopedia Britannica observes that Aswan
faces the island of Elephantine (modern Jazīrat Aswān), on which stand the ruins of the ancient city of Yeb. Aswān was the southern frontier of pharaonic Egypt. Its local quarries supplied granite for many ancient Egyptian monuments and are still operated. On the Nile's eastern bank was the site of the ancient city of Swen (ancient Egyptian: "the Mart"), whence came the Greek Syene and the Arabic Aswān. Aswān later served as a frontier garrison post for the Romans, the Turks, and the British.

The city's current population is about 1.5 million, i.e., about the size of Philadelphia inside city limits.

This tragedy underlines the ways in which climate change-driven superstorms and other severe weather drive wild creatures into human spaces, where they can spread exotic viruses or simply attack.

© 2021 Juan Cole


Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His newest book, "Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires" was published in 2020. He is also the author of "The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East" (2015) and "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East" (2008). He has appeared widely on television, radio, and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles.

Completion of Khmelnitsky 3 'begins' in Ukraine

09 November 2021

Work has already started to complete Ukraine's Khmelnitsky 3 using AP1000 technology. Engineers from Westinghouse are at the site, taking stock and considering how to complete the unique project, according to plant owner Energoatom.

Energoatom head Petro Kotin (centre) leads the inspection of Khmelnitsky 3 (Image: Energoatom)

"The purpose of the visit is a detailed inspection of the third power unit of the station to determine the possibilities and measures for its further completion," said Energoatom. The engineering mission was headed by Westinghouse's First Vice President of Commercial Activities Elias Gideon and vice president of the company for construction of new nuclear power plant Joel Iker.

"We have done a lot of work to prepare the documentation, now two teams of our engineers from the US and Europe have arrived, who will work hard with Energoatom next week, explore the site and exchange the necessary information," said Gideon.

Westinghouse inspected the site on 7 November and will "conduct a gap analysis" that leads to suggestions on ways to successfully implement the construction.

Khmelnitsky 3 was originally intended to be a VVER-1000 but construction stalled in 1990 at around 75% completion. The foundation and much of the containment structure are present, as is some heavy equipment in storage on site. At the same time, Energoatom and Westinghouse have an opportunity to use AP1000 components and modules intended for the cancelled Summer project in the USA and kept in storage there.

On 8 November, a meeting between the two companies heard their preliminary conclusions and assessment of the site. "Today we begin practical work on the construction of new nuclear facilities," said Energoatom head Petro Kotin.

Ukraine has wanted to complete Khmelnitsky units 3 and 4 for many years. Kotin noted that procedures under the Espoo Convention have already been completed, there has been a positive conclusion by the Ministry of Environment, and "a bill on completion of Khmelnitsky 3 and 4 has been submitted to the government, and we expect its approval and submission to the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine in the near future."

Gideon said, "In parallel, we are working with financial institutions to finance the project, in particular with the US EXIM Bank. We hope to sign a number of agreements in the near future."

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

CHINA EXPORTS NUKE TECH INSTEAD OF COAL

Hot functional tests completed at Karachi 3

11 November 2021

Hot functional testing of Karachi 3 in Pakistan was completed ahead of schedule on 4 November, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced today. This means the second overseas Hualong One unit has entered the "fuel loading stage", the company said.

The Karachi site (Image: CNNC)

Hot functional tests simulate the temperatures and pressures that the reactor systems will be subjected to during normal operation and are carried out before loading nuclear fuel. They involve increasing the temperature of the reactor coolant system and carrying out comprehensive tests to ensure that coolant circuits and safety systems are operating as they should. China Zhongyuan Engineering Corporation - CNNC's general contractor for Karachi 2 and 3 - previously announced that the tests at Karachi 3 began on 13 September.

Like Karachi 2, which entered commercial operation in May, Karachi 3 is a 1100 MW Hualong One unit supplied by CNNC. The two units are the first exports of the Hualong One, which is also promoted on the international market as HPR1000. The first example of the Hualong One - Fuqing 5 in China's Fujian province - was commissioned at the beginning of this year. Eight nuclear power units using Hualong One technology are under construction or in operation at home and abroad, CNNC said.

The construction of the Karachi units has boosted the development of Pakistan's economy by providing over 10,000 direct jobs for Pakistan citizens, and a further 40,000 indirect jobs through the value chain, it added.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Fuel loading under way at Fuqing 6

08 November 2021

The process of loading the 177 fuel assemblies into the core of unit 6 at the Fuqing nuclear power plant began on 6 November, China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced. The unit - the second of two demonstration Hualong One reactors at the site in China's Fujian province - is scheduled to begin operations by the end of this year.

Fuel loading operations at Fuqing 6 (Image: CNNC)

"The first fuel loading has officially started, marking the unit has entered the nuclear commissioning stage of the main system, and has taken an important step towards completion and commissioning," CNNC said today.

China's State Council gave final approval for construction of Fuqing units 5 and 6 in April 2015. The pouring of first concrete for Fuqing 5 began in May 2015, marking the official start of construction of the unit. Construction of unit 6 began in December the same year. Unit 5 was connected to the grid on 27 November last year, having achieved first criticality on 21 October, and entered commercial operation on 30 January this year.

Construction of two demonstration Hualong One (HPR1000) units is also under way at China General Nuclear's Fangchenggang plant in the Guangxi Autonomous Region. Those units are expected to start up in 2022. CNNC has also started construction of two Hualong One units at the Zhangzhou plant in Fujian province, plus the first of two units at Taipingling in Guangdong.

Two HPR1000 units are under construction at Pakistan's Karachi nuclear power plant. Construction began on Karachi unit 2 in 2015 and unit 3 in 2016; the units are planned to enter commercial operation in this year and next, respectively. Karachi 2 was connected to the grid in March after the completion of commissioning tests.

"At present, two Hualong One units have been put into commercial operation, and a total of eight nuclear power units using China National Nuclear Corporation's Hualong One technology are under construction and operation at home and abroad," CNNC said.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Deforestation Harms Vulnerable Communities

Temperature rise driven by climate breakdown and deforestation increasing heat-related deaths in rural communities in Indonesia.

An illegal Amazon logging operation on land belonging to the Pirititi Indigenous people in Roraima state, Brazil, seen in an aerial photograph taken on May 8, 2018.

 (Photo: Felipe Werneck/flickr/cc)

CATHERINE EARLY

November 13, 2021 by The Ecologist

Heat-related deaths in a vulnerable community in Indonesia have been linked directly to nearby deforestation by new research published in The Lancet.

The research by US-based The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and scientists from the University of Washington and Indonesia’s Mulawaran University focused on the Berau region of East Kalimantan in Indonesia, where 4375 km² of forested land was cleared between 2002 and 2018, the equivalent of 17 percent of the whole area.

The researchers used data from satellite monitoring of forest cover, temperature, and population, alongside intelligence from The Lancet’s Global Burden of Disease reports to estimate the impacts of deforestation and climate change on deaths due to heat exposure, and the effects of deforestation and climate change on unsafe work conditions.

Labourers

Local deforestation, combined with climate change, had already caused mean daily maximum temperatures to increase by 0.95°C, they found, which in turn had led to an eight percent increase in mortality between 2002 and 2018.

Researchers projected that the region could ultimately experience an estimated 17-20 percent increase in deaths, and up to five hours a day where temperatures are unsafe to work in by 2100, compared with 2018, if temperatures rise by 3°C compared with pre-industrial levels.

A 2019 study in the same region found that outdoor labourers worked, on average, 6.5 hours a day, and are already shifting work schedules to avoid the hottest times of the day.

Vulnerable

The study is significant because it is believed to be one of the first-ever studies to reveal how temperature rises driven by climate change and local deforestation are already increasing heat-related deaths among rural communities in a tropical country.

A growing body of research indicates that in tropical countries, both climate change and deforestation are increasing temperatures and heat exposure, but the combined risks of these changes have so far been underappreciated, according to the study.

The wider implications for human health and livelihoods are worrying and definitely justify further research to find solutions.
For example, forest clearing in tropical countries can cause immediate increases in local temperatures of up to 8°C and exacerbate daytime temperature variation. Studies have also shown that the amount of warming increases when deforested patches are greater than 100 km², and that the effects of warming can extend up to 50km beyond deforested sites.

Worrying

However, little is known about how warming associated with deforestation affects human health at geographical scales of more than 10,000 km²), or how these risks are likely to change in the future.

Deforestation is driven largely by outdoor labour-intensive industries, such as mining, farming, and palm oil production, leaving many people in the area with no choice but to work outdoors.

The temperature rise experienced in just 16 years in Berau was equivalent to that seen in the wider world in 150, lead author Dr Nicholas Wolff of The Nature Conservancy pointed out.

“The wider implications for human health and livelihoods are worrying and definitely justify further research to find solutions,” he said.
© 2021 The Ecologist

CATHERINE EARLY  is chief reporter for The Ecologist and a freelance environmental journalist. She tweets at @Cat_Early76