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Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Biden establishes pro-union task force chaired by Harris

By Kate Sullivan, CNN 4/26/2021

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Monday establishing a task force aimed at empowering workers to organize and bargain with their employers that will be chaired by Vice President Kamala Harris, the White House said in a news release.

© Evan Vucci/AP President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris, speaks Tuesday, April 20, 2021, at the White House in Washington, after former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.

The White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment will be vice-chaired by Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh and will include more than 20 Cabinet members and heads of other federal agencies. It will aim to facilitate worker organizing across the country, increase worker power in underserved communities and increase union membership.

The move is the latest of several pro-union actions taken by the President, who pledged the night before Election Day to be the "most pro-union president you've ever seen." Biden often says unions "built the middle class," and days after taking office signed an executive order restoring collective bargaining power to federal employees.

The order directs the task force to make a set of recommendations within 180 days on how existing policies, programs and practices can be used to promote worker organizing and collective bargaining in the federal government, and what new policies are needed to achieve the task force's mission.

Biden strongly encouraged the Senate to pass the so-called "PRO Act," a bill the President said would encourage unions and "dramatically enhance the power of workers to organize and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions." The House passed the bill last month, and it is unclear whether the Senate, which is divided 50-50 Democrats and Republicans, will pass the bill.

Earlier this year Biden took an unusual step of issuing a presidential video backing the right to unionize of workers at an Amazon plant in Alabama and appeared to warn the online retail giant not to interfere. Amazon ultimately defeated the landmark union drive that would have established the company's first US union.

The pro-union moves follow on campaign pledges from Biden and also come as the coronavirus pandemic has brought many workers rights issues to the forefront.

The task force is the latest high-profile assignment given to the vice president, who has also been tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts with Central American countries to stem the flow of migrants to the US southern border.

Biden and Harris have worked to deepen their relationship since taking office and have spent five hours or more together per day in meetings at the White House, CNN has reported. Harris recently told CNN's Dana Bash that she remains the last person in the room when big decisions are made.

Harris has also molded herself as increasingly pro-union. During a trip to New Hampshire last week, she toured an IBEW training facility. She has often said unions are the reason workers have the rights they have now, including the five-day work week.

Biden mulls restoring California's authority to fight car pollution

Paul A. Eisenstein
NBC 4/26/2021

President Joe Biden is taking a key step toward restoring California’s ability to set its own limits on air pollution, overturning a move made by former President Donald Trump to undo the state's authority to set stricter regulations on auto emissions.

© Provided by NBC News

The Environmental Protection Agency said on Monday it is "seeking public input on its reconsideration of the Agency’s 2019 action titled The Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient Vehicles Rule Part One: One National Program Rule (SAFE-1) for the purposes of rescinding the action taken by the prior administration."

In a statement released Monday, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said: “I am a firm believer in California’s long-standing statutory authority to lead. The 2019 decision to revoke the state’s waiver to enforce its greenhouse gas pollution standards for cars and trucks was legally dubious and an attack on the public’s health and wellbeing."

California has long had the authority to regulate three key automotive emissions — carbon monoxide, particulates and oxides of nitrogen — and set stricter standards than those covering the rest of the country. Under former President Barack Obama, the state was given additional authority to set mandates for greenhouse gas emissions.

Since the production of CO2 is directly related to fuel consumption, the tight guidelines set by the California Air Resources Board would force a dramatic shift towards electrified vehicles, especially those running entirely on battery power or on hydrogen.

In September 2019, Trump announced his administration would overturn the waiver and also moved to roll back the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards set under Obama.

Both moves have been tied up in court since then. Biden administration officials said Monday that eliminating the California waiver “exceeded” the authority of the prior president.

The announcement comes after Biden’s proposal to halve CO2 emissions in the U.S. by 2030. A key part of that effort will be the promotion of renewable energy production and the switch to battery-electric vehicles. The American Jobs Plan would set aside $174 billion for BEVs, with much of that going to create a nationwide network of 500,000 EV charging stations.

California is far and away the largest market for electrified vehicles, especially BEVs, and Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed an executive order that would begin phasing out the sale of both retail and commercial vehicles that use gas and diesel engines.

As big as it is, California has an even more outsized impact on the auto industry as 13 other states have adopted its emissions rules. All told, they represent about 40 percent of annual U.S. new vehicle sales.

The Trump administration’s attempt to strip California’s authority to regulate CO2 emissions was backed by a number of automakers, including General Motors and Toyota, who argued that a single national standard was needed. Four companies, BMW, Ford, Honda and Volkswagen, backed the state and subsequently reached a emissions compromise plan. GM reversed course after the November 2020 presidential election and also accepted the new agreement.

The Biden administration has signaled it will announce an updated CAFE target in the coming months. Many analysts expect a new approach that could strike a balance between the EPA and California targets.

Last week, 12 U.S. governors sent a letter calling on the Biden administration to set a phased-in ban on sales of internal combustion vehicles by 2035. California, Massachusetts and Washington have already put bans on the books.

Turkey puts 108 Kurdish politicians on trial over 2014 Kobani protests

Bethan McKernan Turkey correspondent

THE GAURDIAN 4/26/2021

A soldier standing guard at the Sincan penal institutions campus in Ankara, where proceedings began on 26 April.

Turkey has put 108 Kurdish politicians on trial in what critics say is politically motivated “revenge” for their alleged roles in deadly protests in 2014 sparked by the Islamic State’s takeover of the Syrian border town of Kobani.

Proceedings on Monday got off to a tense start when defence lawyers walked out of the Ankara courtroom, alleging that some of their colleagues had not been allowed in for “arbitrary and unlawful” reasons.

The current and former members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) – 28 of whom are already in prison, including the former co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş – are charged with offences including homicide and “attacking the integrity of the state”. Prosecutors are seeking multiple life sentences and thousands of years in prison.

HDP says the Turkish police are to blame for the deadly violence.

Thirty-seven people died in protests across the mainly Kurdish south-east of the country triggered by the Isis assault on Kobani, where the vast scale of the fighting was clearly visible from the Turkish side of the border. Many in the country’s Kurdish community accused the Turkish army of standing by and allowing a massacre.

Smaller protests grew after the HDP tweeted an “urgent call” for people to take to the streets and demonstrate.

“For calling on people to protest, our members are now being accused of terrorism, and also of murder of those who died,” the HDP said in a statement as the mass trial got under way.

“This is a revenge trial,” said HDP’s co-chair Mithat Sancar.

Isis was driven out of Kobani in January 2015 by US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters that Turkey views as terrorists linked to its own Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) insurgency.

The HDP is also under attack by Ankara over alleged links to the PKK: all but two of dozens of HDP mayors have been removed from office and replaced with government-appointed trustees in the past two years, and last month state prosecutors filed a case to close down the party altogether. The suit would also bar nearly 700 of HDP’s members from playing a role in politics for five years.

The HDP defendants in Monday’s opening trial refused to respond to questions by the judge during the identification process without their lawyers present, saying their right to defence was being violated. Defendants connected via video link tapped their cameras and clapped in solidarity, a statement from the party said.

All the defence lawyers were subsequently allowed in.

“Even though we are sitting in the defendant’s seat, we represent the people’s will,” said Demirtaş, a two-time election rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and one of Turkey’s most prominent politicians.

The 48-year-old has been in jail since 2016 and faces multiple trials on terror-related charges that western governments view as part of Erdoğan’s crackdown on political dissent. In December, the European court of human rights ruled his detention was unlawful.

Agencies contributed to this report

Enraged relatives say neglect caused deadly Baghdad hospital fire

By Ahmed Rasheed and Maher Nazeh
4/26/2021

© Reuters/THAIER AL-SUDANI A member of Iraqi security forces walks at Ibn Khatib hospital after a fire caused by an oxygen tank explosion in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Fire extinguishers didn't work. Outdated medical equipment was being used. The fire alarm system in the hospital was broken.

These are the accusations being levelled by witnesses, medical staff, emergency response teams and those who lost loved ones in a fire at a COVID-19 hospital in Baghdad on Saturday that killed more than 80 people.

Iraq's latest tragedy, the result of an exploding oxygen tank, is a symptom of the mismanagement that has dogged its healthcare system for years, even at times of relative peace.

It has fuelled the anger of Iraqis who say their government and political class's inability to improve services and root out state-wide corruption ultimately ends in loss of human life.

"Everything in the hospital was old and outdated," said Mohammed Attar, three of whose relatives perished in the fire, which happened during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

© Reuters/THAIER AL-SUDANI Members of Iraqi security forces stand guard at the main entrance of Ibn Khatib hospital where a fire was sparked by an oxygen tank explosion, in Baghdad

"There is nothing good in Iraq's healthcare system."

Athar al-Maliki, who lost a family member, lamented what he said was the inability of authorities to respond to an emergency.

"Shouldn't there be ministerial-level supervision of a COVID-19 hospital in Baghdad? This is total neglect - a hospital burns and there aren't even firefighting trucks immediately available."

© Reuters/THAIER AL-SUDANI People walk at Ibn Khatib hospital after a fire caused by an oxygen tank explosion in Baghdad

Iraq's civil defence first-responder services said they had previously warned authorities of the fire risk at the hospital.

"We officially informed the hospital management and the health directorate that there were safety violations but never got a response," said Brigadier General Jawdat Abdul Rahman, a spokesman for the civil defence.

"A fire sprinkler system was not available, and there was no working fire detection system," he said. "Otherwise the fire could have been controlled in a shorter time and there would be fewer casualties."

© Reuters/THAIER AL-SUDANI A military vehicle of Iraqi security forces is seen at the main entrance of Ibn Khatib hospital where a fire was sparked by an oxygen tank explosion, in Baghdad

Four witnesses to the fire said that fire extinguishers at the hospital were not working when it began to spread.

Video: At least 82 die in Baghdad COVID hospital fire - Interior Ministry (Reuters)

Iraq's health ministry, which speaks for the country's state-run hospitals, has not responded to repeated requests for comment since the incident.

The Iraqi health minister was immediately suspended, a move which many Iraqis believe will make little difference to a healthcare system that has suffered decades of neglect.

Iraq was ravaged by war and U.N. sanctions under dictator Saddam Hussein which led to shortages of medicine and equipment. Sectarian conflict after his fall with the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the battle against Islamic State, wreaked more damage.

© Reuters/THAIER AL-SUDANI A medical staff member walks near the main entrance of Ibn Khatib hospital where a fire was sparked by an oxygen tank explosion, in Baghdad

But even in times of relative stability, Iraq has failed to expand and rebuild its healthcare system.

'CHAOS'

It has some of the lowest numbers of doctors and nurses per capita in the region, owing partly to an exodus of qualified medics over the years who have at various times been killed, kidnapped or assaulted, including in the coronavirus pandemic.

Government healthcare spending per capita is a fraction of that elsewhere in the region, and lower than the world average.

The fire at the Ibn Khatib hospital in southeastern Baghdad on Saturday brought those realities home.

"This was another blow to what's left of the limited trust in medical institution," said Ali Bayati, head of Iraq's semi-official Human Rights Commission. He said there had been few improvements made to fire response at medical centres in Iraq, despite previous such incidents.

A fire at a Baghdad maternity ward in 2016 killed 13 babies, with emergency response teams slow to end the blaze, he said.

"To have such an incident repeated years later means that still no (sufficient) measures have been taken to prevent them," he said.

A doctor who worked briefly at Ibn Khatib said he left to go to another hospital because of conditions there, describing it as "chaos".

"It was hell not only for patients but doctors, too," the doctor said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of being dismissed by the health ministry. "The hospital pharmacy only had paracetamols and simple antibiotic pills."

Wafa al-Shammari of the Iraqi parliament's health committee is among those investigating the fire.

"How can a major coronavirus hospital in Baghdad lack safety measures? Why this disregard for human life?" she said.

The government has vowed to hold those responsible to account.

Those who lost loved ones say that is of little comfort.

"He was in the hospital for 25 days. He was meant to be discharged and go home the next day (Sunday)," said 23-year-old Mohammed Ali, whose uncle died in the blaze. "They said, he's fine now, he's recovered and can leave."

(Reporting by Amina Ismail, Ahmed Rasheed, Maher Nazeh, Thaier al-Sudani, Baghdad newsroom; writing by John Davison, Editing by William Maclean)

Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, rights watchdog says

Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem

THE GUARDIAN

4/25/2021

Human Rights Watch has accused Israeli officials of committing the crimes of apartheid and persecution, claiming the government enforces an overarching policy to “maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians”

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

In a report released on Tuesday, the New York-based advocacy group became the first major international rights body to level such allegations. It said that after decades of warnings that an entrenched hold over Palestinian life could lead to apartheid, it had found that the “threshold” had been crossed.

“This is the starkest finding Human Rights Watch has reached on Israeli conduct in the 30 years we’ve been documenting abuses on the ground there,” said Omar Shakir, the group’s Israel and Palestine director. Shakir said his organisation had never before directly accused Israeli officials of crimes against humanity.

Responding to the claims, Israel’s foreign ministry accused Human Rights Watch of a “longstanding anti-Israeli agenda” and said the report was a “propaganda pamphlet” that had “no connection to facts or reality on the ground”.

“The fictional claims that HRW concocted are both preposterous and false,” it said.

The report drew on years of human rights documentation, analysis of Israeli laws, a review of government planning documents, and statements by officials.

Human Rights Watch compared policies and practices towards nearly 7 million Palestinians in the occupied territories and within Israel with those concerning roughly the same number of Jewish Israelis living in the same areas.

It concluded there was a “present-day reality of a single authority, the Israeli government … methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the occupied territory.”

First used in relation to South Africa’s racist segregation against non-white citizens, apartheid – which is Afrikaans for “apartness” – is a crime against humanity under internationa

Under the 1998 Rome statute that established the international criminal court (ICC), apartheid is defined as an “institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other” with the intent of “maintaining that regime”. Persecution, which is also a crime against humanity, is defined as “the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights” of a group of people.

Human Rights Watch said that inside Israel – where about a fifth of the 9 million citizens are Palestinians – and in the occupied territories, authorities had sought to maximise the land available for Jewish communities and concentrate most Palestinians in dense population centres.

“The authorities have adopted policies to mitigate what they have openly described as a demographic ‘threat’ from Palestinians,” it said, referencing concerns expressed by Israeli politicians that a majority Palestinian population would endanger the Jewish state. “In Jerusalem, for example, the government’s plan for the municipality … sets the goal of ‘maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the city’ and even specifies the demographic ratios it hopes to maintain.”© Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images Israeli soldiers patrol the ‘separation barrier’ in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.

It said Israeli authorities “systematically discriminate against Palestinians”. This was most extreme in the occupied territories, it said, including the West Bank, which Israel captured in the six-day war in 1967. Several hundred thousand Israeli settlers now live there as citizens while about 2.7 million Palestinians are not and live under military rule.

Human Rights Watch’s executive director, Kenneth Roth, said this was not simply “an abusive occupation”. “These policies, which grant Jewish Israelis the same rights and privileges wherever they live and discriminate against Palestinians to varying degrees wherever they live, reflect a policy to privilege one people at the expense of another,” Roth said.

When similar allegations have been raised in the past, Israel has taken particular offence to the claim it discriminates against Palestinian citizens of the country, also known as Arab Israelis. It cites equal rights laws and the fact that Arabs are represented in government and the judicial system.

Regarding the occupied West Bank, Israel points to agreements signed in the 1990s that afforded Palestinians limited self-rule there. However, Human Rights Watch says the Israeli government still “retains primary control over many aspects” of their lives, including borders, natural resources and movement of people and goods.

Meanwhile, about 2 million Palestinians live under a strict blockade in Gaza. Israeli forces pulled out of Gaza in 2005 but still maintain control of its borders, sea and airspace.

The report follows similar findings by Israeli rights bodies, including a January announcement by B’Tselem that claimed the country was not a democracy but an “apartheid regime”. One other domestic group, Yesh Din, published a legal opinion last summer in which it argued that apartheid was being committed, but limited its findings to the West Bank. Israel strongly rejected those claims.

A shift in perception towards apartheid is part of a movement led by activists that gained momentum following Israeli annexation threats they claim prove the occupation is permanent, as well as laws that enshrine extra political rights for Jews over Arabs, two developments that Human Rights Watch cited in its report.

It called on the ICC prosecutor to “investigate and prosecute those credibly implicated” and called for sanctions including travel bans and asset freezes on responsible officials, without naming them.

Last year the same rights group found that abuses by the Myanmar government against Rohingya Muslims also amounted to the crimes of apartheid and persecution.

WHY THERE IS A REFUGEE CRISIS

U.S. slaps sanctions on Guatemalan officials in corruption crackdown

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on a member of Guatemala's Congress and a former presidential chief of staff in the country over alleged corruption, as Washington presses a number of Central American governments to crack down on graft.

© Reuters/JOSE CABEZAS FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden's special envoy for the Northern Triangle Ricardo Zuniga walks during a news conference

The move was announced hours before U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was due to meet with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei to discuss an increase in Central American migration that has led to a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a statement, the U.S. Treasury Department said it had blacklisted Felipe Alejos Lorenzana, an elected delegate in Guatemala's Congress, and Gustavo Adolfo Alejos Cambara, who was chief of staff under former President Alvaro Colom.

"These sanctions support efforts by the people of Guatemala to end the scourge of corruption, as part of the U.S. government’s commitment to support improvements in governance in Guatemala," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a separate statement.

A senior U.S. official last week said the Biden Administration is considering creating a task force of officials from the U.S. Justice and State Departments and other agencies to help local prosecutors fight corruption in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

Ricardo Zuniga, U.S. special envoy to the three Central American nations, also told reporters the U.S. government has authority from the U.S. Congress to craft lists of officials in the region who are involved in corruption, revoke their travel visas and impose financial sanctions on them.

Guatemalan lawmakers recently refused to swear in a corruption-fighting judge, Constitutional Court President Gloria Porras, whom U.S. officials had seen as key to the country's fight against graft.

Monday's move, which Washington said was taken in coordination with the United Kingdom, freezes any U.S. assets of those blacklisted and generally bars Americans from dealing with them.

Blinken said Gustavo Alejos and Felipe Alejos "sought to interfere with the judicial selection process for appointing magistrates to Guatemala’s Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) and Court of Appeals."

He said the two attempted to influence the selection process for magistrates to both courts and to secure judicial rulings that would protect Gustavo Alejos and CSJ judges from corruption prosecutions.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis; Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Paul Simao and Dan Grebler)

WAIT, WHAT?

Robert Fripp, Toyah Willcox Drift Into Space Rock With Hawkwind’s ‘Silver Machine’

Angie Martoccio

ROLLING STONE

4/26/2021

© Youtube

Yep, Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox are back with another quarantine video — this time a cover of Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine.”

The husband-and-wife duo is supported by their usual mysterious guitarist Sidney Jake, who hovers behind them in a gold mask. Willcox tears through the 1972 space rock track covered in body paint and surrounded by bubbles, as the King Crimson guitarist casually sits next to her.

Robert Fripp, Toyah Willcox Go Heavy Metal With Cover of Judas Priest's 'Breaking the Law'

Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox on Their Viral Quarantine Videos: 'We're in This With You'

“Silver Machine” follows last week’s cover of the Rolling Stone’s “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Fripp and Willcox’s Sunday Lunch series previously featured renditions of Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law,” Iron Maiden’s “The Number of the Beast,” and many more.

“The one thing that kept coming back to us was that people were desperately lonely,” Willcox told Rolling Stone last month. “All these messages were coming back from people going, ‘Thank you — I was on the brink.’ And you say, ‘Well, the brink of what?’ ‘The brink of not being able to continue.’ We realized that if we kept posting these with a continuity, we were saying we’re not in some big mansion somewhere, drinking champagne and laughing it off. We’re actually in this with you and we’re sharing this with you. We realized we could still be the performers that connect with our audience.”

REST IN POWER

Calgary theatre community is mourning the loss of award-winning winning Calgary playwright Sharon Pollock dead at 85

Duration: 01:50

NBA Players Kevin Durant and Mike Conley Win at Oscars for Short Film About Police Brutality

Jason Duaine Hahn
4/26/2021

Brooklyn Nets player Kevin Durant and Mike Conley of the Utah Jazz were part of a team of executive producers of Two Distant Strangers, a short film about policy brutality that won big at the 93rd Academy Awards.

The film, directed by Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe, took home the honors for Best Live-Action Short on Sunday night. It follows Black cartoonist Carter James, who is killed by police while walking home after sleeping over with a date.

After James is killed, he ends up back where he started that morning, only to relive the day's events again and again in a time loop.

"From the minute we saw the script for this project, we knew it had the potential to be very powerful and we wanted to be involved," Durant told Slam Magazine earlier this year. "Getting to see it come to life on the screen was an intense experience."

RELATED: Kobe Bryant Is an Oscar Winner! The Ex-NBA Star Wins for Short Film Dear Basketball

"I also had the opportunity to screen it for my teammates and coaches at the Nets, and I think everyone came away with the same feeling that I did that the film is telling a really important story about the Black experience, but in a way that is real and raw and not at all preachy," Durant added.

Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty; Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Two Distant Strangers is a short film about policy brutality that won at Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday night

RELATED: LeBron James Says He's 'Honored' After Being Named TIME's Athlete of the Year

The film stars rapper Joey Bada$$, Andrew Howard and Zaria Simone.

After Two Distant Strangers won the Oscar, Durant reacted on Twitter, writing "Big time!" in a post.

Conley told Slam in February of the film, "I think that's huge to kind of show that visually for the general public and people to [help them] understand what my uncles and my grandparents taught me, like sometimes when you get pulled over you just pray, man."

"There's nothing you can do sometimes [but] just pray that everything comes out right like you can show your identity you can do everything you want to do in the right manner and still get shot or have something come out of that," Conley continued. "So it's just, it was a great way of portraying it and allowing I think all of us to kind of exhale a little bit that we have this film to be able to show all those examples."

Durant and Conley may be able to celebrate the win on the basketball court later this year — the Nets and Jazz are currently the top seeds in the Eastern and Western conferences and look to be favorites to meet in the NBA Finals in July.

Ronnie James Dio’s Black Sabbath Years to Serve as Focus of New Book

Kory Grow

ROLLING STONE

4/26/2021

© Fin Costello/Redferns/Getty Images

A new book, Sabbath: The Dio Years, will offer a deeper look at singer Ronnie James Dio’s tenure with Black Sabbath.

The coffee table tome will cover the vocalist’s full experience with the musicians, from joining the band before the Heaven and Hell album in 1979 to his period in the rebranded Heaven and Hell band, up until his death. It runs more than 400 pages, according to Classic Rock. The book, which features new interviews with guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler, is scheduled to start shipping in early September.