AS BITCOIN CRASHES
Crypto comes to Washington. Will the millions buy influence?
By BRIAN SLODYSKO and FATIMA HUSSEIN

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 Indiana state Sen. Erin Houchin, R-Salem, left, speaks with Sen. Eric Koch, R-Bedford during a legislative hearing at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis on Aug. 21, 2021. American Dream Federal Action, a super PAC financed by a cryptocurrency CEO, saturated the district with ads promoting Houchin as a “Trump Tough” conservative who would “stop the socialists in Washington.” That push helped secure her win last week in a Republican primary. 

(Kelly Wilkinson/The Indianapolis Star via AP, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Erin Houchin braced for the worst when a mysterious, well-financed group started buying television ads last month in her highly competitive southern Indiana congressional race.

Houchin assumed she would face a negative blitz, like the one that crushed her in 2016 when she ran for the same seat. But, in fact, the opposite happened.

American Dream Federal Action, a super political action committee financed by a cryptocurrency CEO, saturated the district with ads promoting Houchin as a “Trump Tough” conservative who would “stop the socialists in Washington.” That push helped secure her victory last week in a Republican primary.

“All you can do is hold your breath,” Houchin’s longtime consultant, Cam Savage, said upon learning about the ad buy. “It could help you, but the fear is it will end you.” He said Houchin had not sought the support and had no ties to the industry other than filling out a candidate survey from a cryptocurrency group.

The impact of the unsolicited help shows how cryptocurrency tycoons are emerging as political power players. They are pouring millions of dollars into primary elections as they try to gain influence over members of Congress, Republican and Democrat, who will write laws governing their industry, as well as other government officials who are crafting regulations.

This year, for the first time, industry executives have flooded money into congressional races, spending $20 million so far, according to records and interviews.

It’s a delicate but deliberate march by companies that by their very nature make money based in part on evading government attention.

In addition to campaign spending, more than $100 million has been spent lobbying around the issue since 2018 by crypto companies, as well as those who stand to lose if the industry goes mainstream, records show.

Following a well-worn path, they have retained former high-ranking officials such as Max Baucus, a former Democratic senator from Montana who once led the Senate Finance Committee.

The push comes as the Biden administration and Congress not only consider new regulations but also set funding levels for agencies that will oversee the industry.

Officials are considering what consumer protections and financial reporting requirements to put in place and how to crack down on criminals who take advantage of the anonymity offered by cryptocurrency to evade taxes, launder money and commit fraud.

“What do they want? They want no regulation, or they want to help write the regulation. What else is new?” asked Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, an industry critic.

Cryptocurrencies are a digital asset that can be traded over the internet without relying on the global banking system. They have been promoted as a way for those with limited means to build wealth by investing in the next big thing. But they also are highly speculative and often lack transparency, which substantially increases risk.

The price of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ethereum plunged Thursday, shedding billions in value, while Coinbase, the largest crypto trading platform in the U.S., has lost half its value over the past week.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday that the turmoil underscores the need for regulation of the largely unregulated industry.

“We’ve had a real-life demonstration of the risks,” she told the House Financial Services Committee.

Jan Santiago, deputy director of Global Anti-Scam, an organization that helps victims of cryptocurrency fraud, said the industry has been reluctant to police bad actors.

“Unless it affects their bottom line or public reputation, I don’t think there’s any financial incentive for them,” he said.

There are signs that crypto is going mainstream. Fidelity Investments, one of the nation’s largest providers of retirement accounts, announced earlier this month it will start allowing investors to put bitcoin in their 401(k) accounts.

At the same time, government scrutiny is increasing.

The Securities and Exchange Commission released a plan last week that would nearly double the size of its staff focused on cryptocurrency oversight. Days later, the Justice Department indicted the CEO of a cryptocurrency platform, alleging he orchestrated a “$62 million global investment fraud scheme,” among scores of civil and criminal crypto cases brought by federal authorities. Prosecutors say he promised generous returns but instead absconded with investors’ money.

Members of Congress and the administration have raised concerns that Russian oligarchs could turn to cryptocurrency to evade U.S. sanctions put in place when Russia invaded Ukraine.

But at least one lawmaker has been an active participant in promoting the allure of crypto riches.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., promoted a new crypto coin called “Let’s Go Brandon” — a phrase that has become conservative shorthand for a vulgar insult of President Joe Biden. In one video posted to Twitter, Cawthorn appears alongside the cryptocurrency’s founder and emphatically declares, “This is going to the moon, baby,” while urging viewers to visit the coin’s website and “get on the train.”

After an initial spike, it plunged in value and is now worth a small fraction of a penny, as first reported by the Washington Examiner.

Cryptocurrency advocates in Congress acknowledge problems but argue the roughly $2 trillion industry has matured.

“I’m confident that bitcoin protects consumers,” said Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., who has invested between $150,002 and $350,000 in the currency, according to her financial disclosure. “I’m not confident that all cryptocurrencies protect consumers. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the majority of those are fraudulent.”

Others believe concern over cryptocurrency fraud is overhyped.

“It can be an easy conclusion for people to say there’s so much fraud in that space,” said Ashley Ebersole, a former SEC lawyer. “It makes headlines, but I don’t know that it’s a greater proportion.”

In Washington, Democrats have been far more hawkish than Republicans. “They had me at ‘Hello,’ so they don’t need to lobby me,” said Lummis, a Republican. “Democrats are another story.”

Many cryptocurrency proponents long opposed regulation. But lobbyists say that is now a settled debate and their current aim is to persuade skeptics not to regulate too aggressively.

Perianne Boring, founder of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, has been lobbying lawmakers and federal agencies since 2017, trying to make the case for developing accounting standards for cryptocurrency and other digital assets and to help crypto businesses become publicly traded companies.

“Because there are no standards, many businesses are hesitant to touch cryptocurrency,” said Boring, whose group has spent nearly $2 million lobbying the federal government.

Some lobbyists are hoping that a wave of campaign spending could help, much of it directed to Democratic primary races.

“Folks in crypto are, all of a sudden, happy to go to political fundraisers,” said Kristin Smith, the executive director of the Blockchain Association. Smith’s group has spent about $4 million on lobbying since 2018. “The government could actually come in and really mess it up if we aren’t constructively engaging.”

So the industry is pushing hard for certain candidates and that has fostered a sense of resentment among some Democrats. In suburban Atlanta, two members of the U.S. House, Democrats Carolyn Bourdeaux and Lucy McBath, are squaring off after their districts were merged during redistricting.

A super PAC called Protect Our Future, financed by Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old billionaire founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has spent about $2 million on ads supporting McBath, highlighting her support of Democratic policy priorities but saying nothing about cryptocurrency.

“They are not doing this out of the goodness of their heart. They are doing this because they want something. And that’s to avoid regulation,” Bourdeaux said.

FTX and McBath’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Protect Our Future, which plans to spend at least an additional $10 million on primary campaigns, said their expenditures have nothing to do with cryptocurrency regulation.

“There are a number of factors that go into our endorsements, including voting history, policy platforms, viability as a candidate, and public service and professional experience,” the group’s president, Michael Sadowsky, said in a statement.

Crypto super PACs are active in other marquee races, including Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senate primary, where a separate crypto group linked to Bankman-Fried spent $212,000 last week on ads backing John Fetterman, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor who is running for Senate. The ads say Fetterman will not “get schmoozed by lobbyists or bossed around by politicians.”

But overall, the spending is on such a scale that it has generated questions about the industry’s motives.

“It tells every Democrat that, if you have a primary, they could come in with $2 million. They are certainly making a point,” said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., a crypto critic who is chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee tasked with investor protection. “You don’t need a good argument in Washington if you got a lot of well-paid lobbyists and a big PAC — you just need some sort of argument.”

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KILL A WORKER GO TO JAIL

Report: Trump officials, meat companies knew workers at risk

By JOSH FUNK

In this May 7, 2020 file photo, workers leave the Tyson Foods pork processing plant in Logansport, Ind. At the height of the pandemic, the meat processing industry worked closely with political appointees in the Trump administration to stave off health restrictions and keep processing plants open even as COVID-19 spread rapidly among workers, according to a new Congressional report released Thursday, May 12, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)


OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — At the height of the pandemic, the meat processing industry worked closely with political appointees in the Trump administration to stave off health restrictions and keep slaughterhouses open even as COVID-19 spread rapidly among workers, according to a Congressional report released Thursday.

The report by the House’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis said meat companies pushed to keep their plants open even though they knew workers were at high risk of catching the virus. The lobbying led to health and labor officials watering down their recommendations for the industry and culminated in an executive order President Donald Trump issued in the spring of 2020 designating meat plants as critical infrastructure that needed to remain open.

Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, who leads the subcommittee, said USDA officials and the industry prioritized production and profits over the health of workers and communities as at least 59,000 workers caught the virus and 269 workers died.

“The shameful conduct of corporate executives pursuing profit at any cost during a crisis and government officials eager to do their bidding regardless of resulting harm to the public must never be repeated,” Clyburn said.

Former Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who now leads the University System of Georgia, declined to comment Thursday. A spokesman for the university system said Perdue is focused on “serving the students of Georgia.”

The report is based on communications between industry executives, lobbyists and USDA officials and other documents the committee received from government agencies, Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods, JBS, Cargill, National Beef, Hormel and other companies. Those firms control 85% of the beef market and 70% of pork production nationwide.

The North American Meat Institute trade group said the report distorts the truth and ignores the steps companies took as they spent billions of dollars to retool plants and purchase protective gear for workers.

“The House Select Committee has done the nation a disservice,” the trade group’s President and CEO Julie Anna Potts said. “The Committee could have tried to learn what the industry did to stop the spread of COVID among meat and poultry workers, reducing positive cases associated with the industry while cases were surging across the country. Instead, the Committee uses 20/20 hindsight and cherry picks data to support a narrative that is completely unrepresentative of the early days of an unprecedented national emergency.”

One of the major unions that represents workers at the processing plants condemned the way the Trump administration helped the meat industry.

“We only wish that the Trump Administration cared as much about the lives of working people as it did about meat, pork and poultry products, when we wanted poultry plants to shut down for deep cleaning and to save workers’ lives,” said Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.

The report said meat companies were slow to take measures to protect workers from the virus and pushed to make government recommendations to require masks to be worn, install dividers between work stations and encourage social distancing in their plants optional.

But JBS spokeswoman Nikki Richardson said the company “did everything possible to ensure the safety of our people who kept our critical food supply chain running.”

Tyson Foods spokesman Gary Mickelson echoed that sentiment and said Tyson has worked closely with both the Trump and Biden administrations, along with state and local officials, to respond to the pandemic’s challenges.

Smithfield spokesman Jim Monroe said the industry reacted quickly, and Smithfield has spent more than $900 million so far to protect workers. He said it was appropriate for meat companies to share their concerns with government officials as the pandemic unfolded.

But the report cited a message that a Koch Foods executive sent a lobbyist in the spring of 2020 that said the industry shouldn’t do more than screen employees’ temperatures at the door of plants. The lobbyist agreed and said “Now to get rid of those pesky health departments!”

To that end, the report said USDA officials — at the behest of meat companies — tried to use Trump’s executive order to stop state and local health officials from ordering plant shutdowns.

Even with those efforts, U.S. meat production still fell to about 60% of normal during the spring of 2020 because a number of major plants were forced to temporarily close for deep cleaning, widespread testing and safety upgrades or operated at slower speeds because of worker shortages. Companies took action to close plants in consultation with health officials after outbreaks were confirmed.

“Throughout the pandemic we’ve worked hard to maintain safe and consistent operations. At the same time, we have not hesitated to temporarily idle or reduce capacity at processing plants when we determined it necessary to do so,” Cargill spokesman Daniel Sullivan said.

Documents uncovered by the committee showed that meat companies pushed hard for the executive order partly because they believed it will help shield them from liability if workers got sick or died — something a federal appeals court later rejected in a lawsuit against Tyson over worker deaths at an Iowa plant. Emails show that the companies themselves submitted a draft of the executive order to the administration days before it was issued.

Early on in the pandemic, meat companies knew the virus was spreading rapidly among their workers because infection rates were much higher in the plants and their surrounding communities. The report said that in April 2020, a doctor at a hospital near a JBS plant in Cactus, Texas, told the company and government officials in an email that there was clearly a major outbreak at the plant because every COVID-19 patient at the hospital either worked at the plant or was related to a worker. “Your employees will get sick and may die if this factory remains open,” the doctor warned.

The report also highlighted the way meat companies aggressively pushed back against government safety recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That led to the final guidance including language that effectively made the rules optional because it said the recommendations should be done “if feasible” or “where possible.”

___

The story has been updated to correct the spelling of Former Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s last name on the first reference.

OUTLAW THE DEATH PENALTY
Arizona carries out first execution since 2014

2022/5/11 
© Agence France-Press

Washington (AFP) - A Native American man convicted of murdering a college student more than four decades ago was put to death Wednesday in Arizona, marking the southwestern US state's first execution since 2014.

Clarence Dixon, 66, received a lethal injection in Florence State Prison and was pronounced dead at 10:30 am (1730 GMT), the state department of corrections said.

He became the sixth person executed this year in the United States, according to the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center.

His lawyers had filed multiple appeals, arguing their client, who was blind, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and did not know why he faced capital punishment.

"Mr. Dixon really doesn't understand the claim because he lives in his head... He lives in these alternate realities," lawyer Eric Zuckerman said Tuesday at a hearing before a San Francisco court, which rejected his appeal.

A final request for a stay of execution was denied on Wednesday by the US Supreme Court.

Dixon stabbed, raped and strangled 21-year old student Deana Bowdoin in Tempe in January 1978, just days after being found not guilty of a different attack because of his psychological state.

Later he was sentenced to life in prison for a separate sexual assault in 1986, and through DNA testing he was linked to and convicted of Bowdoin's killing.

In his last words, Dixon said, "Maybe I'll see you on the other side Deana. I don't know you and I don't remember you," according to NBC news, which was quoting a reporter from another news outlet who witnessed the execution.

Another media representative said Dixon gasped when he was injected with the drugs but did not move otherwise, NBC reported.

The execution was Arizona's first after an eight-year hiatus following the botched execution of an inmate who suffered agonizing convulsions for two hours as he was injected with 15 doses of a chemical cocktail before he died.

Doubts about the legality of lethal injections -- suspected of causing unlawful suffering -- abound, and pharmaceutical companies have begun refusing to supply the chemicals, leading to a sharp nationwide decline in executions.

Officials in Arizona, where 113 prisoners including Dixon are on death row, have also authorized the gas chamber for carrying out capital punishment.

Arizona prison authorities are considering using hydrogen cyanide, the main component of Zyklon-B, a chemical infamously associated with the Holocaust.

Dixon was offered a choice of lethal injection or the gas chamber. His silence meant he was due to be given a lethal injection.

Arizona has set June 8 for the execution of Frank Atwood, sentenced to death in 1987 for the murder of an eight-year-old girl. He has been given two weeks to choose between lethal injection or being gassed with deadly chemicals.

Hundreds of Native American children died in abusive US-run schools

2022/5/11 14:50 (EDT)
© Agence France-Presse

The entrance to the former Genoa US Indian School in Nebraska, where researchers say at least 87 Native American children died

Washington (AFP) - More than 500 Native American children died in US government-run boarding schools at which students were physically abused and denied food, a report from the Department of the Interior said Wednesday.

"Approximately 19 Federal Indian boarding schools accounted for over 500 American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian child deaths," said the report, which followed an investigation ordered after similar abuses in Canada sparked widespread outrage last summer.

"The Department expects that continued investigation will reveal the approximate number of Indian children who died at Federal Indian boarding schools to be in the thousands or tens of thousands," it said.

There are marked or unmarked burial sites at more than 50 locations, out of a total of more than 400 that made up the Federal Indian boarding school system between 1819 and 1969, according to the report. It describes abusive punishments imposed at the schools, but does not specifically link them to the deaths.

"Federal Indian boarding school rules were often enforced through punishment, including corporal punishment such as solitary confinement; flogging; withholding food; whipping; slapping; and cuffing. The Federal Indian boarding school system at times made older Indian children punish younger Indian children," the report said.

Children in the boarding school system were not only abused, but taught skills that ill-prepared them for life after graduation.

The system "focused on manual labor and vocational skills that left American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian graduates with employment options often irrelevant to the industrial US economy, further disrupting Tribal economies," the report said.

A statement released along with the report said the school system had the "twin goals of cultural assimilation and territorial dispossession of Indigenous peoples through the forced removal and relocation of their children."

'Scarred for life'

Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who ordered the investigation that led to the report, condemned the traumatic impact on Native Americans that the boarding school system caused.

"The consequences of federal Indian boarding school policies -- including the intergenerational trauma caused by the family separation and cultural eradication inflicted upon generations of children as young as four years old -- are heartbreaking and undeniable," Haaland said in the statement.

Deborah Parker, of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, highlighted the devastating long-term consequences of the schools.

"After generations, we still do not know how many children attended. How many children died... how many children were permanently scarred for life because of these federal institutions," Parker told a news conference.

"Our children deserve to be found, our children deserve to be brought home. We are here for their justice. And we will not stop advocating until the United States fully accounts for the genocide committed against Native children," she added.

Canada is also grappling with the legacy of abuse and neglect at its schools for Indigenous children.

Thousands died at the schools, and many were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, according to an investigative commission that concluded the Canadian government engaged in "cultural genocide."

Biden administration scraps 3 offshore oil and gas lease sales in Alaska, Gulf of Mexico

Ella Lee, USA TODAY
Thu, May 12, 2022, 


The Biden administration has announced it will ax three planned oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's Cook Inlet, effectively halting the potential to sell drilling leases in coastal waters this year, several media outlets report.

Department of Interior spokesperson Melissa Schwartz told USA TODAY the decision comes because of a mix of reasons, including lack of interest from oil companies and legal obstacles.

The department "will not move forward" with the sale in Alaska's Cook Inlet "due to a lack of industry interest in leasing in the area," and the department won't hold two sales in the Gulf of Mexico “as a result of delays due to factors including conflicting court rulings that impacted work on these proposed lease sales,” Schwartz said.

The planned sales were the last to be held under a five-year plan for leasing in federal waters that expires in June, according to Reuters. The Biden administration is prepared to let it lapse without a new program in place.

The announcement comes as gas prices nationwide reach a record high. The average price for regular gas in the U.S. was $4.37 a gallon on Tuesday, beating the previous record set in early March shortly after Russia started its invasion of Ukraine.

In recent weeks, Biden has said the U.S. will step up to supply Europe with gas in an effort to decrease global dependency on Russian energy. But the action on leases does fall in line with Biden's campaign promise to tackle climate change more aggressively.

Kristen Monsell, Oceans Program legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the lease in Cook Inlet would have opened up drilling in an area home to critically endangered beluga whales and was predicted to result in hundreds of oil spills over the 40 years of drilling the lease sale would have permitted.

"I’m glad Cook Inlet belugas won’t be forced to face even more oil drilling in their only habitats, but much more must be done to protect these endangered whales from offshore drilling,” Monsell said. “To save imperiled marine life and protect coastal communities and our climate from pollution, we need to end new leasing and phase out existing drilling.”

Drew Caputo, vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife and oceans for Earthjustice, told CBS News it could be more than a decade before the planned leases affect gas prices.

"It's good for the climate, which can't handle new oil and gas development," Caputo said. "It's good for Cook Inlet because offshore drilling is dangerous and disruptive. And it's good for the people of Cook Inlet, including native people, who cherish the inlet in its natural state. So it's a really good thing."

Fossil fuel advocates disagree.

Frank Macchairola, a top official with the American Petroleum Institute, slammed the Biden administration for canceling the Cook Inlet lease, calling it "another example of the administration's lack of commitment to oil and gas development in the U.S.," according to CBS.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Berg noted the nation's already record-high gas prices in a statement, adding, "Democrats seem intent on making the problem worse.”

More than 1 million acres would have been covered under the Alaska lease. Lease sales in the area were canceled in 2006, 2008 and 2010, and lack of industry interest was cited at that time as well, according to The Hill.

UK govt accused of 'cover-up' over Russian-born press baron


Joe JACKSON
Thu, 12 May 2022


UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed his friend Evgeny Lebedev, who owns the London Evening Standard and Independent newspapers, to the House of Lords 

(AFP/JUSTIN TALLIS)

The UK government was accused Thursday of a "cover-up" after refusing to release security advice issued about the controversial 2020 appointment of a Russian-born newspaper baron to parliament.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government cited "the need to protect national security" for withholding the advice it received about granting a peerage to Evgeny Lebedev.

Opposition parties have demanded more transparency over the role Johnson played in appointing his friend Lebedev -- whose father was a KGB officer -- to the House of Lords.

MPs earlier this year approved a motion seeking to force ministers to release sensitive documents related to the nomination to the upper house of parliament.

But in response the government released only a handful -- including the blank form Lebedev needed to complete for the peerage -- which shed virtually no light on the security considerations.

Minister Michael Ellis said the limited disclosure "reflects the need to protect national security" and to "maintain integrity" in the honours system.

But the deputy leader of the main opposition Labour party decried the decision.

"This looks like a cover-up and smells like a cover-up because it is a cover-up," Angela Rayner said.

Lebedev's peerage has long proved controversial for Johnson, who since Russia's invasion of Ukraine has vowed to turn the taps off the Russian money that has flooded into Britain in recent years.

The Sunday Times has reported he was warned by Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6 against granting Lebedev the peerage before the November 2020 approval, but pressed ahead anyway.

- 'Normal' -

MI6 had flagged security concerns about the owner of London's Evening Standard newspaper as long as a decade ago, and the then head of MI6 had refused to meet him, it reported.

Johnson's friendship with the Russian-born businessman dates back to his eight years as mayor of London from 2008.

Lebedev, who has British citizenship and also owns the Independent newspaper, denied in March that he was a security risk or "some agent of Russia".

Johnson has come under wider pressure to explain Russian donations to his ruling Conservatives, as London has stepped up sanctions against Russia.

On Thursday, he denied any impropriety after the New York Times reported that one of his party's biggest donors is accused of secretly funnelling large sums to it from a Russian account.

The newspaper said Barclays Bank had raised suspicions about the source of a 2018 donation of $630,225 -- at the time worth £450,000 -- from Ehud Sheleg, a wealthy London art dealer who was the Conservative Party's treasurer from 2018 to 2021.

It cited documents filed by the bank with UK authorities that alleged the money had originated in a Russian account of Sheleg's father-in-law, Sergei Kopytov.

Kopytov was once a senior politician in the previously pro-Kremlin government of Ukraine who now owns businesses in Russian-occupied Crimea and Russia, the report added.

Sheleg denied to the paper that his father-in-law funded the donation.

Meanwhile Johnson insisted all donations "are registered in the normal way".

"To give donations to a political party in this country, you've got to be from the UK," he added.

jj/phz/har

'We won't get by': Dilemma for French farmers facing drought

Water the wheat now or save water for the maize? In the Loiret, in north-central France as elsewhere in the Loire Valley, farmers are suffering from the springtime drought and worry about the difficult choices ahead if the rain doesn't come.

Top Turkey court upholds jail for opposition figure


The top court on Thursday approved Kaftancioglu's (C) conviction on three counts with a prison term of four years, 11 months and 20 days

 (AFP/BULENT KILIC) (BULENT KILIC)

Fulya OZERKAN
Thu, May 12, 2022, 

Turkey's supreme court of appeals on Thursday upheld a prison sentence for the head of the Istanbul branch of the country's main opposition party, a party official told AFP, in a move seen as another crackdown on opponents ahead of next year's presidential election.

In 2019, Canan Kaftancioglu, 50, of the secular Republican People's Party (CHP), was sentenced to nearly 10 years in jail on a range of charges including "terrorist propaganda" and insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The charges related mostly to tweets Kaftancioglu posted between 2012 and 2017. She had been free pending the appeals.

The top court on Thursday approved her conviction on three counts with a prison term of four years, 11 months and 20 days.

It was not immediately clear if the ruling means Kaftancioglu will be jailed right away.

The CHP is the second largest party in the Turkish parliament, holding 135 seats.

CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu called on his lawmakers to head to the party's Istanbul headquarters.

"All lawmakers of our party, immediately set off for our Istanbul provincial headquarters," he tweeted right after the ruling.

Kaftancioglu, a doctor by profession, played a key role in the shock victory of the CHP's Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in 2019 -- the first time Erdogan's party had lost power in Turkey's biggest city for 25 years.

Kaftancioglu "is my comrade with whom we are striding together to change Istanbul," Imamoglu tweeted.

"I find this decision political and condemn it. I stand by our chairwoman."

-'Revenge'-

Rights groups regularly accuse Erdogan of using the judiciary as a political tool, particularly after thousands of judges were purged in the wake of an attempted coup in 2016.

Erdogan railed against Kaftancioglu after she was appointed to the Istanbul chair in 2016.

"Erdogan doubles down on suppression as (he) loses ground amid growing economic pressure in the country," Seren Selvin Korkmaz of Istanbul-based think tank IstanPol Institute commented.

"#Kaftancioglu is a rising figure within the #CHP and frequent government target ... The (ruling AKP party) tries to take revenge of losing Istanbul by sending her to prison."

Kaftancioglu vowed not to give in when she was convicted in 2019.

"They think they can scare us but we will continue to speak," she said back then.

Among the tweets used by the prosecution against Kaftancioglu was one in which she criticised the death of a 14-year-old boy hit by a tear gas grenade during the mass "Gezi Park" protests of 2013.

The latest ruling comes on the heels of a life sentence handed by an Istanbul court to another Erdogan critic and activist, Osman Kavala, last month.

A leading figure in Turkey's civil society, the 64-year-old Kavala was accused of attempting to topple Erdogan's government by financing the 2013 protests.

fo/gw

Israel approves over 4,000 new settler homes: Rights group

AP , Thursday 12 May 2022

Israel advanced plans for the construction of more than 4,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, a rights group said, a day after the military demolished homes in an area where hundreds of Palestinians face the threat of expulsion.

ZIONIST APARTHEID 

A Palestinian home sits in a valley, located next to the east Jerusalem Israeli settlement of Pisgat Ze ev, 

Thursday, May 12, 2022. AP

It was a jolting illustration of Israel's policies in the territory it has occupied for nearly 55 years. Critics, including three major human rights groups, say those policies amount to apartheid, a charge Israel rejects as an attack on its very legitimacy.

Hagit Ofran, an expert at the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now, told The Associated Press that a military planning body approved 4,427 housing units at a meeting on Thursday that she attended. ``The state of Israel took another stumble toward the abyss and further deepened the occupation,'' she tweeted.

Spokespeople for the Israeli government and the military body in charge of civilian affairs in the West Bank did not respond to requests for comment.

It's the biggest advancement of settlement projects since the Biden administration took office. The White House opposes settlement construction and views it as an obstacle to any eventual peace agreement with the Palestinians.

There was no immediate comment from the administration on Thursday's decision. But last week, when the first reports emerged of the impending settlement approval, State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter reiterated that the U.S. ``strongly'' opposes settlement expansion.

Most of the international community considers the settlements illegal and supports a two-state solution to the conflict. But neither the United States nor other world powers have given Israel _ the stronger party _ any incentive to accede to such an arrangement. Israel says Palestinian leaders have rejected proposals by previous governments that would have given them a state.

Israel approved some 3,000 settler homes in October, brushing aside a rebuke from the U.S., its closest ally. Peace talks with the Palestinians broke down more than a decade ago, in part because of Israel's continuing construction on lands the Palestinians want for a future state.

On Wednesday, Israeli troops demolished at least 18 buildings and structures in the West Bank following a Supreme Court decision that would force at least 1,000 Palestinians out of an area Israel designated as a firing zone in the early 1980s.

B'Tselem, another Israeli rights group, said 12 residential buildings were among the structures that were demolished, in villages in the arid hills south of the West Bank city of Hebron.

Residents of the Masafer Yatta say they have been living in the region, herding animals and practicing traditional desert agriculture for decades, long before Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war. The Supreme Court sided with the military, which says there were no permanent structures in the area before it was designated a training zone.

``What's happening now is ethnic cleansing,`` Sami Huraini, an activist and a resident of the area, told the AP. ``They are trying to expel the people from this land, saying they never lived here permanently, which is a lie.''

He said residents of the area where the demolitions were carried out are determined to remain there. ``The people are staying on their land and have already started to rebuild,`` he said.

Israeli occupation army declined to comment on the demolitions.

Neighboring Jordan, which made peace with Israel in 1994, condemned both the settlement expansion and the forced displacement of Palestinians, calling it a ``a flagrant violation of international law.''

Israel has built more than 130 settlements across the West Bank that today are home to nearly 500,000 settlers, who have Israeli citizenship. Nearly 3 million Palestinians live in the territory under open-ended Israeli military rule. The Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule over parts of the West Bank and cooperates with Israel on security matters.

The Palestinians want the West Bank to form the main part of a future state, along with east Jerusalem and Gaza, all territories seized by Israel in the 1967 war. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally, and Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Palestinian militant group Hamas seized power there in 2007.

The Palestinians view the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem as a major obstacle to any future peace deal because they reduce and divide up the land on which such a state would be established.

‘The Lido is finished’: Famed Paris cabaret set for final curtain amid mass lay-offs

Issued on: 12/05/2022 – 

High-kicking showgirls and nightly cabaret shows at the famed Parisian Lido club on the Champs-Elysees are set to be a thing of the past after the venue’s new owner confirmed mass lay-offs on Thursday.

Created in the aftermath of World War II, the Lido has drawn fans for more than seven decades with its racy dance routines featuring towering women in feathers, high heels and little else.

But though it has sought to modernise its shows and adapt to the times, the venue has been losing money for years and changed hands at the end of 2021.

The new owner, French hotels giant Accor, told staff on Thursday it would lay off 157 of 184 employees, including its “Bluebell girls” troupe of dancers, according to several sources who spoke to AFP.

“The Lido is finished,” one trade union representative said on condition of anonymity, adding Accor intended to turn the prime real estate into a venue for other musical events.

“All the artistic staff, meaning around 60 people, will disappear,” the source added.

>> Read more: Montmartre: Can Paris’s art and cabaret district survive Covid-19?

Cabaret dancing first appeared during France’s “Belle Epoque” at the end of the 19th century, when the French capital was a hotbed of artistic creation.

The Moulin Rouge remains the best-known show in the city and is still going strong, thanks largely to the publicity from the 2001 film of the same name by Baz Luhrmann.

Prices for a night at the Lido start at 145 euros per person ($150), with the club capable of welcoming 2,000 people per evening over two sittings.

Usually open every day of the year, it was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic as tourism and international travel ground to a halt, keeping its mostly foreign clientele away.

Changes to animal welfare laws also meant it could no longer feature exotic animals, while changing attitudes towards women and nudity have also led its dancing and decor to be seen as increasingly outdated.

(AFP)