ADDING INSULT TO INJURY

US judge dismisses suit against Saudi prince in Khashoggi murder

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW;WHICH LAW

AFP
December 06, 2022

Jamal Khashoggi, pictured in 2014, about four years before his murder and dismemberment

Washington (AFP) - A US judge dismissed Tuesday a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for his alleged role in the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Washington federal judge John Bates accepted a US government's stance that Prince Mohammed, who was designated prime minister of Saudi Arabia in September, enjoys immunity in US courts as a foreign head of state.

Bates said the civil suit filed by Khashoggi's widow Hatice Cengiz and his activist group DAWN made a "strong" and "meritorious" argument that Prince Mohammed was behind the murder.

But he ruled that he had no power to reject the US government's official stance, submitted in a formal statement to the court on November 17, that the prince had immunity as a foreign leader.

Even if the prince was named prime minister just weeks ago, the US government's executive branch "remains responsible for foreign affairs, including with Saudi Arabia, and a contrary decision on bin Salman’s immunity by this Court would unduly interfere with those responsibilities," Bates said.

He said the "credible" allegations of the murder, the timing of prince's being named prime minister, and timing of the US government's submission, left him with "uneasiness."

But Bates said he had no other choice in the case.
US intelligence blamed prince

Prince Mohammed has been the kingdom's de facto ruler for several years under his father King Salman.

One of the prince's most vocal critics, Khashoggi was a journalist and activist based in the United States when he traveled to Turkey with his fiancee to obtain documents for their marriage from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

After he entered the consulate Khashoggi was seized and murdered by a team of agents of the Saudi regime, his body dismembered and disposed of.

Activists seeking to hold the crown prince accountable for the Khashoggi murder voiced dismay.

"Today is a dark day for victims of transnational repression," said Khalid Aljabri, a US-based doctor and son of a former Saudi intelligence official.

US President Joe Biden "has put dissidents at greater risk while confirming to dictators that his human rights policy is nothing but hot air."

A Saudi court in 2020 jailed eight people for between seven and 20 years over the killing.

Last year, Biden declassified an intelligence report that found Prince Mohammed had approved the operation against Khashoggi, an assertion Saudi authorities deny.

The murder deeply strained ties between Washington and Riyadh.

But driven by the needs of Middle East politics, particularly the threat from Iran, and Saudi Arabia's power over oil markets, Biden traveled to the country in July in a move seen as partially aiming to put the murder case behind.

Nevertheless, while there Biden made mention of it in his talks with the crown prince, calling the murder "outrageous."

U.S. Court Dismisses Suit Against Saudi Ruler in Khashoggi Killing

The court followed the Biden administration’s guidance that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has immunity as a head of government in a case over the death of Jamal Khashoggi.

A U.S. intelligence report released early in the Biden administration said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.

Credit...Pool photo by Athit Perawongmetha


By Edward Wong
Dec. 6, 2022, 

WASHINGTON — A U.S. federal court said in a filing on Tuesday that it was dismissing a lawsuit against the crown prince of Saudi Arabia over the murder of a Saudi columnist who lived in Virginia, after the State Department’s determination that the prince has immunity as a head of state or government.

The lawsuit filed on behalf of Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of the columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, named Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the most prominent defendant. Mr. Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents while visiting Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018 to get documents for his upcoming wedding.

This September, Prince Mohammed’s father, King Salman, made the prince the prime minister of Saudi Arabia. The move formalized his role as ruler of the kingdom, though the king remains the head of state.

Some U.S. officials and analysts said the king appeared to make the decision to ensure that the prince had immunity in the case. King Salman made the announcement six days before an October deadline set by the court for the U.S. government to advise whether Prince Mohammed had immunity. Soon after he received his new title, the prince told the court he had immunity based on legal precedent.

The State Department asked the court for an extension to make a legal determination, and then it filed a statement with the Justice Department on Nov. 17 that said Prince Mohammed should be “immune while in office.”

The letter said the State Department was not taking a position on the suit itself and repeated “its unequivocal condemnation of the heinous murder” of Mr. Khashoggi. Legal scholars said at the time that the determination was consistent with precedent.

In its 25-page filing on Tuesday, the court said: “Despite the court’s uneasiness, then, with both the circumstances of bin Salman’s appointment and the credible allegations of his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder, the United States has informed the court that he is immune, and bin Salman is therefore ‘entitled to head of state immunity … while he remains in office.’”

“Accordingly,” the court added, “the claims against bin Salman will be dismissed based on head-of-state immunity.”

The court also dismissed the cases against Saud al-Qahtani and Ahmed al-Assiri, senior Saudi officials at the time of the killing who were named as defendants in the lawsuit, saying the plaintiffs had not adequately established that the court should have jurisdiction over the matter.

Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, an advocacy group that filed the lawsuit on behalf of Ms. Cengiz, wrote on Twitter that the court’s decision was “sad news for accountability.” She said that the group was consulting with lawyers on the next steps and that “our struggle for justice continues.”

Mr. Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident who wrote columns in The Washington Post criticizing the prince and the kingdom’s government, was strangled by Saudi agents and then dismembered. During the 2020 presidential campaign, President Biden vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for the killing and other human rights abuses. As one of his first foreign policy actions in office, Mr. Biden authorized the release of a U.S. intelligence report that said Prince Mohammed had approved the killing.

Mr. Biden kept his distance from the kingdom and criticized its human rights record, but this summer he bowed to suggestions from top national security aides that he should try to repair relations with Prince Mohammed. He reluctantly visited the kingdom in July and exchanged a fist bump with the prince, which drew widespread condemnation from senior Democratic lawmakers and human rights advocates.

In October, the prince led OPEC Plus, a cartel of oil-producing nations, in announcing a steep cut in production, which infuriated Mr. Biden and created a new rupture in U.S.-Saudi relations. Mr. Biden accused the prince of siding with Russia, which relies on high oil prices to support its spending during its war on Ukraine.

Top Biden aides thought they had reached a secret agreement with Saudi officials in May to increase oil production through the end of this year, though officials in Riyadh have denied making such promises.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia

U.S. Backs Immunity for Saudi Leader in Lawsuit Over Khashoggi Murder
Nov. 18, 2022

U.S. Officials Had a Secret Oil Deal With the Saudis. Or So They Thought.
Oct. 25, 2022

Saudi Crown Prince Is Held Responsible for Khashoggi Killing in U.S. Report
Feb. 26, 2021

Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent who has reported for The Times for more than 22 years, based in New York, Baghdad, Beijing and Washington. He received a Livingston Award and was on a team of Pulitzer Prize finalists for Iraq War coverage. He has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard and a visiting professor of journalism at Princeton and U.C. Berkeley. @ewong

FASCIST ZIONISM
Bibi’s Extreme Comeback

Today An Altamar podcast with
Gil Tamary
Chief International Editor and Commentator for Israel’s Channel 13 News

Former Israeli Prime Minister and Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to supporters during a campaign event on October 29, 2022 in Bnei Brak, Israel. Israelis voted for Netanyahu in the fifth general election in four years.
Photo: Amir Levy/Getty Images

Israel just completed its fifth election in four years. This time, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come back with a new, hard-right, extremist coalition. How will that translate into domestic and foreign policy?

This week, the Altamar podcast team of Peter Schechter and Muni Jensen spoke to guest Gil Tamary, chief international news editor for Israel’s News 13 to make sense of this new government and to find out whether or not it will last.

Israel’s longest-serving prime minister — Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu — is in the saddle again with a new strategy. This time, Netanyahu aligned himself with hard-right extremist parties to clinch a victory in a narrow election. His new allies are the ultra-nationalist Religious Zionist Party, who express racist and homophobic propaganda. Will this new coalition add even more instability to this historically tumultuous region?

 
The Left Has Almost Vanished in Israel

Tamary explained what is going on in Israel: “In recent years, the political debate in Israel stopped being along ideological lines between right and left. Israeli society has shifted so much to the right that any leftist agenda actually has no power.

“More than 60% of the Israelis describe themselves as at least right-leaning or holding a right-wing position. When you’re saying ‘right,’ we mean: against the prospect of a Palestinian state, support for Jewish settlements in the territories that some of them call Judea and Samaria, and support for more traditional religious life.”

The Pro and Anti-Bibi Factions

“For the last four years, there have been two political blocks. On one side, you have the Pro-Bibi block, the Bibi supporters, which are all the usual suspects. And on the other side, there are people mainly from the center and the Left, and some from the right side of the political map. And this is the anti-Bibi block. Now, the two blocks are almost identical in their size, and that’s the way we have so many election cycles, because no one can sustain a stable coalition.”

The pro-Netanyahu camp won this time around with help from the right’s new darling: The Religious Zionist Party. What happened there? Tamary answered, “The main reason that Bibi is back in power is the fact that he played the political game in a much more clever way than his opponent.

“If we measured the number of voters for each block, it was almost identical. The issue is that the other block, the anti-Bibi block didn’t join forces, and therefore, two parties that didn’t meet the threshold of 3.25% of the vote actually were not included in the Parliament. That means 6% of the votes are not in the game as of right now. And that’s actually the reason Bibi has a majority.”
Who Is Itamar Ben Gvir?

Itamar Ben Gvir is the new political partner of Netanyahu. According to Tamary, he is an extremist. “During the Rabin Era, Ben Gvir was one of the people who incited violence and called for doing something with the prime minister. And famously he stole the hood ornament — the Cadillac ornament — from the prime minister’s official car and showed it on TV and said, ‘We got to his car and will get to him, too.’”

Altamar’s Peter Schechter asked, “Isn’t the extremist nature of this government going to be a real problem for Israel?”

Tamary explained, “It depends on who you ask and how you measure a problem. I can tell you that, for instance, Rabbi Jacobs, who is the head of the Jewish Reform Movement in America, compared nominating Ben Gvir to the national security minister, to nominating David Duke, the leader of the KKK, as U.S. Attorney General.”

 
Major Threat to Israel’s Democracy

Is there any opposition to extremist ideas within the coalition? Tamary said, “No, it’s a unanimous coalition of the right wing. It’s the right — and [then] those even more to the right. Bibi is the moderate voice here. They are talking about changing the law in a way that the Knesset — the Parliament — can overrule any Supreme Court decision.

“This means that the Parliament can decide in a majority vote to cancel any ruling. It’s a major threat to Israel’s democracy, especially because Israel doesn’t have a constitution to defend the democratic system and the democratic nature of the country, not to mention the LGBTQ community and minorities in general in Israel.”

Tamary thinks any moderation will come from running the government. “When you are running the government, you have to be much more moderate than your rhetoric prior to the election. So that’s the silver lining of the coming government.”
The Relationship With the Palestinians

What will the relationship look like for the next two years with the democratic Biden administration? Tamary said,“[Netanyahu] understands very well the importance of the alliance. … He will work hard to avoid public clashes with the Biden administration. On the other end, I don’t see the Biden administration working with Itamar Ben Gvir, for instance. So, they will bypass him like they’re doing within other countries in the world where they don’t like specific people. At the end of the day, I don’t see relations with the States deteriorating tremendously, even with this government.”

What about this new government’s relationship with the Palestinian authority? Tamary answered, “If we are talking about any prospect for peace, there is none. There is no place for dialogue, for a two-state solution.

“The concept of a two-state solution is dead for the time being and maybe dead forever, because you know, there are circumstances on the ground that change reality. And as years go by, it’ll be harder and harder to separate the two communities, especially if we’re talking about annexations or other such measures.

The Gulf states signed agreements with Israel, not because of Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians, but because of other things. So those things still exist, they don’t change. And because Bibi is the guy that will continue to be the face of Israel, I don’t see the agreements that right now we have changing anytime soon.”

Despite all this, Tamary ended the podcast on an optimistic note. “I’m sure that the sun will rise and people in Israel will continue to go to the beach and continue to crowd the restaurants and the coffee shops. Yes, there will be a right-wing government, but at the end of the day, the reality I think is more powerful than any ideology.”
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Gil TamaryChief International Editor and Commentator for Israel’s Channel 13 News@giltamary
Gil Tamary is the chief international editor and commentator for Israel’s Channel 13 News and has served in various roles within the journalism industry. He has worked as the Washington Bureau Chief for Channel 13 and as the anchor and chief editor of “Good Morning Israel”.

PELE BE PRAISED

Aerial images used to map lava from Mauna Loa eruption in Hawaii

Aerial footage of lava flowing from Mauna Loa volcano

VIDEO
abc.net.au/news/aerial-images-map-lava-mauna-loa-eruption-hawaii/101742310COPY LINKSHARE

Scientists are using satellites and helicopters to map lava flows from the Mauna Loa volcano, and say they're seeing the lava continue its slow progress across the Big Island.

The Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii, which is the world's largest active volcano, has erupted for the first time in 38 years.

Aerial image of fissure 3 erupting on the north-east rift zone of Mauna Loa(Supplied: Hawaiian Volcano Observatory)

Officials were initially concerned that lava flowing down the side of the volcano would head toward the South Kona district.

Scientists later assured the public that the eruption migrated to a rift zone on Mauna Loa's north-east flank and was not threatening any communities.

Lava fountains measured by field crews reached heights of 40 metres, with bursts of 100 metres.(Supplied: L. Gallant/Hawaiian Volcano Observatory)

As the eruption reaches its second week, the lava flow marches slowly north toward the Daniel K. Inouye Highway, which remains open to traffic in both directions.

Image taken during a helicopter overflight and shows a lava flow branching after it cuts across the Mauna Loa Access Road.(Supplied: L. Gallant/Hawaiian Volcano Observatory)

"There's no signs of the flow stopping at any immediate term because activity up at that event on the north-east drift zone continues steadily," US Geological Survey Geologist Mike Zoeller said.

"We still see high rates of lava fusion into the upper lava channels in that region."
Aerial view of the fissure 3 lava channel, measured to be moving at 8.2-11 metres per second.(Supplied: L. Gallant/Hawaiian Volcano Observatory)

In some places the lava has been advancing at about 20 meters per hour. In channels closer to the vent it advances at 8.2-11 metres per second.

Mauna Loa, rising 4,169 metres above sea level, is the much larger neighbour to Kilauea volcano, which erupted in a residential neighbourhood and destroyed 700 homes in 2018.

Mauna Loa volcano erupts in Hawaii

Hawaii County Civil Defense Administrator Talmadge Magno has reminded visitors to stay safe and maintain the respect and be aware of the local surroundings to the community.

AP/ABC

PELE

US Justice Department subpoenas 3 states in Trump 2020 election probe: Report

Special counsel requests Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin hand over all communications with Trump, aides, allies

Darren Christopher Lyn |07.12.2022

Former U.S. President Donald Trump ( Kyle Mazza - Anadolu Agency )

HOUSTON, United States

The US Justice Department has subpoenaed officials in the state of Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin regarding a 2020 election probe of former President Donald Trump.

Special Counsel Jack Smith issued the subpoenas -- at least three of which are dated Nov. 22 -- to election officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, Wayne County, Michigan and Dane County, Wisconsin, according to records obtained by The Washington Post.

The agency is asking for all communications with or involving Trump, his campaign aides and a list of allies involved in his efforts to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

“I’m happy to participate in this process,” said Milwaukee clerk George Christenson, who confirmed to the Post in an interview that the subpoena asks for communications with Trump and his campaign, including several key allies.

“I don’t see any issues with it,” Christenson said. “Many of those names aren’t familiar to me, so I don't know how many of those individuals did reach out to us. For example, I don’t recall receiving anything from Rudy Giuliani. I think I would have remembered that. But who knows.”

“I don’t expect to find any smoking gun," he added.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell confirmed receiving a similar subpoena asking for communications he had with “the gang of people you would sort of expect.”

McDonell said he did not expect his response to the subpoena to reveal anything that “hasn’t been covered in the past.”

“I am not aware of any significant communications that have not already been made public," he said.

Smith is overseeing the Justice Department’s investigation into the presence of classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in the state of Florida as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots and Trump's last-ditch efforts to remain in power.

The subpoenas are the clearest indication that Smith’s work will include an examination of fake electors that were part of Trump’s efforts to subvert the election count and certification of results of President Joe Biden's win.

The Justice Department has declined to comment on the subpoenas.

What Trump Did In The Counties That The Special Counsel Subpoenaed

WARREN, MI - OCTOBER 01: Former President Donald Trump speaks during a Save America rally on October 1, 2022 in Warren, Michigan. Trump has endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon, Secretary of State 

By Josh Kovensky

What distinguishes the five counties known to have been subpoenaed by special counsel Jack Smith is that former President Trump and his campaign filed lawsuits to invalidate the 2020 election results in all of them.

The subpoenas, issued last month by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., but only publicly revealed Tuesday, sought communications between election officials in at least five counties and Trump, his 2020 campaign, and multiple attorneys and staffers affiliated with the re-election effort. It is not known if additional counties were subpoenaed but have yet to disclose it publicly.

What the five counties across three states have in common is that Trump filed suit to reverse the 2020 election results in each of them while his allies reportedly contacted officials in several of the areas.

With the exception of Maricopa County, Arizona, the counties are also heavily Democratic counties in key swing states, and Biden won them handily, which is partly why Trump targeted them in the first place. Biden narrowly won Maricopa County.

A recap of what is already publicly known about Trump’s efforts in each of the counties in question:

Wayne County, Michigan

In Michigan’s Wayne County, Trump reportedly called the Republican chairwoman of the county board of canvassers after she initially voted against certifying the local election results.

The Trump campaign had also sued to invalidate results in Wayne County, where Detroit is located. That lawsuit included more than 100 affidavits that were not only ridiculed as absurd in the press but whose incorporation in a subsequent “Kraken” lawsuit led a Michigan federal judge to conclude that they were fraudulent.

Amid a public outcry, Wayne County later went on to certify the election results.

The county was among those where Sidney Powell paid to obtain voting machine data.

Milwaukee County, Wisconsin

The Trump campaign sued to invalidate the results in Milwaukee County in a case brought by attorneys Jim Troupis and Kenneth Chesebro. Subpoenas asked for communications between the county and both of the attorneys.

After the 2020 election, Trump repeatedly demanded that votes in Milwaukee be thrown out. His campaign paid for a recount in the state.

Dane County, Wisconsin

The Trump campaign sued to invalidate the results in Dane County in a case brought by attorneys Jim Troupis and Kenneth Chesebro. Subpoenas asked for communications between the county and both of the attorneys.

Maricopa County, Arizona

Enraged by Fox News’ relatively early call of Arizona for Biden, Trump focused an inordinate amount of energy on Maricopa County in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

His campaign sued to block Biden’s win in the county over a scandal known as “Sharpiegate,” which posited that sharpie ink, bleeding through ballots, had cost Trump his win. His campaign dropped the suit in mid-November.

The Arizona Republic reported last year that the Trump White House tried unsuccessfully to call the chair of the county’s elections commission. Per the paper, Rudy Giuliani left a voicemail to county officials suggesting that they “get this thing fixed up.”

“You know, I really think it’s a shame that Republicans sort of, we’re both in this, kind of, situation. And I think there may be a nice way to resolve this for everybody,” Giuliani reportedly said on the voicemail.

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

The Trump campaign sued after the 2020 election to invalidate mail-in ballots that were cast in Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh. The county saw more than 330,000 mail-in votes cast out of a statewide total of 2.6 million.

That lawsuit was based on a series of fraud claims that, like the rest of them, never came close to panning out. The lawsuit was eventually thrown out of court; Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is facing the loss of his DC law license over his role in filing it.
Sidney Powell, the Trump attorney, also spread wrong information about the county, posting at one point that more than 200,000 ballots in the county had been invalidated. In fact, a state judge ruled that more than 2,000 ballots in the county had to be counted.



Josh Kovensky is an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo, based in New York. He previously worked for the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, covering politics, business, and corruption there.

Trump Organization convicted on all 17 charges in tax fraud case

"Mr Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud," Steinglass argued.

Dec 07 2022

Donald Trump's company has been convicted of tax fraud in a case brought by the Manhattan District Attorney, a significant repudiation of financial practices at the former US president's business.

A jury on Tuesday (local time) found two corporate entities at the Trump Organization guilty on all 17 counts, including conspiracy charges and falsifying business records.

The verdict came on the second day of deliberations following a trial in which the Trump Organization was accused of being complicit in a scheme by top executives to avoid paying personal income taxes on job perks such as rent-free apartments and luxury cars.

The conviction is a validation for New York prosecutors, who have spent three years investigating the former president and his businesses, though the penalties aren't expected to be severe enough to jeopardise the future of Trump's company.

READ MORE:
* Trump grand jury ending with no charges against former US president

* US prosecutors in charge of Donald Trump criminal probe have resigned

* New York Attorney General claims Trump's company misled banks, tax officials

JULIA NIKHINSON/AP
Donald Trump departs Trump Tower in August, on his way to the New York attorney general's office for a deposition. (File photo)

As punishment, the Trump Organization could be fined up to US$1.6 million — a relatively small amount for a company of its size, though the conviction might make some of its future deals more complicated.

Trump, who recently announced he was running for president again, has said the case against his company was part of a politically motivated "witch hunt" waged against him by vindictive Democrats.

Trump himself was not on trial but prosecutors alleged he "knew exactly what was going on" with the scheme, though he and the company's lawyers have denied that.

MARK LENNIHAN/AP
Donald Trump, chairman and CEO of the Trump Organization, poses with his children, from left, Eric, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, at the opening of the Trump SoHo New York in 2010. (File photo)

The case against the company was built largely around testimony from the Trump Organization's former finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, who previously pleaded guilty to charges that he manipulated the company's books and his own compensation package to illegally reduce his taxes.

Weisselberg testified in exchange for a promised five-month jail sentence.

To convict the Trump Organization, prosecutors had to convince jurors that Weisselberg or his subordinate, Senior Vice President and Controller Jeffrey McConney, were "high managerial" agents acting on the company's behalf and that the company also benefited from his scheme.

Trump Organization lawyers repeated the mantra "Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg" throughout the month-long trial. They contended the executive had gone rogue and betrayed the company's trust. No one in the Trump family or the company was to blame, they argued.

JULIA NIKHINSON/AP
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg smiles outside the courtroom after the jury found the Trump Organization guilty on all counts in a criminal tax fraud case.

Though he testified as a prosecution witness, Weisselberg also attempted to take responsibility on the witness stand, saying nobody in the Trump family knew what he was doing.

"It was my own personal greed that led to this," an emotional Weisselberg testified.

Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty to dodging taxes on US$1.7 million in fringe benefits, testified that he and McConney conspired to hide that extra compensation from his income by deducting their cost from his pre-tax salary and issuing falsified W-2 forms.

During his closing argument, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass attempted to refute the claim that Trump knew nothing about the scheme. He showed jurors a lease Trump signed for Weisselberg's company-paid apartment and a memo Trump initialed authorising a pay cut for another executive who got perks.

"Mr Trump is explicitly sanctioning tax fraud," Steinglass argued.


REBECCA BLACKWELL/AP
Former President Donald Trump announces a third run for president in November this year. (File photo)

The verdict doesn't end Trump's battle with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who took office in January.

Bragg has said that a related investigation of Trump that began under his predecessor, District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr, is "active and ongoing".

In that wide-ranging probe, investigators have examined whether Trump misled banks and others about the value of his real estate holdings, golf courses and other assets — allegations at the heart of New York Attorney General Letitia James' pending lawsuit against the former president and his company.

The district attorney's office has also investigated whether any state laws were broken when Trump's allies made payments to two women who claimed to have had sexual affairs with the Republican years ago.

Near the end of his tenure last year, Vance directed deputies to present evidence to a grand jury for a possible indictment of Trump. After taking office, though, Bragg let that grand jury disband so he could give the case a fresh look.

On Monday (local time), he confirmed that a new lead prosecutor had been brought on to handle that investigation, signaling again that it was still active.

LITERALLY A POLITICAL PRISONER
Argentina court hands VP Cristina Kirchner 6-year jail term in graft case

CORRUPTION IS A RIGHT WING CLAIM

THROUGH OUT LATIN AMERICA

Story by By Nicolás Misculin • 

Argentina's Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner holds a party rally, in La Plata© Thomson Reuters

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -An Argentine court sentenced Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to six years in jail and disqualified her from holding public office in a high-profile corruption case on Tuesday, though she has immunity due to her public office.

The powerful vice president will not face immediate prison time and is also expected to appeal the sentence, with the case likely to spend years winding through higher courts.

Fernandez de Kirchner served as president for two terms between 2007 and 2015 and commands rock-star crowds of supporters. She faced charges of alleged corruption in the awarding of public works during her presidency. She has denied the allegations and called the court a "firing squad."

In a live-streamed session, Federal Court 2 in Buenos Aires city found Fernandez de Kirchner guilty of the crime of "fraudulent administration" in a case known as "Vialidad" in which construction magnate Lázaro Báez was also sentenced to six years in jail.

Prosecutors alleged that public works contracts were handed to a businessman ally of Fernandez de Kirchner, who then channeled money back to her and late husband Nestor Kirchner, also a former president. Defenders of the vice president maintain that she was a victim of judicial persecution.

Lawyers said that Fernandez de Kirchner would not go to jail any time soon because she has immunity while serving as vice president. She would need to be removed from office in a political trial before she could be sent to prison.

"She currently has privileges as vice president, which means she is one of the officials whose removal requires a political trial," said lawyer Alejandro Carrio, adding that higher courts could spend years going over appeals up to the Supreme Court. "I do not see the process with a case of this magnitude taking less than three years."

The country is on edge after a long economic crisis and inflation heading toward 100%. Supporters of Fernandez de Kirchner gathered in the streets after she survived an assassination attempt this year. The ruling Peronist government of President Alberto Fernandez is facing a tough battle to fend off a challenge from the conservative opposition in general elections set for next year.

(Reporting by Nicolás Misculin; Additional reporting by Belén Liotti; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Lisa Shumaker)

 

Guilty of fraud, Argentina’s Kirchner banned from seeking office

This handout photo released by Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s Press Office shows Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner during a meeting with representatives of the Catholic Church who work in poor neighbourhoods, on September 15, 2022, at the National Congress, in Buenos Aires, during her first public appearance after an attempted murder against her on September 1 at the door of her house. — Charo Larisgoitia/Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s Press service/AFP pic

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Wednesday, 07 Dec 2022 7:01 AM MYT

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 7 — An Argentine court on Tuesday sentenced Vice President Cristina Kirchner to six years in jail for corruption, banning the country’s best-known politician from seeking public office after a trial she dismissed as a political witch hunt.

Adored and reviled in equal measure by millions of Argentinians, the divisive former president was declared guilty of “fraudulent administration” over irregular public works contracts awarded during her time as president between 2007 and 2015.

Kirchner wrote on social media that “none of the lies were proven” and that she had been convicted by a “legal mafia”.

“I won’t be a candidate for anything, not a senator, or a deputy or president of the nation,” in 2023 general elections, she wrote on social media after the ruling.

Analysts say it is unlikely that Kirchner will head to jail anytime soon, as she holds congressional immunity through her current role, and still has several avenues for appeal, but the ruling places a giant question mark over her future.

“The verdict will have a strong political impact,” said political analyst Rosendo Fraga of the University of Buenos Aires, although “the chances of her being arrested for the sentence are non-existent.”

Kirchner was charged alongside 12 others for alleged involvement in the illicit attribution of public works contracts in the southern Santa Cruz province in favour of businessman Lazaro Baez.

The period investigated includes Kirchner’s eight years in office and the preceding four years when her late husband Nestor Kirchner, who died in 2010, was president.

The public prosecutor denounced what he called “a system of institutional corruption” and “probably the largest corruption operation” in the country, with “systematic irregularities in 51 calls for tenders” over 12 years.

Eight of Kirchner’s co-accused were found guilty and sentenced to between three and six and a half years in jail. Three were released and another had their case dismissed as it had passed the statute of limitations.

Uncertain future

Kirchner said the charges were a lie made up by her political enemies.

“This court has been a true firing squad,” the veteran politician said during her final address to the court, accusing prosecutors of having “dedicated themselves to disrespecting and insulting me.”

As vice president, Kirchner is head of the country’s Senate and enjoys immunity as a lawmaker.

Fraga said potential appeals could take up to six years or more.

All eyes will be on potential protests after the verdict.

When prosecutors announced they were seeking a 12-year jail term in late August, mass daily demonstrations took place outside Kirchner’s apartment building in the upmarket suburb of Recoleta.

During one of these protests on September 1, a man shoved a revolver in her face and pulled the trigger — but the gun did not fire. Four people have been charged with involvement in the attack.

Adored and hated

Several hundred Kirchner supporters gathered outside the courthouse before the verdict was read.

“I am here to defend Cristina. We defend her for what she has done and what we know she can continue to give,” said 50-year-old Marcelo Graziano, outside the courthouse.

Kirchner came to prominence as part of the ultimate political power couple, with she and her late husband Nestor Kirchner serving a collective 12 years in the Casa Rosada, the pink presidential palace.

To her working-class base, the Kirchners were the saviours after Argentina’s 2001 economic meltdown and social unrest that followed the largest debt default in history, standing up for the little guy against bullies both foreign and domestic.

Her detractors see her as a corrupt, overbearing interventionist who steered the country back towards economic ruin through debt-fuelled spending sprees. — AFP

COP15 

Warning Biological Diversity Conference ‘We are Treating Nature Like a Toilet’, Secretary-General Calls for Global Biodiversity Framework

6 DECEMBER 2022

Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks to the fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, in Montreal today:

Nature is humanity’s best friend.  Without nature, we have nothing.  Without nature, we are nothing.  Nature is our life-support system.  It is the source and sustainer of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the energy we use, the jobs and economic activity we count on, the species that enrich human life, and the landscapes and waterscapes we call home.

And yet, humanity seems hellbent on destruction.  We are waging war on nature.  This Conference is about the urgent task of making peace.  Because today, we are out of harmony with nature.  In fact, we are playing an entirely different song.

Around the world, for hundreds of years, we have conducted a cacophony of chaos, played with instruments of destruction.  Deforestation and desertification are creating wastelands of once-thriving ecosystems.  Our land, water and air are poisoned by chemicals and pesticides, and choked with plastics.

Our addiction to fossil fuels has thrown our climate into chaos — from heatwaves and forest fires to communities parched by heat and drought or inundated and destroyed by terrifying floods.

Unsustainable production and consumption are sending emissions skyrocketing, and degrading our land, sea and air.  Today, one third of all land is degraded, making it harder to feed growing populations.  Plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates are all at risk.  A million species teeter on the brink.  Ocean degradation is accelerating the destruction of life-sustaining coral reefs and other marine ecosystems — and directly affecting those communities that depend on the oceans for their livelihoods.

Multinational corporations are filling their bank accounts while emptying our world of its natural gifts.  Ecosystems have become playthings of profit.  With our bottomless appetite for unchecked and unequal economic growth, humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction.  We are treating nature like a toilet.  And ultimately, we are committing suicide by proxy.

Because the loss of nature and biodiversity comes with a steep human cost.  A cost we measure in lost jobs, hunger, diseases and deaths.  A cost we measure in the estimated $3 trillion in annual losses by 2030 from ecosystem degradation.  A cost we measure in higher prices for water, food and energy.  And a cost we measure in the deeply unjust and incalculable losses to the poorest countries, Indigenous populations, women and young people.

Those least responsible for this destruction are always the first to feel the impacts.  But, they are never the last.  This Conference is our chance to stop this orgy of destruction.  To move from discord to harmony.  And to apply the ambition and action the challenge demands.

We need nothing less from this meeting than a bold post-2020 global biodiversity framework.  One that beats back the biodiversity apocalypse by urgently tackling its drivers — land- and sea-use change, overexploitation of species, climate change, pollution and invasive non-native species.  One that addresses the root causes of this destruction — harmful subsidies, misdirected investment, unsustainable food systems, and wider patterns of consumption and production.

One that supports other global agreements aiming at protecting our planet — from the Paris Agreement on climate change, to agreements on land degradation, forests, oceans, chemicals and pollution that can bring us closer to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.  And one with clear targets, benchmarks and accountability.  No excuses.  No delays.  Promises made must be promises kept.  It’s time to forge a peace pact with nature.  This requires three concrete actions.

First — Governments must develop bold national action plans across all ministries, from finance and food to energy and infrastructure.  Plans that repurpose subsidies and tax breaks away from nature-destroying activities towards green solutions like renewable energy, plastic reduction, nature-friendly food production and sustainable resource extraction.  Plans that recognize and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities who have always been the most effective guardians of biodiversity.  And national biodiversity finance plans to help close the finance gap.

Second — the private sector must recognize that profit and protection must go hand-in-hand.  In our globalized economies, businesses and investors count on nature’s gifts from all corners of the world.  It’s in their best interests to put protection first.  That means the food and agricultural industry moving towards sustainable production and natural means of pollination, pest control and fertilization.  It means the timber, chemicals, building and construction industries taking their impacts on nature into account in their business plans.

It means the biotech, pharmaceutical and other industries that use biodiversity sharing the benefits fairly and equitably.  It means tough regulatory frameworks and disclosure measures that end greenwashing and hold the private sector accountable for their actions across every link of their supply chains.  And it means challenging the relentless concentration of wealth and power by few that is working against nature and the real interests of the majority.  Businesses and investors must be allies of nature, not enemies.

And third — developed countries must provide bold financial support for the countries of the Global South as custodians of our world’s natural wealth.  We cannot expect developing countries to shoulder the burden alone.  We need a mechanism that can ensure developing countries have more direct, simpler and faster access to much-needed financing.  We know all too well the bureaucratic hurdles that exist today.

International financial institutions and multilateral development banks must align their portfolios with the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.  And as a global community, we need to stand with all countries as they protect and restore their ecosystems following decades and centuries of degradation and loss.

These natural environments have given us so much.  It’s time to give back.  The most important lesson we impart to children is to take responsibility for their actions.  What example are we setting when we ourselves are failing this basic test?

I am always deeply inspired by the young environmental activists around the world calling for change and action.  But. I am also keenly aware that we cannot pass the buck to them to clean up our mess.  It is up to us to accept responsibility for the damage we have caused and take action to fix it.  The deluded dreams of billionaires aside, there is no Planet B.

We must fix the world we have.  We must cherish this wonderous gift.  We must make peace with nature.  I urge you to do the right thing.  Step up for nature.  Step up for biodiversity.  Step up for humanity.  Together, let’s adopt and deliver an ambitious framework — a peace pact with nature — and pass on a better, greener, bluer and more sustainable world to our children.  

Thank you.

Humanity is "at war with nature", says the United Nations' environmental chief at the start of a key biodiversity summit in Montreal.

IMPERIALISM IN SPACE

Geopolitics goes into orbit with the US and China’s space ambitions

7 December 2022

Author: Saadia M Pekkanen, University of Washington

Space stations are the harbinger of a deepening bipolarity in the international relations of space. The United States leads the International Space Station (ISS), and will lead whatever comes after it, but it is no longer seen as the uncontested unipolar power in space. China now also has a national space station, named Tiangong, which represents a momentous achievement for the country’s space program.

The ISS and Tiangong are not divorced from the quest for national technological supremacy. If technology is ‘power in practice’ for China, it is no less important for the United States, which has long seen the transformative potential of technology as critical to its national security.

The United States has also shifted to a more muscular industrial policy in an attempt to lead in the industries of the future. In a bid to sustain its pre-eminence, it has put technological decoupling into motion in such a forthright way that there is little doubt that it seeks to block China from becoming a technological peer of any kind.

Great power competition over technology is now out in the open. This extends to matters in space for both countries and is unlikely to go away anytime soon.

From a US perspective, it is cause for concern that China was the first to land on the far side of the moon, aims for the same lunar resources in the race back to the moon, can carry out complex sample-return missions, has plans for a permanent moon base and now also has a space station that is seen as second only to NASA’s in technological sophistication.

Concerns about technological primacy in space are also intertwined with concerns about other threats that space stations face — or pose.

The life of any physical infrastructure can only extend so far. The ISS is currently projected to survive to 2030, while Tiangong is expected to remain operational for about 10 years. But collisions with debris and other objects are a common threat. The ISS can dodge speeding debris, but sometimes gets hit. Mega-constellations of satellites are also a challenge for space stations. Starlink satellites have already been confirmed to have had close encounters with China’s space station and it, too, has engaged in collision avoidance.

Then there are the disturbing ‘uncontrolled’ threats. As the viability of China’s space stations has grown, so too has the finger pointing about uncontrolled entries and failures to engage in responsible behaviour. China has drawn flak for the uncontrolled re-entries of parts of its Long March 5B rocket that delivered modules to Tiangong. The debris has scattered all over the world — in the Ivory Coast in 2020, in the Indian Ocean in 2021, and near the Philippines’ Palawan Island and in the Pacific Ocean in 2022. The uncontrolled entry of its experimental space lab in 2018 was also a cause for global apprehension.

In China, one view is that these criticisms are simply attempts to discredit or sabotage progress on its space station. After all, the ISS has itself gotten out of control, leaving everyone from the ground to the ISS scrambling to regain stability of the sprawling station. In 2021, a software glitch caused the ISS to pitch out of its normal flight position, and both attitude control over the station and communication with its seven-member crew were lost.

These threats are common to all space stations and when wrapped up in geopolitics they can be useful for bringing allies on board. While it is not clear whether allies will stay glued to one side or the other, it is evident that alliance politics is extending to space more than ever before. This is why China may well work towards cultivating a reputation for more responsible stewardship of space.

The United States cocooned the ISS in an alliance architecture, drawing together even former adversaries. Led by NASA, a 1998 agreement between five space agencies — belonging to the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe and Russia — has governed collaboration on the ISS.

The ISS is heavily promoted as an inspiring scientific achievement. Over 260 individuals from 20 countries have visited the largest collaborative infrastructure ever built in space to date, and thousands of researchers from across the world have used its facilities to carry out experiments.

But the ISS is only scientific and international up to a point. Canada, Japan and Europe are also core US military allies, a fact that is proving useful to the United States in the new lunar space race. And China has not been able to gain entry.

China is itself on a quest for space allies and partners. Through Tiangong, it strives to showcase scientific and technological experiments and exchanges. As with the ISS, China parades its space station’s range of partners — including the European Space Agency, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Pakistan, Kenya and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs. Tiangong is hailed as the ‘first of its kind open to all UN member states’.

If things stay their course, China may well be the only country with a functioning national space station. This is because, aside from opening the ISS for commercial and marketing opportunities, the post-ISS future is a work in progress for the United States. The US is tied to the dream of commercial space stations, but whether this space dream comes to fruition remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, it is foreseeable that there might be a gap in US presence in space, one that China is aiming to fill.

Saadia M Pekkanen is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Professor and the founding director of the Space Law, Data, and Policy Program (SLDP) at the University of Washington, and the founding co-chair of the US–Japan Space Forum.

Macron’s Plan on Migrants: Deport More, Give Others Legal Status

Under pressure from the right, the government of President Emmanuel Macron tries to balance a perceived immigration problem with a need for migrant workers.

The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, spoke about immigration policy on Tuesday in Parliament.Credit...Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Constant Méheut
Dec. 6, 2022, 

PARIS — The issue of immigration once again took center stage in French politics on Tuesday, as President Emmanuel Macron proposed a tougher stance on deportations, while also extending work opportunities for migrants with needed skills.

Mr. Macron’s government is trying to balance pressure from a rising far right to get immigration under control, against France’s need for immigrant labor. Its bill reflects his long-stated willingness to streamline both admissions and deportations, fulfilling a promise he made during his re-election campaign earlier this year.

Recent incidents — including a schoolgirl’s killing by an illegal migrant and the disputed docking of a migrant rescue vessel — have also pushed the government to try to take the heat out of a combustible issue.

Immigration has long been a fixation of politics in France — the president’s proposal would be the country’s 29th immigration and asylum law in four decades — where politicians and commentators, particularly on the right, often describe a country fending off an out-of-control influx of migrants. In reality, France has a smaller proportion of immigrants in its population than most of its neighbors, and in the past decade, immigration has grown less there than in the rest of Europe.

For four hours on Tuesday, lawmakers debated Mr. Macron’s balancing-act plan, which is expected to come to a vote next spring. The government is hoping to win the votes of opposition members on the left and right, which it needs to pass the bill, after the president’s party lost its absolute majority in the National Assembly.

“It is legitimate to raise the question of our migration policy: to say who we want, who we can welcome, and who we don’t want, who we can’t welcome,” Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne told the National Assembly, the lower and more powerful house of Parliament.


Image

Undocumented workers from subsidiaries of La Poste (French National Post Office) demonstrated on Tuesday in front of the French National Assembly in Paris.

Credit...Teresa Suarez/EPA, via Shutterstock

The main goal of the bill is to streamline the country’s sluggish deportation process. Over the past decade, only about 15 percent of migrants ordered to leave actually departed the country, according to a Senate report released in May.

Under the proposal, the number of possible appeals for rejected asylum seekers would be reduced to four from 12; deportation procedures would be sped up; and some safeguards for foreigners would be removed to make it easier to expel them if they were convicted of crimes.

“We must be able to take in more quickly those who deserve asylum, and refuse more quickly those who cannot obtain it on our soil,” Gérald Darmanin, Mr. Macron’s hard-line interior minister, said on Tuesday.

A collective of aid groups, including Amnesty International, denounced in a statement what they saw as measures that “risk further eroding the rights of foreigners,” such as the rights to asylum and to a fair trial, and may result in “the worsening of the precariousness” of asylum seekers.

That insecurity has played out for several days in central Paris, near the Louvre museum, where dozens of young migrants have set up tents in the freezing cold to demand that they be recognized as unaccompanied minors and be offered asylum.

François Héran, a leading expert on migration who teaches at Collège de France, said France delivered “far too many removal orders,” more than it can enforce, including to migrants who are working and well integrated.

According to the Senate report, the number of orders issued doubled in the past decade, reaching 122,000 in 2019, the same level as “Greece, Spain, and Italy combined, which face at least comparable migration pressure.”

Mr. Héran added that the law illustrated what he says is France’s refusal to accept that rising immigration is now a global phenomenon affecting all Western countries. “The current debate is totally out of step with the reality,” he said.

In an effort to balance tighter admission rules with better settlement conditions, the government also announced that it planned to create renewable one-year residence permits for undocumented migrants who are already in France and want to work in sectors suffering staffing shortages, such as catering.

“Immigration has always enabled France to respond to the needs of its economy,” Olivier Dussopt, the country’s labor minister, said.

Migrants have pitched tents to protest the lack of housing in Paris.

Credit...Pascal Rossignol/Reuters

But that proposal has come under fire from the center-right Les Républicains opposition party, which holds the key to a potential majority on the bill and with which the government has hoped to build a coalition in Parliament.

“When it comes to immigration, there can be no ‘at the same time,’” said Pierre-Henri Dumont, a member of Les Républicains, in a nod to the catchphrase Mr. Macron has long used to signal his bipartisanship. “If you maintain your willingness to regularize illegal immigrants on a massive scale, we will vote against all of your entire future bill.”

Lawmakers on the left also voiced sharp criticism of the government’s bill, denouncing what they called a repressive stance that is out of step with growing migration flows around the world because of wars and climate change.

In 2018, Mr. Macron’s government passed a law meant to tighten immigration, and which resulted from two pressing realities that remain today: a growing number of asylum seekers and increasing pressure from the far right.

Last month, Britain and France signed a new agreement to stem the growing number of small boats carrying migrants across the English Channel. The deal came nearly a year after 27 people died in a failed attempt to cross the busy waterway, one of the deadliest accidents in the channel in modern memory.