Trump: Women won't even think about abortion once I'm elected again

HANDMAIDS TALE WARNING

Daniel Hampton
September 21, 2024 

Former President Donald Trump (Jim WATSON/AFP)

Former President Donald Trump declared in a late Friday screed that women are sicker, poorer and more depressed than they were in 2020, and vowed that once he's re-elected they won't even be "thinking about abortion" they'll be so "happy."

The rant, posted in his signature all-caps style to his Truth Social app just before midnight, proclaimed that women are "poorer" "less healthy," "less safe on the streets," "more depressed" and "less optimistic and confident in the future" than they were when he was in the White House.

The MAGA leader then vowed to "fix all of that" — "fast" — and said American women will finally get a reprieve "at long last" from their "national nightmare."

"WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES, AND A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE - AND WITH POWERFUL EXCEPTIONS, LIKE THOSE THAT RONALD REAGAN INSISTED ON, FOR RAPE, INCEST, AND THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER - BUT NOT ALLOWING FOR DEMOCRAT DEMANDED LATE TERM ABORTION IN THE 7TH, 8TH, OR 9TH MONTH, OR EVEN EXECUTION OF A BABY AFTER BIRTH," the former president of the United States wrote. " I WILL PROTECT WOMEN AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. THEY WILL FINALLY BE HEALTHY, HOPEFUL, SAFE, AND SECURE. THEIR LIVES WILL BE HAPPY, BEAUTIFUL, AND GREAT AGAIN!"

Trump's post comes as he faces relentless attacks from his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has made it a point to showcase her support for abortion rights.

“It is immoral,” said Harris of abortion bans implemented after Roe v. Wade was overturned. “Let us agree one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do.”

On Friday, Harris ratcheted up her attacks at a campaign event in Atlanta, holding Trump responsible for the pregnancy-related deaths of two Georgia women, who couldn't access care due to severe restrictions that took effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

“Now we know that at least two women — and those are only the stories we know here in the state of Georgia — died because of a Trump abortion ban,” Harris said. “The reality is, for every story we hear of the suffering under Trump abortion bans, there are so many of the stories we’re not hearing, but where suffering is happening every day in our country.”

Trump hammered for telling 'American women what they will be thinking about' at rally

David McAfee
September 21, 2024 

Former US president and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump (AFP)

Donald Trump on Saturday stood on stage and said that American women will be "no longer be thinking about abortion" if he is elected again, and critics didn't hold back.

Trump, who late the night before posted a similar diatribe on his Truth Social platform, took part of his rally over the weekend to talk about how he claims electing him again will fix all the problems that women face. Also during his North Carolina rally, the former president was mocked after he attempted to explain away why he has rejected subsequent debate challenges from the V.P.

Addressing women's issues, Trump said, "Women are poorer than they were four years ago, are less healthy than they were four years ago, are less safe on the streets than they were four years ago..."

Trump added, “Women will be happy, healthy, confident and free. You will no longer be thinking about abortion because it is now where it always had to be, with the states."

Conservative Bill Kristol said in response, "Trump tells American women what they will be thinking about."

Vice President Kamala Harris' rapid response advisor James Singer also chimed in:

"Startling to hear Trump read this out loud," Singer said.

MSNBC host Chris Hayes said, "Trump 2024: Don’t You Worry Your Pretty Little Heads!"

Former Lincoln Project veterans affairs adviser Fred Wellman, an ex-Republican and current Democratic campaign consultant, asked, "What the f--- is this demented old coot even talking about?"

Harris' director of rapid response, Ammar Moussa, said, "This is why Donald Trump doesn’t want to debate again."

Watch the video below or click the link here.

Inside Trump and Johnson's shocking new bid to suppress women's votes

Thom Hartmann, AlterNet
September 21, 2024

Former President Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (Image via Mike Johnson/X)

Republicans don’t want women to vote. They now think they may have a strategy that could help make that happen.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and former president Donald Trump were pushing the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Eligibility Act), demanding it be part of must-pass legislation to fund the federal government for another year (the funding runs out at the end of this month and then the shutdown begins).

It died in the House last night, but, like a bad penny, you can bet it’ll return. Now they’re pushing for it in the Senate, with a version authored by Joe Manchin, his final goodbye kiss to — or future bet on — the Republicans.

Trump, on his failing, Nazi-infested social media site, ranted Tuesday that Republicans must get “every ounce” of the SAVE Act passed or shut down the government “in any way, shape, or form.” He said it was necessary because Democrats are “registering Illegal Voters by the TENS OF THOUSANDS, as we speak,” ranting the vicious lie that, “They will be voting in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Trump, Vance, and Johnson claim that the SAVE Act is necessary to prevent people who aren’t citizens from voting, but are entirely unable to prove that any meaningful number of noncitizens have ever illegally voted in any American election. After all, it’s a felony for a noncitizen to vote, and few are stupid enough to take that sort of a chance.

Republicans love to point out that occasionally noncitizens end up on the voting rolls of various states. Oregon, for example, just found that 306 noncitizens were on the voting rolls because they were incorrectly added when they renewed their drivers’ licenses; two had voted because they were mailed ballots and didn’t know better. The state has fixed this error.

But Republicans have absolutely no evidence of any election, anywhere in America, at any time in our history that was ever changed by noncitizens voting. Or of any conspiracy to encourage noncitizens to vote.

In other words, their entire argument is bullshit.

I’m generally reluctant to use profanity in my writing, but this argument deserves a strong word. Descriptors like dissimulation, deceptivity, blagging, dupery, prevarication, jiggery-pokery, supercherie, counterfeisance, misdescription, suggestio falsi, humbuggery, dissemblance, flimflammery, calumny, meretricity, or even the good old-fashioned word “lie” just won’t do: this is bullshit.

As NBC News noted:
“The Brennan Center found just 30 suspected noncitizen votes amid 23.5 million votes in 2016, suggesting that suspected noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001% of votes cast. Trump’s own election integrity commission disbanded without releasing evidence of voter fraud, even though he’d claimed 3 million undocumented immigrants had voted in 2016 costing him the popular vote.”

Not only that will illegal voting get you years in prison, but it’s one of the most easily discovered crimes. Sean Morales-Doyle, a lawyer for the Brennan Center, laid it out:

“This is a crime where not only are the consequences really high and the payoff really low — you’re not getting millions of dollars, it’s not robbing a bank, you [just] get to cast one ballot. But what also makes this somewhat unique is that committing this crime actually entails the creation of a government record of your crime.”

So, why is this the hill Republicans are willing to die on? Why would Johnson, Trump, and Vance (and so many other Republicans) put so much effort into a lie that will, if acted on, create chaos for American voters?

And why try so hard to force it into a must-pass bill when it has already passed the House of Representatives on a standalone vote? The question contains the seed of its own answer.


The SAVE Act is a proposed federal law, so, first off, it would put a future president (say, Trump) in charge of enforcing it, taking that power away from the states. Millions of voter registrations in any states the president decides are problematic could be removed until those voters “cure” their registrations, and state authorities would have no say in it.

That alone could flip a few blue states red, and make purple states permanently red.

And what will the law require citizens who want to vote do? Lacking a passport or other proof of citizenship with their married names, they must produce both a birth certificate (with the seal of the state where it was issued; no copies allowed) and a current form of identification — both with the exact same name on them. That could instantly disqualify about 90 percent of all married women without passports or other proof that matches their birth certificates or proof of a legal name change.


For women in that situation, they can still register to vote if they can prove that they went to court to change their name when they got married, but most women just start using their new married name without ever going through all those formalities (although a few states recognize marriage as a legal name change).

As a result, as the National Organization for Women (NOW) details in a report on how Republican voter suppression efforts harm women:
“Voter ID laws have a disproportionately negative effect on women. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, one third of all women have citizenship documents that do not identically match their current names primarily because of name changes at marriage. Roughly 90 percent of women who marry adopt their husband’s last name.
“That means that roughly 90 percent of married female voters have a different name on their ID than the one on their birth certificate. An estimated 34 percent of women could be turned away from the polls unless they have precisely the right documents.”


Just by coincidence, Republicans will suggest, at this moment in history millions of American women are seriously pissed off at the GOP.

And, Republicans will tell you, that has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump and Mike Johnson threatening to shut down the government if Democrats don’t go along with these draconian new requirements for women to vote.


I’ll say it again: this effort by Republicans to blackmail Democrats into disenfranchising millions of women just in time for a critical election — just like their claim that legal Haitian immigrants are eating white people’s pets — is complete, utter, unmitigated bullshit.

And the press should do a much better job of calling it exactly what it is.

NOW READ: The simple yet powerful message Tim Walz used to expose Trump’s languageand former president Donald Trump were pushing the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Eligibility Act), demanding it be part of must-pass legislation to fund the federal government for another year (the funding runs out at the end of this month and then the shutdown begins).


It died in the House last night, but, like a bad penny, you can bet it’ll return. Now they’re pushing for it in the Senate, with a version authored by Joe Manchin, his final goodbye kiss to — or future bet on — the Republicans.

Trump, on his failing, Nazi-infested social media site, ranted Tuesday that Republicans must get “every ounce” of the SAVE Act passed or shut down the government “in any way, shape, or form.” He said it was necessary because Democrats are “registering Illegal Voters by the TENS OF THOUSANDS, as we speak,” ranting the vicious lie that, “They will be voting in the 2024 Presidential Election.”

Trump, Vance, and Johnson claim that the SAVE Act is necessary to prevent people who aren’t citizens from voting, but are entirely unable to prove that any meaningful number of noncitizens have ever illegally voted in any American election. After all, it’s a felony for a noncitizen to vote, and few are stupid enough to take that sort of a chance.


Republicans love to point out that occasionally noncitizens end up on the voting rolls of various states. Oregon, for example, just found that 306 noncitizens were on the voting rolls because they were incorrectly added when they renewed their drivers’ licenses; two had voted because they were mailed ballots and didn’t know better. The state has fixed this error.

But Republicans have absolutely no evidence of any election, anywhere in America, at any time in our history that was ever changed by noncitizens voting. Or of any conspiracy to encourage noncitizens to vote.

In other words, their entire argument is bullshit.

I’m generally reluctant to use profanity in my writing, but this argument deserves a strong word. Descriptors like dissimulation, deceptivity, blagging, dupery, prevarication, jiggery-pokery, supercherie, counterfeisance, misdescription, suggestio falsi, humbuggery, dissemblance, flimflammery, calumny, meretricity, or even the good old-fashioned word “lie” just won’t do: this is bullshit.

As NBC News noted:
“The Brennan Center found just 30 suspected noncitizen votes amid 23.5 million votes in 2016, suggesting that suspected noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001% of votes cast. Trump’s own election integrity commission disbanded without releasing evidence of voter fraud, even though he’d claimed 3 million undocumented immigrants had voted in 2016 costing him the popular vote.”

Not only that will illegal voting get you years in prison, but it’s one of the most easily discovered crimes. Sean Morales-Doyle, a lawyer for the Brennan Center, laid it out:
“This is a crime where not only are the consequences really high and the payoff really low — you’re not getting millions of dollars, it’s not robbing a bank, you [just] get to cast one ballot. But what also makes this somewhat unique is that committing this crime actually entails the creation of a government record of your crime.”

So, why is this the hill Republicans are willing to die on? Why would Johnson, Trump, and Vance (and so many other Republicans) put so much effort into a lie that will, if acted on, create chaos for American voters?

And why try so hard to force it into a must-pass bill when it has already passed the House of Representatives on a standalone vote? The question contains the seed of its own answer.

The SAVE Act is a proposed federal law, so, first off, it would put a future president (say, Trump) in charge of enforcing it, taking that power away from the states. Millions of voter registrations in any states the president decides are problematic could be removed until those voters “cure” their registrations, and state authorities would have no say in it.

That alone could flip a few blue states red, and make purple states permanently red.

And what will the law require citizens who want to vote do? Lacking a passport or other proof of citizenship with their married names, they must produce both a birth certificate (with the seal of the state where it was issued; no copies allowed) and a current form of identification — both with the exact same name on them. That could instantly disqualify about 90 percent of all married women without passports or other proof that matches their birth certificates or proof of a legal name change.

For women in that situation, they can still register to vote if they can prove that they went to court to change their name when they got married, but most women just start using their new married name without ever going through all those formalities (although a few states recognize marriage as a legal name change).

'Oh my god!' MSNBC panel rips into Vivek Ramaswamy's Black racism claims

Tom Boggioni

RAW STORY
September 21, 2024 

Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele, Eddie Glaude (MSNBC screenshoit)

First-time former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was battered by the MSNBC "The Weekend" panel early Saturday morning over comments he made in Ohio attempting to excuse the racist attacks made by Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance that have upended the lives of the citizens of Springfield, Ohio.

Ramaswamy, an Ohio native, spoke with a small group of supporters in the state this week where he tried to clean up the mess made by the former president and his 2024 running mate who falsely accusing Haitian immigrants of stealing pets and eating them.

In a clip shown as part of the segment, Ramaswamy can he heard telling the small numbers of supporters, "You take 20,000 people who are unprepared to integrate into a committee, dump them into a city of 50,000, you are going to get a reactionary response. Then you demonize the people who have a reactionary response who say, 'You are blaming me!' they're going to have ill will in this case toward the Haitian community."

"It is literally fueling a new wave of anti-Black racism in the country that otherwise would not exist if it weren't for those woke anti-racism policies in the first place, " he added.

That, in turn led Princeton professor Eddie Glaude to gasp off-camera, "Oh my god!"

"The Weekend " co-host Michael Steele took it from there, turning to the camera and stating, "Before you give a response, I just have to say, 'Vivek, you're full of crap.' Look at what the Haitian community did when they arrived in Springfield."

Glaude added, "I was trying to edit myself in so many ways. A part of it is this: Vivek just traded on a whole range of tropes and bad history."

"If you look at the debates around immigration in the 1920s, running up to 1924 Johnson Immigration Act, some of the same things were said about immigrant; they are not prepared to integrate into the society," he continued. "Well we know that happened in Springfield; you had an influx of folks, they did not have in place the infrastructure around schools and hospitals as they were inviting the labor into the community to revitalize it. But instead, you blame them and then you other them and justify the deep-seated prejudice against the folks."

Watch below or at the link
- YouTubeyoutu.be

Trumper Doug Mastriano sues Oklahoma historian for defamation

OVER HIS UNIV. OF NEW BRUNSWICK, CANADA, PHD THESIS

Emma Murphy, Pennsylvania Capital-Star
September 21, 2024 

Doug Mastriano Yong Kim/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma historian being sued for defamation by a Pennsylvania state lawmaker is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed on the grounds that the legislator is trying to curtail free speech rights.

James Gregory Jr., a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma, is being sued by Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, (R-Franklin), for defamation after Gregory criticized Mastriano’s academic research and raised concerns about its integrity.

Mastriano sued Gregory and nearly two dozen other defendants in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma in May, but the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on Thursday. The organization, which advocates for free speech and free thought rights, is representing Gregory.

“The First Amendment means all Americans have the right to criticize public officials, no matter how angry that criticism makes them,” said Greg Greubel, FIRE senior attorney, in a statement. “Politicians should be concerned about legislating for the people, not suing critics when their feelings get hurt.”

The lawsuit alleges that Mastriano is “the victim of a multi-year racketeering and antitrust enterprise” that seeks to steal, use and “debunk his work” that is worth at least $10 million in “tourism-related events, validated museum artifacts, book, media, television and movie deals.”

Mastriano is a decorated military veteran and a well-respected academic, who has published three books, two multinational studies and over 30 articles on “historic, military or strategic matters,” according to the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, Mastriano alleges a conspiracy to try to “steal” his Ph.D. in U.S. military history, his book sales, lucrative speaking engagements and other professional opportunities.

The lawsuit alleges that Gregory began to attempt to debunk Mastriano’s archeological research in 2019 and claimed the work was a “fraud.” The complaint prompted an investigation into Mastriano. Gregory, meanwhile, released his own book entitled “Unraveling The Myth of Sgt. York: The Other Sixteen.”

Mastriano and his Tulsa-based attorney did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

According to Gregory’s motion to dismiss, Gregory first read Mastriano’s published work on World War I hero Sgt. Alvin York while he was an undergraduate student at OU.

Gregory reported over 200 concerns of academic fraud and inaccuracies to the University of New Brunswick in Canada, where Mastriano earned his Ph.D., in 2022, according to the lawsuit. Gregory said he had no knowledge of Mastriano’s political ambitions at the time and was simply doing his duty as a historian “to seek out the truth and correct the record.”

The motion to dismiss the case against Gregory argues that criticizing the work of a fellow historian is not defamation or racketeering and that the First Amendment and Oklahoma law are meant to protect Gregory’s right to question a public official’s scholarship.

“Historians arrive at the truth by debating ideas, inviting skepticism, and challenging assumptions and sources,” Gregory said in a statement. “By trying to silence that debate, Mastriano is literally on the wrong side of history — and history will prevail.”

In a statement, FIRE said Mastriano’s lawsuit is “intended to chill speech by forcing the speaker to defend themself against costly and time-consuming litigation.”

The group argues that the defamation claim should be dismissed in part because of Oklahoma’s Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or anti-SLAPP, law and because public debate among historians is not a violation of antitrust law.

FIRE said the Oklahoma Citizens Participation Act, passed in 2014 allows quick dismissals of lawsuits targeting free speech and holds the plaintiff responsible for paying the defendant’s legal fees.

“James’ plight is a perfect example of why robust anti-SLAPP protections are vital to expressive freedom,” Greubel said in a statement. “Otherwise, the First Amendment is nothing more than a luxury for those who can afford to fight off an expensive lawsuit.”

Gregory is also the director of the William A. Brookshire Military Museum at Louisiana State University and an adjunct at that university, FIRE said.

Mastriano went on to run for governor of Pennsylvania in 2022. He was not elected. In his lawsuit he alleges that Gregory’s criticisms of his scholarship led to Pennsylvanians deciding not to vote for him.

FIRE’s motion to dismiss argues Mastriano’s lawsuit should be thrown out as he failed to act within the one year statute of limitations, which would have expired in April, as required by Oklahoma law for defamation claims, among other rebuttals of the lawsuit.


Oklahoma Voice is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oklahoma Voice maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Janelle Stecklein for questions: info@oklahomavoice.com. Follow Oklahoma Voice on Facebook and X.

Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kim Lyons for questions: info@penncapital-star.com. Follow Pennsylvania Capital-Star on Facebook and X.

Amid campaign, Mastriano's disputed dissertation made public

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for Doug Mastriano 

Unknown Mozart string trio discovered in Germany

By AFP
September 19, 2024

Born in 1756, Mozart was a child prodigy and began composing at a very early age under his father's guidance - Copyright AFP ANWAR AMRO

A previously unknown piece of music composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was probably in his early teens has been uncovered at a library in Germany, researchers said Thursday.

The piece dates to the mid- to late-1760s and consists of seven miniature movements for a string trio lasting around 12 minutes, the Leipzig Municipal Libraries said in a statement.

Born in 1756, Mozart was a child prodigy and began composing at a very early age under his father’s guidance.

Researchers discovered the work at the city’s music library while compiling the latest edition of the so-called Koechel catalogue, the definitive archive of Mozart’s musical works.

The newly discovered manuscript was not penned by Mozart himself but is believed to be a copy made in around 1780, the researchers said.

The piece was performed by a string trio at the unveiling of the new Koechel catalogue in the Austrian city of Salzburg on Thursday.

It will receive its German premiere at the Leipzig Opera on Saturday.

The piece is referred to as “Ganz kleine Nachtmusik” in the new Koechel catalogue, according to the Leipzig libraries.

The manuscript consists of dark brown ink on medium-white handmade paper and the parts are individually bound, they said.

The Koechel catalogue describes the piece as “preserved in a single source, in which the attribution of the author suggests that the work was written before Mozart’s first trip to Italy”, according to the municipal libraries.

The young Mozart had been known to researchers up until now “mainly as a composer of piano music, arias and symphonies”, Ulrich Leisinger of the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg said in a statement.

A list by Mozart’s father had alerted academics to the existence of “many other chamber music compositions” by the young artist, which were all thought to have been lost until the emergence of the string trio, Leisinger said.

“Since the inspiration for this apparently came from Mozart’s sister, it is tempting to imagine that she kept the work as a memento of her brother,” Leisinger said.

GOOD NEWS

China-Japan accord on monitoring of Fukushima water releases

Friday, 20 September 2024

China looks set to start lifting its ban on the import of Japanese fishery products after reaching an agreement with Japan for the independent monitoring of the discharge of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant by China and other countries.

Workers take samples of the diluted water before the second discharge began (Image: Tepco)

At the Fukushima Daiichi site, contaminated water - in part used to cool melted nuclear fuel - is treated by the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which removes most of the radioactive contamination, with the exception of tritium. This treated water is currently stored in tanks on site.

Japan announced in April 2021 it planned to discharge ALPS-treated water into the sea over a period of about 30 years. It started to discharge the water on 24 August last year and has so far completed the release of eight batches, a total of 62,400 cubic metres of water.

"As one of the most important stakeholders, China is firmly opposed to this irresponsible move," China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. "At the same time, China has urged Japan to seriously address concerns in and outside Japan, to earnestly fulfill its obligations, to give full cooperation in the establishment of an independent and effective long-term international monitoring arrangement in which stakeholders can participate substantively, and to accept independent sampling and monitoring by China."

Japan and China have now reached an agreement that allows stakeholders, including China, to conduct independent sampling, monitoring and inter-laboratory comparisons at key stages of the discharge process, which is currently being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"Taking into account the interests of all stakeholder countries, including China, Japan welcomes the expansion of long-term and international monitoring at key stages of the ocean release under the IAEA framework, and will ensure that all stakeholder countries, including China, effectively participate in this monitoring and that independent sampling and inter-laboratory comparisons are conducted by the participating countries," said Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

"China states that it has taken temporary emergency precautions against aquatic products of Japanese origin according to relevant Chinese laws and regulations and WTO rules," the Chinese ministry said. "After China participates substantively in the long-term international monitoring within the IAEA framework and the independent sampling and other monitoring activities by participating countries are carried out, China will begin to adjust the relevant measures based on scientific evidence and gradually resume imports of Japanese aquatic products that meet the regulation requirements and standards."

The agreement was welcomed by IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, who said: "I wish to commend the government of Japan for its continued engagement with the IAEA, and the government of China for the constructive consultations held with the Agency in support of this bilateral process that comes to a positive conclusion today."

The agreement, Grossi said, "has built on our existing sampling and monitoring activities in compliance with the IAEA statutory functions". He said the IAEA will coordinate with Japan and other stakeholders, including China, to ensure that the additional measures are implemented appropriately under the framework of the IAEA, "maintaining the integrity of the process with full transparency to ensure that water discharge levels are, and will continue to be, in strict compliance and consistent with international safety standards".

Japan and China have agreed to "continue constructive dialogue from a scientific perspective, in a responsible manner towards the ecological environment and people's health, and to appropriately address concerns regarding the ocean release of ALPS-treated water."

IAEA experts stationed at the Fukushima Daiichi plant have taken samples from the batches of diluted water, after they were prepared for discharge. The IAEA's independent on-site analysis has confirmed that the tritium concentration in the diluted water that has so far been discharged is far below the operational limit of 1500 Bq/litre. The IAEA says it will have a presence on site for as long as the treated water is released.

China to ‘gradually resume’ seafood imports

 from Japan after Fukushima ban


By AFP
September 20, 2024

A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency with scientists from China, South Korea and Canada observe baskets of fish to be taken as samples at Hisanohama Port in Iwaki, Japan's Fukushima Prefecture, in October 2023 - Copyright POOL/AFP/File Eugene Hoshiko

China said Friday that it would “gradually resume” importing seafood from Japan after imposing a blanket ban in August last year over the release of water from the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant.

“China will begin to adjust the relevant measures based on scientific evidence and gradually resume imports of Japanese aquatic products that meet the regulation requirements and standards,” a foreign ministry statement said.

Chinese and Japanese officials recently conducted “multiple rounds of consultations” on the discharge of water from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, the ministry said.

It said Japan had committed to “fulfilling its obligations under international law, doing its utmost to avoid leaving (a) negative impact on human health and the environment, and conducting continuous evaluations of the impact on the marine environment and marine ecosystems”.

In 2011, three reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi facility in northeastern Japan went into meltdown following a massive earthquake and tsunami that killed around 18,000 people.

Since then, plant operator TEPCO collected water contaminated as it cooled the wrecked reactors, along with groundwater and rain that has seeped in.


– Fierce backlash –


Japan in late August 2023 began discharging treated contaminated water from the Fukushima plant into the Pacific Ocean in an operation it insists is safe, a view backed by the UN atomic agency.

The release, however, generated a fierce backlash from China, which branded it “selfish” and banned all Japanese seafood imports.

China’s foreign ministry said in its statement Friday that Tokyo welcomed the establishment of a “long-term international monitoring arrangement within the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) framework covering key stages in the discharge of the nuclear-contaminated water”.

“Both sides agree to continue to have constructive, science-based dialogue with a great sense of responsibility for the ecosystem, the environment, and human life and health,” it added.

Around the same time as the announcement, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tokyo had “informed the Chinese side of its readiness to carry out additional monitoring of the… treated water, while the Chinese side has decided to… steadily restore imports of Japanese fishery products that meet certain standards”.

Despite the gradual resumption of seafood imports, a spokeswoman for Beijing’s foreign ministry said China still “resolutely opposes” Japan’s discharge of water from Fukushima.

“First of all, China resolutely opposes the Japanese side’s arbitrary discharge (of contaminated water) into the sea,” spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular press conference, adding: “This position has not changed.”

China imported over $500 million worth of seafood from Japan in 2022, according to customs data.

10 years into Huthi rule, some Yemenis count the cost


By AFP
September 20, 2024

Demonstrators rally outside a mosque in Yemen's Huthi-held Sanaa on March 29, 2024 - Copyright AFP Yan ZHAO

With a floundering economy and growing restrictions on personal freedoms, 10 years of Huthi rule has left its mark on Yemen’s ancient capital, Sanaa, where some quietly long for how things once were.

The Huthis, a radical political-military group from Yemen’s northern mountains, have imposed strict rule over the large swathe of Yemen under their control, covering two-thirds of the population.

Since the Iran-backed rebels took power in Sanaa in 2014, after long-running protests against the government, the country has gone “back 50 years”, sighed Yahya, 39, who like many prefers not to share his full name for fear of reprisals.

“Before, we thought about how to buy a car or a house. Now we think about how to feed ourselves,” added Abu Jawad, 45.

Already the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen has been devastated by war since 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition launched a failed campaign to dislodge the Huthis.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died through fighting or indirect causes like hunger and disease, with much of the infrastructure in ruins.

Yemen, mired in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, remains divided between the Huthis and the government, now based in the port city of Aden.

The Huthis, who adhere to the Zaidi branch of Shiite Islam and claim divine right to rule, have tightened their control over many aspects of daily life.

– ‘Men, women could sit together’ –

Sanaa, despite its conservatism, once had “political parties, active civic organisations, NGOs… coffee shops where males and females can sit together”, said researcher Maysaa Shuja al-Deen, of the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies.

“Now the social and political atmosphere has become very closed,” she added.

Men and women are segregated in public, and Huthi slogans like “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!” are plastered everywhere, alongside photos of Huthi leaders, Deen said.

Since 2015, Amnesty International has documented numerous cases of activists, journalists and political opponents who were convicted on “trumped-up” espionage charges.

A wave of arrests in June targeted aid workers, including 13 United Nations staff who are still detained.

Majed, the director of a Yemeni non-governmental organisation, said he fled Sanaa for Aden before taking refuge with friends in Jordan, leaving behind his wife and three children.

“I made the decision without thinking too much. Leaving was a risky choice, but it was the only one,” the 45-year-old said from Amman, where he hopes to find a job.

According to Deen, a Yemeni who is also based outside the country, it is now difficult to go against the ruling authorities, or even fail to show support.

“At the very beginning, being silent was an option. Now it’s not even an option,” she said.

“You have to show that you are loyal to the Huthi ideology.”

The Huthis are adept at using social and traditional media, such as their Al-Masirah TV station, to spread propaganda, and have even revised school textbooks and changed the calendar.

The traditional holiday of September 26, which celebrated the 1962 revolution against the former imam, has been moved to September 21, the day the Huthis took power.

Some Yemenis chafe at the change. “Even if they forbid us from celebrating officially, we will celebrate it in our hearts,” said Abu Ahmed, 53, a Sanaa resident.

– ‘I dream of getting my life back’ –

However, support for the Huthis’ attacks since November against Israel and ships in the Red Sea, in solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war, seems to be unanimous.

“The Yemenis have always been pro-Palestinian,” said author and Yemen specialist Helen Lackner, highlighting the hundreds of thousands of people who join the Huthis’ weekly demonstrations in Sanaa.

Despite their popularity among ordinary people, the maritime attacks have halted negotiations conducted between the rebels and Saudi Arabia to end the war.

Rim, 43, who has lived with her family in neighbouring Saudi for nine years, has not been able to return to Sanaa to bury her father, or attend the weddings of her brothers and sisters.

“I dream of getting my life back,” said the 43-year-old. In the meantime, she is content to talk to her children about her country.

“I don’t want them to forget that they are Yemeni.”

Haiti, its suffering growing, in ‘race against time’: UN expert

By AFP
September 20, 2024

Vendors hauling their goods travel on a rocky, cliff-lined road to avoid gangs in the Port-au-Prince area. The perilous journey takes nearly seven hours

 - Copyright AFP/File Clarens SIFFROY

The Haitian people are suffering gravely at the hands of powerful criminal gangs, while an international security force and local police are badly lacking resources to protect them, a top UN expert said Friday.

William O’Neill, briefing reporters in Port-au-Prince at the end of a 12-day visit to the impoverished Caribbean island, described dire conditions that have left the population in an extreme state of insecurity and spreading starvation.

He visited areas in southern Haiti that, untouched by gang violence a year ago, are now struggling with “galloping inflation, lack of basic goods and flows of internally displaced people,” particularly affecting women and children.

Only 28 percent of health services are functioning normally, O’Neill said, “and almost five million people are suffering from acute food insecurity.”

In one refugee camp he met an “anemic little girl” who had not eaten in two days and not been in school in over a year.

More than half the island’s 700,000 internally displaced people are children.

The gangs are increasingly using sexual violence as a weapon to control the population, O’Neill said.

They have “trafficked children, forcibly recruited them into gangs, and often used them to carry out attacks” on police and public facilities.

The criminal gangs control more than 80 percent of Port-au-Prince, as well as key roads around the country.

The police meantime “lack the logistical and technical capacity to counter the gangs,” O’Neill said.

He said the Multinational Security Support Mission authorized nearly a year ago by the UN Security Council has so far deployed less than a quarter of its planned contingent of 2,500. At its core are 400 Kenyan officers deployed this summer.

“The equipment it has received is inadequate, and its resources are insufficient,” the UN expert said.

Police are overwhelmed. “We have to learn to walk on water,” one policeman in Jeremie told O’Neill.

Prison conditions, the UN expert said, were deplorable.

A prison in Jeremie, designed for 50 inmates, holds 470. “They sleep on floors flooded with rainwater and littered with filth,” sometimes going days without food.

“This enduring agony must stop,” O’Neill said.

He called on the Haitian authorities, appointed this year after the resignation of the unpopular government of Ariel Henry, to greatly step up efforts to combat pervasive corruption, saying, “efforts must be redoubled immediately.”

At the same time, he said, “it is crucial to stifle the gangs” by giving the international force the resources to effectively support the national police.

And with the criminals still receiving imported weapons, an international arms embargo must be tightened.

“It is a race against time,” O’Neill said.

The population “lacks everything.”

POST-FORDISM
Automotive intelligence moves forwards with ‘Liquid AI’

By Dr. Tim Sandle
September 19, 2024

DIGITAL JOURNAL

An 'Apollo Go' autonomous taxi on a street in Beijing - Copyright AFP Jade GAO

Is a new era of automotive intelligence about to begin? This is the claim of Autobrains Technologies who are working on ‘Liquid AI’, a self-driving car technology. This approach is designed to solve some of the current autonomous driving challenges.

In addition, the technology seeks to enhance vehicle autonomy by dynamically adapting to complex driving environments. This adaptability is considered as essential to achieving smarter and safer automotive solutions.

Such challenges include:

Edge Cases

An edge case is a problem or situation that occurs only at an extreme (maximum or minimum) operating parameter.

The infinite variety of unexpected driving scenarios presents conventional AIs with practically unsolvable tasks. Attempts to address this by feeding the systems more labelled images result in a loss of trackability and controllability.

Cost

Addressing real-world driving problems by expanding existing systems with more data, labelling, layers, and computational resources leads to escalating costs and power consumption.

Achieving a substantial improvement in system accuracy by a factor of 10 requires 10,000 times more computational resources.

Perception-Decision Disconnect

The missing interplay between perception and decision functions hinders effective and precise decision-making. For the AI to make optimal driving choices, it requires specific information. However, when details are missing or overly complex, precision is compromised, leading to incorrect reactions.


Liquid AI – Human Brain-Inspired


The technology combines Autobrains’ signature-based self-learning approach with a modular and adaptive architecture of specialized, scenario-based end-to-end skills.


According to Autobrains’ Founder and CEO, Igal Raichelgauz: “While current technologies perform well in handling average conventional driving tasks, they fall short when faced with unexpected real-world driving scenarios that demand greater precision. By using or implementing our Liquid AI, automotive companies can close their AI gaps”.

Autobrains draws inspiration from the human brain. As the human brain adapts its architecture based on context – such as light/weather conditions, surroundings, and relevant road users – Liquid AI has been designed to follow the same approach.

The basis of the technology includes:

Network of Specialized Narrow AI

Liquid AI comprises hundreds of thousands of specialized narrow AIs, each designed for specific tasks, making reactions very precise and tailored to the relevant driving scenario.

This specialized AI approach enables scalability, ranging from a few tens to hundreds of AIs for ADAS systems, scaling up to thousands for higher levels of automated driving, all the way to hundreds of thousands of AIs for full self-driving.

Adaptive Architecture

Unlike fixed systems, Liquid AI’s architecture adapts dynamically to the driving context, activating only relevant modules as necessary. This significantly reduces power consumption and compute requirements, not only resulting in cost savings for the System on Chip (SoC) hardware.

Efficiency and Precision

By mimicking the brain’s flexibility, Liquid AI achieves superior performance, cost-effectiveness, and safety. This includes human-like cognitive processing, which mimics human decision-making, allowing for better handling of unpredictable real-world conditions.

Efficient Resource Utilization

Lower computational power requirements make it scalable across various vehicle models without compromising performance.

These factors lead to a potentialenhancement in situational awareness and decision-making, providing a safer and more reliable driving experience.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-science/automotive-intelligence-moves-forwards-with-liquid-ai/article#ixzz8mVkwNvN4

Environmental protesters block French cruise liner port


By AFP
September 21, 2024

Activists from the NGO "Stop croisieres" and "Extinction Rebellion France" hold banners while they block a cruise ship

 — © POOL/AFP/File Yuichi Yamazaki

Environmental activists blocked the cruise ship port in the southern French city of Marseille on Saturday to protest against the sea, air and climate pollution generated by these huge vessels.

About 20 members of Extinction Rebellion and Marseille-based Stop Croisieres (Stop Cruises) made a chain of canoes in the water across the entry to France’s leading port for cruise liners, an AFP correspondent reported.

The demonstration forced one ship to turn back at 7:00 am and moor further down the coast. Others had to stay in stand-by outside the port until about 9:30 am.

The port has since reopened, the maritime authorities told AFP cruise ships have docked.

“Nothing justifies the maintenance of these absurd, energy-intensive and toxic floating cities,” Stop Croisieres said on its website.

“Our air, our seas and our health are not up for negotiation,” it said.

It criticised the noxious heavy fuel oil used by the vessels, the destruction of ocean and coastal wildlife, the ships’ impact on the climate and poor working conditions for employees on board.

The protest prevented the Germany-owned Aidastella, which can carry around 2,000 people, from docking at around 7:00 am.

The Costa Smeralda and the MSC World Europa also had to wait before entering the French port.

The MSC World Europa is the sixth largest cruise liner in the world. It can carry 6,000 passengers and has more than 2,600 cabins, as well as 13 restaurants and a shopping centre.

– Pollution –

Marseille is the centre of a burgeoning cruise ship industry in France.

Between 2022 and 2023, the number of cruise passengers entering the port jumped from 1.5 million to 2.5 million, according to the Marseille tourism observatory.

Advocates of cruise liners argue they provide revenue to stopover ports.

Detractors say the ships encourage passengers to spend their money onboard, not on land, and that the industry promotes competition between reception ports to force down prices.

There have been protests in several European port cities against the damage caused by cruise liners, including in Venice and Amsterdam, which have banished them from docking in the city centre.

Stop Croisieres was set up during the Covid pandemic.

“We saw videos of nature being restored all over France, little birds in towns and other bucolic scenes.

“Yet in some parts of Marseille, the air was even more polluted than before the pandemic because of all the cruise liners forced to stay in port with their engines running,” said Andrea, who declined to give her surname for fear of prosecution.

In March 2023, residents’ associations in Marseille lodged a legal complaint over ocean traffic pollution in the port area, which regularly exceeded European Union limits.

According to a study by NGO Transport and Environment, cruise ships sailing in European waters in 2022 emitted more than eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide — the equivalent of 50,000 Paris to New York flights.