Monday, December 02, 2024

TROOPS OUT NOW!

Foreign Minister Baiba Braže: 
Canada is our trusted Ally in NATO. Our security is inextricably linked in the current geopolitical situation


Published: 02.12.2024.


Photo: Laura Celmiņa, Ministry of Foreign Affairs


“Canada is an Ally and friend of particular importance to Latvia and the Baltic States, and has a history of protecting our independence. As Latvia’s Ally in NATO, Canada continues providing its essential contribution to our security. I highly appreciate, and offer my thanks to the Canadian Foreign Minister for current cooperation, Canada’s leadership as the framework nation of NATO’s Multinational Brigade in Latvia, and its commitment to remain a security guarantor for Latvia and the entire region. We are stronger together – both in our own security and in support of Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Baiba Braže underlined at the meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Baltic States and Canada in Riga.

On Monday, 2 December 2024, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, Baiba Braže, welcomed the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Baltic States and Canada to Riga with a view to strengthening dialogue in the “3+1” format on matters of shared interest. This is already the third meeting in the present format. It focused on transatlantic relations, security situation in Europe and globally, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, further support to Ukraine, and cooperation with global partners, including in the Indo-Pacific region. Taking part in the meeting were the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Mélanie Joly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Margus Tsahkna, and the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Egidijus Meilūnas.

The visit to Latvia by the Canadian Foreign Minister and a joint meeting of the Baltic and Canadian ministers strongly evidences the commitment of the countries to close transatlantic cooperation. “Transatlantic cooperation is a long-term priority and a cornerstone of Latvia’s foreign and security policy, which includes strengthening the competitiveness of both the NATO eastern flank and the transatlantic area. Latvia is committed to ensuring all the infrastructure required to host the Allied presence,” Baiba Braže underlined.

Baiba Braže also pointed out that there has been Canadian military presence in Latvia since 2017. “The establishment of the Canada-led NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia is a powerful element of deterrence and defence sending a clear signal of Canada’s commitment to defending every centimetre of the Alliance. The multinational brigade level presence in Latvia strengthens the security of the entire Baltic region and reaffirms the importance of NATO’s collective defence forces. This is particularly important given the permanent security threat from Russia,” the Foreign Minister noted.

Referring to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the Foreign Minister emphasised that containing of Russia, and providing a robust support to Ukraine lie in the long-term interests of transatlantic partners. “Russia is a long-term threat in the Euro-Atlantic space, and every effort must be made to comprehensively contain Russia – reduce revenues to its economy, thereby undermining its combat capabilities. Russia and those supporting its aggression must be targeted with stronger sanctions,” the Minister noted and also called for increasing contribution to the Allies’ own security.

The Minister spoke highly of the recent Resolute Warrior 2024 exercise, which made it possible to observe the readiness of the Canadian-led NATO Multinational Brigade in Latvia to respond to threat, project its forces, maintain command and control, as well as effective cooperation between member nations. This was the largest exercise under the Canadian leadership implemented in Europe over the past 30 years.

About the NATO Multinational Brigade LatviaThe lead nation of NATO’s Multinational Brigade Latvia is Canada. The brigade currently consists of over 3,500 troops from 13 countries – Albania, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Iceland, Latvia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. 600 personnel of the Swedish Armed Forces will be also sent to Latvia in the early 2025. There are 1886 Canadian troops in the NATO Multinational Brigade.

During his visit to Latvia in 2022, the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced an extension and expansion of the mission to Latvia (without an end date). On 10 July 2023, during his third visit to Latvia, Mr Trudeau announced a contribution of 2.6 billion Canadian dollars to Latvia by 2026 to increase Canada’s presence in Latvia and develop infrastructure.

Further information
“Instrument of Vengeance”: Mehdi Hasan on How Trump & Kash Patel Could Weaponize FBI Against Critics


DEMOCRACY NOW!
December 02, 2024


Guest

Mehdi Hasan
award-winning journalist and the founder, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo.

Links Zeteo



We speak with journalist Mehdi Hasan, founder and editor-in-chief of Zeteo, about the incoming U.S. administration and President-elect Donald Trump’s picks for key roles, including lawyer Kash Patel to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump reportedly considered Patel for FBI deputy director during his first term but dropped the idea after pushback from within his own administration. Hasan describes Patel as a “toady” whose threats against political opponents and journalists should be disqualifying, but that he aligns with Trump’s goals of further politicizing the FBI. “He wants to use it as an instrument of vengeance.”




Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: Mehdi, let’s talk about Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to head the FBI. This is Kash Patel speaking to Steve Bannon in his War Room podcast.


KASH PATEL: We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But, yeah, we’re putting you all on notice. And, Steve, this is why they hate us. This is why we’re tyrannical. This is why we’re dictators, because we’re actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have.

AMY GOODMAN: And this is Kash Patel speaking on the Shawn Ryan Show in September.


KASH PATEL: The FBI’s footprint has gotten so frickin’ big, and the biggest problem the FBI has had has come out of its intel shops. I’d break that component out of it. I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state. And I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops. Go be cops. Go chase down murderers and rapists and drug dealers and violent offenders. What do you need 7,000 people there for? Same thing with DOJ. What are all these people doing here? Looking for their next government promotion. Looking for their next fancy government title. Looking for their parachute out of government. So, while you’re bringing in the right people, you also have to shrink government.

AMY GOODMAN: So, again, that’s Kash Patel. When President Trump wanted to make him deputy director of the FBI in his first administration, the attorney general, Bob [sic] Barr said, “Over my” — Bill Barr said, “Over my dead body.” Mehdi Hasan?

MEHDI HASAN: Yes, he did. Bill Barr, of all people, said the guy was completely unqualified, it was detached from reality to try and put him in the FBI. And he said, “Over my dead body.” Gina Haspel, who was director of the CIA in December 2020 during Trump’s lame duck, when Trump tried to appoint Kash Patel to deputy director of the CIA, she threatened to resign, and Mike Pence had to get involved and block that. So this is not some kind of liberal whining about Kash Patel. Prominent conservatives at the time said, “No way. This guy is completely unqualified.”

And you played that clip from the War Room, from the Steve Bannon show. I think that’s from December 2023. He put us on notice. He says in that clip, “We’re putting you on notice.” Well, we’re on notice. In fact, I’ve been warning about Kash Patel since 2022, when I predicted — when I was at MSNBC, and I predicted that Trump would make him FBI director, and he would go after the media. He’s making it very clear. He wants to prosecute journalists. In another time and era, Amy, those words would be chilling. Those words would disqualify him from the running. But, of course, Republican senators mostly will fall in line. We’ll see if the — you know, the Murkowskis and the Susan Collinses and Mitch McConnell, whether they’ll push back in the way they did on Matt Gaetz. He’s a deeply dangerous nominee. I would argue that clip you played from the Bannon War Room show makes him perhaps the most dangerous nominee so far, because he’s open about the fact that he wants to use the power of the state to crush Donald Trump’s opponents. He’s a sycophant. He’s a bag carrier. He literally wrote a children’s book about King Donald Trump. That’s how sycophantic he is.

And I would say to some of the progressives maybe watching your show this morning, Amy Goodman, who say, “Well, you know what? The FBI does need reform. We on the left don’t like the FBI. We think Kash Patel should go break it up,” well, look, you can not like the FBI, for good reason, but the only reason Kash Patel and the Republicans don’t like the FBI is because the FBI investigated Donald Trump over ties to Russia and because the FBI went to Mar-a-Lago and searched his home for stolen classified documents which he was keeping against the law in his home. So, they don’t actually care about reform or bureaucracy or deep state; they care about neutering all institutions that can stand up to Donald Trump and MAGA.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go more deeply into what he said in Bannon’s War Room, “We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens.” If you could explain more who you think he’s talking about, about Joe Biden rigging presidential elections, “We’re going to come after you,” Mehdi?

MEHDI HASAN: So, Patel is at the core of pretty much every major MAGA conspiracy theory about the deep state, about the election, if you go through the list. I mean, he came to prominence — he was a very junior, as I say, unqualified person. He was working on the House Intelligence Committee with Devin Nunes, the right-wing California congressman. And he came to prominence in going after Robert Mueller, going after the Russian investigation, coming up with this memo that — some of the stuff in this famous Nunes memo turned out to be true, some of it, the inspector general said, “No, not true.” That’s how he caught Trump’s attention. That’s how he ended up in the White House. That’s how he ended up on the National Security Council.

By the way, one of the many people saying he shouldn’t be given this job is John Bolton, his former boss — not exactly a kind of lily-livered liberal — John Bolton saying he should be rejected by the Senate 100 to 0.

But he’s at the core of every conspiracy theory, Amy, whether it’s about, you know, Donald Trump didn’t lose the election, whether it’s January 6th. He testified in a Colorado courtroom over January 6th and the election. The judge said he wasn’t a credible witness. He’s even had the endorsement, I think you mentioned in the intro, of QAnon. In one of the books he wrote, he actually handwrote a QAnon mantra into the book, and they just posted it on social media. By the way, the FBI regards QAnon as a domestic terror threat. Think about the irony, Amy, of putting a person in charge of the FBI who’s actually fine with this group that the FBI thinks is a domestic terror threat. So, he is at the core of all these conspiracies.

When he says he’s going after people — you asked me who he’s talking about — of course he’s talking about the Bidens and Clintons of this world, but actually it’s much more dangerous than that. It’s much broader than that. It’s anyone who they think — who they think is an opponent. I mean, let’s just be very — this is what authoritarianism looks like. I know it’s become fashionable since the election, even on parts of the left, to say, “Well, it was all exaggerated to say that Trump is a fascist threat to the Constitution or authoritarian threat to the media.” No, it’s not exaggerated. These people are saying it out loud, and Trump is appointing them or trying to appoint them to the most senior positions in the United States government and national security apparatus.

AMY GOODMAN: And let’s talk about who he would be replacing, Christopher Wray, whose term doesn’t end for several years, who was appointed by Donald Trump, and why an FBI director has a 10-year term, which goes back to, what, post-Watergate, when a president, Nixon, is trying to deploy his FBI director exactly in the way Kash Patel threatens to do.

MEHDI HASAN: Yeah, so, of course —

AMY GOODMAN: So that they would span several terms.

MEHDI HASAN: Well, we know that J. Edgar Hoover was the man who abused more FBI power than any director in the history of the FBI. I think he was in charge — for what? Four decades? Five decades? Astonishing amount of time. No president dared to remove him. And the 10-year terms comes in after that, of course. By the way, I would credit my former MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown, who said appointing Kash Patel to the FBI director’s job would be like appointing a cross between J. Edgar Hoover and Alex Jones, which I think sums up pretty well who Patel is.

But, look, on the 10-year term, what’s interesting, Amy, is, of course, Donald Trump is the great precedent breaker, the great norm buster. When I hear Democrats talking about norms, Trump has already trashed all of them. In Trump one, in Trump term one, he got rid of James Comey, who, of course, he was angry at, even though James Comey, arguably, helped him win the 2016 election. But he got rid of Comey and put in Wray. And that itself was quite unprecedented, only the second time, I believe, an FBI director had been fired and replaced in the middle of their term. He appointed Wray. Then he got upset with Wray. Now he wants to replace Wray.

I would also make a side point to some of the progressives watching at home. Why is it that the FBI director is always a Republican, even under Democratic presidencies? It’s always a Republican. And Democratic presidents always keep on the Republican who the previous Republican appointed, which I just find so ironic.

But now he wants to get rid of Wray, put in Patel, which tells you, again, everything that he wants from the FBI. He wanted to use it as an instrument of vengeance, of score settling, of silencing dissent. He wants to use it to basically intimidate people. And that’s why he’s getting rid of Wray, not because he disagrees with Wray’s politics. Christopher Wray is a Republican who Trump appointed. But in this Trump term, he’s made it very clear what he wants the FBI to be doing.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about another of Trump’s picks. The New Yorker magazine’s Jane Mayer has an explosive piece in the magazine. Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was forced out of leadership roles at two veterans organizations for misusing funds, sexually harassing women, being repeatedly drunk on the job. According to a whistleblower report, Hegseth once had to be restrained from joining strippers on the stage at a strip club. In another incident, he drunkenly chanted “Kill all Muslims! Kill all Muslims!” at a bar in 2015. Meanwhile, The New York Times reports Hegseth’s own mother accused him of a mistreating women. In 2018, Penelope Hegseth wrote him an email that read in part, quote, “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” unquote. The email was sent a year after a woman accused Hegseth of raping her at a California hotel. This is Trump’s pick to head the Defense Department. Your final comments on this, Mehdi Hasan?

MEHDI HASAN: So, Amy, if you had asked me this a few weeks ago, I would have said, “Hegseth is the worst pick of all. You can’t get worse than Hegseth.” And then we got Tulsi Gabbard, and I said, “You can’t get worse than Gabbard.” And then we got RFK Jr., and I said, “You can’t get worse than RFK Jr.” Now we’ve got Kash Patel, and I’m telling you, “You can’t get worse than Kash Patel.” Donald Trump says “hold my beer” every time and keeps producing these nominees.

And look, while we’re focused on Patel, we’ve got more reporting on Hegseth. I mean, it’s astonishing. It’s almost beyond belief. If you were writing a TV show about the Trump years, if it was a Netflix show called The Trump Years, you would say these storylines are just too unrealistic. If you were sitting in the writers’ room, and you said, “You know what? Let’s have a scene where it turns out that Hegseth, the great Christian nationalist, tried to get on stage with strippers. Let’s have his mother write him a letter saying, 'I disown you because of all, you know, your misogyny,'” you would say, “Oh, come on. That’s a little unrealistic. Those are kind of beyond-parody characters.” No, it’s real life. This is the Trump administration. These are the people he’s appointing.

And I think it’s interesting, by the way, the Islamophobia is very worrying on Hegseth’s part, because there was this strain of thinking, even on some parts of the left, that, well, Trump won’t be as militaristic and belligerent as the Democrats. Not true. He’s putting in a guy at Defense Department who has crusader tattoos on his body, who said outrageous things about killing Muslims, supported the Iraq War. He’s going to be in charge of the Pentagon? You know, there’s no way this is going to be a, quote-unquote, antiwar presidency, if Hegseth is at the Pentagon and Marco Rubio is at the State Department. By the way, can you imagine, Amy, if Biden or Obama had a nominee who had been accused of screaming drunkenly “Kill Jews! Kill all Jews!”? It would be the end of the world. But, of course, with Muslims, no one cares, so this will be a minor story in the résumé of Peter Hegseth.

One last point, very quickly, is Hegseth’s mother is attacking him. Elon Musk’s daughter is attacking him. Bill Barr is attacking Kash Patel. Donald Trump was called Adolf Hitler by JD Vance. When people say, “Oh, liberals are deranged about Trump people,” it’s always other Republicans who are actually leading the charge and reminding us how awful these people are.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, it’s other Republicans who would have to approve these —

MEHDI HASAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — appointees, these nominations, unless —

MEHDI HASAN: Many of them will.

AMY GOODMAN: — this is done in a recess appointment. Twenty seconds, Mehdi.

MEHDI HASAN: Many of them will, Amy. They all roll over. They’re intimidated by Trump. A lot of them are scared to go against Trump. And it comes down to, basically, you know, the four who stopped Gaetz: Mitch McConnell, Murkowski, Collins and the new Utah replacement for Mitt Romney whose name I forget. But those four Republicans are basically the ones everyone’s going to look at and say, “Are you going to stand up for the Constitution? Are you going to stand against this unqualified nominee, Kash Patel; this dangerous nominee, Peter Hegseth; RFK Jr., who kids could die because of?” Let’s see.

AMY GOODMAN: Mehdi Hasan, I want to thank you for being with us, editor-in-chief of the new media website Zeteo.

Mehdi Hasan: Biden’s Pardon for His Son Hunter Makes Him a Hypocrite, But GOP Outrage Is Ridiculous


DEMOCRACY NOW!
December 02, 2024

Guests  
Mehdi Hasan
founder, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo.
LinksZeteo


President Joe Biden on Sunday issued a “full and unconditional pardon” to his son Hunter, claiming the gun and tax cases against him — for which he faced possible prison time — were politically motivated. The outgoing president had repeatedly pledged not to use his office to help his son. Journalist Mehdi Hasan, founder and editor-in-chief of Zeteo, says that while Biden’s move makes him a liar and hypocrite, Republican outrage over the pardon is also “ridiculous” given how expansively Donald Trump is expected to use the same authority. Hasan also notes that there are 40 people on federal death row and thousands more serving prison time for cannabis offenses whom Biden could help. “There’s so much a president could do with the presidential pardon power for good,” he says.




Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.


AMY GOODMAN: President Biden has issued a full and unconditional pardon for his son Hunter Biden Sunday evening, just days before Hunter was set to be sentenced for his federal gun conviction and a separate tax evasion case. In a statement, President Biden said, quote, “The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.” Biden went on to write, quote, “I believe in the justice system, but as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice,” unquote.

President Biden and his aides had repeatedly said Hunter Biden would not be pardoned. This is Biden in June being interviewed by ABC’s David Muir.


DAVID MUIR: As we sit here in Normandy, your son Hunter is on trial. And I know that you cannot speak about an ongoing federal prosecution. But let me ask you: Will you accept the jury’s outcome, their verdict, no matter what it is?


PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Yes.


DAVID MUIR: And have you ruled out a pardon for your son?


PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Yes.


DAVID MUIR: You have.

AMY GOODMAN: White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has also repeatedly denied the president would pardon his son.


MARK MEREDITH: From a presidential perspective, is there any possibility that the president would end up pardoning his son?


PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: No.


MARK MEREDITH: Well, is there —


PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I just said no.


MARK MEREDITH: [inaudible]


PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I just answered. Go ahead. Go ahead.


PETER DOOCY: It’s the first briefing since Hunter was indicted again in Los Angeles. Why doesn’t President Biden just pardon him?


PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: The president — I’ve been very clear: The president is not going to pardon his son.


ZEKE MILLER: You’ve also said several times that the president would not pardon nor commute the sentences for his son Hunter. I just want to make sure that that is not going to change over the next six months. The president is saying —


PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: It’s still —


ZEKE MILLER: — he would not —


PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: It’s still — it’s still a no. It’s still a no.


ZEKE MILLER: It will always be a no?


PRESS SECRETARY KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: It’s still a no. It will be a no. It — it is a no. And I don’t have anything else to add. Will he pardon his son? No.

AMY GOODMAN: President Biden’s decision to pardon his son comes as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office after campaigning in part on prosecuting his political enemies, while also vowing to pardon Trump supporters who participated in the January 6th insurrection.

Over the weekend, Trump picked Kash Patel to head the FBI. Patel has vowed to go after what he calls conspirators in the government and media. Trump also picked the real estate developer Charles Kushner to be U.S. ambassador to France. Kushner is Trump’s in-law. He is the father of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. In 2020, Trump pardoned Charles Kushner, who spent 14 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to 16 charges of tax evasion and witness tampering in the 2000s.

We begin today’s show with Mehdi Hasan, the editor-in-chief of the new media website Zeteo.

Thanks for joining us again, Mehdi. First, your response to President Biden pardoning Hunter, a total, unconditional pardon going back to 2014?

MEHDI HASAN: It is a sweeping pardon, as you just mentioned. And you played the clips. I think we can hold multiple thoughts in our head at one time on Hunter Biden. Number one, did Joe Biden lie when he said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter Biden? Clearly, he did. Is he a hypocrite for saying no one is above the law and then bringing his son above the law? Yes. Should the presidency be used to protect family members? No. I think we can all agree on those points.

Having said that, the kind of outrage from Republicans and some in the media is a little bit kind of ridiculous. We all know that Hunter Biden was targeted. The president is right when he says that they went after his son because he was his son. Anyone called Hunter Smith wouldn’t have been prosecuted in the same way for the tax evasion and the gun form, that many people get wrong or provide incorrect information on.

And as for the Republicans kind of crying foul right now, you have Kash Patel — I know we’re going to talk about Kash Patel — who is a Trump toady who’s about to be appointed FBI director, if he can get through the Senate. He’s on record saying he’s going to go after the Bidens. The Republicans have made very clear they plan to carry on going after the Biden family. So, is it understandable that Joe Biden is trying to protect his son from future investigations? It is understandable. That doesn’t make it right. But come on. As you mentioned, as well, a moment ago, Amy, Charles Kushner is about to become ambassador to France. He is the father-in-law of Ivanka Trump who Trump pardoned in December 2020. So, you know, let’s just get rid of the presidential pardon power, which would require a constitutional amendment. I think that’s the source of all the corruption.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, as we talk about pardons, I mean, it would be very interesting to see President Biden, very significant, pardon, for example, Leonard Peltier —

MEHDI HASAN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: — or talk about pardons or commutations for people on federal death row. Biden himself —

MEHDI HASAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — has said he’s against the death penalty.

MEHDI HASAN: You’ve got about 40 people, I believe, still on the federal death row. Yes, pardon them. Pardon them now, because we remember when Donald Trump was leaving office last time, he actually escalated executions at the federal level at a rate we hadn’t seen before for several years. So, yes, pardon 40 people on death row. Pardon 3,000 people in prison, Amy, on federal marijuana offenses, outdated, ridiculous marijuana offenses. Pardon them, not just your own, you know, former addict son.

There’s so much a president could do with the presidential pardon power for good. We saw Trump misuse it in all sorts of ways for people like Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner and Roger Stone. Now we’re seeing Joe Biden misuse it for his own son. Even if it is understandable, it’s still wrong. Why not use it for a good cause? But as I say, I would rather get rid of the pardon power, but, of course, we can’t do that without a constitutional amendment.


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WWIII

Russian Attack Submarine Intercepted in South China Sea

Published Dec 02, 2024
By Ryan Chan
China News Reporter

The Philippines said that the "intrusion" into its economic waters in the South China Sea by a Russian submarine, which is armed with missiles, was "very worrisome."

The Armed Forces of the Philippines said that Thursday, the Russian Improved Kilo II-class diesel-electric attack submarine Ufa was transiting on the surface 80 nautical miles west of Cape Calavite in the Philippine western province of Occidental Mindoro.

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. described this as a "very concerning" incident.

"Any intrusion into the West Philippine Sea, of our EEZ (exclusive economic zone), of our baselines is very worrisome," he said in a media interview on Monday.

The West Philippine Sea refers only to the waters in the South China Sea that fall within the Philippine EEZ. This maritime area extends up to 200 nautical miles from the country's coast, including the territorial sea, which is measured 12 nautical miles from the coast.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's Defense Ministry and the Russian embassy in Manila for comment.

This came as the Russian military, which is engaging in a war with Ukraine, sent a naval fleet to countries in Southeast Asia in early October, including Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Thailand, making port calls and conducting drills with the host countries.


The presence of the 3,900-ton Russian submarine, which is capable of firing Kalibr cruise missiles that have seen extensive use in strikes against Ukraine, came after Marcos signed two laws rejecting sea boundary claims made by China in the contested South China Sea.

One of the laws, the Philippine Maritime Zones Act, delineates the country's critical territorial areas, including its EEZ in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act designates sea lanes and air routes for foreign vessels and aircraft to navigate.
Russian crew members stand on the Ufa submarine as it prepares to dock at the Indonesian port of Surabaya on November 7. The submarine is transiting from the Baltic Sea to the Vladivostok in Russia's... More JUNI KRISWANTO/AFP via Getty Images

According to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS, all countries enjoy freedom of navigation in the EEZ. Jonathan Malaya, the assistant director general of the Philippine National Security Council, reiterated this.

The Philippine military immediately sent its naval forces to monitor the Ufa, including a frigate armed with missiles and anti-submarine warfare capabilities. This, the military said, ensured the submarine's compliance with maritime regulations within the Philippine EEZ.

"The Russian vessel stated it was awaiting improved weather conditions before proceeding to Vladivostok, Russia," the Armed Forces of the Philippines said. The country's navy said the exchange of information through radio contact with the submarine was "friendly."

The Ufa, which "did not do anything aggressive" near the Philippines, left for its destination later in the day, according to Manila. The submarine, built in St. Petersburg, is transiting from the Baltic Sea to the Vladivostok-based Pacific Fleet in Russia's Far East region.

The Russian submarine reached the Indo-Pacific region in October, visiting Kochi on the southwestern coast of India on October 21. It later arrived at the Indonesian port of Surabaya on November 7 and the Malaysian port of Kota Kinabalu on November 20.

Following a visit to Kota Kinabalu, the first time Russian warships had visited there, the Ufa conducted an exercise with Malaysian naval vessels in the South China Sea, practicing joint maneuvering, communication, and other forms of cooperation.
ZIONISM IS FASCISM

America’s future depends on Trump’s promise to punish woke universities

A leftist-dominated educational establishment and its media enablers fear that he will make good on his vow to defund institutions that embrace DEI and tolerate antisemitism.


Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Mullett Arena on Arizona State University campus in Tempe, Ariz. on Oct. 24, 2024. Photo by Ash Ponders for “The Washington Post” via Getty Images.

EDITORIAL
Jonathan S. Tobin 
Editor-in-chief of JNS 
(Jewish News Syndicate).

(Dec. 2, 2024 / JNS)

Occidental College seemingly waved the white flag last week in its efforts to defend itself against charges of tolerating antisemitism on its Los Angeles campus. The school agreed to a “sweeping settlement” with the Anti-Defamation League and the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law that acknowledged the ongoing hardships, harassment and discrimination faced by Jewish students since the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Occidental’s apathy to all this, which was little different from what has been happening at dozens if not hundreds of other American institutions of higher learning, violated its obligations to prohibit such discrimination under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

But for many observers, the context for the agreement was not so much a belated interest by one school to address the wrongs suffered by its Jewish students. Rather, it was the fact that it came a few weeks after the election victory of Donald Trump. As one headline in a news article about the settlement put it, “College settles antisemitism claims before Trump can make good on accreditation threats.”
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Trump repeatedly made clear during the 2024 election campaign that the educational establishment would be as much a target for his second administration as the denizens of the Washington “swamp” such as the liberal-dominated federal bureaucracy that did so much to sabotage and obstruct his first four years in the White House.

More will hinge, however, on whether he makes good on this promise than the fate of school administrators or even the safety of Jewish students.

Trump’s war on woke
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The president-elect vowed to punish colleges and universities that tolerated not just the sort of antisemitism that went on at Occidental and so many other schools. He’s also determined to rid American higher education of the plague of “woke” ideology. That’s a term that refers to the way left-wing ideologues have conquered academia and imposed toxic ideas like critical race theory and intersectionality that divide humanity into two permanently warring groups of “white” oppressors and “people of color” who are their victims. The left’s long march through U.S. institutions—and that includes the arts, corporate America and government—has involved the indoctrination of a generation of students in the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that trashes equal opportunity (the opposite of “equity”) and includes only certain approved minorities while excluding everyone else, including minorities like Jews.

Seen in that context, antisemitism is just one aspect of the broad damage that the adoption of this new secular religion by those in charge of education has been doing to America. It’s also fueling a surge in racial divisiveness and a war on the canon of Western civilization that is the foundation of a society grounded in the rule of law, which made America a great nation as well as one that was particularly hospitable to religious minorities.

That means the stakes involved in whether or not Trump keeps his vow to reform education and to turn the antisemites out are as important as any involving his second-term agenda. It represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reverse the left’s conquest of academia. If he and/or his appointees falter in their resolve, the consequences for the country as a whole and for Jews will be incalculable.

But as the coverage of the issue in liberal legacy corporate media like The New York Times and The Guardian indicates, the educational establishment and their allies on the political left and the press are determined to oppose Trump’s goals. They have already begun a campaign to obfuscate the issue and demonize efforts to roll back the woke orthodoxy as part of what they routinely and falsely describe as the next administration’s putative authoritarian putsch. The truth is just the opposite since the real authoritarians are the bureaucrats and “educators” who have been imposing their distorted neo-Marxist vision on the country while also fomenting and enabling a new wave of antisemitism.

Ironically, the legal settlement with Occidental, which was celebrated by both the ADL and the Brandeis Institute as a victory in the effort to push back against campus antisemitism, was an indication of just how feeble the effort to counteract woke antisemitism has been up until now.

The agreement involved some elements that are necessary such as efforts to train school administrators to be more aware of antisemitism and to take into account the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)’s working definition of antisemitism when dealing with instances of Jew-hatred.

But the lawyerly document Occidental signed leaves plenty of leeway for it to evade responsibility for future violations. It can be defended as probably as much as could be achieved in such a negotiation at this point in time.

Title VI antisemitism complaints to the U.S. Department of Education—the primary mode of carrying on the fight against this scourge in recent years—involves a lengthy process that has, to date, never resulted in any real punishment for even the most egregious violators of the rights of Jewish students. Stripping a university of its federal funding—something that is a given for any institution that engaged in open discrimination against African-Americans or Hispanics—is the sole remedy that could, if fully implemented, mean a much-needed fundamental change in the way American higher education operates.

And as long as schools retain their woke administrators and faculty, as well as curricula that discard traditional standards and help fuel antisemitism, agreements like the one with Occidental are almost certain to fail to create the kind of change that is needed.

Draining the swamp

That is why Trump’s scorched-earth approach is so necessary, even as it is being denounced by the same people who are responsible for creating or perpetuating the current mess as too extreme or even needed at all.

Trump’s stated intention of “draining the swamp” throughout the federal government is being depicted as evidence of his supposed authoritarian impulses and racism. But this is exactly the sort of argument based on a high-handed dismissal of genuine concerns and problems that have caused so many Americans to lose faith both in our educational system and in Washington.

His threats can seem crude to those accustomed to politicians being guarded in their remarks. Yet the events of the last few years—starting with the moral panic about race behind the Black Lives Matter riots and then on to the post-Oct. 7 surge in antisemitism—demonstrated that a restrained “business as usual” approach won’t cut it when the collapse of our most cherished institutions is at stake. Their transformation into purveyors of neo-Marxist indoctrination and toxic ideas that enable hatred for both the West and Jews is a crisis of enormous proportions. It is happening at both the college and graduate levels, as well as in K-12 schools where leftist teachers’ unions have also imposed the indoctrination of critical race theory.

The only reasonable response to this disaster is exactly the kind of tough-minded purge that Trump has envisioned. And far from this being an uninformed or extreme approach, Trump and his transition team are consulting with experts like Christopher Rufo, author of an authoritative and essential book on the woke plague—America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything—and incorporating the ideas of “Project Esther,” a serious plan for dealing with campus antisemitism produced by The Heritage Foundation.

All of this has produced panic on the left and even among mainstream liberals who have been conditioned by partisan political rhetoric to believe that Trump is a second Hitler. They worry that he is already going too far in seeking accountability for institutions that engage in racial discrimination and tolerate antisemitism under the guise of DEI “anti-racist” policies, believing that somehow this will destroy academic freedom. What his critics fail to recognize is that American education is already enduring a catastrophic transformation that has silenced dissent against woke doctrines that seek to trash the Western canon.

A necessary sledgehammer

The only way to fix it is with the same sort of Trumpian sledgehammer that tossed aside failed ideas about the Middle East in his first term that enabled him, among other important policy changes, to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and forge the Abraham Accords. If that means executive orders reversing President Joe Biden’s DEI orders that created woke commissars in every federal agency and department, that should be welcomed. If it means closing the largely useless and counter-productive Department of Education and enacting far-reaching reforms that will defund institutions clinging to discriminatory ideas and actions, then that should be cheered by those who cherish the values of equal opportunity, merit and zero tolerance for hatred and discrimination.

More to the point, it will mean that policing antisemitism on campus will be shifted away from the ineffectual Title VI complaints to federal education bureaucrats to a campaign of lawsuits conducted not just by groups like the Deborah Project, valuable though they may be, but by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, with all of the vast resources at its command. In this manner, a message can be sent that will likely motivate the vast majority of college administrations to discard DEI and the tolerance of hate for Jews that accompanies it.

It is impossible to know whether the new administration will succeed. But rather than worrying that he is the wrong instrument to carry out this effort or wasting time decrying his rhetoric, it’s likely that only an outlier like Trump could contemplate such a bold project or have the will to see it to its logical end. Indeed, so grave is the threat that DEI and other leftist ideas pose to the country’s future that anything short of what he has discussed would be inadequate. Instead of expressing concerns or horror at his determination to enact real change, fair-minded Americans of all faiths and in both major political parties should be rooting for him to keep his word and to do everything he promised to punish colleges and universities, in addition to any other entity that promotes the sort of woke hate that has made life for Jewish students and anyone else who dissents against the new secular orthodoxy so difficult.


Jonathan S. Tobin
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him @jonathans_tobin

Students learn about BRICS activities at Moscow festival

Students learn about BRICS activities at Moscow festival

TEHRAN, Dec. 02 (MNA) – Over 500 schoolchildren from various regions of Russia gathered in Moscow at the BRICS Festival to learn about the culture, languages and traditions of the BRICS countries etc.

Over 500 schoolchildren from various regions of Russia gathered in Moscow at the BRICS Festival. The participants learnt about the culture, languages and traditions of the BRICS countries, as well as about the activities of group's countries. The event was combined with an open day at the faculty of pre-university education of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University).

Igor Putintsev, Vice-Rector for language and pre-university education, welcomed the students. He emphasized that the training of international specialists who speak the languages of the BRICS countries plays a key role in strengthening international ties.

Anna Lisina, Editor-in-Chief of the TV BRICS news portal, was a special guest of the festival. She spoke about the peculiarities of the multilingual portal's editorial work, presented the BRICS Bloggers Team and BRICS View international media network's projects to the students, and introduced the festival guests to the principles of TV BRICS information exchange with foreign partners. She also conducted a quiz for pupils on the topic "Creating scripts for video clips with the help of artificial intelligence".

Nikita Molchakov, Dean of the International Law Faculty of MGIMO University, also spoke at the event and shared the experience of the IX BRICS Legal Forum.

"Each BRICS initiative has its own driver country. [...] Even the BRICS Legal Forum, despite the fact that there are ten countries, has three drivers that have been supporting this movement for nine years: these are Russia, India and Brazil. These are the three drivers of the legal movement within BRICS," he explained.

Head of the student community Aleksander Khanarov spoke about the work of the first international student platform for generating ideas of BRICS countries – BRICS Project Lab, while Maria Starikova, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Indo-Iranian and African Languages, outlined the peculiarities of teaching Hindi, which is spoken by almost 500 million people.

"The government is actively promoting Hindi and other local languages. There are a total of 22 official languages in India, and Hindi is attracting huge interest not only in our country but all over the world," she said.

The creative part of the programme included performances by MGIMO University students. They performed a song in Chinese, Arabic dance "Dabke" and presented a linguo-country study in Portuguese. A quiz on the history and activities of BRICS was also organised for the festival participants. The winners received memorable gifts.

In addition, the open day of the faculty of pre-university education presented study programmes.

The festival was organised by the Centre for Work with Schools of MGIMO and the TV BRICS International Media Network. The event is implemented within the framework of the project "EastTalk MGIMO: Introduction to Oriental Studies for Schoolchildren" with the support of the state programme "Priority 2030", aimed at creating more than 100 progressive modern universities in Russia by 2030. 

Source: TV BRICS

News ID 225160

Trump weaponizing dollar seen as needless BRICS provocation

Trump puts pressure on BRICS, in an attempt to have countries around the world stay anchored to the US dollar-based financial system.


Donald Trump’s fresh pressure on countries around the world to stay anchored to a US-dollar-based financial system is a tactic that risks backfiring, market watchers say.


The dollar looks likely to dominate the world economy for the foreseeable future and emerging nations’ idea of setting up their own single currency is “hot air,” said Mark Sobel, a retired 40-year veteran of currency policy who worked at the US Treasury.

Trump’s latest intervention does though risk undermining the greenback and increasing the likelihood of such pacts by encouraging countries to explore ways to avoid the US currency. Russia responded on Monday with the Kremlin saying the dollar’s appeal is already eroding and that forcing countries to use it would “further strengthen the trend” away from it.

“It isn’t a good look,” Brad Setser, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former US Treasury official during Barack Obama’s presidency, wrote on. It “indirectly elevates the stature of a non-threat and suggests a lack of confidence in the dollar,” he said.


Trump, the elected autocrat

Trump on the weekend warned the so-called BRICS countries he would require a commitment that they wouldn’t create a new currency as an alternative to using the greenback, and repeated threats to levy a 100 percent tariff on them if they did.

While South Africa said on Monday there are no plans to create such a rival, Saturday’s post to his Truth Social network echoes comments Trump made in his election campaign and highlights how governments and traders will need to stay alert at all hours to his use of social media in the next four years.

Any attempt to dethrone the greenback is easier said than done.

It accounted for about 88 percent of all trades in the US$7.5 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, based on the latest triennial survey from the Bank for International Settlements published in 2022.

The size and strength of the US economy is also unparalleled, Treasuries are still one of the safest ways to store money, and the greenback is still the ultimate beneficiary of haven flows.

“The dollar remains dominant for several reasons: the USD is the most liquid currency in the world, trades freely, it is also the leading currency of the world,” said Rodrigo Catril, a strategist at National Australia Bank Ltd. in Sydney.

But he added that if “Trump increases the pressure on BRICS, it may well accelerate a move away from the dollar.”

BRICS members control more than 40 percent of central bank reserves globally and have discussed ways to reduce reliance on the greenback — including the idea of a single currency for use between them.

In its statement, South Africa’s government said “the discussions within BRICS focus on trading among member countries using their own national currencies.”

“With regards to this specific threat, it doesn’t appear realistic and the probability is low but serves as a good reminder that President-elect Trump wants to keep the US dollar as a reserve currency and is unlikely to proactively devalue the dollar,” said Cindy Lau, head of fixed income at Avanda Investment Management Pte. in Singapore.

“This also reaffirms our thinking that tariffs will be continually used as a threat in his term, to serve his objectives, and as a powerful bargaining tool,” she said.

While there’s no immediate threat to the dollar’s supremacy, the long-term outlook is less certain.

Brazil and China had previously struck deals to settle trade in their local currencies, while India and Malaysia had inked an accord to increase the usage of the rupee in cross-border business. Thailand and China’s central banks in May signed a memorandum of understanding to promote bilateral transactions in local currencies, and Trump’s latest comments may actually increase the likelihood of further such agreements.

“From today, anyone outside the US who uses the dollar for transactions will sense this as a yoke that the US is imposing on them,” said Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of foreign exchange research at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “In the long term, this cannot be a stable state of affairs. Especially since this yoke is likely to be felt all the more oppressively the more selfishly US policy acts in other areas.”

by By Ruth Carson and Matthew Burgess


Trump threatens 100% tariff on the BRIC bloc of nations if they act to undermine US dollar



















FATIMA HUSSEIN
 Sat 30 November 2024 

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threatened 100% tariffs against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the U.S. dollar.

His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRIC alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members and several other countries have expressed interest in joining.

While the U.S. dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has survived past challenges to its preeminence, members of the alliance and other developing nations say they are fed up with America’s dominance of the global financial system.

The dollar represents roughly 58% of the world’s foreign exchange reserves, according to the IMF and major commodities like oil are still primarily bought and sold using dollars. The dollar's dominance is threatened, however, with BRICS' growing share of GDP and the alliance's intent to trade in non-dollar currencies — a process known as de-dollarization.

Trump, in a Truth Social post, said: “We require a commitment from these Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. Economy."

At a summit of BRIC nations in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of “weaponizing” the dollar and described it as a “big mistake.”

“It’s not us who refuse to use the dollar,” Putin said at the time. “But if they don’t let us work, what can we do? We are forced to search for alternatives.”

Russia has specifically pushed for the creation of a new payment system that would offer an alternative to the global bank messaging network, SWIFT, and allow Moscow to dodge Western sanctions and trade with partners.

Trump said there is "no chance" BRIC will replace the U.S. dollar in global trade and any country that tries to make that happen "should wave goodbye to America.”

Research shows that the U.S. dollar's role as the primary global reserve currency is not threatened in the near future.

An Atlantic Council model that assesses the dollar’s place as the primary global reserve currency states the dollar is “secure in the near and medium term” and continues to dominate other currencies.

Trump's latest tariff threat comes after he threatened to slap 25% tariffs on everything imported from Mexico and Canada, and an additional 10% tax on goods from China, as a way to force the countries to do more to halt the flow of illegal immigration and drugs into the U.S.

He has since held a call with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who said Thursday she is confident that a tariff war with the United States can be averted. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau returned home Saturday after meeting Trump, without assurances the president-elect will back away from threatened tariffs on Canada.
Saudi Arabia: Human Rights Watch Report

A report by Human Rights Watch has found that its state wealth is effectively controlled by one person, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
NORTHEAST BYLINES


Photo credit: Aboodi Vesakaran/Unsplash



A 95-page report by Human Rights Watch “The Man Who Bought the World: Rights Abuses Linked to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Its Chairman, Mohammed bin Salman” has found that Saudi Arabia’s vast fossil fuel-derived state wealth is effectively controlled by one person, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

According to Human Rights Watch: “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has unchecked control over the country’s nearly trillion-dollar Public Investment Fund

“The crown prince has used the Saudi sovereign wealth fund’s economic power to commit serious human rights violations and whitewash the reputational harm from these abuses.

“Sovereign wealth funds are funds accumulated by a government, often consisting of government revenue, trade surpluses, and reserves, and are invested domestically and abroad. Many have been built on oil wealth.”
What the Human Rights Watch report is based on

The report is based on a review of government statements, Saudi court documents; Saudi laws and government decrees; documents released during court proceedings in Canada and the United States; company records and reports; investigations and analyses by journalists, financial experts, and academics; as well as interviews with Saudi activists and dissidents, journalists, experts, and lawyers with long experience in Saudi Arabia.

The report states that the PIF has benefited directly from serious human rights abuses linked to its chairman, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS. This includes the crown prince’s 2017 “anti-corruption” crackdown that consisted of arbitrary detentions, abusive treatment of detainees, and the extortion of property from Saudi Arabia’s elite.

Public Investment Fund (PIF)

The report found that the Saudi PIF has facilitated serious human rights abuses linked to MBS, through companies it owns and controls. This includes the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a key critic of the anti-corruption crackdown. One of the companies transferred to the PIF during the crackdown Sky Prime Aviation, owned the two planes used in 2018 by Saudi agents to travel to Istanbul, where they murdered Khashoggi.

Human Rights Watch also state that MBS “overhauled the PIF’s governance framework and concentrated an immense degree of control and oversight of the fund into his own hands, enabling him to unilaterally direct enormous sums of state wealth to mega-projects that do little to realise economic, social, or cultural rights in Saudi Arabia.

PIF project’s


Saudi Arabia’s most marginalised people—migrant workers, rural communities, and poor and working-class residents—have borne the brunt of abuses stemming from the fund’s projects. Money from the PIF has been used for projects that have razed neighbourhoods, forcibly evicted residents, silenced communities and subjected migrant workers to serious abuses.

Human Rights Watch also found violations linked to some of the PIF’s most high-profile mega-projects, including the NEOM region, an economic zone and new city on the Red Sea that is being erected from scratch, as well as the Jeddah Central Project, an urban development project in Jeddah.

Saudi authorities forcibly evicted members of the Huwaitat tribe, who have for centuries inhabited the Tabuk province, in the planned NEOM area, arrested those who protested their evictions. They killed one protesting resident. Additionally, two residents received sentences of 50 years in prison, and three received death sentences for resisting the forced evictions.

Human Rights Watch: Human Rights norms


Human Rights Watch note that under internationally recognised human rights norms, the Saudi government should progressively realise economic, social, and cultural rights to that of available resources, including those the PIF controls. However, according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; Saudi Arabia has the highest poverty headcount rate for nationals in the GCC at 13.6 percent, meaning that poverty affects nearly “one in seven nationals in Saudi Arabia.”

The report has also found that the PIF under MBS operates with little transparency and accountability, raising concerns over whether these funds are ultimately invested and managed in a way that satisfies these international norms.

Human Rights Watch go on to say that: “the existence of a centrally controlled stream of revenue, such as oil revenue, can exacerbate an undemocratic ruler or governing elite’s abuses and misrule by providing the financial wherewithal to entrench and enrich itself without any corresponding accountability.”

Contrast

By way of contrast, Human Rights Watch did not find evidence that PIF-funded projects advanced the government’s obligations to fulfil the economic, social, and cultural rights of its people. Indeed, the Saudi government does not define or disclose basic data on poverty, or set a poverty line, making it likely that the poverty rate is much higher than the UN figure, especially affecting groups that are economically marginalised and vulnerable to systematic labour abuses.

Human Rights watch also stated that PIF investments in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere in the world have been used as a tool of Saudi soft power and influence. These investments include sports such as the LIV golf tour, the FIFA 2034 World Cup, and Premier League football club Newcastle United, in the UK. I believe these are a cornerstone of Saudi Arabia’s influence operations abroad.

The Human Rights Watch report found that:“these investments which seek to garner uncritical foreign support for MBS’s agenda, spread disinformation about the country’s rights record, neutralise scrutiny, silence critics, and undermine institutions seeking transparency and accountability.”
Finally

Finally, Human Rights Watch note that as a state entity: “the PIF has an obligation to uphold Saudi Arabia’s international human rights commitments. Businesses have a responsibility to avoid causing or contributing to human rights harm.

“In line with these responsibilities, businesses should conduct thorough and independent human rights due diligence prior to any engagement with the PIF and should refrain from activities that would bolster the reputation of government entities or officials recently and credibly accused of serious abuses.

“When serious adverse human rights impacts stemming from engagement with the PIF are unavoidable, businesses should suspend their engagement with the PIF.”

In terms of what should happen next it is suggested by Joey Shea, that, “businesses with ties to the Saudi Public Investment Fund have a responsibility to end their engagement with it if serious human rights violations connected with the PIF are unavoidable”.



Peter Sagar
Peter is a teacher, writer and historian who has also been active in human rights work for 35 years. He is particularly interested in how our great human rights history in the North East can help us to be both inspired and enlightened and enable us to face up to the challenges we face today. These challenges include defending the human rights of all people in the region and the country and dealing with the existential crisis that is climate change

 International Centre of Justice for Palestinians 

 ICJP sends submission for UN Special Rapporteur report on private sector crimes in Palestine

London, 1st December 2024: 

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians has answered a call for evidence from the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), ahead of a report to the UN Human Rights Council on how the private sector has contributed to establishing and maintain Israel’s presence in the oPt.

The deadline for the call for submissions was the 30th November 2024, ahead of a report by the Special Rapporteur that will be sent to the 58th Session of the Human Rights Council in March 2025. The thematic report will form part of a broader investigation into the involvement of business enterprises in the commission of international crimes related to Israel’s unlawful occupation, racial segregation and apartheid regime in the oPt.

The report will focus on business enterprises including financial institutions such as banks, pension funds, insurance companies, universities, as well as private military and security companies and weapon manufacturers.

ICJP’s submission particularly focuses on the complicity of universities and the third sector. The submission refers to UK case studies including some of ICJP’s longstanding experience working to hold UK-based universities and other UK-registered charities to account.

In particular, the submission explains the case studies of Trinity College Cambridge and three other UK based charities: UK Toremet, JNF UK and Achisomoch Aid Company. The submission details how these groups may be aiding and abetting international crimes against Palestinians, violating Palestinians’ fundamental human rights and disregarding human rights due diligence requirements.

The submission also details the obligations of Member States, following the landmark Advisory Opinion by the International Court of Justice in July 2024, and makes recommendations on opportunities for international mechanisms to fill the accountability gap that exists in this space.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

ICJP is an independent organisation of lawyers, politicians and academics who support the rights of Palestinians and aim to protect their rights through the law.

To arrange an interview with a spokesperson, please contact press@icjpalestine.com.

The full submission can be viewed in the pdf document below:

How Many More Days of Solidarity Must There be Before There is Justice for Palestine?

If Palestinians were regarded and treated as equal human beings by Israel and the West – the colonial war on Palestine and the occupation would have been over long ago.”

Hugh Lanning, Labour & Palestine, addressed an online briefing held to mark the UN Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29th. You can read his contribution or watch the event in full below:

WATCH: UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People online briefing hosted by Labour & Palestine and Arise Festival on 29 November.

How many more days of solidarity must there be before there is justice for Palestine? Year after year, the UN and most of the world passes motions and expresses solidarity. But if you are a Palestinian in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem or the often-forgotten refugee camps – not only does nothing change, it gets worse. Israeli violence and expansionism are not just tolerated, it is supplied with the means, money and support to continue unabated.

The UN’s excellent and much-abused OCHA produces regular bulletins detailing the facts – the number of deaths and injuries. The incursions, the settler violence, the impact of the siege – on and on, month after month, for decades. The most recent bulletin details a huge spike in settler violence coinciding with the olive harvest. Since the occupation, the Israelis have destroyed over a million olive trees as a deliberate policy to undermine one of the few remaining bits of its economy still alive.

It is not a question of facts. It is a matter of willpower. The war on Gaza continues unabated – MAP (Medical Aid for Palestine) has produced a graphic showing how every single hospital in Gaza has been affected by the Israeli attacks, by its military onslaught. Not accidentally, but targeted.

There are now over 2 million people starving. Global inaction cannot be explained by normal political inertia or by Western guilt that dictates uncritical support for the Israeli state and everything it does. Visualizing Palestine, in its latest graphic, describes it as APR – Anti-Palestinian Racism.

A racism that “silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, dehumanizes or defames Palestinians and their supporters.” It denies, distorts or silences Palestinian narratives – as was seen most recently with the distortions surrounding the attacks on Palestinian supporters by Maccabi fans in Amsterdam.

The response to the ICC ruling by the US and others that it equates Israel with terrorism, is based on the notion that a Palestinian life is not worth the same as an Israeli life, that an Israeli murderer is not really a murderer. That somehow history can justify current war crimes, more insidiously that Palestinians are somehow lesser beings. Israeli propaganda seeks to dehumanise them at every opportunity. If Palestinians were regarded and treated as equal human beings by Israel and the West – the colonial war on Palestine and the occupation would have been over long ago.

The ICC ruling and the issuing of arrest warrants is a very important step – it makes it harder for Western Governments to ignore Israel’s actions. Signatories of the Convention are under an obligation to detain for trial those identified as war criminals by the ICC.

Where does that leave the Labour Party and the UK Government? Whilst we all suffer from the Trump Blues following the US election, the arrest warrants should provide a golden opportunity for Labour to put clear water between itself and US foreign policy.

However, it has succumbed to Anti-Palestinian racism, as much as both the Republican and Democratic establishments have in the States. Many years ago Engels described them not as parties, but “gangs of political speculators”. That is what the Labour Party has become on Palestine – a coterie of donors, officials and advisers prepared to gamble with people’s lives for the sake of political advantage and power. And their actions, which they would fervently deny, are fundamentally based on a racist view of Palestinians. They treat and regard them differently because of who they are.

Ignoring the hundreds of thousands, now a year later millions of people who have marched in support of Palestine, Labour has placed itself and the determination of its policies “beyond popular reach”. Immune to the views of its members, the public, global opinion or international law.

Our challenge on this UN Day of Solidarity is to commit to bringing Labour and this Government back within popular reach. When I was able to visit Palestine, in greeting you warmly Palestinians would say politely – nice to see you and what are you doing in your own country.

We can’t de-elect Trump, but we can focus on trying to make Labour and the UK an independent voice for Palestinians. Not an easy challenge, Israel in losing global support, has cowed the political establishment into silence – not out of fear, but self-interest.

On the back of the massive support for Palestine the past year has shown, we need to build inside and outside the Labour Party, rejuvenated within the trade union movement, on the streets and in the churches a solidarity movement and alliance capable of bringing down the political walls of indifference, of bringing the Labour Party back within popular reach, capable of responding to and listening to what the people say.

Social media can help, but we need to be apostles of the Palestinian story – going out to friends, family, work colleagues, to anyone who will listen, telling the Palestinian story. In the US the JVP – Jewish Voice for Peace, have produced toolkits about how to talk to family and friends about Israeli genocide and the demand for an arms embargo.

This is a conversation we all need to have. Whilst Netanyahu and his Government are trying to silence Haaretz and its critics at home and abroad – we need to speak up. We need to transform Labour into a voice for peace, rather than being a supporter of war.