By Jonathan Cook*

Washington’s decision to intensify swingeing aid cuts to the Palestinians – the latest targets include cancer patients and peace groups – reveals more than a simple determination to strong-arm the Palestinian leadership to the negotiating table.

Under cover of a supposed peace effort, or “deal of the century”, the Trump administration hopes to solve problems closer to home. It wants finally to shake off the burden of international humanitarian law, and the potential for war crimes trials, that have overshadowed US actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria – and may yet prove treacherous in dealings with Iran.

The Palestinians have been thrust into the center of this battle for good reason. They are the most troublesome legacy of a post-war, rules-based international order that the US is now committed to sweeping away. Amputate the Palestinian cause, an injustice festering for more than seven decades, and America’s hand will be freer elsewhere. Might will again be right.

An assault on the already fragile international order as it relates to the Palestinians began in earnest last month. The US stopped all aid to UNRWA, the United Nations refugee agency that helps more than five million Palestinians languishing in camps across the Middle East.

The pressure sharpened last week when $25m in aid was blocked to hospitals in East Jerusalem that provide a lifeline to Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank, whose health services have withered under a belligerent Israeli occupation.

Then at the weekend, the US revealed it would no longer hand over $10m to peace groups fostering ties between Israelis and Palestinians.

The only significant transfer the US still makes is $60m annually to the Palestinian security services, which effectively enforce the occupation on Israel’s behalf. In short, that money benefits Israel, not the Palestinians

At the same time, the Trump administration revoked the US visa of the Palestinian ambassador to Washington, Husam Zomlot, shortly after shuttering his diplomatic mission. The Palestinians have been cast fully out into the cold.

Most observers wrongly assume that the screws are simply being tightened to force the Palestinians to engage with Trump’s peace plan, even though it is nowhere in sight. Like an unwanted tin can, it has been kicked ever further down the road over the past year. A reasonable presumption is that it will never be unveiled. While the US keeps everyone distracted with empty talk, Israel gets on with its unilateral solutions.

The world is watching, nonetheless. The Palestinian community of Khan Al Ahmar, outside Jerusalem, appears to be days away from demolition. Israel intends to ethnically cleanse its inhabitants to clear the way for more illegal Jewish settlements in a key area that would eradicate any hope of a Palestinian state.

Trump’s recent punitive actions are designed to choke into submission the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, just as Israel once secretly put Palestinians in Gaza on a starvation “diet” to make them more compliant. Israel’s long-standing collective punishment of Palestinians – constituting a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention – has now been supplemented by similar types of collective punishment by the US, against Palestinian refugees and cancer patients.

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and adviser, admitted as much at the weekend. He told the New York Times that the cuts in aid were punishment for the Palestinian leadership “vilifying the [US] administration”.

In an apparent coded reference to international law, Kushner added that it was time to change “false realities”. However feeble international institutions have proved, the Trump administration, like Israel, prefers to be without them.

In particular, both detest the potential constraints imposed by the International Criminal Court at The Hague, which is empowered to prosecute war crimes. Although it was established only in 2002, it draws on a body of international law and notions of human rights that date back to the immediate period after the Second World War.

The crimes committed by Zionist leaders in establishing Israel on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homeland occurred in 1948, just as international law was being born. The Palestinians were among the first, and are still the most glaring, violation of that new rules-based global order.

Righting those historic wrongs is the biggest test of whether international law will ever amount to more than jailing the odd African dictator.

That the Palestinian cause continues to loom large was underscored this month by two challenges conducted in international forums. Legislators from Israel’s large Palestinian minority have appealed to the United Nations to sanction Israel for recently passing the apartheid-like Nation-State Basic Law. It gives constitutional standing to institutionalized discrimination against the fifth of the population who are not Jewish.

And the Palestinian Authority has alerted the Hague court to the imminent destruction by Israel of Khan Al Ahmar. The ICC is already examining whether to bring a case against Israel over the settlements built on occupied land.

The US State Department has said the aid cuts and closure of the Palestinian embassy were prompted partly by “concerns” over the Hague referral. John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser, meanwhile, has vowed to shield Israel from any war crimes trials.

Sitting on the fence have been the Europeans. Last week the European Parliament passed a resolution warning that Khan Al Ahmar’s destruction and the “forcible transfer” of its inhabitants would be a “grave breach” of international law. In an unusual move, it also threatened to demand compensation from Israel for any damage to infrastructure in Khan Al Ahmar funded by Europe.

Europe’s leading states anxiously wish to uphold the semblance of an international order they believe has prevented their region’s descent into a Third World War. Israel and the US, on the other hand, are determined to use Palestine as the testbed for dismantling these protections.

The Israeli bulldozers sent to Khan Al Ahmar will also launch an assault on Europe and its resolve to defend international law and the Palestinians. When push comes to shove, will Europe’s nerve hold?

(A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi)

*Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com. Visit his website www.jonathan-cook.net.

By Pier Francesco Zarcone*

Recent events in Syria (downing of a Russian Ilyushin plane and an agreement between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recip Erdoğan on Idlib) lead to some reflections starting with the Israeli bombing that caused more than ten Russian deaths.

Many political observers, including Alberto Negri writing in a September 19 article on the Antidiplomatico site, have noted that when Israel is involved Putin is less decisive than usual. In fact, so far there has been no real Russian reaction to many Israeli violations of Syrian sovereignty, apart from certain formal protests.

However, caution in this case is more than justified, because – beyond the fact that about one million Russian Jews live in Israel – with the United States (and France) burning with the desire to launch a military attack on Syria, the situation could become critical at any moment and modern history teaches us that it is known how certain things begin but not how they evolve.

In the case of the Ilyushin, Israel risked a lot and perhaps those who claims that the (so far) measured Russian reaction and Putin’s phone call to Benjamin Netanyahu – in which the violation of agreements to prevent dangerous incidents was denounced – together with Israeli silence would confirm that the powers in Jerusalem are aware of having come a hair’s breadth from the limit. The fact is that in six months Israel has carried out about 200 air and/or missile attacks on Syrian targets.

On the other hand, entering into the field against Israel is militarily dangerous, because of the aforementioned and not hidden ambitions of Israel’s allies, so it is more advisable for Moscow to limit itself to diplomatic manoeuvres, even if they do not always work. It should be borne in mind that Israel suits Russia because of its openness to financial manoeuvres for circumventing US and European Union sanctions; the other side of the coin comes from Russian obstacles to the anti-Israeli boycott campaign.

But trust in the Near East is a very rare currency, as demonstrated by the continuous interventions of Israel in Syria as part of as its anti-Iran posture. That is to say, the government of Israel knows very well what the Russian presence in Syrian territory represents for it, namely an obstacle to Iran’s hegemony over that country, but  – obviously not trusting it all the way  – does not give up its own interventions to hit Iranian and Hezbollāh targets and supply lines. Especially since they are also enemies of the United States, so it can be said that these Israeli military actions are also carried out by US proxy.

It seems in fact that Israel has decided to accept the rescue of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad orchestrated by Russia, without however giving up actions against the Iranian presence in Syria, and in a certain sense Russia allows this, but within certain limits which were crossed in the case of the Ilyushin. In the logic of international power games it is not worth remembering that it was precisely Iranians and Shiite militias that gave a substantial hand on the ground for the current victory of the government of Damascus, with which Russia is allied; and not even the current entente between Moscow and Iran say much.

This latter aspect is quite complex. It appears that when Putin decided in 2015 to intervene in Syria (home to the only Russian naval base in the Mediterranean, in Tartus) because the Assad government was grappling with a militarily negative phase of war, in Damascus there was a clash between sectors of the secret services and the Armed Forces which were divided about the opportunity or not of throwing themselves into the arms of Iran for the purpose of salvation.

The Russian intervention surpassed this problem, and Moscow achieved six results to its credit: securing the Tartus base; saving the Assad government and tightening mutual ties; growth of its prestige at least in the Shiite areas of the Near East and in the Muslim (even Sunni) sectors, waiting for someone to decide to intervene effectively against the jihadists; removal of the danger of massive military action by the United States and its allies in the case of a victory in Damascus of the pro-Iranian faction, even though Obama was reluctant to embark on a war against Iran; guarantees to Iran about the possibility of action by Shiite militias; but also virtual guarantees to Israel about Russian control over the action of these militias.

This last piece of the puzzle in May this year was to materialise in a more or less secret Russian-Israeli agreement on the positioning of these militiamen at an adequate distance from the border.

The current entente between Russia and Iran should not be overrated, but considered simply for what it is: a contingent convergence of interests of each party, in which millenary, astute and patient Persian diplomacy knows that at the moment it is convenient to swallow the pill – somewhat bitter – of Russian interference with Iran’s hegemonic aims also as regards Syria. On the other hand, even if with the final stretch in which “the majority shareholder” is Russia, in some ways the coveted Shiite corridor could be said to have been realised. Then we will see, depending on the evolution of international and local scenarios.

Putin’s further success occurred in Sochi on September 16 through the agreement signed with Erdoğan on Idlib, substantially postponing the Russian/Syrian military offensive against the last piece of Syria in the hands of the jihadists. In this way the threatened US intervention (to protect the jihadists putting forward humanitarian pretexts) was avoided should the offensive have begun.

Even here, Putin moved shrewdly by reaching agreements with Turkey and Iran and cutting out Washington, which also saw its excuse for intervention removed. One could consider the latest Israeli raid on Syria as the result of anger over the Sochi agreement. In fact, in his aforementioned article, Alberto Negri concluded that former empires – the Russian and the Ottoman empires, blessed by the Persian empire – have reached agreement while the American empire has allowed Israel to bomb without asking anyone’s permission.

Needless to say, this is an agreement pro rempore: the creation of a buffer zone controlled by a joint force of Russian military police and Turkish soldiers to separate jihadists and the Syrian army, as well as the delivery of heavy weapons by the former, are clearly measures designed to create rifts between the most radicalised rebels (for example Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, also known as al-Qaeda in Syria) and those most inclined to a peace agreement guaranteed by Turkey. Once this goal is reached, Turkey (still a member of NATO after all) should allow the Russian/Syrian attack for eliminating the last diehards.

* Pier Francesco Zarcone, with a degree in canonical law, is a historian of the labour movement and a scholar of Islam, among others. He is a member of Utopia Red (Red Utopia), an international association working for the unity of revolutionary movements around the world in a new International: La Quinta (The Fifth). This article was originally published in Italian under the title Russia, Iran, Turchia, Israele e la Siria in Red Utopia. Translated by Phil Harris.

In a previous article (‘US: The Century of Lost Wars’) I recorded the repeated US military defeats over the past two decades. In this discussion I will describe the role of military strategists who bear responsibility for the US defeats, but also for Israeli political successes.

The key to this apparent contradiction is to uncover how and why the destruction of Israeli adversaries prolonged costly US military invasions.

The two outcomes are inter-related. The same US military strategists whose policies lead to failed US wars in the Middle East facilitated and augmented the power of Israel.

US war strategists’ operations reflect ‘dual loyalties’. On the one-hand they receive their elite education and high positions in the US, while their political loyalties to Tel Aviv express their Israel First strategic decisions.

Our hypothesis is that dual loyalist strategists have fabricated threats, identified adversaries and committed hundreds of thousands of US soldiers to losing wars based on calculations that effectively increase Israeli power and influence in the Middle East.

We will proceed by identifying the war strategists and their policies and conclude by proposing an alternative framework for re-thinking the relationship between dual citizens and military strategy.

The ‘Best and the Brightest’: The Blind Ally of Military Defeats

There is an apparent contradiction between the high academic achievements of elite military strategists and their abominable record in pursuing military conflicts.

Most, if not all, policy makers who led the US in prolonged wars against Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Syria were Israel-firsters, either Zionists or Israeli ‘fellow travelers’.

In each of these wars, the Israel firster war strategists, (1) identified the enemy, (2) exaggerated the threat to the US and (3) grossly inflated the military capacity of the targeted country. They started with Iraq and Afghanistan and then proceeded to the other nations, all opponents of Israel.

By ‘coincidence’ all countries supported the Palestinians’ rights of self- determination and opposed Israeli annexation and colonization of Arab lands.

Driven by their loyalty to Israel’s ‘expansionist goals’, the military strategists ignored the ‘real world’ political and economic costs to the US people and state. Professional and academic credentials, nepotism and tribal loyalties, each contributed to the Israel firsters advance to securing strategic decision-making positions and elite advisory posts in the Pentagon, State Department, Treasury and White House.

Their policies led to an unending trillion-dollar war in Afghanistan; losing wars in Libya, Iraq and Syria; and costly economic sanctions against Iran.

The main beneficiary was Israel which confronted less political and military opposition; zero cost in lives and money; and substantial gains in territory.

Why did the Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, Johns Hopkins’ cum laude graduates repeatedly produce the worst possible military outcomes?

In part because the US acted as an instrument of another power (Israel). Moreover, the Israel firsters never were obliged to reflect in self-criticism nor to admit their failures and rectify their disastrous strategies.

Their refusal to assume their responsibilities resulted from several causes. Their criteria for success was based on whether their policies advanced Israeli goals, not US interests.

Moreover, while their decisions were objectionable to US citizens they were supported by the 52 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organization including the powerful Zionist lobby, AIPAC, which dictated Middle East policy to both political parties and the US Congress.

Ordinarily, military strategists whose policies lead to repeated political disasters are denounced, fired or even investigated for treasons. In our experience nothing of the sort happened.

The best and the brightest rotated between six-digit jobs in Washington to seven- digit positions on Wall Street, or secured positions in lucrative law firms in Washington and New York (many with offices in Israel) or were appointed to prestigious academic posts in Ivy League universities.

What Should be Done?

There are countervailing measures which can lessen the impact of the strategic policies of the Israel Firsters. Academic Israel firsters should be encouraged to remain in Academia; rather than serve Israel in the State.

If they remain in the Ivory Tower they will inflict less destructive policies on American citizens and the state.

Secondly, since the vast-majority of Israel firsters are more likely to be arm chair war monger, who have not risked their lives in any of the wars that they promote, obligatory recruitment into combat zones would dampen their ardor for wars.

Thirdly , as matters stand, since many more Israel firsters choose to serve in the so-called Israeli Defense (sic) Force (IDF) they should reimburse US taxpayers for their free ride to education, health and welfare.

Fourthly, since most Israel firsters who volunteer to join the IDF prefer shooting unarmed Palestinian protesters,medics,journalists and kite flying kids they should be drafted into the US Army to serve in Afghanistan and face armed Taliban fighters surrounding Kabul, an experience which might knock a bit of realism in their dreams of converting the Middle East into an Israeli fiefdom.

Many national loyalties are forged by shared lives with families and friends of US soldiers who endure endless wars. Israel firsters dispatched to the war front would receive existential experiences that the Harvard, Princeton and Yale military strategists who make wars for Israel failed to understand.

Obligatory courses on the genocide of millions of Palestinian, Iraqi, Syrian, and Libyan people would enrich Israel firsters understanding of “holocausts’ in diverse ethno- religious settings.
Face to face encounters in life threatening military situations, where superior arms do not prevail, would deflate the hubris, arrogance and superiority complexes which fuel the tribal loyalties of Israel firsters.

In conclusion we offer modest suggestions for educated and cultured scientists, doctors, artists and entrepreneurs:

• Convert your skills to raising a new generation which will defend democratic values and social solidarity and eschew wars, persecution and phony claims of anti-semitism against critics of an ethnically exclusionary state.
• Forsake exclusive control of the mass media which glorifies Israeli war crimes and denigrates critics as ‘anti’ Semites for speaking truth to power.

Let’s join together to liberate America from military entanglements that privilege multi-billion-dollar have-nots to Israel while thirty million Us workers lack health coverage and forty percent of upstate New York children live in poverty.

Yes, there is an honorable place for everyone who joins in solidarity with the victims of Israeli First war strategists.

Trump probably needs better advisors…

US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on Chinese products went into effect on Monday. Many Americans are left wondering if they’ll end up paying more for the things they buy. Experts predict that the answer is yes.

That’s because, while free trade generally increases purchasing power, tariffs can reduce it. And although Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross claims price increases will go unnoticed, others expect the impact on consumers to be more significant.

“Things are going to become more expensive because of this added tax,” best-selling author and personal finance expert Chris Hogan tells CNBC Make It. “This has the potential to impact a lot of areas that people need day to day to survive or to run their business.”

The latest round of U.S. tariffs is a 10 percent levy on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, which is set to rise to 25 percent by the end of the year. That’s on top of the $50 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese goods that went into effect in August.

How much more Americans would pay, and for what

The Office of the United States Trade Representative issued a comprehensive list of Chinese products that the U.S. plans to target. The list includes everything from vegetables and seafood to chemical elements and construction materials.

Including these latest additions, tariffs will cost the average American family $127 per year, according to an analysis from Kirill Borusyak, a postdoctoral associate at Princeton University, and Xavier Jaravel, an economics professor at the London School of Economics. The effect on you will vary based on what you buy, and the extra amount you’ll pay could increase significantly if you make more substantial purchases.

Here are some notable goods that may become more expensive for American consumers as a result of the tariffs:

• TVs
• Homes and home renovations
• Washing machines
• Solar panels
• Cars
• Beer
• Cosmetics
• Electronics
• Clothing

Many American companies have already announced that tariffs could force them to raise prices, including Walmart, Gap, Coca-Cola and General Motors. Macy’s also expects to be affected, and some Apple products are expected to get more expensive as well, although not its new smartwatch or wireless headphones.

With tariffs on certain construction materials, houses themselves may jump in price. The U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber may have already contributed to increased housing costs in the U.S., reports the New York Times. They’re “adding about $9,000 to the cost of the average single family home,” writes Sandy Weaver, senior adviser at Petrovic Weaver Financial Services, in the Kansas City Star.

“There’s no way around it: Tariffs are taxes on American consumers,” says David French, senior vice president for government relations at the National Retail Federation. He adds that some prices might increase as soon as the holiday shopping season.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court for Friday, a day after it is supposed to hear from both Kavanaugh and the woman accusing him of sexual misconduct.

On Thursday, the committee is supposed to hear from both the judge and Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who says Kavanaugh attempted to rape her at a high school party sometime in the summer of 1982. It is not clear whether Ford will show up to testify, however.

The vote was initially scheduled for Monday the 24th, until Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) agreed to postpone it for the sake of hearing from Ford. Democrats on the committee, as well as Ford’s attorneys, demanded a FBI investigation into her claims. They also wanted to further postpone the hearing so Ford could drive from California to Washington, as she was reportedly afraid of airplanes, and that Kavanaugh testify ahead of Ford, which is at best unusual.

On Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), who sat on Ford’s allegations until after the Kavanaugh hearings were done, sought to further delay the hearing because another woman – Kavanaugh’s classmate from Yale – told The New Yorker he may have inappropriately exposed himself to her at a college party.

Deborah Ramirez, however, declined to appear before the Senate, where she would have to make a statement on penalty of perjury.

“There is no reason to delay the hearing any further,” Grassley wrote in a letter to Feinstein on Tuesday. Doing so would be unfair to both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh, who have both faced threats and intimidation against both themselves and their families, Grassley added.

Furthermore, Grassley said he was “unclear” why the claims by Ramirez had any bearing on Ford’s testimony. “In fact, the obvious connection between the two claims is that Senate Democrats hid both allegations of misconduct from the Committee and the public,” he added.

“As you know, false statements to the press are not subject to criminal penalty, but false statements to Congress are,” Grassley noted.

Kavanaugh has rejected the claims by both Ford and Ramirez, demanding a hearing to clear his name. He appeared Monday evening on Fox News in the company of his wife Ashley, to reveal that he was a virgin in both high school and college.

“I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone, not in high school, not ever,” Kavanaugh told Fox’s Martha McCallum, adding that he has letters testifying to his characters from high school and college classmates and coworkers going back decades, and multiple testimonies under oath to back him up.

The scheduling of the vote on Kavanaugh for Friday suggests that Grassley and the Republican majority are convinced the accusations against the judge are a stalling tactic by the Democrats, who have opposed President Donald Trump’s nominee from the start.

Kavanaugh was nominated to fill the spot vacated by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy in June. Democrats reacted with to Kennedy’s retirement with alarm and anger, as he was considered an important swing vote on the court evenly divided between conservative constitutionalist and liberal activist justices. Kavanaugh’s nomination in July was met with organized protests before his name was even announced.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) on Monday hinted that his patience might be at an end, calling the accusations against Kavanaugh a “shameful smear campaign” and vowing to hold a vote on his nomination. McConnell had warned back in July that it was “important that President Trump’s nominee be treated fairly and not subjected to personal attacks.”

The GOP has sought to confirm Kavanaugh before the Supreme Court reconvenes on the first Monday in October. Delaying the confirmation further would push the vote beyond the November midterms, when the Democrats hope to win a majority in both the House and the Senate.

Immigration is set to fall dramatically following Brexit after the Cabinet agreed to tough curbs on the number of EU nationals allowed into Britain.

Ministers yesterday backed a system which would end free movement and subject EU migrants to the same rules as those from outside the bloc.

Experts predict the move could lead to an 80 per cent fall in migrants coming to Britain from European countries.

The agreement is a major victory for Theresa May and Home Secretary Sajid Javid, who were pushing for tighter controls.

Mr Javid told the Cabinet that numbers coming to the UK should be reduced to ‘sustainable levels’. He also argued it was upholding the result of the referendum.

The only dissenting voices were Chancellor Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark.

One source said Mr Hammond was being ‘typically tin-eared’ about migration. He is understood to accept that free movement is ending, but wants the move to the new regime to be as smooth as possible.

Mr Clark drew a link between migration levels and a likely deal on services.

The new system is based on a plan published by the independent Migration Advisory Committee last week.

In a further boost for the PM, a predicted row over her Chequers plan failed to materialise.

In a presentation, MAC chairman Professor Alan Manning told ministers there should be more highly-skilled migrants and fewer low-skilled.

In a swipe at Mr Hammond, Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey said it was ridiculous to suggest Britain would both be plunged into recession and experience a big influx of migrants.

If a deal is agreed with the EU, the new system will come into force after the transition period, which is likely to finish at the end of 2020.

Net migration from the Brussels bloc currently stands at around 86,000 a year – but that figure is down from close to 200,000 before the referendum in 2016.

Overall, the difference between long-term arrivals in the UK and people leaving is running at around 270,000.

The government’s target is to bring the total figure down below 100,000 a year.

After Mrs May’s row with EU leaders in Salzburg last week, reports suggested ministers were planning a rebellion designed to force her to adopt a Canada-style free trade deal.

There was even a suggestion one minister was planning a walk-out. But the issue was barely mentioned.

Mrs May told the meeting ‘Now is the time to hold our nerve’ and said the negotiations were always going to reach a critical point.

Defending the Chequers plan, under which the UK would continue to follow single market rules on goods and foods, she said it was the only one which would prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland.

No other ministers spoke on the issue before it broke up, it is understood.

Yesterday, former Brexit secretary David Davis and European Research Group chairman Jacob Rees-Mogg backed a report calling for a Canada-style deal.

The 145-page document from the Institute for Economic Affairs think-tank said Chequers would make an independent trade policy – making deals with the US, China and other countries – ‘all but impossible’.

The MAC report suggested free movement should end because there is ‘no guarantee that migration is in the interests of UK residents’.

It said higher-skilled workers were better than low-skilled ones because they had higher earnings and were more productive and innovative.

It also advised ministers to maintain a £30,000 minimum salary limit for foreign citizens securing a work permit.

Original source

Bosnia may be headed for the worst of all worlds, one in which its elections are marked by widespread fraud – but where no one in the international community cares to do much about it.

By Jasmin Mujanovic *

With only weeks to go until voting day in October, Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the throes of campaign fever.

As in every post-war election cycle in the small country, with possibly the world’s most complex constitutional set-up, the campaign has been bruising.

But hate speech and historical revisionism are hardly novel concepts in the annals of Bosnian electioneering.

What is more alarming is the degree to which the upcoming polls appear to be careening towards overt illegitimacy.

There have always been structural problems with Bosnia’s elections. The entrenched dominance of the main nationalist blocs in the country – in no small part the result of institutional advantages afforded to them by the 1995 Dayton constitution – have defined the country’s politics for nearly three decades.

But never has the evidence of possible electoral manipulation and fraud been so well documented before the polls themselves.

Nor has the international climate ever been as hostile to the country’s continued sovereignty and territorial integrity, at least not since conclusion of the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.

Bosnia may thus be headed for the worst of all worlds: one in which the elections its marked by widespread fraud – but no one in the international community cares to do much about it.

The combination of domestic illegitimacy and broad international apathy is alarming.

With the last pretenses of the rule of law dissolved, Bosnia’s recalcitrant elites may well feel emboldened to initiate their most catastrophic fantasies.

Funny numbers

Presently, the main independent election monitoring organization in Bosnia, Pod Lupom, has reported serious irregularities with the country’s election roll.

Some 250,000 registered voters appear to lack identity cards, the primary identity document in the country, without which it is virtually impossible to access any government service.

While it is technically possible to vote without these cards, the number is worryingly high, given that it concerns such a central piece of documentation.

The same EU and US-funded organization has found evidence of organized identify theft, leading to suspicions of widespread voter registration fraud, possibly including significant portions of the above noted 250,000 individuals.

That is on top of the 9,000 or so voters whose registrations the Central Election Commission, CIK, has already rejected on various legal grounds.

Then consider also that Bosnian investigative journalists have reported that authorities in neighboring Croatia appear to be engaged in a coordinated campaign of election fraud.

In tandem with Dragan Covic, the Croat member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, and his Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, and in possible concert with intelligence operatives from Russia, the Croatian authorities have apparently been assisting efforts to falsely register possibly thousands of fictitious absentee voters.

At the very least, there is evidence of an improbable spike in Bosnian absentee voter registrations in Croatia, which would appear to disproportionately favour the HDZ.

Depending on the municipalities, the increase in registered absentee voters range from 166 to over 400 per cent. Nearly all of these election districts are currently governed by the HDZ or their Serb nationalist coalition partners in the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD.

The Covic-Komsic duel

Unlike in previous years, Covic has grounds to worry about his prospects, which might explain the evident surge of electoral irregularities.

This is the first year he is in a head-to-head contest with Zeljko Komsic, a former two-time member of presidency who enjoys widespread support among Bosniak and moderate Croat voters.

A recent opinion poll – and the only publicly available one to date – has the two in a dead heat.

Covic and Komsic represent two opposite poles of the Bosnian political spectrum, so the outcome of their race will go a long way to shaping the country’s immediate future.

Covic explicitly opposes any reforms to move Bosnia towards a broadly liberal-democratic constitutional regime, and away from its existing ethno-sectarian framework.

Earlier this month he bizarrely suggested that such reforms would turn Bosnia in to a de facto “Islamic state”.

While such claims are part of a pattern of hate speech by Covic – wherein he accuses the entire the Bosniak community of Islamic extremism – the heart of his argument is fundamentally pragmatic.

The HDZ is a party that routinely wins only 10 per cent or less of the national vote.

Thanks to the institutional privileges afforded to nationalist parties under the Dayton constitution though, Covic and the HDZ maintain a stranglehold over a third of both the state and Federation entity government apparatus.

Komsic, on the other hand, is an ethnic Croat who spent years in the multiethnic Social Democratic Party, SDP, before he formed his own, again multiethnic, splinter bloc, the Democratic Front, DF.

Although he has sometimes proven ineffectual in advancing his agenda – in particular during his most recent stint in the state parliament – Komsic has remained steadfast in his commitment to reorganizing Bosnia as a civic state.

In other words, Covic and the HDZ know their political survival depends on maintaining an uneven playing field. More bluntly, Covic cannot win a genuinely democratic election, so he insists on special rules that can artificially maintain him and his party in power.

Komsic, by contrast, would have a good chance of winning any outright popular vote in Bosnia. But not because he is the preferred candidate of a plurality of Bosniaks. Their primary choice remains the Party of Democratic Action, SDA.

It is because, like politicians across the democratic world, he has a broad coalition of supporters: namely, moderate Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs, and anti-nationalist Bosnians as a whole.

Given the wider context of these elections, which, as explained elsewhere, are shaping up as a test of Bosnia’s very existence, and considering also Covic’s key role in undermining that statehood, it is little wonder that these polls are the country’s most volatile since 1996.

That the HDZ will use all means at its disposal, legal or not and both before and after the elections, to cling to power is not in question.

Similar stunts will also most certainly be employed by the SNSD and the SDA. The only question is whether anyone in Brussels, Washington, or even the Office of the High Representative, will in any substantive way respond.

*Dr. Jasmin Mujanovic is a political scientist specialising in the politics of Southeastern Europe and of post-authoritarian and post-conflict democratisation. His first book, ‘Hunger and Fury: The Crisis of Democracy in the Balkans’ is now available from Hurst Publishers (in the UK and EU) and Oxford University Press (in North America).

The opinions expressed in are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.

While a warming climate in recent decades may be a factor in the waning of some local populations of frogs, toads, newts and salamanders, it cannot explain the overall steep decline of amphibians, according to researchers.

After analyzing many years of data for 81 North American amphibian species including more than 500,000 observations collected at more than 5,000 sites in 86 study areas by a broad coalition of herpetologists, it is clear a warming climate is not the primary driver in their disappearance, according to lead researcher David Miller, associate professor of wildlife population ecology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

The researchers focused on how colonization and persistence of local populations were related to annual variation in five climate variables thought to affect key components of amphibian life cycles: winter severity, snowfall, breeding water availability, summer soil moisture and maximum temperature.

“The influence of climate on amphibian populations is complex,” Miller said. “In the last 30 years, we have seen increases in temperature, while some spots have gotten drier and others have gotten wetter. In the big picture, those developments seem to counteract each other. As a result, the impact of climate change for the measures we focused on cannot explain the sharp decline we have seen and continue to see across amphibian populations.”

The study showed that, on average, 3.4 percent of amphibian species are disappearing from local amphibian habitats each year. That is the equivalent of losing half the species in any wetland, stream reach or forest site every 20 years. Miller believes these declines are a continuation of losses of amphibian populations that have been occurring since the 19th century when human land-use began destroying their habitats.

“It is an alarming trend,” he said. “Across species, on average, we lose more than three in 100 of the sites where they occur each year. Whether the sites are ponds, short stretches of streams or, if we’re talking about salamanders, forest plots — they’re gone. Our research took place in the United States and Canada, but it’s a trend worldwide.”

In the study — the findings of which were published today in Nature Communications — 41 researchers estimated changes in amphibian numbers in plots they have been watching, in many cases, for a decade or more. They collected data on both public and private lands, including national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges.

Researchers correlated those changes with weather trends and climate-related conditions, directly measuring how climate drivers are affecting the processes that determine amphibian range shifts. For example, they found that less precipitation during breeding seasons generally has a negative effect on amphibian populations, while less snowfall during winter may benefit many populations.

The researchers determined that, while climate change likely has been and will be a factor in the decline of some local populations such as in the Rocky Mountain West — where the effect of a warming climate seems to be more severe for amphibians — it is not responsible for the current declines that are occurring.

That conclusion, of course, has scientists pondering the culprits most responsible for amphibian decline. Erin Muths, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey and a co-lead on the project, believes that the cause of declines comes down to a suite of local factors.

“It depends on the location whether habitat loss, disease, contaminants, climate, or a combination of these local factors is the culprit,” she said. “Amphibians are challenged by a range of stressors that may be unique to location but in combination are leading to wide-range declines.”

To better understand the causes of declines, Miller and colleagues from the USGS have initiated new work studying emerging pathogens that affect amphibians. A major concern for amphibian populations are new and deadly pathogens, mostly spread around the planet by humans — likely propelled by the pet trade.

According to Evan Grant, with the USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative, there are at least two new pathogens that researchers know of that are currently affecting North American amphibians.

“One is the chytrid fungus and the other is ranaviruses,” he said. “We are trying to figure out how these affect populations of amphibians in the Northeast. We are still learning how infections are spread and why some species are more susceptible.”

This past summer, for example, Miller’s research group at Penn State watched the die-off of salamander larvae and tadpoles in the ponds they monitor in a Centre County, Pennsylvania, site called the Scotia Barrens. Preliminarily, Miller believes ranavirus caused the mortality event.

“Once these diseases make it to North America then the animals themselves can spread them around,” he said. “But it really takes people to be involved in carrying the diseases from, say, Asia to the United States.”

Five centuries of over-exploitation has halved mammal populations in South America’s Atlantic Forest – according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

A new analysis of mammal populations, published in the journal PLoS ONE, has revealed the devastating effects of human disturbance over the last 500 years.

More than half of the local species assemblages – sets of co-existing species – of medium and large mammals living in the forest have died out since the area was first colonised in the 1500s.

Human activity is largely responsible for this overwhelming biodiversity loss according to the study, which compared inventories published over the past 30 years with baseline data going back to historical times in Colonial Brazil.

Originally covering around 1.1 million square km, the Atlantic Forest lies mostly along the coast of Brazil and is the world’s longest continuous latitudinal stretch of tropical forest. Activities such as farming and logging – as well as fires – have reduced the Forest to about 0.143 million square km which has, in turn, had a significant impact on mammalian populations.

Dr Juliano Bogoni – currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of São Paulo, Brazil – led the study, along with Professor Carlos Peres from the University of East Anglia (UEA), and collaborators from the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.

The team analysed species loss among almost 500 medium-to-large-bodied local sets of mammal species that had been surveyed within the vast Atlantic Forest region.

As well as looking at individual species, the team examined species groups, to try to understand which ecologically related groups of species had diminished most rapidly. They found that apex predators and large carnivores, such as jaguars and pumas, as well as large-bodied herbivores, such as tapirs were among the groups whose numbers had suffered the most.

Prof Peres, from UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, said: “Our results highlight the urgent need for action in protecting these fragile ecosystems.

“In particular, we need to carry out more comprehensive regional scale studies to understand the local patterns and drivers of species loss.

“Efforts to protect the Atlantic Forest and other tropical forest ecosystems often rests on uncooperative political will and robust public policies, so we need compelling data to drive change.”

Dr Bogoni, first author of the study, said: “The mammalian diversity of the once majestic Atlantic Forest has been largely reduced to a pale shadow of its former self.

“These habitats are now often severely incomplete, restricted to insufficiently large forest remnants, and trapped in an open-ended extinction vortex. This collapse is unprecedented in both history and pre-history and can be directly attributed to human activity.”

It seems “hangry” isn’t just a made-up term.

University of Guelph researchers have revealed that the sudden drop in glucose we experience when we are hungry can impact our mood.

“We found evidence that a change in glucose level can have a lasting effect on mood,” said Prof. Francesco Leri, Department of Psychology. “I was skeptical when people would tell me that they get grouchy if they don’t eat, but now I believe it. Hypoglycemia is a strong physiological and psychological stressor.”

Published in the journal Psychopharmacology, the study examined the impact of a sudden glucose drop on emotional behaviour by inducing hypoglycemia in rats.

“When people think about negative mood states and stress, they think about the psychological factors, not necessarily the metabolic factors,” said PhD student Thomas Horman, who led the study. “But we found poor eating behaviour can have an impact.”

The rats were injected with a glucose metabolism blocker causing them to experience hypoglycemia, and were then placed in a specific chamber. On a separate occasion, they were given an injection of water and placed in a different chamber. When given the choice of which chamber to enter, they actively avoided the chamber where they experienced hypoglycemia.

“This type of avoidance behaviour is an expression of stress and anxiety,” said Leri. “The animals are avoiding that chamber because they had a stressful experience there. They don’t want to experience it again.”

The researchers tested blood levels of the rats after experiencing hypoglycemia and found more corticosterone, an indicator of physiological stress.

The rats also appeared more sluggish when given the glucose metabolism blocker.

“You might argue that this is because they need glucose to make their muscles work,” said Leri. “But when we gave them a commonly used antidepressant medication, the sluggish behaviour was not observed. The animals moved around normally. This is interesting because their muscles still weren’t getting the glucose, yet their behaviour changed.”

This finding supports the idea that the animals experienced stress and depressed mood when they were hypoglycemic, he said.

For people who experience anxiety or depression, the study results have implications for treatment, said Horman.

“The factors that lead someone to develop depression and anxiety can be different from one person to the next. Knowing that nutrition is a factor, we can include eating habits into possible treatment.”

These findings also provide insight into the connection between depression and diseases such as obesity, diabetes, bulimia and anorexia, Horman said.

Having established that hypoglycemia contributes to negative mood states, the researchers plan to determine whether chronic, long-term hypoglycemia is a risk factor for developing depression-like behaviours.

While missing one meal may make you “hangry,” Horman said, these findings suggest your mood could be impacted if meal-skipping becomes a habit.

“Poor mood and poor eating can become a vicious cycle in that if a person isn’t eating properly, they can experience a drop in mood, and this drop in mood can make them not want to eat. If someone is constantly missing meals and constantly experiencing this stressor, the response could affect their emotional state on a more constant level.”

More than 26,000 years ago, sea level was much lower than it is today partly because the ice sheets that jut out from the continent of Antarctica were enormous and covered by grounded ice — ice that was fully attached to the seafloor. The ice sheets were as large as they could get and at the time, sea level was much lower because a lot of ice was sequestered on the continent. As the planet warmed, the ice sheets melted and contracted, and sea level began to rise.

LSU Department of Geology & Geophysics Associate Professor Phil Bart and his students have discovered new information that illuminates how and when this global phenomenon occurred. Their research recently published in Nature’s Scientific Reports may change today’s sea level rise predictions as Earth and its icy continent continues to warm.

Bart and his students conducted one of the largest geological surveys of the Antarctic continental shelf to-date. His team of undergraduate and graduate students spent 28 days at sea aboard the U.S. Antarctic Programs’ research ship, the Nathaniel B. Palmer RVIB, to scan the topography of the seafloor in the Ross Sea. They scanned and mapped a roughly 2,500-square-kilometer, or 965-square-mile, area to create a three-dimensional picture of the ocean floor. The scientists retraced the past movements of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and its adjacent floating ice shelf as global climate warmed. The ice shelf is a critical part of the climate system, because it slows down the breaking up and melting of grounded ice, which results in sea level rise. The scientists confirmed that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet had begun contracting and a relatively small ice shelf existed by 14,000 years ago. The ancient Ross Sea Ice Shelf then collapsed and calved into the ocean about 12,300 years ago.

More recently in 2002, in the northern part of Antarctica called the Antarctic Peninsula, the Larsen Ice Shelf collapsed. The collapse of this ice shelf quickly led to inland glaciers buttressed by the Larsen Ice Shelf to break up and melt. Scientists have thought that a similar process could have occurred when the Ross Ice Shelf collapsed thousands of years ago in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

However, Bart and colleagues from the University of South Florida, Auburn University and the Polish Academy of Sciences found that there was a centuries-long delay from when the Ross Ice Shelf collapsed and the grounded ice began to contract. In the Ross Sea, the delay was between 200 to 1,400 years later. This new information adds a layer of complexity for sea level rise computer simulations and predictions.

The researchers made this discovery by combing through the imagery from their virtual map to find where sediment was being deposited while the ice was last in contact with the seafloor. At those locations, they collected sediment cores, which they analyzed and looked for evidence of fossilized life near the bottom of the ocean. In the sediment cores, they found fossilized shells of single cell organisms called foraminifera. These fossils provide a timestamped footprint that give the researchers an estimate of when the ice was last there through radiocarbon dating. The fossils retrieved from where the ice shelf collapsed are about 200 to 1,400 years older than the fossils found in the grounding line trough.

“We know that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated more than 200 kilometers after the paleo-ice shelf collapsed. The radiocarbon dating of this past event is important because it shows that ongoing changes to ice shelves may trigger dynamics whose consequences are realized only after a significant delay,” Bart said.

Bombing raids by Allied forces during the Second World War not only caused devastation on the ground but also sent shockwaves through Earth’s atmosphere which were detected at the edge of space, according to new research. University of Reading researchers have revealed the shockwaves produced by huge bombs dropped by Allied planes on European cities were big enough to weaken the electrified upper atmosphere – the ionosphere – above the UK, 1000km away. The results are published today in the European Geosciences Union journal Annales Geophysicae.

Scientists are using the findings to further understanding of how natural forces from below, like lightning, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, affect Earth’s upper atmosphere.

Chris Scott, Professor of Space and Atmospheric Physics, said: “The images of neighbourhoods across Europe reduced to rubble due to wartime air raids are a lasting reminder of the destruction that can be caused by man-made explosions. But the impact of these bombs way up in the Earth’s atmosphere has never been realised until now.”

“It is astonishing to see how the ripples caused by man-made explosions can affect the edge of space. Each raid released the energy of at least 300 lightning strikes. The sheer power involved has allowed us to quantify how events on the Earth’s surface can also affect the ionosphere.”

In the study published today in Annales Geophysicae researchers looked at daily records at the Radio Research Centre in Slough, UK, collected between 1943-45. Sequences of radio pulses over a range of shortwave frequencies were sent 100-300km above the Earth’s surface to reveal the height and electron concentration of ionisation within the upper atmosphere.

The strength of the ionosphere is known to be strongly influenced by solar activity, but the ionosphere is far more variable than can be explained by current modelling. The ionosphere affects modern technologies such as radio communications, GPS systems, radio telescopes and some early warning radar, however the extent of the impact on radio communications during the Second World War is unclear.

Researchers studied the ionosphere response records around the time of 152 large Allied air raids in Europe and found the electron concentration significantly decreased due to the shockwaves caused by the bombs detonating near the Earth’s surface. This is thought to have heated the upper atmosphere, enhancing the loss of ionisation.

Although the London ‘Blitz’ bombing was much closer to Slough, the continuous nature of these attacks and the fact there is far less surviving information about them made it more challenging to separate the impact of these explosions from natural seasonal variation.

Detailed records of the Allied raids reveal their four-engine planes routinely carried much larger bombs than the German Luftwaffe’s two-engine planes could. These included the ‘Grand Slam’, which weighed up to 10 tonnes.

Professor Patrick Major, University of Reading historian and a co-author of the study, said: “Aircrew involved in the raids reported having their aircraft damaged by the bomb shockwaves, despite being above the recommended height. Residents under the bombs would routinely recall being thrown through the air by the pressure waves of air mines exploding, and window casements and doors would be blown off their hinges. There were even rumours that wrapping wet towels around the face might save those in shelters from having their lungs collapsed by blast waves, which would leave victims otherwise externally untouched.”

“The unprecedented power of these attacks has proved useful for scientists to gauge the impact such events can have hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, in addition to the devastation they caused on the ground.”

The researchers now need members of the public to help digitise more early atmospheric data, to understand the impact of the many hundreds of smaller bombing raids during the war, and help determine the minimum explosive energy required to trigger a detectable response in the ionosphere.

Pope Francis took responsibility Tuesday for the agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China, noting that in any such negotiation, “both sides lose something.”

He was asked about the agreement Sept. 25 during the flight from Tallinn to Rome by Antonio Pelayo of Vida Nueva.

The agreement on the appointment of bishops in mainland China was signed Sept. 22 in Beijing. It will allow for bishops who are in communion with the Holy Father and at the same time are recognized by the Chinese government.

Francis said the agreement was the fruit of a dialogue that has taken several years.

“The Vatican team worked a lot,” he said. He noted the efforts of Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for social Communications; Fr. Rota Graziosi, an official of the Roman curia; and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State.

Cardinal Parolin, he said, “has a special devotion to the lens; he studies all of the documents down to the period, comma, notes, and this gives me a great assurance.”

“You know that when you make a peace agreement or a negotiation, both sides lose something,” Pope Francis reflected. “This is the law. Both sides. And you move ahead.”

The Bishop of Rome said that the dialogue which led to the agreement was a process of going two steps forward and one step back. “Then, months passed without speaking to each other and then the time of God, which appears to be [the time of the] Chinese. Slowly. This is wisdom, the wisdom of the Chinese.”

He said that “the bishops who were in difficulty were studied case-by-case,” and that “dossiers came on to my desk about each one. And I was responsible for signing the case of the bishops.”

Following this, drafts of the agreement were put on his desk, Pope Francis said. They were discussed and “I gave my ideas.”

“I think of the resistance, the Catholics who have suffered. It’s true. And they will suffer. Always, in an agreement, there is suffering. They have a great faith.”

He said they have written him, saying that “what the Holy See, what Peter says, is that which Jesus says. The martyrial faith of these people today goes ahead. They are the great ones!”

“I signed the agreement,” Pope Francis stated. “I am responsible.”

“The others, whom I appointed, in all have worked for more than 10 years. It’s not an improvisation. It’s a path, a true path.”

He noted that after a “famous communique of an ex-apostolic nuncio, the episcopates of the world wrote me, saying clearly that they felt close, that they were praying for me.”

“The Chinese faithful wrote and the signature of this writ was from a bishop, let’s say it this way, of the traditional Catholic Church and from a bishop of the patriotic Church, together and faithful, both of them. For me, it was a sign from God,” Pope Francis stated.

The pope also recalled, saying “thanks be to God that this is over”, that in Latin America “for 350 years it was for the king of Portugal and of Spain to appoint the bishops, and the Pope only gave jurisdiction.”

“We forget the case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Maria Teresa was tired of signing the appointments of bishops and gave jurisdiction to the Vatican. These were other times, and thanks be to God that they aren’t repeated.”

He stated that under the agreement with China, the Chinese government will not appoint the bishops: “No, this is a dialogue about eventual candidates but Rome appoints, the Pope appoints.”

“And let us pray for the suffering of some who don’t understand, and who have behind them so many years of being clandestine.”

Announcing the deal on Saturday, the Holy See had said that “the shared hope is that this agreement may favor a fruitful and forward-looking process of institutional dialogue and may contribute positively to the life of the Catholic Church in China, to the common good of the Chinese people and to peace in the world.”

Beijing established the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in 1957 to regulate Catholics living in China, and Catholics in the country have been divided between members of the patriotic Church and the “underground Church”.

The agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic is meant to end the split between the patriotic and underground Churches.

The Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association is under the day-to-day direct supervision of the Chinese Communist Party since a March 2018 decision by which the Chinese government shifted direct control of religious affairs to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department.

In recent years, Chinese authorities have cracked down on underground Christian churches, as well as on Muslims throughout western provinces.

By Karl Romano, Jeoffrey Maitem and Richel V. Umel

A senator who has been a leading critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly anti-drug campaign turned himself in to authorities voluntarily on Tuesday, after a court ordered his arrest following a presidential revocation of an amnesty for his past role in military mutinies.

Judge Elmo Alameda of Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 150 granted the Justice Department’s petition for an arrest warrant and hold order against Sen. Antonio Trillanes, a former Navy lieutenant who helped lead two military rebellions against the government in 2003 and 2007.

Wearing a coat and tie, Trillanes was taken in custody from the Senate and subjected to a booking process like a common criminal. He was accompanied by fellow opposition senators, who charged that Duterte was engaged in a crusade to persecute his political opponents.

“So, officially, we don’t have democracy anymore. This case goes beyond me. You can see here that I don’t have any crimes committed because I was given amnesty seven years ago,” Trillanes told reporters before he went to the police office, where he posted 200,000 pesos (U.S. $3,679) in bail.

“This is a clear harassment against his critics in politics telling the truth that he cannot face,” the senator added, referring to President Duterte.

Trillanes was arrested after taking refuge at his office in the Senate building since early this month.

The court said Duterte’s Proclamation No. 572 was factual. This proclamation declared Trillanes’ amnesty void from the beginning because of his alleged failure to comply with requirements, a fact contested by the senator.

Duterte revoked the amnesty granted to Trillanes, allegedly because the senator did not comply with requirements set out by the law. He directed the Justice Department and military to proceed with court martial proceedings against the lawmaker.

Duterte’s chief legal counsel, Sal Panelo, urged the former navy officer-turned politician to “stop milking the issue and acting pathetically as if he is a victim of injustice.”

A colleague of Trillanes, Rep. Gary Alejano, slammed the court’s order, calling the senator a victim of political persecution.

“This administration will do everything to silence Trillanes,” Alejano told reporters.

Trillanes in 2003 helped lead a rebellion against then-President Gloria Arroyo. The mutineering officers took over the Oakwood Hotel in the Makati financial district, but their rebellion was quickly put down.

In 2007, while being tried for their roles in the earlier mutiny, Trillanes and the other officers walked out of a court hearing into their case and occupied another hotel in the Philippine capital. They called for Arroyo’s removal, but the uprising ended abruptly when the armed forces drove an armored personnel carrier into the hotel lobby.

Thousands of suspected drug users have been killed since Duterte took power two years ago, according to rights advocates.

Catholic Church leaders in the Philippines have shrugged off recent comments by President Rodrigo Duterte reiterating he is not a Catholic anymore.

Duterte had earlier said that he stopped being a Catholic after enduring abuse from a priest when he was a child.

Bishop Arturo Bastes of Sorsogon said the president can do what he wants because no one is forcing him to embrace any religion.

“There is freedom of worship,” said the prelate, adding that anybody is free to practice his or her own faith.

Father Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the public affairs office at the bishops’ conference, said Duterte is “free to choose his own spiritual path that will lead him to God.”

“Religion is not forced on anybody,” said the priest, adding that everyone has a duty to uphold and protect the dignity of man.

“Basic in any religion is respect for other human beings, their rights and dignity,” said Father Secillano, who has criticized Duterte’s ongoing war against illegal drugs.

“Regardless of religion, one is duty-bound to uphold and protect the dignity of man,” said the priest.

In a speech in the central Philippines on Sept. 21, Duterte said he remains a Christian but is no longer a Catholic.

“I’m a Christian but I’m not a Catholic anymore,” declared the president. “Besides, I really did not have any clear religion because my mother is a Moro. She’s a half-Maranao. It’s my father who’s the Christian.”

The Moro people are the Muslim population of the southern Philippines, forming the largest non-Catholic group in the country and comprising about 11 percent of the population.

Duterte said he believes in God but not the “stupid” God of Catholics who criticize him.

The president also reiterated his tirades against the church for demanding fees for baptism, weddings and even for burial rites.

“It’s all expense. If you marry, you pay. Burial, you pay. Baptism, you pay … And you tell me that your religion is good,” he said.

“And that is why I said, your God is not my God. Your God is stupid. My God has a lot of common sense,” added the president, who said he “created my own God” based on the values of fairness and justice.

The Houthi armed group in Yemen has frequently taken hostages and committed other serious abuses against people in their custody, Human Rights Watch said. Houthi officials should stop taking hostages, free everyone arbitrarily detained, end torture and enforced disappearances, and punish those responsible for abuses.

Human Rights Watch documented 16 cases in which Houthi authorities held people unlawfully, in large part to extort money from relatives or to exchange them for people held by opposing forces. Hostage-taking is a serious violation of the laws of war and a war crime. The United Nations Human Rights Council should renew the mandate of the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen, which has a mandate to investigate and identify those responsible for abuses.

“The Houthis have added profiteering to their long list of abuses and offenses against the people under their control in Yemen,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Rather than treat detainees humanely, some Houthi officials are exploiting their power to turn a profit through detention, torture, and murder.”

Since late 2014, when Houthi forces occupied the capital, Sanaa, and much of Yemen, Human Rights Watch has documented dozens of cases of the Houthis and forces loyal to the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh carrying out arbitrary and abusive detention, as well as forced disappearances and torture. Yemeni rights groups have documented hundreds more cases. Human Rights Watch recently interviewed 14 former detainees and relatives of two other men detained or disappeared.

Houthi officials have treated detainees brutally, often amounting to torture, Human Rights Watch said. Former detainees described Houthi officers beating them with iron rods, wooden sticks, and assault rifles. Guards whipped prisoners, shackled them to walls, caned their feet, and threatened to rape them or their family members, former detainees said. Several people described being hung from a wall by their arms shackled behind them as one of the most painful techniques. In many cases, Houthi officials tortured them to obtain information or confessions.

Former detainees said guards refused detainees medical assistance or treatment after abuse. Those released and their family members reported physical and psychological health complications from mistreatment.

Houthi officials regularly extort those detained and their relatives, said former detainees, family members, and Yemeni rights activists. In some cases, the Houthis ultimately released the detainee – often they have not.

The wife of a man arrested by unidentified men in late 2015 said: “At the beginning, I didn’t know that he was arrested. They kidnapped him, but my family and I were looking for him everywhere. We asked at hospitals, police stations.” They later learned he was held at the Houthi-controlled Political Security Office, a notorious intelligence agency, in Sanaa. “I was following up with Houthi mediators for five months, and they were taking money,” she said. “Every time they give me promises with no result. I spoke to many Houthis leaders …. They say they will do this and that, but they do nothing.”

She has paid Houthi officials about 1.5 million Yemeni riyals over the last three years. Her husband remains detained. The UN Panel of Experts on Yemen found that Political Security Office members were “profiting from detentions.”

The sister of a man who disappeared in Hajjah governorate while looking for a job in 2016 said it was more than six months before a friend told her he had been detained. She contacted a Houthi official, who asked for “guarantees.” The family paid 100,000 riyals and her brother was released a month later. She said her brother had changed after his detention: “He is not as he used to be. Signs of psychological disturbance appeared on him, he talks to himself, sometimes he keeps saying ‘Why do they beat me?’, talking to himself. I don’t know what he saw, or what they did to him, during his disappearance.”

Former detainees described terrible conditions in Houthi custody: poor hygiene; limited access to toilets, causing some to defecate on themselves; and lack of food and health care. Former detainees and family members said many formal and all informal detention facilities refused access to family members. Detainees had no defined process for challenging their detention or reporting mistreatment. In many cases documented, Houthi authorities moved detainees between facilities – both formal and informal – without notifying family members.

The Association of Mothers of Abductees, Yemeni women who advocate for their detained or disappeared civilian relatives, sent Human Rights Watch accounts from 10 cases in which Houthi officials had demanded money as a condition for release. Nine families paid. Houthi officials released only three of the men, including one in a prisoner exchange for Houthi fighters.

When committed in the context of an armed conflict, cruel treatment, torture, and humiliating or degrading treatment are war crimes. Taking hostages – seizing someone or detaining them and threatening to kill, injure, or continue to detain them to compel a third party to do or abstain from doing something as a condition of release or for the person’s safety – is a war crime under the statute of the International Criminal Court.

The United Arab Emirates, UAE proxies, and Yemeni government forces have also arbitrarily detained, tortured, and forcibly disappeared scores of people in the Yemeni conflict.

In 2018, the UN Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen concluded the Houthis had “committed acts that may amount to war crimes, including cruel treatment and torture [and] outrages upon personal dignity.” The experts documented the Houthis detaining students, human rights defenders, journalists, perceived political opponents and members of the Baha’i community, and mistreating and torturing detainees, including at the National Security Bureau and Political Security Office. The experts also found Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and UAE forces credibly implicated in detainee-related abuse that might amount to war crimes.

Human Rights Watch wrote to the Sanaa-based Interior Ministry on September 12 regarding preliminary findings and requesting further information on what steps, if any, the ministry had taken to hold people implicated in abuse accountable. The ministry has not responded.

Houthi authorities should promptly release those held arbitrarily, end forced disappearances, and credibly investigate and punish those responsible for torture and hostage taking. Should they fail to do so, the UN Security Council should impose targeted sanctions on people who bear the greatest responsibility for detention-related abuses, including as a matter of command responsibility.

Yemen should urgently join the International Criminal Court, which would allow for possible prosecution of serious crimes by all parties to the conflict.

“Yemenis taken into custody are suffering terribly, whether at the hands of the Houthis, the UAE forces, or government forces,” Whitson said. “UN officials and influential governments should press the warring parties to treat detainees humanely and release anyone being held arbitrarily.”

Start with his new tax law–one of the very few laws he actually got through the Republican Congress. Trump said it would likely give every American worker a wage increase of $4,000, but the typical worker’s wages have gone nowhere, which is one reason Republicans have stopped campaigning on the tax law.

Now, Trump wants to use executive action to cut taxes on the rich by an additional $100 billion.

If that weren’t enough, Trump has cut the pay of average workers. His Labor Department repealed overtime protections, at an estimated cost to workers of $1.2 billion in lost wages each year.

Trump and the Republican Congress repealed a rule that required federal contractors with long histories of wage theft, safety violations, and employment discrimination to mend their ways in order to receive any new federal contracts. Now, they can continue to get federal contracts and still shaft their workers.

Trump has also considered cutting back child labor protections in hazardous jobs. His other regulatory rollbacks would expose working families to pollutants in drinking water and reverse decades of work to finally ban asbestos.

Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, has even argued that the government has no authority to protect the health and safety of workers in sports and entertainment, even though the government has long regulated safety in the entertainment industry.

Oh, and remember Trump’s promise to replace the Affordable Care Act with something better? Well, you can forget that one, too. Instead, Trump has done everything he can to undercut the Act, resulting in an anticipated near 20% increase in health insurance premiums, and the biggest burden falling on working families who earn too much to be eligible for subsidies.

As a result of Trump’s undermining of the Affordable Care Act, the number of Americans without health insurance rose by more than 3 million in 2017, after years of declines following the implementation of the Act.

Trump’s most recent budget proposal skewers working people with a proposed $763 billion cut in Medicaid and other health programs, $494 billion of cuts in Medicare, and major cuts in education and nutrition over the next 10 years.

Trump has betrayed the working class – but he still claims he’s on their side. That’s one of his biggest lies of all.

The United States government is using every bit of technology it can grab onto to facilitate mass surveillance, from license plate readers and facial recognition technology to phone and internet monitoring technology.

If it becomes feasible, will the US government mandate that people receive brain implants so the government can pursue the final frontier of surveillance — snooping on and even controlling people’s unexpressed thoughts?

Kurt Nimmo, whose written and video commentaries are posted at kurtnimmo.blog, suggests the likely answer to this question is “yes.”

In a new seven-minute video, Nimmo provides an overview of why he believes so and how government may in the future be able to monitor our thoughts and, as Nimmo puts it, even “reboot” our brains to make them “think in a way acceptable to the state.”

Watch Nimmo’s video here:

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

American-Armenian dramatist and writer William Saroyan was ahead of his time, writing about the challenge of diaspora and immigrant life in America, The Fresno Bee reports.

Which gives his work significance, even close to 40 years years after his death.

“Those themes are very much pulsating today,” says Aram Kouyoumdjian, who premiered a set of previously unpublished and unperformed plays by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author earlier this month at the Los Angeles Central Library.

A second staging of “William Saroyan: The Unpublished Plays In Performance” happens Friday at the Armenian Museum of Fresno.

The plays — six of them, done in excerpts over 75 minutes — come from the William Saroyan Collection at Stanford University, part of a stash that Kouyoumdjian discovered while working on his Master’s thesis in English literature. They were written in the 1970s, late in Saroyan’s career, and are examples of Saroyan’s diaspora writing, Kouyoumdjian says.

He makes the distinction between that and Saroyan’s ethnic writing, in that while these plays are about the Armenian experience, they explore the feeling of otherness that comes with being in a new country.

“Even though Saroyan wrote about the immigrant experience in his fiction, it’s not as well known in his plays,” says Kouyoumdjian, who directed the four-member cast from the Sacramento-based Vista Players.

The plays, woven together with literary content and biographical information, have names like “Ouzenk Chouzenk Hai Yenk” (Like It or Not, We’re Armenians) and explore topics like the trauma of genocide and the notion of repatriations..

Hopefully, the performance shows the breadth of Saroyan’s work, Kouyoumdjian says. And there is more of that work that remains to be discovered, he says.

“There are boxes and boxes at Stanford that have yet to be studied.”

Human-caused climate change has exposed U.S. national parks to conditions hotter and drier than the rest of the nation, says a new UC Berkeley and University of Wisconsin-Madison study that quantifies for the first time the magnitude of climate change on all 417 parks in the system.

Without action to limit greenhouse gas emissions, many small mammals and plants may be brought to the brink of extinction by the end of the century, the study shows.

The analysis reveals that over the past century, average temperatures in national parks increased at twice the rate as the rest of the nation and yearly rainfall decreased more in national parks than in other regions of the country.

At the current rate of emissions, the team projects that temperatures in the most exposed national parks could soar by as much as 9 degrees Celsius or 16 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. This rate of change is faster than many small mammals and plants can migrate or “disperse” to more hospitable climates.

“Human-caused climate change is already increasing the area burned by wildfires across the western U.S., melting glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park and shifting vegetation to higher elevations in Yosemite National Park,” said Patrick Gonzalez, associate adjunct professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley and a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, a summary of the most up-to-date scientific knowledge of climate change.

“The good news is that, if we reduce our emissions from cars, power plants, deforestation, and other human activities and meet the Paris Agreement goal, we can keep the temperature increase in national parks to one-third of what it would be without any emissions reductions,” Gonzalez said.

The locations of these unique ecosystems are what make them particularly exposed to climate change, Gonzalez said. Many national parks are found in deserts, high mountains or in the Arctic region of Alaska, climates that are known to be the hardest hit by global warming.

“National parks aren’t a random sample – they are remarkable places and many happen to be in extreme environments,” Gonzalez said. “Many are in places that are inherently more exposed to human-caused climate change.”

The analysis, which includes all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and four territories in the Caribbean and Pacific, appears in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Mitigation and Adaptation

Weather stations scattered throughout the U.S. have been gathering monthly data on temperature and rainfall dating back to 1895. Using this data, climate researchers have created maps of the average annual temperature and rainfall totals at points approximately 800 meters over much of the United States.

In this study, the team used these maps to calculate historical temperature and rainfall trends within the parks and over the U.S. as a whole. They found that the temperature in national parks increased by a little over 1 degree Celsius from 1895 to 2010, roughly double the warming experienced by the rest of the country. Yearly rainfall totals decreased over 12 percent of national park land, compared to 3 percent of land in the United States. Alaska and its national parks saw the most dramatic increases in temperature, while rainfall decreased most in Hawaii.

The team mapped projected future changes in temperature and precipitation for climate models representing each of four climate change scenarios developed by the IPCC. These four “storylines of the future,” as scientists call them, include a scenario where no action has been taken to reduce emissions, one that is consistent with the Paris Agreement and two that are intermediate.

Under the most extreme climate change scenario, the average temperature of all the national parks together is projected to increase between 5 and 7 degrees Celsius. Sticking to the Paris Agreement could limit this rise to between 1 and 3 degrees Celsius. Under both scenarios, temperature could increase most in Alaska and its national parks, while rainfall could decrease most in the Virgin Islands and the southwestern U.S.

To analyze future projections, the team also “downscaled” the climate models, making more detailed maps of future climate trends within the parks. Whereas the climate models themselves have coarse resolutions of approximately 100 to 400 kilometers, the downscaled data have resolutions of 100 to 800 meters over most of the country.

These maps can help park service employees plan for future vulnerabilities to climate change of endangered species and other park resources by developing measures to protect against wildfires and controlling invasive species.

“The park service is already integrating this climate change information into their planning and resource management,” said Fuyao Wang, a research associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“It is important to note that even if we really do a strong mitigation of greenhouse gases, the national park system is still expected to see a 2 degree temperature change,” said John Williams, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “At this point, it is likely that the glaciers in Glacier National park will ultimately disappear, and what is Glacier National park if it doesn’t have glaciers anymore? So I think this adds weight to the importance of reducing our future levels of climate change and also extends the National Park Service mission to both adapt to these changes and educate all of us about these changes.”