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By Ramzy Baroud

11 Jan 2023 – Once more, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will offer a legal opinion on the consequences of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine.

A historic United Nations vote on December 31 called on the ICJ to look at the Israeli Occupation in terms of legal consequences, the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the responsibility of all UN Member States in bringing the protracted Israeli Occupation to an end. A special emphasis will be placed on the “demographic composition, character and status” of Occupied Jerusalem.

The last time the ICJ was asked to offer a legal opinion on the matter was in 2004. However, back then, the opinion was largely centered around the “legal consequences arising from the construction of the (Israeli Apartheid) wall.”

While it is true that the ICJ concluded that the totality of the Israeli actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are unlawful under international law – the Fourth Geneva Convention, the relevant provision of the earlier Hague Regulations and, of course, the numerous UN General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions – this time around the ICJ is offering its view on Israel’s attempt at making what is meant to be a temporary military Occupation, a permanent one.

In other words, the ICJ could – and most likely will – delegitimize every single Israeli action taken in Occupied Palestine since 1967. This time around, the consequences will not be symbolic, as is often the case in UN-related decisions on Palestine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has done more than any other Israeli leader to ‘normalize’ the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, was understandably angry following the UN vote, describing it as ‘despicable’.

His other coalition partners were equally intransigent.

The Israeli “Occupation of (the) West Bank is permanent and Israel has the right to annex it,” said Knesset Member Zvika Fogel, during an interview on January 1 with Israeli Radio 103FM.

More than anything else, Fogel’s words encapsulate the new reality in Israel and Palestine. Gone are the days of political ambiguity regarding Israel’s ultimate motives in the Occupied Territories.

Indeed, Israel is now trying to manage a whole new phase of its colonial project in Palestine, an endeavor that began in earnest in 1947-48 and, in Israel’s own calculation, is about to end with the total colonization of Palestine – Israel’s version of a ‘one-state solution’ that is predicated on apartheid and racial discrimination.

Fogel, whose party, Otzma Yehudit, is an important member of Netanyahu’s new rightwing coalition, does not reflect his personal views or those of his ideological camp alone.

The new government, packed with extremists, the likes of Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Yoav Galant, among others, is now committed to an anti-peace agenda as a matter of policy. As soon as the new government was sworn in on December 28, it announced that “the government will advance and develop settlements in all parts of Israel”.

Ben-Gvir, whose raid of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied East Jerusalem raised much criticism worldwide, is sending clear messages to Palestinians and the international community at large: as far as Israel is concerned, no international law is relevant, nothing is sacred and no inch of Palestine is off limits.

This time, however, it is not business as usual.

Yes, Israel’s territorial expansion at the expense of Occupied Palestine has been the common denominator among all Israeli governments in the last 75 years; but various Israeli governments, including that of Netanyahu’s early cabinets, found indirect ways to justify illegal settlement constructions. So-called ‘natural expansion’ and ‘security’ needs were some of the many pretexts furnished by Israel to justify its constant push for land acquisition by force.

Practically, none of this would have been possible if it were not for the inexhaustible United States support of Israel – financially, militarily and politically. Moreover, US vetoes at the UNSC and the relentless pressure on UNGA members allowed Israel to circumvent international law unscathed. The outcome is today’s tragic reality.

According to the official UN news website, there are currently nearly 700,000 illegal Jewish settlers. The Israeli NGO ‘Peace Now’ says that these Jewish settlers live in 145 illegal colonies in the Occupied West Bank, in addition to 140 settlement outposts, many of which are likely to be made official by the new government.

In fact, the Netanyahu-led alliance has been formulated with the understanding that the outposts would be legalized in the future, thus receiving official government funding. This should not pose a major political problem for Netanyahu, who, in 2020, had succeeded in selling the idea to the Israeli Knesset of annexing much of the West Bank and is now determined to carry out a process of ‘soft annexation’ – a de-facto annexation that is likely to become legalized as a de jure annexation later on.

Nor would the full colonization of Palestine prove to be a legal problem. Israel’s Nation-State Law of 2018 has already provided the legal cover for Tel Aviv to flaunt international law and to do as it pleases in terms of colonizing all of Palestine and marginalizing all of the Palestinian rights. According to Israel’s new Basic Law, “the State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People in which it realizes its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination”. It was this particular reference that was cited in the new government’s statement on December 29.

And there are not many in Israel who are protesting this. In a recent article in the Palestine Chronicle, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe explains how the current socio-political formations of Israeli society make it nearly impossible for alternative mainstream politics to emerge, aside from the three dominant rightwing and extremist currents at work in the Netanyahu coalition: Ultra-Orthodox Jews, National Religious Jews and Likud’s secular Jews.

This means that change in Israel could never come from Israel itself. While Palestinians continue to resist, Arab and Muslim governments, and the international community at large must confront Israel, using all means available to end this travesty.

The ICJ’s opinion is very important, but without meaningful action, a legal opinion alone will not reverse the sinister reality on the ground in Palestine, especially when this reality is bankrolled, supported and sustained by Washington and Israel’s other western allies.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

23 January 2023

Source: transcend.org

By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan

19 Jan 2023 – Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is getting carried away. Literally. She joined thousands in the village of Lützerath, Germany, to oppose the expansion of an open-pit lignite mine, one of the dirtiest forms of coal. Police in riot gear hauled her away as the mass arrests progressed. Greta wrote on Twitter, “Yesterday I was part of a group that peacefully protested the expansion of a coal mine…We were kettled by police and then detained but were let go later that evening. Climate protection is not a crime.”

As Greta was being detained, thousands of the global elite were arriving in Davos, Switzerland for the 53rd annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. The WEF is touted as a place for leaders to engage in peer-to-peer dialogue to address the world’s most pressing problems. Hundreds arrive by private jet, which, on a per-passenger basis, is the most heavily polluting mode of transport.

This gathering of high carbon emitters heard from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. “We are flirting with climate disaster. Every week brings a new climate horror story,” he said. “The consequences will be devastating. Several parts of our planet will be uninhabitable. For many, this is a death sentence, but it is not a surprise. The science has been clear for decades…We learned last week that certain fossil fuel producers were fully aware in the 1970s that their core product was baking our planet.”

Guterres was referencing a study published in Science further proving that fossil fuel companies long knew greenhouse gasses intensified human-induced climate change. This study followed a December report issued by the U.S. House Oversight and Reform Committee documenting decades of greenwashing and climate change disinformation by ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, the American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“Exxon, Chevron and other big oil companies knew that when they were burning fossil fuels in the 1970s, it was causing climate change and that this was going to be a major problem for humanity,” Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna, who helped lead the investigation, said on the Democracy Now! news hour. “They had the best scientists. And yet their CEOs, their executives went out for decades and lied to the American public, did not disclose their own science. As a result, we never started the transition, and we are in the world of pain that we are in today.”

The “world of pain” he referenced has descended on Khanna’s home state of California, battered over the past two weeks by climate-fueled rain and snow storms, landslides and mudslides, driven by what climate scientist David Swain described on Democracy Now! as “atmospheric rivers…corridors of highly concentrated atmospheric water vapor moving quickly through the atmosphere.” In addition to billions of dollars in damages, these unprecedented storms have claimed 22 lives to date.

Congressman Khanna blames the massively profitable fossil fuel companies. “They should be held accountable like Big Tobacco was held accountable.”

While Davos is buzzing with World Economic Forum activities “to drive tangible, system-positive change for the long term” and spur “proactive, vision-driven policies and business strategies,” the Alps, in which the resort town is nestled, are suffering a climate crisis of their own. An unseasonably warm winter has left much of the huge mountain range barren of snow, with the multi-billion dollar ski and winter snow sports industry in a crisis.

In 2019, Greta Thunberg, then 16 years old, told the World Economic Forum, “I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act…as if the house is on fire. Because it is.”

Three years later, she is back in Davos, fresh from the coal protests in Lützerath, with other youth climate leaders including Vanessa Nakate from Uganda, Helena Gualinga from Ecuador, and Luisa Neubauer from Germany. They have issued a letter to the CEOs of fossil fuel corporations, that reads in part, “This Cease and Desist Notice is to demand that you immediately stop opening any new oil, gas, or coal extraction sites, and stop blocking the clean energy transition we all so urgently need…If you fail to act immediately, be advised that citizens around the world will consider taking any and all legal action to hold you accountable. And we will keep protesting in the streets in huge numbers.”

The World Economic Forum has been discussing world problems for just about as long as ExxonMobil has been lying about climate change. Scientists revealed this week that Greenland just had its hottest decade in 1,000 years and that its massive ice sheet is rapidly melting, causing more sea level rise. Catastrophic climate disruption is here, and disruptors like Greta Thunberg are clearly not the ones who should be arrested.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America.

Denis Moynihan is the co-founder of Democracy Now! Since 2002, he has participated in the organization’s worldwide distribution, infrastructure development, and the coordination of complex live broadcasts from many continents.

23 January 2023

Source: transcend.org

By Baher Kamal

20 Jan 2023 – As if the 100 billion dollars that the United States has so far provided to Ukraine in both weapons and aid were not enough, the US has now started to install in Europe its brand new, more destructive nuclear warheads.

The US 100 billion dollars are to be added to all the weapons and aid that 40 Washington’s ‘allies’ –Europe in particular– have been sending to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia in February 2022.

The US spending on the Ukrainian war in less than a year amounts to the desperately needed funding that the United Nations require to partially alleviate some of the horrifying suffering of over one billion human beings over two long years.In a further escalation, the United States began in December 2022 to ship new nuclear warheads to Europe: “the B61-12 warhead is a more advanced warhead from the ones currently deployed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey,” according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

Boeing designed the bomb’s new guided-tail kit, giving it additional manoeuvrability and the appearance of more precision.But, it’s a nuclear weapon, and has different yields, from 0.3kt to 50kt, ICAN reports.

Much more destructive

“These bombs can detonate beneath the Earth’s surface, increasing their destructiveness against underground targets to the equivalent of a surface-burst weapon with a yield of 1,250 kilotons––the equivalent of 83 Hiroshima bombs.”

Even if the bombs are American and the US retains launch authority, they would most likely be dropped by Europeans. If the US decides to use its nuclear weapons located in Germany, the warheads are loaded onto German planes and a German pilot drops them, ICAN furtherexplains.

This Geneva-based coalition of 652 non-governmental partner organisations in 107 countries, promoting adherence to and implementation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

The ‘brutal struggle for power’

The production, testing, and use of nukes is one of the reasons why the biggest powers are now pushing the world into the abyss of lawlessness. In fact, the UN chief has once more sounded the alarm bell.

“From illegally developing nuclear weapons to non-sanctioned use of force, States continue to flout international law with impunity”, said the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres.

The rule of law stands between peace and ‘brutal struggle for power,’ he warned in his 12 January message to the UN Security Council – where five countries: US, Russia, China, UK and France– hold a self attributed authority to override the well of over 190 states, members of the UN.

‘Grave risk’ of lawlessness

The UN chief painted a grim picture of civilians around the world suffering from devastating conflicts, rising poverty, and surging hunger, warning that “we are at grave risk of the Rule of Lawlessness”.

The rule of law “protects the vulnerable; prevents discrimination; bolsters trust in institutions; supports inclusive economies and societies; and is the first line of defence against atrocity crimes.”

Guterres cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; unlawful killings of both Palestinians and Israelis; gender-based apartheid in Afghanistan; the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s unlawful nuclear weapons programme; violence and severe human rights violations in Myanmar; and a deep institutional crisis in Haiti.

Meanwhile…

Meanwhile, the world is falling apart, witnessing an “ongoing collision of crises for which traditional response and recovery are not enough,” warns the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

“Our future is at stake, as wars, epidemics, the climate emergency and economic upheaval leave almost no country untouched.

From the war in Ukraine that sparked a global cost of living crisis to the climate emergency, the floods in Pakistan, the global pandemic, hunger in the Horn of Africa, to the crisis in Yemen — we face never before seen challenges to our future, adds UNDP.

Developing economies accounting for more than half of the world’s poorest people need urgent debt relief as a result of “cascading global crises. Without action, poverty will spiral and desperately needed investments in climate adaptation and mitigation will not happen.”

Also meanwhile, millions of children under armed conflicts

The UN Children Fund (UNICEF) reports that more than 400 million children live in areas under conflict; an estimated 1 billion children – nearly half the world’s children – live in countries at extreme vulnerability to the impacts of climate change…

… And at least 36.5 million children have been displaced from their homes; and 8 million children under age 5 across 15 crisis-hit countries are at risk of death from severe wasting.

Today, there are more children in need of humanitarian assistance than at any other time since the Second World War. Across the globe, “children are facing a historic confluence of crises – from conflict and displacement to infectious disease outbreaks and soaring rates of malnutrition.”

UNICEF has appealed for 10.3 billion US dollars to reach more than 110 million children with humanitarian assistance across 155 countries and territories.

Baher Kamal, a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, is an Egyptian-born, Spanish national, secular journalist, with over 45 years of professional experience — from reporter to special envoy to chief editor of national dailies and an international news agency.

23 January 2023

Source: transcend.org

Palestine Update 622
Comment

Israel’s crimes-after-crimes ignore international law

Israel’s pogrom to obliterate the Palestinians from the land is ongoing with a vigor and revenge that is picking political momentum. Whether that will work in its intent is another question.

Domination, suppression and control are the strategies that Israel is employing. In a new position paper, Adalah, an Israeli human rights organization, lays out how the guiding principles and coalition agreements of the new Israeli government intend to deepen Jewish supremacy and racial segregation as the underlying principles of the Israeli regime. Adalah proposes that Israel’s initiatives and policies necessitate urgent intervention by international bodies, including by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the reconstitution of the UN Special Committee against Apartheid.

At the level of civil society, we read reports of tens of thousands of Israelis taking to the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities to protest what they see as an erosion of their country’s democracy. But this huge protest and rally is not about ending apartheid and colonialism in Palestine.  Israelis are not demonstrating for justice. Democracy in Israel would mean an end to apartheid. That is not what the Israeli protesters want.

In yet other shocking conditions, we read how the Israeli army promised to avoid arresting kids at night. It never ever happened. Despite committing to new procedures to reduce the practice, the army is still using night arrests as a default against Palestinian children. It only gets worse.

Read on. A study shows that 57 percent of Israelis opposed blocking the Supreme Court’s authority in halting legislation from the Knesset, as proposed by Israel’s new government, if the essence of those laws is anti-democratic.

Some consolation, if this is deemed as such –  “The Harvard Kennedy School reversed its decision and said it would offer a fellowship to a leading human rights advocate it had previously rejected, after news of the decision touched off a public outcry over academic freedom, donor influence and the boundaries of criticism of Israel.” Only goes to show global advocacy works. Another success story: “More than 90 countries have expressed “deep concern” at Israel’s punitive measures against the Palestinian people, leadership and civil society following a U.N. request for an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem. More positive news: From Brazil to Chile, Palestinians have good reason to be excited for left-wing victories. But the new governments’ many challenges may temper those hopes.

Read and disseminate widely

In solidarity,

On behalf of MLN Palestine Updates

Ranjan Solomon

_____________________________________

Domination, Suppression, & Control: The Old & New Policies of the Current Israeli Government (Podcast)

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP’s Lara Friedman speaks to Francesca Albanese — international legal expert and the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967 — on ongoing and escalating actions by Israel to forcibly eject more than 1200 Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank region known as Masafer Yatta, located in the South Hebron Hills.
Watch podcast

Adalah: New Israeli Government’s Policy Guidelines Indicate Officials’ Intent to Commit Crimes under Intl. Law

The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, published a position paper on the legal implications of the guiding principles and coalition agreements of the 37th Israeli government, which was sworn in on 29 December 2022. The position paper analyzes the policy and ideological commitments made by the new government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which deepen and expand the regime of systematic discrimination, segregation, and repression against Palestinians in all areas under Israeli control. In its conclusions, Adalah enumerates the violations of the absolute prohibitions enshrined in international law regarding the stated government policies, including the Convention against the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statute governing the International Criminal Court.
CLICK HERE to read Adalah’s position paper [English].

Israelis are not demonstrating for democracy

Democracy in Israel would mean an end to apartheid. That is not what the Israeli protesters want “Over the weekend, tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities to protest what they see as an erosion of their country’s democracy. The demonstrations were sparked by legislation announced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government that – if passed by the Knesset – would overhaul the Israeli judicial system. The move is seen by many as an attempt by the prime minister, who is being prosecuted on corruption charges, to rein in the judiciary and dodge prison time….But to single him out as a “crime minister” and his government as the one “destroying Israeli democracy” is quite a stretch. There has been no Israeli prime minister that hasn’t been a criminal with hands stained with the blood of Palestinians, and there has been no Israeli government that has actually upheld democracy. The Israeli “democratic state” is and always has been a myth, an illusion built to sustain the oppression of the Palestinian people and continue their dispossession.”
Source:

The Israeli army promised to avoid arresting kids at night. It never even tried

Despite committing to new procedures to reduce the practice, the army is still using night arrests as a default against Palestinian children, says rights group.  “In 2020, HaMoked submitted a petition to the Israeli High Court against the army’s longtime practice of arresting Palestinian minors in the West Bank from their homes at night. In response, before the court hearing, the army produced a new procedure in August 2021 according to which it would summon Palestinian minors for interrogation as an alternative to night raids. But data collected by HaMoked for 2021 made clear that this procedure was not implemented and new data for 2022 shows that this trend is only continuing. Over the course of last year, 294 Palestinian families contacted HaMoked asking them to locate a child who was arrested by the army. Among these cases, 138 were arrested from their homes in premeditated operations, of which 125 were taken during the night. According to HaMoked, not a single one of minors arrested at night ever received a summons for interrogation.”
Read more in 972mag.com

About Half of Israelis Believe Jews Should Have More Rights than Arabs,Study Shows

The annual index of some 20,000 people also found that 57 percent of Israelis opposed blocking the Supreme Court’s authority in halting legislation from the Knesset, as proposed by Israel’s new government, if the essence of those laws is anti-democratic.

“Around half of Jewish Israelis believe that they should have more rights than their Arab compatriots, a new survey released on Sunday from Israel Democracy Institute found. Forty-nine percent of respondents believed that Jews should be afforded special rights in Israel, an increase of 12 percent from the previous annual survey. Among those who identified as right-wing, the statement enjoyed 66 percent support, while only 11 percent of respondents identifying as left-wing supported the notion. However, 80 percent believed that fateful decisions regarding the country’s future should be made by a Jewish majority.”
Read more in Haaretz

Harvard Reverses Course on Human Rights Advocate Who Criticized Israel 

“The Harvard Kennedy School reversed course on Thursday and said it would offer a fellowship to a leading human rights advocate it had previously rejected, after news of the decision touched off a public outcry over academic freedom, donor influence and the boundaries of criticism of Israel.” See also this statement from Ken Roth: “I remain worried about academic freedom…I was able to shine an intense spotlight on Dean Elmendorf’s decision, but what about others? The problem of people penalized for criticizing Israel is not limited to me, and most scholars and students have no comparable capacity to mobilize public attention. How is the Kennedy School, and Harvard, going to ensure that this episode conveys a renewed commitment to academic freedom rather than just exceptional treatment for one well known individual?”
Read more from New York Times

Nations express ‘deep concern’ at Israeli punitive measures

“More than 90 countries have expressed “deep concern” at Israel’s punitive measures against the Palestinian people, leadership and civil society following a U.N. request for an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice on the legality of Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem. In a statement released Monday by the Palestinians, the signatories called for a reversal of the Israeli measures, saying regardless of their position on the General Assembly’s resolution, “we reject punitive measures in response to a request for an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice.” The 193-member General Assembly voted 87-26 with 53 abstentions on Dec. 30 in favor of the resolution which was promoted by the Palestinians and opposed vehemently by Israel…The statement released Monday was signed by representatives of Arab nations and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation and 37 other countries — 27 of them from Europe, including Germany, France and Italy, as well as Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.”
Read Washington Post for more

What does Latin America’s leftist tide have in store for Palestine?

From Brazil to Chile, Palestinians have good reason to be excited for left-wing victories. But the new governments’ many challenges may temper those hopes.

“From Brazil to Chile, Palestinians have good reason to be excited for left-wing victories. But the new governments’ many challenges may temper those hopes.” Lula has consistently cited his support for the Palestinian cause and, in the run-up to the October election, met with members of Brazil’s Palestinian community to reaffirm his commitment. Lula’s party, the “Partido dos Trabalhadores,” or PT, is also firmly supportive of Palestine; during the government of Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s political protegee and successor, she famously refused to accept the nomination of Israeli ambassador Dani Dayan due to his links to the settler movement. In his previous stint in office, Lula exerted Brazilian diplomacy on Middle Eastern geopolitics, including by helping to broker the Iranian nuclear agreement. He is expected to pursue a similarly proactive policy in the region, looking to break the relative isolationism of the Bolsonaro years.
Read more in 972 mag.com

Palestine Updates from Movement for Liberation from Nakba is a clearing house for historical and current information about happenings in the colonised Palestinian territories.

22 January 2023

Source: nakbaliberation.com

 

By Countercurrents Collective

According to a Bloomberg report, Saudi Arabia is ready to discuss trading in currencies other than the US dollar, according to Saudi Arabia’s finance minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan.

Al-Jadaan’s comments come a month after China’s President Xi Jinping said that Beijing is ready to make energy purchases in yuan instead of the US dollar in trade exchanges with members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). China’s leader highlighted the necessity of the shift while speaking at a Chinese-Arab summit hosted by Saudi Arabia earlier this week.

“There are no issues with discussing how we settle our trade arrangements, whether it is in U.S. dollar, in euro or in Saudi riyal,” Al-Jadaan said on Tuesday during an interview with Bloomberg in Davos, Switzerland.

The oil-rich kingdom is seeking to deepen its ties with vital trade partners, including China. The readiness for talks on the issue expressed by Riyadh may signal that the world’s biggest oil exporter is open to diversifying away from the U.S. dollar after decades of pricing crude exports in the U.S. currency. The riyal, the Saudi national currency, has been pegged to the greenback, too.

The trend towards the shift to national currencies that is recently being observed among the major participants in global trade chains is partially attributed to the policies of secondary sanctions that Washington is pursuing. Initially, the steps towards ditching the U.S. currency in trade, particularly in the energy sector, were intensified in the wake of the sweeping sanctions introduced by Western nations against Russia, one of the world’s major energy producers and exporters, over the military operation in Ukraine.

China Setting New World Energy Order

The global energy order is being reshaped as deepening energy ties between China and the Middle East signifies the rise of the petroyuan, which could challenge the petrodollar, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar.

According to Pozsar, China has been boosting purchases of crude and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and some African nations using its national currency. However, President Xi Jinping’s meeting with the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in December marked “the birth of the petroyuan,” he said in a note to clients.

At the summit, the Chinese leader confirmed that Beijing is ready to make energy purchases in yuan instead of the U.S. dollar with GCC countries.

“China wants to rewrite the rules of the global energy market,” Pozsar said, adding that the move to de-dollarize the oil and gas trade is backed members of the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa).

According to the Credit Suisse analyst, the steps towards ditching the greenback in the energy trade have intensified in the wake of the sweeping sanctions imposed by Western nations on Russia, one of the world’s major energy producers and exporters, in response to the military operation in Ukraine. Pozsar added that dollar foreign exchange reserves were militarized in the sanctions war, making the use of the currency unsafe for major exporters and importers of oil, gas, and other commodities.

Cooperation between China and the GCC may potentially involve joint exploration and production in places such as the South China Sea, as well as investment in refineries, chemicals, and plastics.

Pozsar said that implementing all of these projects in the yuan would mark a massive shift in the global energy trade. He added that even if it does not replace the dollar as a reserve currency, trading in the petroyuan will nevertheless come with significant economic and financial implications for policymakers and investors.

Countercurrents is answerable only to our readers. Support honest journalism because we have no PLANET B.

19 January 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Caroline Wagner

In 2022, Chinese researchers published three times as many papers on artificial intelligence as US researchers.

By at least one measure, China now leads the world in producing high-quality science. My research shows that Chinese scholars now publish a larger fraction of the top 1% most cited scientific papers globally than scientists from any other country.

I am a policy expert and analyst who studies how governmental investment in science, technology and innovation improves social welfare. While a country’s scientific prowess is somewhat difficult to quantify, I’d argue that the amount of money spent on scientific research, the number of scholarly papers published and the quality of those papers are good stand-in measures.

China is not the only nation to drastically improve its science capacity in recent years, but China’s rise has been particularly dramatic. This has left US policy experts and government officials worried about how China’s scientific supremacy will shift the global balance of power. China’s recent ascendancy results from years of governmental policy aiming to be tops in science and technology. The country has taken explicit steps to get where it is today, and the US now has a choice to make about how to respond to a scientifically competitive China.

Growth across decades

In 1977, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping introduced the Four Modernisations, one of which was strengthening China’s science sector and technological progress. As recently as 2000, the US produced many times the number of scientific papers as China annually. However, over the past three decades or so, China has invested funds to grow domestic research capabilities, to send students and researchers abroad to study, and to encourage Chinese businesses to shift to manufacturing high-tech products.

Since 2000, China has sent an estimated 5.2 million students and scholars to study abroad. The majority of them studied science or engineering. Many of these students remained where they studied, but an increasing number return to China to work in well-resourced laboratories and high-tech companies.

Today, China is second only to the US in how much it spends on science and technology. Chinese universities now produce the largest number of engineering PhDs in the world, and the quality of Chinese universities has dramatically improved in recent years.

More and better

Thanks to all this investment and a growing, capable workforce, China’s scientific output – as measured by the number of total published papers – has increased steadily over the years. In 2017, Chinese scholars published more scientific papers than US researchers for the first time.

Quantity does not necessarily mean quality though. For many years, researchers in the West wrote off Chinese research as low quality and often as simply imitating research from the US and Europe. During the 2000s and 2010s, much of the work coming from China did not receive significant attention from the global scientific community.

But as China has continued to invest in science, I began to wonder whether the explosion in the quantity of research was accompanied by improving quality.

To quantify China’s scientific strength, my colleagues and I looked at citations. A citation is when an academic paper is referenced – or cited – by another paper. We considered that the more times a paper has been cited, the higher quality and more influential the work. Given that logic, the top 1% most cited papers should represent the upper echelon of high-quality science.

My colleagues and I counted how many papers published by a country were in the top 1% of science as measured by the number of citations in various disciplines. Going year by year from 2015 to 2019, we then compared different countries. We were surprised to find that in 2019, Chinese authors published a greater percentage of the most influential papers, with China claiming 8,422 articles in the top category, while the US had 7,959 and the European Union had 6,074. In just one recent example, we found that in 2022, Chinese researchers published three times as many papers on artificial intelligence as US researchers; in the top 1% most cited artificial intelligence research, Chinese papers outnumbered US papers by a 2-to-1 ratio. Similar patterns can be seen with China leading in the top 1% most cited papers in nanoscience, chemistry and transportation.

Our research also found that Chinese research was surprisingly novel and creative – and not simply copying Western researchers. To measure this, we looked at the mix of disciplines referenced in scientific papers. The more diverse and varied the referenced research was in a single paper, the more interdisciplinary and novel we considered the work. We found Chinese research to be as innovative as other top performing countries.

Taken together, these measures suggest that China is now no longer an imitator nor producer of only low-quality science. China is now a scientific power on par with the US and Europe, both in quantity and in quality.

On August 9, President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law to support the growth of US research and technology firms as a way to counter China’s scientific growth. Credit: The White House/Flickr

Fear or collaboration?

Scientific capability is intricately tied to both military and economic power. Because of this relationship, many in the US – from politicians to policy experts – have expressed concern that China’s scientific rise is a threat to the US, and the government has taken steps to slow China’s growth. The recent CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 explicitly limits cooperation with China in some areas of research and manufacturing. In October, the Biden administration put restrictions in place to limit China’s access to key technologies with military applications.

A number of scholars, including me, see these fears and policy responses as rooted in a nationalistic view that doesn’t wholly map onto the global endeavor of science.

Academic research in the modern world is in large part driven by the exchange of ideas and information. The results are published in publicly available journals that anyone can read. Science is also becoming ever more international and collaborative, with researchers around the world depending on each other to push their fields forward. Recent collaborative research on cancer, Covid-19 and agriculture are just a few of many examples. My own work has also shown that when researchers from China and the US collaborate, they produce higher quality science than either one alone.

China has joined the ranks of top scientific and technological nations, and some of the concerns over shifts of power are reasonable in my view. But the US can also benefit from China’s scientific rise. With many global issues facing the planet – like climate change, to name just one – there may be wisdom in looking at this new situation as not only a threat, but also an opportunity.

Caroline Wagner is Milton & Roslyn Wolf Chair in International Affairs, The Ohio State University.

15 January 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

The rich are having good days as they always have. Even the pandemic could not brake their stockpiling of wealth. The super-rich outstrip their extraordinary grab of half of all new wealth in past decade. The richest 1% of the world bag nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years, finds Survival of the Richest, an Oxfam International (OI) study released on the first day of the World Economic Forum (WEF), January 16, 2023, being held in Davos, Switzerland.

The richest 1% grabbed nearly two-thirds of all new wealth worth $42 trillion created since 2020, almost twice as much money as the bottom 99% of the world’s population, reveals the report. During the past decade, the richest 1% had captured around half of all new wealth.

1.7 Billion Workers

Billionaire fortunes are increasing by $2.7 billion a day even as at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages.
A tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty. According to the World Bank, extreme poverty increased in 2020 for the first time in 25 years. At the same time, extreme wealth has risen dramatically since the pandemic began.

The report shows that while the richest 1% captured 54% of new global wealth over the past decade, this has accelerated to 63% in the past two years. $42 trillion of new wealth was created between December 2019 and December 2021. $26 trillion (63%) was captured by the richest 1%, while $16 trillion (37%) went to the bottom 99%. According to Credit Suisse, individuals with more than $1 million in wealth sit in the top 1% bracket.

Wealth Climbs

News from Oxfam said:

The billionaire class is $2.6 trillion richer than before the pandemic, even if billionaire fortunes slightly fell in 2022 after their record-smashing peak in 2021. The world’s richest are now seeing their wealth climb again.

U.S., UK, Australia

In the US, the UK and Australia, studies have found that 54%, 59% and 60% of inflation, respectively, was driven by increased corporate profits. In Spain, the CCOO (one of the country’s largest trade unions) found that corporate profits are responsible for 83.4% of price increases during the first quarter of 2022.

The news said:

The World Bank announced that the world has almost certainly lost its goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and that “global progress in reducing extreme poverty has grind[ed] to a halt” amid what the Bank says was likely to be the largest increase in global inequality and the largest setback in global poverty since WW2. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than $2.15 per day.

Elon Musk paid a “true tax rate” of just 3.27% from 2014 to 2018, according to ProPublica.

The $6.85 poverty line was used to calculate how many people (2 billion) an annual wealth tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could lift out of poverty.

Polling consistently finds that most people across countries support raising taxes on the richest. For example, the majority of people in the US, 80% Indians, 85% of Brazilians and 69% of people polled across 34 countries in Africa support increasing taxes on the rich.

That is one of the ideas in a report by Oxfam International, which has sought for a decade to highlight inequality at the conclave of political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

The Ultra-Rich And Climate Crisis

OI’s research shows that the ultra-rich are the biggest individual contributors to the climate crisis. The richest billionaires, through their polluting investments, are emitting a million times more carbon than the average person. The wealthiest 1% of humanity are responsible for twice as many emissions as the poorest 50 percent and by 2030, their carbon footprints are set to be 30 times greater than the level compatible with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement.

The Rich In India

Billionaires in India have seen their fortune surge by 121% or ₹3,608 crore per day in real terms, since the Covid pandemic begun, the OI report showed. On the other hand, the bottom 50% of the population has continued to see their wealth chipped away and by 2020, according to the Survival of the Richest.

The richest 1% in India now own more than 40% of the country’s total wealth, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3% of wealth, the new study showed.

Releasing the India supplement of its annual inequality report on the first day of the WEF Annual Meeting here, the OI said that taxing India’s ten-richest at 5 percent can fetch entire money to bring children back to school.

Food Companies

Food companies making big profits as inflation has surged should face windfall taxes to help cut global inequality, said OI.

Billionaire wealth surged in 2022 with rapidly rising food and energy profits.

The report shows that 95 food and energy corporations have more than doubled their profits in 2022. They made $306 billion in windfall profits, and paid out $257 billion (84%) of that to rich shareholders.

The Walton dynasty, which owns half of Walmart, received $8.5 billion over the last year.

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, owner of major energy corporations, has seen this wealth soar by $42 billion (46%) in 2022 alone.

Excess corporate profits have driven at least half of inflation in Australia, the U.S. and the UK.

Inflation And Wage

At the same time, at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, and over 820 million people —roughly one in ten people on Earth —  are going hungry.

Eat Least And Last

Women and girls often eat least and last, and make up nearly 60% of the world’s hungry population. The World Bank says we are likely seeing the biggest increase in global inequality and poverty since WW2. Entire countries are facing bankruptcy, with the poorest countries now spending four times more repaying debts to rich creditors than on healthcare. Three-quarters of the world’s governments are planning austerity-driven public sector spending cuts — including on healthcare and education — by $7.8 trillion over the next five years.

The Irish Rich

The wealthiest 1% of Irish society now own more than a quarter of the country’s wealth or €232 billion, the report claims.

The research also shows that with €15 billion between them, the two richest people here have 50% more wealth than the poorest half of the population.

In total the study, based on data collated from Forbes, Credit Suisse and Wealth-X, found eight Irish people are worth over a billion euro, down one from last year.

But 1,435 individuals here are worth over €47m while 20,575 own over € 4.7 million.

Over the last decade, the numbers in both those categories has more than doubled the analysis finds, as wealth creation here grows.

Laying out how new wealth is distributed, the study claims that for every $100 or €93 of wealth created in Ireland over the past decade, a third has gone to the richest 1% and less than 50c to the bottom 50%.

The richest 1% has therefore gained 70 times more wealth than the bottom 50% in the last 10 years, Oxfam says.

While the top 10% of the population now owns nearly two thirds of the wealth, totalling €547 billion, but the bottom 50% of Irish society owns only 1% of wealth.

The Survival of the Richest is published on the opening day of the WEF. Elites are gathering in the Swiss ski resort as extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years.

An OI release said:

“While ordinary people are making daily sacrifices on essentials like food, the super-rich have outdone even their wildest dreams. Just two years in, this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires —a roaring ‘20s boom for the world’s richest,” said Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of OI.

“Taxing the super-rich and big corporations is the door out of today’s overlapping crises. It’s time we demolish the convenient myth that tax cuts for the richest result in their wealth somehow ‘trickling down’ to everyone else. Forty years of tax cuts for the super-rich have shown that a rising tide does not lift all ships — just the superyachts.”

A billionaire gained roughly $1.7 million for every $1 of new global wealth earned by a person in the bottom 90%. Billionaire fortunes have increased by $2.7 billion a day. This comes on top of a decade of historic gains — the number and wealth of billionaires having doubled over the last ten years.

Oxfam is calling for a systemic and wide-ranging increase in taxation of the super-rich to claw back crisis gains driven by public money and profiteering. Decades of tax cuts for the richest and corporations have fueled inequality, with the poorest people in many countries paying higher tax rates than billionaires.

Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men, paid a “true tax rate” of about 3 percent between 2014 and 2018. Aber Christine, a flour vendor in Uganda, makes $80 a month and pays a tax rate of 40 percent.

Worldwide, only four cents in every tax dollar now comes from taxes on wealth. Half of the world’s billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax for direct descendants. They will pass on a $5 trillion tax-free treasure chest to their heirs, more than the GDP of Africa, which will drive a future generation of aristocratic elites. Rich people’s income is mostly unearned, derived from returns on their assets, yet it is taxed on average at 18%, just over half as much as the average top tax rate on wages and salaries.

The report shows that taxes on the wealthiest used to be much higher. Over the last forty years, governments across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas have slashed the income tax rates on the richest. At the same time, they have upped taxes on goods and services, which fall disproportionately on the poorest people and exacerbate gender inequality. In the years after WW2, the top U.S. federal income tax rate remained above 90 percent and averaged 81 percent between 1944 and 1981. Similar levels of tax in other rich countries existed during some of the most successful years of their economic development and played a key role in expanding access to public services like education and healthcare.

“Taxing the super-rich is the strategic precondition to reducing inequality and resuscitating democracy. We need to do this for innovation. For stronger public services. For happier and healthier societies. And to tackle the climate crisis, by investing in the solutions that counter the insane emissions of the very richest,” said Bucher.

According to new analysis by the Fight Inequality Alliance, Institute for Policy Studies, Oxfam and the Patriotic Millionaires, an annual wealth tax of up to 5% on the world’s multi-millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, fully fund the shortfalls on existing humanitarian appeals, deliver a 10-year plan to end hunger, support poorer countries being ravaged by climate impacts, and deliver universal healthcare and social protection for everyone living in low- and lower middle-income countries.

Oxfam’s calculations are based on the most up-to-date and comprehensive data sources available. Figures on the very richest in society come from the Forbes billionaire list.

All amounts are expressed in US dollars and, where relevant, have been adjusted for inflation using the US consumer price index.

A Few Of The Key Findings Of The Report:

• The India supplement of the inequality report said that the richest one per cent in India now own more than 40 % of the country’s total wealth, while the bottom half of the population together share just 3% of wealth.
• Making a case for taxing the rich, the report said that taxing India’s ten richest at 5% can fetch entire money to bring children back to school.
• It also argued that one-off tax on unrealized gains from 2017–2021 on Gautam Adani, could have been enough to employ more than five million Indian primary school teachers for a year.
• The report further said that if India’s billionaires are taxed once at 2% on their entire wealth, it would support the requirement of ₹40,423 crore for the nutrition of malnourished in the country for the next three years.
• “A one-time tax of 5% on the 10 richest billionaires in the country ( ₹1.37 lakh crore) is more than 1.5 times the funds estimated by the Health and Family Welfare Ministry ( ₹86,200 crore) and the Ministry of Ayush ( ₹3,050 crore) for the year 2022-23,” it added.
• In 2021-22, only 3% of GST coming from the top 10% while approximately 64% of the total ₹14.83 lakh-crore in Goods and Services Tax (GST) came from bottom 50% of the population.
• According to the report, taxing the top 100 Indian billionaires at 2.5%, or taxing the top 10 Indian billionaires at 5% would nearly cover the entire amount required to bring the children back into school.
• Oxfam said the report is a mix of qualitative and quantitative information to explore the impact of inequality in India.
• The total number of billionaires in India increased from 102 in 2020 to 166 in 2022 while the combined wealth of India’s 100 richest has touched USD 660 billion ( ₹54.12 lakh crore), an amount that could fund the entire Union Budget for more than 18 months.

Oxfam India urged the Union finance minister to introduce one-off solidarity wealth taxes and windfall taxes to end crisis profiteering. It also demanded a permanent increase in taxes on the richest 1% and especially raise taxes on capital gains, which are subject to lower tax rates than other forms of income.

Oxfam has called on governments to:​​​​​​​

• Introduce one-off solidarity wealth taxes and windfall taxes to end crisis profiteering.
• Permanently increase taxes on the richest 1 percent, for example to at least 60 percent of their income from labor and capital, with higher rates for multi-millionaires and billionaires. Governments must especially raise taxes on capital gains, which are subject to lower tax rates than other forms of income.

Tax the wealth of the richest 1 percent at rates high enough to significantly reduce the numbers and wealth of the richest people, and redistribute these resources. This includes implementing inheritance, property and land taxes, as well as net wealth taxes.

Countercurrents is answerable only to our readers. Support honest journalism because we have no PLANET B.

16 January 2023

Source: countercurrents.org

By Rick Thomas

The annual Davos Boys Club (it’s also open to girls as long as they know their place) is meeting Jan 16 – 20 in the Swiss Alps. The uber wealthy technocrats will discuss how to fix the fragmented world they broke. The promo for the event says it all, no need to dig for a hidden agenda:

Canadian Deputy Crime Minister Chystia Freeland will be there sniffing and twitching like she just fell off the bus on East Hastings. The usual suspects will attend, basking in the glow of their mutual sociopathy. Hopefully, they will squeeze in some skiing, and maybe cruise by the elementary school for future prospects. Epstein sightings are predicted.

The meeting will bring together 2700 members including 52 heads of state, 600 CEO’s, 160 young globalists and 125 experts from the world’s leading universities, research institutions, and think tanks. From the United States: the likes of FBI director Chris Wray, the CEOs of Amazon, BlackRock, and Pfizer, top officials at the Gates Foundation and in the Soros network, and the Publisher of The New York Times, to name a few. Special guests include:

• John F. Kerry, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate of the United States of America
• Avril Haines, US Director of National Intelligence
• Martin J. Walsh, Secretary of Labor of the United States
• Katherine Tai, United States Trade Representative
• Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Canada
• Christine Lagarde, President, European Central Bank

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky will speak at the annual World Economic Forum conference in January 2023, and he will be featured on a panel with Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of NATO, and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. The panel will be called “Restoring Security and Peace,” which is Orwellian Newspeak for “How do we Balkanise Russia after we Destroy Ukraine.”

Conspicuously absent, there will be no Russian delegation this year.

In a recent Globe and Mail article, WEF managing director Adrian Monck complains that trolls are wrecking all of Klaus Schwab’s beautiful wickedness, by spreading far-right disinfo and stuff. He rattles on trying to prove the WEF are nice guys and would never plot world takeover or pull the wings off butterflies: “A pandemic was raging, and the World Economic Forum launched The Great Reset, promoting the idea of building back better so that economies could emerge greener and fairer out of the pandemic,” he says without blinking.

He continues on with the usual scripted propaganda that anti-semitic, far-right extremists, conspiracy-theorists, white-supremacists, neo-nazis, other-non-conformists are-misbehaving on the internet.

Why can’t they just drink the koolaid and do what they’re told like everybody else?

He is simply astonished that one website claimed the Great Reset was a “response to the coronavirus faked crisis” and would usher in “global communism” to ensure “no one will be able to own anything.” Wow, imagine that.

And yet, straight out of the horse’s mouth, the WEF itself suggests that a globalised world is best managed by a self-selected coalition of multinational corporations, governments and civil society organisations, which it expresses through initiatives like the Great Reset and the Global Redesign.

The main themes for 2023 will include: [translations provided by the author]

1. Energy and Food Crises in the context of a New System for Energy, Climate and Nature [how to starve the plebs into submission]
2. High Inflation, Low Growth, High Debt Economy in the context of a New System for Investment, Trade and Infrastructure [how to bankrupt the plebs into submission]
3. Industry Headwinds in the context of a New System for Harnessing Frontier Technologies for Private Sector Innovation and Resilience [how to create the Borg]
4. Social Vulnerabilities in the context of a New System for Work, Skills and Care [how to exploit the crisis they created]
5. Geopolitical Risks in the context of a New System for Dialogue and Cooperation in a Multipolar World [how to exploit the war in Ukraine and/or how to exploit the crises they made without blowing themselves up in the process]

During the annual meeting the population of Davos explodes to well over 100,000, including participants, media, security, and support staff. About 2,500 in that surge are WEF delegates and the remainder comprise their entourage and security necessary for the delegates’ appearances, about 40 staff members per delegate.

Becoming an official member of WEF is expensive to say the least. You must be either in the billionaire crowd or a world leader whose tax payers foot the bill.

It costs $19,000 per person to attend.

Unfortunately, you cannot do so unless your organisation is also a WEF member. That costs between $60,000 and $600,000 a year, depending on your “partner” status. Doing the math, it costs minimum $79,000 per delegate to attend plus the additional cost for flights, accomodation and meals for their private entourages.

Doing more math: Schwab and the WEF are raking in a minimum of $213,000,000 and that would be the most conservative estimate. No doubt, the WEF gets a cut from all the hotels and other services, and so it would not be out of line to estimate at least a billion dollars per year in income.

Fortunately, the Swiss Army will be there, armed with their Swiss Army Knives, to keep all the nasty conspiracy theorists from crashing the party and spoiling all the fun. The Swiss government announced:

“For the use of the army in the form of support services on the occasion of the WEF from 10 to 26 January, the Federal Parliament has set an upper limit of 5,000 military personnel … With armed fighter jets on permanent patrol duty during the conference period, ground-to-air defence, additional radars, enhanced airspace surveillance and 24-hour air police service (throughout Switzerland).”

Though the WEF meets in Davos every year, it is actually headquartered in the tiny town of Cologny, outside of Geneva, 265 miles west.

One of Cologny’s claims to fame is that a group of Romantic poets and writers spent the summer there in 1816: Lord Byron, John Polidori, Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Due to the poor weather, the guests spent days indoors telling each other horror stories. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’s The Vampyre, were the result of these fireplace sessions. Frankenstein is the story of a mad scientist who creates a monster out of used body parts, and The Vampyre is the story of a blood-sucking aristocrat who preys upon society. Sweet.

Despite the downplaying of regular attendees like Bono, who smirks that Davos is a herd of “fat cows in the snow,” the reality is that the WEF is increasingly becoming the centre of global decision-making. The United Nations did not become the forum that the elites could use to create their global corporate empire, simply because there is too much red tape and policies within the United Nations’ constitution that cannot be over-riden.

Secondly, the United Nations is built on the nation-state model, something the WEF wants to do away with.

The WEF is the future world government, plain and simple. Schwab is already its first president, and arguably the unacknowledged and unofficial CEO of the world.

All that has to happen next, through their planned series of forthcoming mega-crisis, is for the world to acknowledge the WEF’s conquest of all nation states and submit to its supreme authority.

The pandemic was the first stage towards the WEF’s endgame.

The World Health Organisation successfully enlisted 194 nations into a global coup d’etat without firing a shot.

There are three things the WEF needs to destroy in order to consolidate their power: national sovereignty, civil rights and faith in our Creator. Only the first one can be destroyed.

They can take away the power of nations on the world stage. Sovereignty has been undergoing a gradual degradation for decades. As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “Canada is the world’s first post-national state,” referring to the fact that his cabinet is infiltrated by WEF members.

[Here is a complete list of Canadian elected officials who are WEF members.]

Civil rights and faith are impossible to destroy, and as history has shown, violating either results in an increase. Civil rights are the outward political expression of the inner spiritual path. Those who are on a spiritual journey, or those who value their freedom are boldly indignant when injustice occurs, especially when people’s right to basic human existence is threatened. The universe reveals that good is more powerful than evil. For all the evil that is done under the sun, the good that it produces is a hundred times greater.

The seed of destruction is planted in every totalitarian regime because tyranny is ultimately suicidal for all involved. We can, therefore, stand firm and say in confidence, “Bring it on, Schwab, bring it on.”

Rick Thomas is a musician, activist and the author of How to Defeat the New World Order.

21 January 2023

Source: globalresearch.ca

By Ranjan Solomon

Palestine Update 621

Bad news for Palestinians as Israel resorts to utmost cruelties
Israel persists with its unilateral and cruel choices of how it treats Palestinians and their villages. Despite the fact that forcible transfer of civilian populations in occupied territory is deemed as a war crime, Israel is pursuing a relentless plan to evict 1000 Palestinians from Masafer Yatta to make way for a firing zone for the Israel army. Israel is wayward in offering a substitute area to dwell. But this offer comes under duress and is, hence, devoid of any civilized intention. Peace Now and Bimkom report that Israel will remove Palestinians from about 3,250 acres of land in the West Bank and about 70 buildings in Hebron supposedly owned by Jews before 1948. This is part of a political deal between Likud and Religious Zionism to enable assets currently held by the Civil Administration to be transferred to their pre-1948 Jewish owners.

The threat to ban the Palestinian flag is not cutting ice among Palestinians. On the other hand, Israel does this more out of fear and insecurity and inanity. How can an entire identity be erased by banning a flag?

More cruelties; this time in Israeli prisons. As of 30 September 2022, there were 4,529 Palestinians (West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza) held as “security prisoners” in detention facilities including 129 children (12-17 years). In the case of children there was a 4 percent increase in the number compared with the previous month and an annual decrease of 12 percent compared with 2021. Seven children were held in administrative detention. According to the IPS, 68 percent of child detainees were transferred to prisons inside Israel in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Israel’s new coalition has established a stranglehold over the Biden administration. It has got Biden to revoke its opposition to illiberal, theocratic tendencies to disentangle the judiciary, target ethnic and gender minorities, and unilaterally annex the occupied territories. Washington’s intransigence in the face of these cold realities comes as no shocker. In a cabinet filled with people whose criminal records are scandalous, it can be hardly expected that politically moral decisions will be taken. What do the ilk of Netanyahu’s cabinet coalition partner’s care? Nor is Netanyahu a saint given the array of charges he faces. The face of Israel’s fascists cabinet is scary to say the least.

In solidarity,
Ranjan Solomon
On behalf of MLN Palestine Updates.

19 January 2023