Chris Hedges's Blog, page 509

Trump Acknowledges Purpose of Meeting With Russian Lawyer

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Trump on Sunday acknowledged that the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between a Kremlin-connected lawyer and his son was to collect information about his political opponent, casting new light on a moment central to the special counsel’s Russia probe.

Trump, amid a series of searing tweets sent from his New Jersey golf club, tore into two of his favorite targets, the news media and Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into possible links between the president’s campaign and Russia. Trump unleashed particularly fury at reports that he was anxious about the Trump Tower meeting attended by Donald Trump Jr. and other senior campaign officials.

“Fake News reporting, a complete fabrication, that I am concerned about the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower,” Trump wrote. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere. I did not know about it!”

But 13 months ago, Trump gave a far different explanation for the meeting. A July 2017 statement dictated by the president read: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago.”

But since then, the story about the meeting has changed several times, eventually forced by the discovery of emails between the president’s eldest son and an intermediary from the Russian government offering damaging information about Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton. Betraying no surprise or misgivings about the offer from a hostile foreign power, Trump Jr. replied: “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

Sunday’s tweet was Trump’s clearest statement yet on the purpose of the meeting, which has become a focal point of Mueller’s investigation even as the president and his lawyers try to downplay its significance and pummel the Mueller probe with attacks. On Sunday, Trump again suggested without evidence that Mueller was biased against him, declaring, “This is the most one sided Witch Hunt in the history of our country.”

And as Trump and his allies have tried to discredit the probe, a new talking point has emerged: that even if that meeting was held to collect damaging information, none was provided and “collusion” — Trump’s go-to description of what Mueller is investigating — never occurred.

“The question is what law, statute or rule or regulation has been violated, and nobody has pointed to one,” said Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, on ABC’s “This Week.”

But legal experts have pointed out several possible criminal charges, including conspiracy against the United States and aiding and abetting a conspiracy. And despite Trump’s public Twitter denial, the president has expressed worry that his son may face legal exposure even as he believes he did nothing wrong, according to three people close to the White House familiar with the president’s thinking but not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

Sekulow acknowledged that the public explanation for the meeting has changed but insisted that the White House has been very clear with the special counsel’s office. He said he was not aware of Trump Jr. facing any legal exposure.

“I don’t represent Don Jr.,” Sekulow said, “but I will tell you I have no knowledge at all of Don Jr. being told that he’s a target of any investigation, and I have no knowledge of him being interviewed by the special counsel.”

Trump’s days of private anger spilled out into public with the Twitter outburst, which comes at a perilous time for the president.

A decision about whether he sits for an interview with Mueller may also occur in the coming weeks, according to another one of his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani. Trump has seethed against what he feels are trumped-up charges against his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, whose trial began last week and provided a visible reminder of Mueller’s work.

And he raged against the media’s obsession with his links to Russia and the status of Michael Cohen, his former fixer, who is under federal investigation in New York. Cohen has indicated that he would tell prosecutors that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting ahead of time.

Despite a show of force from his national security team this week as a warning against future Russian election meddling, Trump again deemed the matter a “hoax” this week. And at a trio of rallies, he escalated his already vitriolic rhetoric toward the media, savaging the press for unflattering coverage and, he feels, bias.

“The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE,” Trump tweeted Sunday. “I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!”

The fusillade of tweets came from Bedminster, Trump’s golf course, where he is ensconced in a property that bears his name at every turn and is less checked in by staffers. It was at the New Jersey golf club where a brooding Trump has unleashed other inflammatory attacks and where, in spring 2017, he made the final decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, the move that triggered the Russia probe.

Trump was joined for his Saturday rally in Ohio by former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who departed the administration earlier this year. Her unannounced presence raised some eyebrows as Hicks has been interviewed by Mueller and was part of the team of staffers that helped draft the original statement on the Trump Tower meeting.

Multiple White House officials have been interviewed while still working at the White House and have remained in contact with the president.

Venezuela Detains 6 in Failed Drone Attack Aimed at Maduro

CARACAS, Venezuela — Authorities detained six people suspected of using explosives-laden drones in a failed bid to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, officials said Sunday, in what one witness described as a terrifying attack that shook her apartment building.

The government alleged that opposition factions conspired with assailants in Miami and Bogota, although they offered no specific evidence. Opposition leaders decried Maduro for broadly singling out his political opponents, and they warned he may use it to further suppress his critics.

The thwarted attack comes as Venezuela is reeling from a worsening economic and humanitarian crisis and Maduro has grown increasingly isolated. Foreign nations, including the United States, are slapping economic sanctions against a growing list of high-ranking officials and decrying his government as an autocratic regime.

The assailants flew two drones each packed with 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of C-4 plastic explosive toward Maduro, his wife and other top leaders as he spoke Saturday evening at an event celebrating the 81st anniversary of the National Guard, said Interior Minister Nestor Reverol. One of the drones was to explode above the president while the other was to detonate directly in front of him, he added.

But the military managed to knock one of the drones off-course electronically and the other crashed into apartment building two blocks away from where Maduro was speaking to the hundreds of troops, Reverol said.

“We have six terrorists and assassins detained,” Reverol said. “In the next hours there could be more arrests.”

Of those arrested, Reverol said two had previous run-ins with the government, although he did not give their names or say what charges they faced. One took part in 2014 protests that rocked the nation as it descended into an economic crisis that is now worse than the Great Depression. The other had a warrant out for his arrest for participating in an attack on a military barracks.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, appearing on state television Sunday, said the attackers were aiming to decapitate Venezuela’s entire top leadership along with Maduro.

Investigators continued searching a blackened apartment building near the site while also seizing vehicles and raiding more than one hotel where they said they had found “film evidence.”

Two witnesses who live in nearby apartment buildings said they saw a drone hovering over a residential street Saturday evening and then heard an explosion.

One witness showed The Associated Press cellphone video of a drone crashing into a building. He said the drone fell to the ground and exploded, igniting a fire in an apartment.

Another witness, Mairum Gonzalez, described running in panic to her fifth-floor balcony, where she heard the second explosion and saw smoke rising.

“It was so strong the building shook,” she said. “It terrified me.”

In an address to the nation Saturday night, a visibly shaken Maduro recalled seeing a “flying device” that exploded. He at first thought it might be a pyrotechnics display.

Within seconds, Maduro said he heard a second blast and pandemonium broke out. Bodyguards escorted him from the event, covering him in black shields, and TV footage showed uniformed soldiers break formation and scatter.

“This was an attempt to kill me,” he said.

Maduro said the “far right,” working in coordination with others in Bogota and Miami, including Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, were responsible. Colombia’s government has vehemently denied Santos had any role in the drone attack.

Maduro, who also says that Washington supports his political opponents, called on U.S. President Donald Trump to hold the “terrorist group” accountable.

Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton told “Fox News Sunday” that, “If the government of Venezuela has hard information that they want to present to us that would show a potential violation of U.S. criminal law, we’ll take a serious look at it.”

The Broad Front, a coalition of opposition groups in Venezuela, accused the government of making an allegation without proof.

“It’s evident that the initial reaction of the government isn’t aimed at attempting to clarify what happened but rather to take advantage of the situation and irresponsibly and sweepingly attack the ‘opposition,'” the group said in a statement.

A little-known group calling itself Soldiers in T-shirts claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it planned to fly two drones loaded with explosives at the president but soldiers shot them down. The authenticity of the message could not be independently verified, and the organization did not respond to a message from the AP.

“It was not successful today, but it is just a matter of time,” the group said in a tweet.

Venezuela’s government routinely accuses opposition activists of plotting to attack and overthrow Maduro. The former bus driver has moved steadily to consolidate power as the nation struggles to reverse hyperinflation that the International Monetary Fund projects could top 1 million percent by year’s end.

The firebrand leader sees his mission as carrying out the late Hugo Chavez’s socialist revolution. He recently won a new term in office in a widely condemned election. The opposition’s most popular candidates were barred from running.

Maduro said the incident had left him convinced of the military’s support and undeterred in carrying forward the torch of Chavez’s revolution.

“Venezuela will continue on the democratic, independent and socialist path,” he said.

Analysts believe Maduro still holds the military’s support, but said the images broadcast live on television Saturday nonetheless made him appear vulnerable.

“Seeing trained soldiers fleeing in apparent panic and disarray before an explosion strongly contrasts with the idea of monolithic control and loyalty of security forces that Maduro prides himself on,” New York-based Torino Capital investment firm noted.

It was not the first time Maduro’s government has come under attack.

Amid deadly, near-daily protests last year, a rogue police officer flew a stolen helicopter over the capital and launched grenades at several government buildings. Oscar Perez and several comrades were later killed in a gun battle after over six months at large.

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Christine Armario contributed from Miami, Florida. AP video journalist Clbyburn Saint John contributed.

Police Chief Orders Review of Use of Force at Oregon Protest

SALEM, Ore. — Portland police were accused Sunday of being heavy-handed against people protesting a rally by extreme-right demonstrators, reportedly injuring some counter-protesters and prompting the city’s new police chief to order a review of officers’ use of force.

Police in riot gear tried to keep the two groups apart, many of whom had come on Saturday dressed for battle in helmets and protective clothing. Dozens of the extreme-right protesters were bussed to Portland, one of America’s most liberal cities, from nearby Vancouver, Washington.

Saturday’s clashes were the most recent of several this year in the city as right-wing militants converged, met by counter-protesters, including members of anti-fascist, or “antifa,” groups. City officials have struggled with striking a balance between free speech and keeping events from spiraling out of control.

But on Saturday, some said police seemed to act mostly against those protesting the presence of the extreme-right demonstrators, using stun grenades and what appeared to be rubber bullets against them.

Police “targeted Portland residents peacefully counter-protesting against racist far-right groups, including white supremacists, white nationalists, and neo-Nazi gangs,” the Oregon chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America said in a statement. It called on officials to investigate.

Police ordered the counter-protesters to disperse, then moved in behind a volley of stun grenades. One of the rounds reportedly hit a counter-protester in the head, becoming embedded in his helmet and injuring him. One woman was taken to a hospital after being hit in the arm and chest with a “flash-bang” grenade, local media reported. The blasts echoed through downtown Portland.

Four people were arrested.

Police Chief Danielle Outlaw, who assumed command less than a year ago as Portland’s first African-American female police chief, said in a statement Sunday she takes all use-of-force cases seriously.

Outlaw directed the professional standards division to begin gathering evidence to determine if the force used was within policy and training guidelines. The Office of Independent Police Review will be provided with the information for review and investigation.

Saturday’s incidents started with demonstrators aligned with Patriot Prayer and an affiliated group, the Proud Boys, gathering in a riverfront park. The Proud Boys has been characterized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is “dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.”

Hundreds of counter-demonstrators faced them from across the street, holding banners and signs with messages such as “Alt right scum not welcome in Portland.” Some chanted “Nazis go home.”

Officers stood in the middle of a four-lane boulevard, essentially forming a wall to keep the two sides separated.

The counter-protesters were made up of a coalition of labor unions, immigrant rights advocates, democratic socialists and other groups.

Patriot Prayer also has held rallies in many other cities around the U.S. West, including Berkeley, California, that have drawn violent reactions.

Saturday’s rally, organized by Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson, was the third to roil Portland this summer. Two previous events ended in bloody fistfights and riots.

Gibson disputed the group’s classification as a hate group.

“We’re here to promote freedom and God. That’s it,” Gibson told Portland TV station KGW. “Our country is getting soft.”

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AP journalist Manuel Valdes contributed to this report from Portland, Oregon.

Palestinian Teens Reach Finals of Silicon Valley Competition

NABLUS, West Bank—Four Palestinian high school friends are heading to California this week to pitch their mobile app about fire prevention to Silicon Valley’s tech leaders, after winning a slot in the finals of a worldwide competition among more than 19,000 teenage girls.

For the 11th graders from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the ticket of admission to the World Pitch Summit signals a particularly dramatic leap.

They come from middle class families that value education, but opportunities have been limited because of the omnipresent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, prevailing norms of patriarchy in their traditional society and typically underequipped schools with outdated teaching methods.

“We are excited to travel in a plane for the first time in our lives, meet new people and see a new world,” said team member Wasan al-Sayed, 17. “We are excited to be in the most prestigious IT community in the world, Silicon Valley, where we can meet interesting people and see how the new world works.”

Twelve teams made it to the finals of the “Technovation Challenge” in San Jose, California, presenting apps that tackle problems in their communities. The Palestinian teens compete in the senior division against teams from Egypt, the United States, Mexico, India and Spain, for scholarships of up to $15,000.

The competition, now in its ninth year, is run by Iridescent, a global nonprofit offering opportunities to young people, especially girls, through technology. The group said 60 percent of the U.S. participants enroll in additional computer science courses after the competition, with 30 percent majoring in that field in college, well above the national rate among female U.S. college students. Two-thirds of international participants show an interest in technology-related courses, the group said.

Palestinian Education Minister Sabri Saidam counts on technology — along with a new emphasis on vocational training — to overhaul Palestinian schools, where many students still learn by rote in crowded classrooms.

Youth unemployment, particularly among university graduates, is a central problem across the Arab world, in part because of a demographic “youth bulge.” Last year, unemployment among Palestinian college graduates under the age of 30 reached 56 percent, including 41 percent in the West Bank and 73 percent in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Unemployment is particularly high among female university graduates, in part because young women are expected to marry and raise children, while young men are considered the main breadwinners. However, employers also complain that graduates studying outdated or irrelevant courses often lack the needed skills for employment.

Saidam said Palestinian schools have received 15,000 computers in the last couple of years. His ministry has also established 54 bookless “smart schools” for grades one to six where students use laptops and learn by doing, including educational trips and involvement with their society.

Meanwhile, the Technovation Challenge has already been a life-changing experience for al-Sayed and her teammates, Zubaida al-Sadder, Masa Halawa and Tamara Awaisa.

They are now determined to pursue careers in technology.

“Before this program, we had a vague idea about the future,” said al-Sayed, speaking at a computer lab at An Najah University in her native Nablus, the West Bank’s second largest city. “Now we have a clear idea. It helped us pick our path in life.”

The teens first heard about the competition a few months ago from an IT teacher at their school in a middle-class neighborhood in Nablus, where IT classes are a modest affair, held twice a week, with two students to a computer.

The girls, friends since 10th grade, each had a laptop at home though, and worked with Yamama Shakaa, a local mentor provided by the competition organizers. The teens “did everything by themselves, with very few resources,” said Shakaa.

The team produced a virtual reality game, “Be a firefighter,” to teach fire prevention skills.

The subject is particularly relevant in some parts of the Palestinian territories, such as the Gaza Strip, where a border blockade by Israel and Egypt — imposed after the takeover of the Islamic militant group Hamas in 2007 — has led to hours-long daily power cuts and the widespread use of candles and other potential fire hazards.

The teens now hope to expand their app to include wildfire prevention. They will also present a business and marketing plan at the California pitching session.

After the competition, they will give the app to the Palestinian Education Ministry for use in schools.

“This prize has changed our lives,” said al-Sayed.

Iran Receives Airplanes Ahead of Renewed U.S. Sanctions

TEHRAN, Iran—Iran acquired five new commercial aircraft on Sunday, a day before the U.S. begins restoring sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.

The arrival of the ATR72-600 airplanes at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport represented perhaps the last benefits Iran will see under the nuclear deal after President Donald Trump withdrew from it in May. Economic woes are sparking sporadic, leaderless protests across the country.

The rhetoric between the U.S. and Iran remains heated, despite Trump tweeting last week that he would be willing to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard on Sunday acknowledged conducting recent naval exercises near the crucial Strait of Hormuz after renewing threats to cut off the waterway to oil traders.

Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported the arrival of the five ATR72-600 airplanes, which are twin-engine turboprops used for short-distance regional flights. Their arrival means state carrier Iran Air has received 13 of the 20 it ordered from the French-Italian manufacturer in April 2017. The deal had a list value of $536 million, though buyers and manufacturers typically negotiate lower prices.

ATR, jointly owned by European consortium Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo, has been pushing U.S. officials to allow it to finish its delivery of aircraft to Iran. The U.S. Treasury must approve the sale of airplanes whose components are at least 10 percent American-made, like the AT72-600.

The Toulouse, France-based firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The nuclear deal lifted international sanctions in return for Iran limiting its nuclear program and allowing regular inspections. U.N. inspectors said Iran was complying with the deal, but Trump felt the agreement did not go far enough. He has called for a new accord that would include a radical transformation of Iran’s policies, including its military support for the Syrian government and regional militant groups, two issues not covered by the 2015 deal.

Iran “has treated its people very poorly, and that’s led to terror. They’re the world’s largest state sponsor of terror. That’s what America is trying to get Iran to stop doing. That’s the behavioral change that we’re looking for from the Iranian regime,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Metro TV in Jakarta.

“The president has always said he is prepared to talk, but it’s important that Iran has to be committed to changing its ways in order for those discussions to prove of any value,” he added.

Trump himself was more blunt in a tweet he posted Saturday, writing: “Iran, and it’s economy, is going very bad, and fast! I will meet, or not meet, it doesn’t matter – it is up to them!”

Iran had hoped the lifting of sanctions would allow it to replace its aging commercial airline fleet, but the U.S. withdrawal has halted billion-dollar deals struck with Airbus and Boeing. European countries, along with Russia and China, remain committed to the nuclear deal, but European companies are unlikely to risk U.S. sanctions to do business with Iran.

Iran’s economy has rapidly deteriorated in recent months due in part to uncertainty over the atomic accord, fueling protests. The Iranian rial has fallen to 99,000 to the U.S. dollar despite a government-imposed rate of 44,000.

In recent days, protests have broken out in several cities, with at least one person shot and killed. Some protesters have shouted “Mullahs get lost!” and “Death to the dictator!” the semi-official Fars news agency has reported.

U.S. sanctions targeting Iranian trade in automobiles, gold and other key metals will be re-imposed on Monday, while sanctions targeting the country’s energy and banking sector will resume Nov. 4. The sanctions targeting Iran’s oil industry could cut off a crucial source of hard currency.

The U.S. has been pushing its allies to halt their import of Iranian oil ahead of the November deadline. Among the top importers of Iranian oil are China, India, Turkey and South Korea.

Rouhani has suggested Iran might block the Strait of Hormuz in response to a shutdown of its oil exports. The strait at the mouth of the Persian Gulf is crucial to global energy supplies as about a third of all oil traded at sea passes through it.

Iran’s navy and its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard routinely conduct seaborne exercises in the Gulf and the strait. U.S. officials last week said Iran carried out a similar exercise, though Tehran did not immediately acknowledge it.

On Sunday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted Guard spokesman Gen. Ramezan Sharif confirming that its forces held a military drill in the Persian Gulf and the strait. He said the exercise, which he described as an annual drill, was aimed at maintaining the security of the international waterway. He did not elaborate.

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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

New Studies Raise Hopes for Making Plastic Safer

The good news is that safe plastic is not an impossible dream: novel ways to tackle the tide of discarded material engulfing the planet are under development.

One scheme absorbing US chemists will turn natural waste into natural polymers. Some day the crabmeat sandwiches in your packed lunch could be safely wrapped in transparent packaging fashioned from crushed crab shells and discarded wood chippings.

The protective wrapping would have all the strength of the polyethylene-based packaging that comes with millions of supermarket products, with one big difference. It will decompose naturally. Polyethylene is the most common form of plastic, with global demand expected to reach almost 100m tonnes in 2018.

Plastic polymer compounds are products of the petroleum industry and have changed lives the world over. But because plastic polymers are all but indestructible, they also promise to change lives everywhere for the worse, as empty plastic cups, soft drinks bottles and supermarket shopping bags amass in the oceans, along shorelines, and in what would otherwise be natural wilderness.

Researchers have already warned that long after humanity becomes extinct, a geological stratum rich in fragmented plastic toys, drinking straws and yoghurt pots could bear witness to the brief tenure of Homo sapiens.

Plastic detritus threatens to swamp the entire planet. Particles have been found in the Arctic ice, and plastic flotsam could carry dangerous infections to the most distant coral reefs.

But as the world’s nations falteringly begin to address the challenges of global warming and climate change, driven by profligate human use of fossil fuels, laboratories around the world have been working on possible solutions, both by finding ways to use energy more efficiently, and by exploiting natural wastes.

The latest study in ingenuity is described in the American Chemical Society’s journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering.

Soil Additive

Researchers sprayed layers of the natural polymer chitin – the substance that provides the exoskeleton of the lobster or the locust – and the plant polymer cellulose to make a thin, flexible, transparent material that could one day replace PET, or polyethylene terephthalate. Cellulose is by far the most common natural polymer – unlike money, it really does grow on trees. Chitin may be the second most common: it is made by shellfish, insects and fungi.

But in the form of alternating layers, made by nanotechnologists – scientists who work in scales of a billionth of a metre – and then dried, the new product becomes strong, flexible and transparent, and something you could throw into the compost heap and watch turn back into nourishing soil.

Such a product is a long way from any commercial manufacture: a lot more needs to be achieved, and many hurdles have to be cleared. But such studies are once again evidence that the chemists and engineers are thinking hard.

“We have been looking at cellulose nanocrystals for several years and exploring ways to improve those for use in lightweight composites as well as food packaging, because of the huge market opportunity for renewable and compostable packaging, and how important food packaging overall is going to be as the population continues to grow,” said Carson Meredith, of Georgia Institute of Technology’s school of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

“Our material showed up a 67% reduction in oxygen permeability over some forms of PET, which means it could in theory keep foods fresher, longer.”

Stripping Refugee Status, Aid Won’t Stop Palestinians From Being Palestinians

According to Jared Kushner and other hard-line Zionists, the Palestinian people don’t exist. Ever since they ethnically cleansed the majority of Palestinians, the Israelis have been hoping that they will just go away. They look out on Galilee, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and Lebanon, and ask, “Why are you still here?” as though the Palestinians were a houseboy in their mansion that they had fired last week.

According to Foreign Policy, Kushner has bought into a theory that Palestinian identity and Palestinian desire to return home to what is now Israel have been artificially kept alive because millions of Palestinians are recognized by the U.N. as refugees. And the U.N. Relief and Works Agency provides schooling, vocational training and sometimes makeshift housing to these families that the Israelis forced into tents in the wilderness.

So if you wanted to wipe Palestine off the map, you’d want to decertify the Palestinians as refugees and destroy UNRWA.

Without that infrastructure, the spoiled, rich, bigot Kushner thinks, the Palestinians will fade away and stop asking to go home.

The far, far right Likud Party that rules Israel has finally found a White House that despises the poor and oppressed as much as it does, and which is happy to try to dissolve the body of the displaced Palestinians in the acid bath of malign neglect, for all the world like “cleaners” in a mob movie.

This theory is incorrect, of course. Palestinian identity is passed on by families, cultural practices, songs, books and memories, not by UNRWA. One anthropologist who worked in the camps in Lebanon to which the Israelis expelled the Palestinians found that the Palestinians had arranged themselves within the camp according to their original village. They made the camp a microcosm of Palestine. UNRWA workers did not tell them to do that.

However, it is true that UNRWA keeps the wolf from the door for many Palestinians, and that infant mortality will certainly go up if it is dismantled.

Yes, I am saying that Jared Kushner and Nikki Haley are trying to kill Palestinian babies.

They are even worse than Jeff Sessions, who just wants to steal the babies.

I once visited the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon. An old man told me that in 1948 he and his mother were in their apartment in Haifa when a Zionist gang barged in and took it from them, expelling them over the border to Lebanon. He stayed there a year. Then the U.N. put him on a train up to northern Lebanon to a camp far from home, where he had been ever since.

Lebanon is a balancing act between Christians and Muslims, and the Christians refused to offer the Palestinians, mostly Muslim, citizenship. They also did not let them own property or work in most professions. They could not travel because they have no citizenship and nobody trusts them enough to let them in.

“We are in jail,” he told me. He took me next door, where two old women were lying on mattresses, taking oxygen, having fallen ill. The only medical care was arranged by UNRWA.

He took my forearm. “Is this any way to live?”

Most of the Palestinians in Nahr al-Bared were just living their lives and trying to get by. But camps are lawless, and disturbances in 2008 had angered the Lebanese army, which destroyed the camp to get at a small criminal gang of 50, that were characterized as terrorists. The man’s apartment building was destroyed, along with most of the camp. Most of them had nothing to do with the gang.

Nahr al-Bared, 2010. (Juan Cole)

UNRWA had given them prefab units to live in until Nahr al-Bared could be rebuilt.

Nahr al-Bared, 2010. (Juan Cole)

Getting rid of UNRWA will increase the misery of Palestinians. But that man’s children know they are Palestinians, they know they will never be allowed to fit in in Lebanon, nor do they want to. They want to go home to Haifa.

When the British conquered Palestine away from the Ottoman Empire during WW I, it had about 680,000 Palestinians. The British established the Mandate of Palestine over their heads without asking their permission, denied them the sort of nationhood achieved by Iraq and other League of Nations-designated Class A Mandates, and then tried to flood the country with European Jews so as to create a local population favorable to long-term colonial occupation. By 1946, this Palestinian population had grown to 1.3 million.

In 1947-48, the British declared they were going home and that the Palestinians would just have to deal with the half-million European Jews that the British brought into the colony over Palestinian objections. The Jewish community was highly organized and had wealthy backers, and they launched into action to ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of hapless Palestinian villagers. When they declared Israel in 1948, only 165,000 Palestinians remained within it. Most Israelis now think it was a mistake to let that many stay, since they have grown into about 20 percent of the current Israeli population.

Some 720,000 Palestinians were made into refugees. That is, they were forced out of their homes by concerted Zionist campaigns that in some cases involved massacres of innocents. They were penniless. The immigrants, whom they viewed as illegal, stole their houses, apartments and farms. Some 70 percent of Gaza’s population is refugee families from 1948.

BBC

 

Other hundreds of thousands were forced to the West Bank (grabbed by the Jordanian army) to Jordan proper, and to Lebanon. A few ended up in Syria and Egypt.

Over time, the population increased. There are now nearly 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel has occupied since 1967. Many still live in refugee camps. Of the 9.5 million Jordanians, probably some 6 million are of Palestinian heritage, having been chased from their homes in 1948 and 1967 by the Israelis. Although the U.N. says there are 450,000 Palestinians in Lebanon, probably it is half that, with many having slipped away to Europe. But over 200,000 people in refugee camps is still too many.

Al-Awda writes,

“There are about 7.2 million Palestinian refugees worldwide. More than 4.3 million Palestinian refugees and their descendents displaced in 1948 are registered for humanitarian assistance with the United Nations. Another 1.7 million Palestinian refugees and their descendents, also displaced in 1948, are not registered with the UN. About 355,000 Palestinians and their descendents are internally displaced i.e. inside present-day “Israel”. When the West Bank and Gaza Strip were occupied in 1967, the UN reported that approximately 200,000 Palestinians fled their homes. These 1967 refugees and their descendants today number about 834,000 persons. As a result of house demolition, revocation of residency rights and construction of illegal settlements on confiscated Palestinian owned-land, at least 57,000 Palestinians have become internally displaced in the occupied West Bank. This number includes 15,000 people so far displaced by the construction of Israel’s Annexation Wall. Such dispossession of the Palestinian population continues today.”

 

European Heat Wave Forces Brief Shutdowns of 4 French Nuclear Reactors

PARIS — As Europe struggles through a major heat wave, the French energy company EDF says it has halted a fourth nuclear reactor, this time one at the country’s oldest nuclear plant at Fessenheim in eastern France.

In a statement, EDT said the Fessenheim nuclear reactor was temporarily shut down Saturday.

Since Thursday, four French nuclear reactors in three power plants near the Rhine and the Rhone Rivers, including Fessenheim, have had to be temporarily shut down. EDF said the decision was made to avoid overheating the rivers.

Nuclear power plants use water from the rivers to cool down the temperatures of their reactors before sending the water back into the rivers. Rivers that are unusually warm can experience mass fish die-offs, which has happened in Germany in the past week.

D.C. Metro Considers Separate Trains for ‘Unite the Right’ White Nationalist Rally

In an effort to head off violence between white nationalists and counterprotesters, the District of Columbia metro transit system is considering providing separate trains for those attending the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally Aug. 12. The use of separate trains for such a purpose would be unprecedented.

In response to criticism, Jack Evans, chairman of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, said in a Washington Post article:

“We’re not trying to give anyone special treatment. We’re just trying to avoid scuffles and things of that nature.”

The rally will be the second “Unite the Right” demonstration, and it will come about one year after the first, in which a woman was killed in Charlottesville, Va., when a man allegedly deliberately drove his car into a crowd of anti-fascist protesters. Charlottesville has denied all permit requests to hold events at the same area over the Aug. 11-12 weekend.

The D.C. event will feature an array of white nationalist speakers, including Richard Spencer.

Critics of the transit agency’s plan are angered by the prospect of accommodating white supremacist groups.  According to the system’s largest union, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689, three private Metrorail cars would be provided to the nationalist groups. Jackie L. Jeter, the president of the union, which says more than 80 percent of its members are people of color, commented to the Post:

“Local 689 is proud to provide transit to everyone for the many events we have in D.C., including the March for Life, the Women’s March and Black Lives Matter. We draw the line at giving special accommodation to hate groups and hate speech.”

Counterprotests are planned by Black Lives Matter, self-described anti-fascist demonstrators and other groups.

View Michael Nigro’s photo essay about last year’s Charlottesville protest here.

 

Venezuela’s Maduro Unharmed in Drone Attack, Government Says

CARACAS, Venezuela—Assailants tried to attack Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with drone-like devices armed with explosives that detonated just as the socialist leader was delivering a speech to hundreds of soldiers, the government said Saturday.

Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said Maduro was safe and unharmed but that seven people were injured in the apparent attack.

“At exactly 5:41 p.m. in the afternoon several explosions were heard,” Rodriguez said in a live address to the nation minutes after the incident. “The investigation clearly reveals they came from drone-like devices that carried explosives.”

State television showed Maduro celebrating the National Guard’s 81st anniversary right before his speech was abruptly cut short.

“We are going to bet for the good of our country,” Maduro declared triumphantly. “The hour of the economy recovery has come.”

Seconds later Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, looked up to the sky and winced after apparently hearing an unidentified sound.

The cameras then turned to a wide shot of military officers standing at attention in neat lines as they broke rank and began running.

The transmission was then cut off.

Several firefighters at the scene are disputing the government’s version of events.