Category Archives: human rights

Merkel to stick to refugee policy despite election defeat

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stood firm Monday on her liberal refugee policy, despite a drubbing in regional elections described as a “debacle” in which disgruntled voters turned to the anti-migrant AfD.Original enclosures:

Source: Merkel to stick to refugee policy despite election defeat

Donald Trump: I love this country. We’re going to make our country great again.It’s payback time! It’s payback time! | 3CHICSPOLITICO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNelSuoHzlI

Donald Trump is a dangerous racist sob. How can he be allowed to continue his campaign? It’s payback time? Who is he going to pay back? And for what? The country electing a black Potus? This is scary. It will not end well.

Source: Donald Trump: I love this country. We’re going to make our country great again.It’s payback time! It’s payback time! | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Avian Flu Diary: FDA On Proposed Oxitec Mosquito Trials In The Florida Keys – Que  this is the end, my friends?

{Mosquitoes are not pests! They are one of nature’s vectors for passing on diseases whose purposes are to rebalance unbalanced ecologies or ecologies that have been dramatically disturbed. Most of the imbalances are caused by human expansion into new areas, deforestation, and industrialized monocultures of grains, fruits, vegetables. The really bad news? If we zap this vector rather than adjust how we disrupt the environment, another vector will take its place with perhaps a more deadly disease.}

Now, with the spread of Dengue, CHIKV and Zika in the Americas – along with the growing degree of insectacide resistance around the world – suddenly GM mosquitoes, Wolbachia, and other novel control methods are getting a lot of attention again.

Source: Avian Flu Diary: FDA On Proposed Oxitec Mosquito Trials In The Florida Keys

Video: Donald Trump Encourages Violent Supporters & Vows To Ruin Protesters’ Lives: Gothamist

And because doubling down is something Trump is good at, he further encouraged the violent rhetoric with a tweet threat directed at Bernie Sanders this morning (see below). Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” he denied it was a threat, and instead deployed double-speak to argue that he “should get credit, not be scorned” for how he’s handled these “disruptions” from his enemies. In response to all that, Sanders told Tapper that his campaign “had nothing to do” with what happened in Chicago. “Even his Republican colleagues make this point: His language, his intonation, when he talks about carrying people out in stretchers…this is a man who keeps implying violence, and then you end up getting what you seek,” he said.

Source: Video: Donald Trump Encourages Violent Supporters & Vows To Ruin Protesters’ Lives: Gothamist

Germany and Russia – which deja vu?

The German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) is one of the institutions that, for some time, have been systematically researching real or alleged Russian influence in Germany and the EU. Already in September, the think tank had published an analysis, wherein it proposed that Russian media activities in the West, e.g. “Russia Today” or “Sputnik” be counteracted with a reinforcement of western programs in the East, such as the government financed “Deutsche Welle’s” Russian-language programs.[1] The struggle for influence must be systematically approached and the “analysis of the developments in Russia and the other post-Soviet countries,” comprehensively intensified. Recently a wide-ranging research was made on both Moscow’s policy and its sphere of influence during the cold war. According to the DGAP, “national research must be reinforced” in the study of the Soviet Union’s successor states, not only by think tanks, but even “at universities.” For this, a better “pan-EU … coordination of the various research institutions” is needed. The DGAP leaves no doubt that it is on the lookout for all sorts of channels of Russian influence. Not least among its objectives is the disclosure of Russia’s networks, its financial flows and its economic relations within the EU.”[2]

Source: www.german-foreign-policy.com

McGraw-Hill destroys textbook to placate pro-Israel bloggers | The Electronic Intifada

Given the highly politicized nature of all discussion related to Palestine in the United States, the definition of who is an “independent academic” would vary widely depending on the perspective of who is making the assessment. And if the “experts” are indeed independent, they should be willing to provide an explanation of how and why they deemed the maps to be inaccurate. The only way that McGraw-Hill’s credibility can be assessed is with some transparency about the groups or “experts” who made this recommendation. Otherwise, we are left to assume that McGraw-Hill is effectively burning books to placate the censorship demands of right-wing anti-Palestinian bigots.

Source: McGraw-Hill destroys textbook to placate pro-Israel bloggers | The Electronic Intifada

Woman arrested in France for T-shirt critical of Israel | The Electronic Intifada

The feminist collective 8 Mars Pour TouTEs denounced the arrest and pledged support for the activist and for the BDS movement. The arrest was evidence of the “criminalization of political struggles,” the group said, vowing to mount strong solidarity in response to “the police state and political and racist repression.” The left-wing grouping Ensemble has condemned the arrest, describing it as a consequence of the “security climate” in France. The Palestine solidarity group BDS France noted that the day after the arrest, Prime Minister Manuel Valls told a dinner hosted by the Israel lobby group CRIF that “anti-Zionism is nothing more than a synonym for anti-Semitism and the hatred of Israel.” “Today, politicians who support the Israeli apartheid regime are out of arguments,” BDS France said in a statement. “They conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and terrorism, and take all the Jews of the world hostage, stubbornly insisting that they become accomplices of the war crimes and apartheid of a state which is foreign to them,” BDS France added. The campaign group said that with the growing global success of BDS, “a nonviolent, anti-racist citizen movement for the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people,” Israel and its allies in the French government had no recourse but to try to smear it as anti-Semitic. Court rulings and government decrees have outlawed calls to boycott Israeli goods, prompting defiance from French civil society. Undeterred BDS France is also vowing not to fold under government repression.

Source: Woman arrested in France for T-shirt critical of Israel | The Electronic Intifada

Historic moment for Brazil′s left as Workers′ Party rallies around Lula | Americas | DW.COM | 12.03.2016

For many political analysts, Lula’s questioning by police, who used “coercive conduction” to order his cooperation, gave his party fresh stimulus. “It’s a major development for Brazil’s politics, a turning point in the history of the Workers’ Party and for the future of the left wing in South America,” said Gabriel Petrus, political analyst in Brasilia with Barral M Jorge consulting firm. Supporters have rallied behind Lula “When you see Lula defending himself on TV, it’s kind of Lula’s revival. He’s not telling the people ‘I’m untouchable,’ but he’s telling people, ‘I’m the victim of this process.'” Lula’s response to his interrogation was swift: Within hours, he was at the Workers’ Party headquarters, and within a day, the president was at his side as the pair greeted supporters from the balcony of his house. “For the first time, he’s now at the front of the stage, and who is backstage? Dilma Rousseff. She flew to Sao Bernardo do Campo to see Lula. Normally, Lula would fly to Brasilia,” Petrus added.

Source: Historic moment for Brazil′s left as Workers′ Party rallies around Lula | Americas | DW.COM | 12.03.2016

A Texas Candidate Pushes the Boundary of the Far Right – The New York Times

Ms. Bruner’s anti-Obama, anti-Islam, anti-evolution and anti-gay Facebook posts have generated national headlines and turned an obscure school board election into a glimpse of the outer limits of Texas politics. In a part of the state dominated by conservative Christians and Tea Party activists, Ms. Bruner’s candidacy has posed a question no one can answer with any certainty — how far to the fringe is too far for Texas Republicans? Ms. Bruner was a relative political newcomer when she started her campaign to represent a 31-county section of northern East Texas on the 15-member board that sets curriculum standards, reviews and adopts textbooks, and establishes graduation requirements in Texas public schools. Because of the board’s clout in selecting textbooks for all of the state’s schools, it can influence the content of textbooks produced nationwide. Here in Ms. Bruner’s hometown, Mineola, and elsewhere in intensely conservative East Texas, her views fit a widely accepted anti-Obama and conspiracy friendly antigovernment mind-set. Inside Kitchens Hardware and Deli, the combination hardware store and diner where Mr. Clark was eating, a sign on a shelf read, “Hillary for Prison 2016.” A woman in a nearby store who declined to give her name said she would not hold Ms. Bruner’s Facebook posts against her, and spoke at length about her belief that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 was a government-staged hoax.

Source: A Texas Candidate Pushes the Boundary of the Far Right – The New York Times