The European Union (EU) yesterday said it had no intention to cut its financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA).
“The EU will continue to support the PA to enable it to perform its role in the Palestinian territories and fulfill its duties to the Palestinian people,” the EU’s communication officer in Jerusalem, Shadi Othman, told reporters, explaining that Europe was the “largest international financial supporter to the Palestinian people.”
Othman added that the EU was encouraging the PA “to take the tax revenues from Israel.” “This is a Palestinian right, but this has nothing to do with the financial support that the union provides for the Palestinians,” he stressed.
Israel’s Walla news site recently reported that the EU had warned it would cut its aid to the Palestinians if the PA continued to refuse “tax revenues clearance through Israel.”
Friday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) responded to religious groups filing separate federal lawsuits against him over his new restrictions limiting attendance at religious gatherings amid a spike in cases in some New York City neighborhoods.
Cuomo told “CNN Newsroom” acknowledged that it is a “complicated” situation because of different cultural aspects, but said that everyone has to “follow the rules,” no matter their religion.
“They are not following the rules. We know what happens when you don’t follow the rules: the infection rate goes up,” Cuomo advised. “And it just proves our point from the get-go. We know how to control the virus, but you have to control the virus. You have to be disciplined. And when you don’t follow the rules, it goes up. And that’s what’s happening in these very small clusters. Now, these are religious groups, it tends to get more complicated, frankly, because of some cultural aspects. But that’s what we’re seeing in New York.”
“The cluster is a predominantly ultra-orthodox cluster,” he continued. “The Catholic schools are closed because they happen to be in that cluster, but the issue is with that ultra-orthodox community. This is not a matter of religious freedom, right? I don’t care if you’re a Roman Catholic, you’re Jewish, you’re Muslim, you’re an atheist, you have to follow the rules of the state, the laws of the state. And I understand the beliefs of the ultra-orthodox, I’ve been very close to them all my life. I’m a big supporter of theirs, but they have to follow the rules, Jim, because we’re seeing the truth. And the truth is if you don’t follow the rules, the infection rate spreads, people get sick, and then you make others sick. You know, we’re talking about Brooklyn. We’re not talking about a hermetically sealed community in a rural area. This is in the middle of Brooklyn. They will make other people sick.”
A letter calling for the removal of a faculty member was sent to President Carmen Twillie Ambar yesterday, alleging that the professor participated in covering up the Iranian regime’s 1988 mass killing of political prisoners. The letter was written by human rights activists Kaveh Shahrooz and Lawdan Bazargan and is signed by 56 family members of the victims and former political prisoners, as well as 577 other signatories. The faculty member, Professor of Religion and Nancy Schrom Dye Chair in Middle East and North African Studies Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, denies these allegations.
Prior to coming to Oberlin, Mahallati served as Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1987-1989. In their letter, Shahrooz and Bazargan say that the Iranian regime was particularly violent during this period, killing over 3,800 people who had been imprisoned without fair trial for their political or religious beliefs during the summer of 1988.
The letter claims that Mahallati lied to the U.N. about the ongoing human rights violations in Iran, preventing the international community from responding and thereby enabling the country to continue committing atrocities. However, Mahallati says that he had no knowledge that the Iranian regime was committing these crimes.
“The accusers fail to provide a single solid document as evidence of my actual knowledge of these incidents,” Mahallati wrote in his statement to the Review. “With no concrete evidence, they infer that I must have been informed and intentionally denied these atrocities. I categorically deny any knowledge and therefore responsibility regarding mass executions in Iran when I was serving at the United Nations.”
Shahrooz and Bazargan’s letter contradicts Mahallati’s statement and asserts that Amnesty International activists advised diplomats and other authorities of the human rights abuses and called on them to take a stand.
“Amnesty activists sent thousands of telegrams, telexes, and letters to the head of Iran’s Supreme Court, the Minister of Justice, and the diplomatic representatives of Iran in their respective countries urging ‘the condemnation of all outstanding death sentences and an end to executions in Iran,’” Shahrooz and Bazargan write. “As such, we submit that it would be impossible to believe that any senior leader in Iran, and certainly not its UN Ambassador, was unaware of the atrocity unfolding across that country.”
According to a 1989 report by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Mahallati, serving as Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the U.N., denied reports of executions from the previous year.
“The Permanent Representative referred to the alleged wave of executions mentioned in the interim report and denied the allegations,” the report states. “He indicated that many killings had in fact occurred on the battlefield, in the context of the war, following the invasion of the Islamic Republic of Iran by the organization called the National Liberation Army.”
Mahallati maintains that he was unaware of the crimes while in his role as ambassador.
“I was in New York the entire summer of 1988, focusing on peacemaking between Iran and Iraq and did not receive any briefing regarding executions,” Mahallati wrote. “There was not a single communication from Tehran to Iran’s UN embassy informing Iranian diplomats of those incidents.”
Shahrooz replied to Mahallati’s letter earlier this afternoon.
“He is on the record denying [to the U.N. that] the executions were taking place, calling the allegations ‘nothing but propaganda,’” Shahrooz wrote in a Twitter post at 3 p.m. today. “When presented with evidence of a massacre taking place in real time by his government, a responsible diplomat who cares about human rights would first indicate that he has not been briefed on the allegations and then seek unbiased sources of information. … Mr. Mahallati’s behavior was not that of a man who is uninformed, but one who is involved in a cover-up of mass murder.”
Shahrooz believes that Mahallati’s alleged inaction in 1988 has had lasting impacts.
“Unfortunately, I think the consequences of his actions have been the desecration of the memory of thousands of people needlessly killed,” Shahrooz said. “As Amnesty International notes, this crime against humanity continues — family members that live in Iran are still not allowed to speak about their loved ones. They’re still not allowed to gather. They still don’t know where their loved ones are buried. And I think there’s a direct line between the lies told with the United Nations and the actions of the Iranian government still to this day.”
Mahallati stands by his work as a diplomat, and states that his record shows the strides he made to broker peace between Iran and Iraq.
“During my short-lived ambassadorial position (1987-1989), I was focused on peacemaking efforts to end the Iran-Iraq War, the most prolonged and devastating war in modern history,” Mahallati wrote. “The U.N. and public media records unequivocally demonstrate that in encouraging peace between my country and Iraq, I went beyond my mandate and was the very first Iranian official who publicly announced Iran’s acceptance of the U.N.’s Security Council resolution 598 for peace. … My accusers overlook these well-documented peacemaking efforts and the fact that I risked my ambassadorial position for that purpose. ”
Following the Security Council resolution for peace, the U.N. report reflected Mahallati’s position that the government should move to address human rights.
“The Permanent Representative indicated that, since the cease-fire had been achieved in the war with Iraq, his Government was in a better position to turn its attention to the question of human rights,” the report states.
Mahallati has worked at Oberlin since 2007 and specializes in Islamic and peace studies. He founded the Friendship Initiative to promote international, interfaith, and intercultural justice and peace and hosts the Oberlin Friendship Festival annually.
“I have dedicated my life to researching, teaching, and writing about peace and friendship,” Mahallati wrote. “All my scholarly and artistic works in English, Persian, and Arabic focus on international and interpersonal peace and friendship. These pursuits are where I will continue to focus my energies, in the hope of contributing to a better world.”
Shahrooz and the other signatories, including Iranian human rights activist Masih Alinejad and author Azar Nafisi, called for his termination by the College because they think that his previous actions are antithetical to the College’s values.
“At the moment our plan really is just to bring attention and appeal to the better angels at Oberlin and to hold up their vision statement and their values and say that the continuing employment of this man at your university is inconsistent with those values,” Shahrooz said.
The College has stated that they are in touch with Mahallati to gather further information.
The European Parliament passed a bill on Thursday condemning Saudi Arabia over human rights concerns and called on the European Union to boycott a G20 Leaders’ summit set to take place in Riyadh later this year.
The vote is the latest in a series of measures passed by the body rebuking Saudi Arabia for issues from its detention of Ethiopian migrants in appalling conditions to its leading role in the war in Yemen and the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The resolution was put forward in order to “avoid legitimising impunity for human rights violations and ongoing illegal and arbitrary detentions in Saudi Arabia”.
The bill also calls on Saudi Arabia to accept and care for Yemeni refugees, end migrant deportations, allow investigations into human rights violations, abolish the Kafala system and declare a moratorium on death sentences.
The bill may mean that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council Charles Michel will not attend November’s virtual summit in Riyadh.
The EU, alongside three of its member states – Germany, France, and Italy – is a full member of the G20 and an economic power in the group.
Saudi Arabia is the first Arab nation to host the G20, a group of the world’s biggest economies that meets annually to discuss international financial stability.
EXCLUSIVE: Sadiq Khan reverses decision to take part in Saudi G20 mayors summit
Read More »
The kingdom had planned to use the summit next month to showcase the ambitious modernisation drive of de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose international reputation has been tarnished by Khashoggi’s murder.
Still, the coronavirus pandemic forced the summit to go virtual, dashing Riyadh’s hopes of showing off its latest modernisation projects.
The call to diminish attendance at the summit comes amid a similar move by the mayors of major world cities, including New York, to forgo their attendance of a G20 virtual conference hosted by Riyadh.
The mayors of New York, Paris, Los Angeles and London have all declined to participate in the conference.
The human rights issues listed in Thursday’s parliament resolution included the “horrific plight” of Ethiopian migrants detained in Saudi prisons, the ongoing incarceration of dissident blogger Raif Badawi and women’s rights campaigners including Loujain al-Hathloul.
It also highlighted the “arbitrary” detention of multiple Saudi royal family members, including Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz and Princess Basmah bint Saud.
In a letter addressed to the Saudi crown prince, Belgian lawmaker Marc Tarabella appealed for the release of Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz, who has been detained along with his ageing father since January 2018.
“lt is clear… that their current deprivation of liberty is arbitrary, and amounts to a violation of Saudi domestic and international obligations,” Tarabella wrote in the letter, seen by AFP, which was dated 29 September.
“As such, I urge you to immediately and unconditionally release Salman bin Abdulaziz Saud and (his father) Abdulaziz bin Salman.”
Tarabella, vice chairman of the parliament’s delegation for relations with the Arabian peninsula, has sent similar appeals to Saudi authorities in the past but received no response, the parliament source told said.
… Reuters) – Britain and the European Union have agreed to pursue … 47;post-brexit-britain-and-eu-agree-to-pursue-mini-deals … -8b7jrrjc8 reported on Saturday. European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier … deadline of the Oct. 15 EU summit for a deal, …
Contribution by Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
10 October 2020
The pandemic is driving up government debt throughout the world. In the euro area, it is set to exceed 100% of GDP, a level that is, however, still below that of many advanced economies. In Germany especially, many observers are concerned about this development. They consider it a threat to the independence of the European Central Bank (ECB), fearing that “fiscal dominance” may induce it to deviate from its monetary policy objectives, endangering price stability. The purchases of sovereign bonds, which began in 2015 and were stepped up amid the pandemic, are sometimes even described as monetary financing, which is prohibited under the European Treaties.
These criticisms don’t stand up to the facts. Neither is the ECB pursuing a policy of “financial repression” – it is not keeping interest rates low to make it easier for governments to finance their debt – nor have its asset purchases disabled the price discovery mechanism in financial markets. The ECB gears its monetary policy to its price stability mandate, not to the indebtedness of Member States.
The euro has been built on the principle of “monetary dominance”: the ECB’s objectives are solely determined by its mandate as defined in the European Treaties. This principle is buttressed by far-reaching political independence, the prohibition of monetary financing of public debt and a comprehensive fiscal framework.
Is the rising public debt jeopardising this independence? Empirical research refutes this idea. There is no evidence of a systematic feedback loop from sovereign debt developments to monetary policy decisions.
The public debt ratio in the euro area is notably lower than it would have been in the absence of the bond purchases. However, this primarily reflects the positive effects of monetary policy measures on economic growth, whereas the impact through lower interest rate expenses has been comparatively small. Without the measures taken since March, growth up to the end of 2022 would be around 1.3 percentage points lower. By contrast, history shows that financial repression would dampen economic growth.
Moreover, a monetary financing of public debt would be expected to raise inflation expectations – as was the case in the 1970s. The ECB is faced with the opposite scenario: expectations remain well below our inflation aim of below, but close to, 2%.
Also, in financial markets, yields in the euro area continue to noticeably react to risk factors. The risk premium on Italian sovereign bonds is higher today than when purchases started in 2015, and risk premia soared significantly during the political turbulence in 2018. The market’s price discovery mechanism continues to function primarily because most of the government bonds remain in the hands of investors other than the Eurosystem. And this has not changed during the pandemic.
Nevertheless, financial markets can be gripped by panic, as was the case, for instance, when the pandemic first spread. Self-fulfilling price spirals then endanger the stability of financial markets. In such situations, central banks must act quickly to restore trust. Through generous liquidity provision, the market can find its way back to a “good” equilibrium and can again function smoothly.
But would it not make sense to take on less public debt today to protect the ECB’s independence in the longer term? In fact, the opposite is true, as the interaction between monetary and fiscal policy has changed in the low interest rate environment.
Many central banks have seen their room for manoeuvre curtailed over the past few years. As policy rates are already very low, monetary policy must increasingly turn to “unconventional” measures, such as asset purchases, to fulfil its mandate. This is primarily caused by structural changes to the economy, an ageing society, global excess savings and low productivity growth. These factors have led to a marked decline in the euro area’s real equilibrium interest rate – the rate that balances investment and savings.
In this environment, fiscal policy gains importance. The decisive fiscal policy intervention in the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis strengthens the effectiveness of monetary policy and mitigates the long-term costs of the pandemic. With targeted, forward-looking investment, not least under the umbrella of the EU Recovery Fund, governments can foster sustainable growth, increase long-term competitiveness and facilitate the necessary reduction of the debt ratio once the crisis has been overcome. This would also afford the ECB more room for manoeuvre in the future, which would even strengthen its independence.
This contribution first appeared as an opinion piece in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on 10 October 2020.
Fishing rights have been one of the main sticking points in Brexit negotiations between the European Union and the United Kingdom since March. Yet neither side appears ready to concede, despite mounting fears within the fishing industry over the consequences of a “no-deal” exit.
</p><div readability="206.90366972477">
<div class="m-interstitial">
<div data-readmore-target="" class="m-interstitial__ad">
<div class="m-block-ad " data-tms-ad-type="box" data-tms-ad-status="idle" data-tms-ad-pos="1">
<div class="m-block-ad__label m-block-ad__label--report-enabled">
<span class="m-block-ad__label__text">Advertising</span>
<button title="Report this ad" class="m-block-ad__label__report-link" rel="noopener" data-tms-ad-report=""><svg xmlns="https://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="26.077" height="16.107" viewbox="0 0 26.077 16.107"><g transform="translate(1.325 0.5)"><path d="M6.669,15.107a1.5,1.5,0,0,1-1.5-1.5V10.184H0L5.169,5.637V1.5A1.5,1.5,0,0,1,6.669,0H22.752a1.5,1.5,0,0,1,1.5,1.5V13.607a1.5,1.5,0,0,1-1.5,1.5Z" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="1"/><g transform="translate(29.422 15.107) rotate(-180)"><path d="M-2119.5-2724.245v7.84" transform="translate(2134.21 2729.348)" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2"/><path d="M-2119.5-2732v1.732" transform="translate(2134.21 2734.165)" fill="none" stroke="currentColor" stroke-width="2"/></g></g></svg></button>
</div>
With less than a week to go before a decisive European Council meeting on the future of EU-UK relations, it looks as though ongoing tensions over fishing rights could threaten to scupper an eventual agreement.
“If we want a deal, we need to reach an agreement on fishing. We need a compromise that we could float to the United Kingdom as part of a total agreement,” Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said on Wednesday.
The issue is of particular importance to a handful of EU member states, including France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland and Denmark.
The EU initially hoped to maintain access to British waters — which have an abundance of fish — post-Brexit transition, which ends on December 31, 2020. But the United Kingdom wants to limit access and renegotiate fishing rights every year, a point the EU has refused to cede.
Although the fishing industry represents just 0.1 percent of the United Kingdom’s GDP, the British government has used it as leverage in negotiations, holding it up as a symbol of the possible effects of Brexit.
An uncertain future
Fishermen in the northern French town of Boulogne-sur-Mer are particularly worried about the deal. Home to France’s largest fishing port, Brexit is on everyone’s mind there.
“I spent all of last week in English waters. If there’s a ‘no deal’, I won’t be able to go there anymore,” fisherman Pierre Leprêtre told AFP.
Leprêtre explained that 70 to 80 percent of his income comes from fish caught in British waters. “If we can’t go fishing [there], we might as well close up shop,” he said.
“The entire French coast is a fish nursery area. As the fish grow, they head out to sea, which is why we fish in British waters: we want to catch adult fish,” Leprêtre said.
The scientific community has largely agreed with Leprêtre’s assessment of the situation, explaining that it is a common phenomenon in the North Sea, a shallow stretch of the Atlantic Ocean that separates the British isles and mainland Europe.
“The south of the sea is not very deep, but very sandy, therefore many fish have the following cycle: the adults lay their eggs in the central or nothern waters, the eggs are then carried to the south of the North Sea and settle along the coast from France to as far as Denmark,” Clara Ulrich, deputy head of science at the French Institute for Ocean Science (Institut français de recherche pour l’exploitation de la mer or Ifremer), told AFP.
“When fish reach adulthood, they leave for the deeper, colder, more populated and oxygenated waters of the north. It also allows them to lay their eggs upstream of the current, that way the eggs can be transported to the friendlier southern waters of the North Sea,” she added.
According to Ulrich, it is a natural cycle that shows no sign of changing in the future. “For some species, climate change and overfishing have only accentuated this phenomenon,” she said.
Such is the case for cod and flounder, two of the most common fish species in the North Sea.
“Other species, however, such as sole — which is more common in southern waters — or haddock and pollock — which are more common in the north — appear less imbalanced,” Ulrich said.
Fears of ‘overexploiting resources’
Ulrich’s comments echoed the fears of many fishermen in France.
“If access to British waters is closed, everyone’s going to wind up on the French side, and there will be a major cohabitation problem,” Leprêtre said.
To avoid “overexploiting resources”, Leprêtre’s uncle, Olivier, who is director of a fishing committee in the northern Hauts-de-France region, suggested divvying up international waters until another solution can be found.
“[In the event of a no-deal Brexit], I think it’s only fair that everyone sticks to their own waters until future relations can be negotiated,” Olivier Leprêtre said. “That means, French waters for the French, Belgian waters for the Belgians, etc.”
In Boulogne-sur-Mer, there are already concerns over the growing appetite of Dutch fishermen, whom Pierre Leprêtre described as the “undertakers” of natural resources because of their obsession with “numbers, numbers and numbers”.
“The Dutch feel more at home than we do in Boulogne,” said one of Leprêtre’s deckhands, Christopher (who declined to give his last name). “Once they’ve fished everything in the Channel, then they’ll go somewhere else.”
In comparison, relations between French fishermen and their British peers have been relatively smooth.
“It works well on the whole. Well, we make sure that things work,” Leprêtre said. “We have WhatsApp groups [with the British], so they can tell us where their fishing spots are.”
That way, the French know which areas they should avoid, and where they are free to fish.
Longstanding ‘political dynamite’
Fishing rights have long been a longstanding source of tension between Europe and the United Kingdom. The issue first emerged as a stumbling block nearly 50 years ago, when the UK entered talks to join what was then known as the European Community (EC).
“Only eight hours after accession talks had begun on 30 June 1970, the British got an unwelcome surprise: the six EC members had agreed to have a common fisheries policy (CFP), hammering out a speedy deal that had eluded them for 12 years just as fish-rich Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway were knocking at the door,” the Guardian reported in a recent article on fishing rights.
Norway even went so far as to refuse entry into the bloc over fishing rights.
“The question of fisheries was economic peanuts, but political dynamite,” the late Sir Con O’Neill, UK’s chief negotiator at the time, wrote of the negotiations.
Nearly half a century later, it would appear little has changed.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
This article was translated from the original in French by Rachel Holman.
There have been calls for far-right Greek MEP to be “excluded from all democratic processes” in the European Parliament.
Ioannis Lagos, one of the leaders of the Golden Dawn political party, was this week found guilty of running it as a criminal organisation.
He faces five to 15 years in prison and some of his fellow MEPs are calling for the European Parliament to exclude him.
The institution, responding to calls to remove Lagos’ parliamentary immunity, said it would only do so once it had received formal notification from the Greek authorities. But this process can be quite lengthy, so one Greek MEP is calling on parliament president David Sassoli to take action and exclude him now.
“This is a landmark decision and Pavlos Fyssas [a rapper murdered by a member of Golden Dawn, which formed part of the trial] was the symbol and a wake up call for all,” Nick Androulakis, a Greek MEP, told Euronews.
“A symbol that mobilises all the liberal democratic forces of Europe and a symbolic decision has to be made by the [European Parliament] president Sassoli, which will exclude Lagos from all the democratic processes.
“It’s unacceptable that Lagos has the same rights as every democratically elected MEP, being himself a member of this criminal gang as the justice has decided.”
Founded as a Nazi-inspired group in the 1980s, Golden Dawn remained on the far fringes of politics until Greece’s brutal, near-decade-long financial crisis that began in 2009.
It grew in support to eventually become the country’s third-largest party. Considered a model for many extreme-right groups in Europe and beyond, it won parliamentary seats in four elections from 2012 until 2019, when its popularity plummeted and it failed to elect any legislators.
The trial against party lawmakers, members and supporters was sparked by the 2013 fatal stabbing of left-wing Greek rapper Pavlos Fyssas and encompassed another three cases: physical attacks against Egyptian fishermen in 2012 and on left-wing activists in 2013, and whether Golden Dawn was operating as a criminal organisation.
Giorgos Roupakias, accused of being a party supporter who delivered the fatal stab wounds to Fyssas, was found guilty of murder, possession and use of a weapon, and faces a potential life sentence. Fifteen others — none of them former lawmakers — were convicted as accomplices.
She explained that the World Food Program received the award “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas. And for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”
The prestigious award announced in Oslo comes with a gold medal and prize money of 10 million Swedish kronor or 1.1 million dollars. It is courtesy of a bequest left 124 years ago by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.
The U.N. agency’s spokesperson Tomson Phiri views the Nobel Peace Prize as recognition of those struggling to prevent starvation around the world. “This is a proud moment. The nomination in itself was enough. But to then go on and be named the Nobel Peace Prize winner is nothing short of a feat,” he told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.
“This is an organization I have served for nine years. I have seen the extent to which the people who are dedicated across the globe go the extra mile. Just before I moved to Geneva, I was based in South Sudan, where people would walk on foot to serve humanity. And it’s really a proud moment. I really feel honored to be a member of this,” he added.
Whether on foot, by helicopter, or on the back of an elephant or a camel, the World Food Program says its deliveries are crucial as the world is in turmoil. It estimates that an estimated 690 million people – one in 11 – go to bed on an empty stomach.
Global hunger
Despite making progress over the past three decades, the U.N. agency appears unable to realize the United Nations’ goal to eradicate hunger by 2030. Wars and other conflicts continue to ravage parts of the world.
And experts warn that coronavirus measures such as lockdowns also negatively impact impoverished nations where many lost jobs and are without social support.
The U.N. estimates that the global recession caused by the COVID-19 crisis pushed an additional 83 to 132 million people into hunger. Women and children are usually those most at risk.
Organizers say the coronavirus outbreak will also affect the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony on December 10 in Oslo. The gathering in the Norwegian capital has been scaled back due to COVID-19 restrictions.
This is the 12th time the Peace Prize has gone to the U.N., one of its agencies or personalities – more than any other laureate.
