by YOAV LITVIN

From West Bank real estate ads to violent expulsions and ethnic cleansing, the theft of Palestinian land is key to the Zionist project, writes Yoav Litvin.

The marketing of ‘Anglo neighbourhoods’ in the occupied West Bank at real estate events in synagogues in Toronto, Los Angeles, New Jersey, and other locations wouldn’t be out of place 30 years ago in apartheid South Africa or Rhodesia. But perhaps that’s the point. 

Branded ‘Anglo Neighbourhoods’, the marketing of illegal settlement real estate in the Israeli-occupied West Bank primarily target Zionist Jews from the US, Canada and the rest of the English-speaking West.

Corporate real estate investment by companies both within and outside Israel have long been integral to settlement policies, with new developments reinforcing this trend. 

A Human Rights Watch report reveals how Israeli and international companies build, finance, service and market settlement communities. Settlement businesses thrive on Israel’s unlawful confiscation of Palestinian land and resources, supporting the growth and functioning of settlements.

These businesses, from real estate to construction, benefit from Israel’s discriminatory policies in planning, zoning, land allocation and access to natural resources, financial incentives, utilities and infrastructure.

These policies displace Palestinians and disadvantage them compared to settlers. Consequently, the Palestinian economy suffers, forcing many Palestinians to work in settlements; a dependency used to justify settlement businesses.

But the sale of real estate in stolen land, while outrageous, is not surprising. It is just a recent tactic in a longstanding systematic problem that is now escalating beyond the point of no-return.

The establishment and expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem are widely recognised as violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.

These initiatives accurately encapsulate the function of Zionism in Palestine as a settler colonialist, capitalist and white supremacist movement which opportunistically and antisemitically coopts Judaism to justify its criminal practices of apartheid and genocide against Indigenous Palestinians.

Its strategy, tactics, and goals focus on land grabs and demographic dominance, utilising both official state-sponsored and unofficial methods, such as corporate real estate.

Official colonisation of Palestine

Contrary to the Zionist movement’s duplicitous claims that Palestine was largely uninhabited, Zionist leaders have recognised the necessity of assuming control over Indigenous Palestinian land to realise their exclusivist goals.

For this purpose, they’ve applied a variety of tactics orchestrated by official and unofficial state actors, ranging from peaceful appropriation within questionable legal confines to genocidal aggression.

Numerous official acts of genocide have been executed through deliberate warfare. A defining genocidal episode in Israel’s establishment, during the Palestinian Nakba, was Plan Dalet, a military initiative orchestrated by the Haganah under David Ben-Gurion’s leadership.

Further genocidal bouts of “mowing the lawn,” have demonstrated the Zionist settler colonial dynamic since Israel’s establishment to this day. 

The current Israeli government has enhanced its military aggression and prioritised illegal settlement construction, bolstered by the presence of several far-right ministers residing in illegal West Bank settlements.

Indeed, since the departure of former Defense Minister Benny Gantz from Israel’s emergency war cabinet amid disagreements over the Gaza war strategy and the return of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, Netanyahu has increasingly leaned on far-right factions within his coalition government.

In April 2024, the government expanded its control over West Bank land, setting the stage for unprecedented levels of settlement construction. At present, Israel’s Supreme Planning Council is poised to discuss proposals for 6,016 new housing units in West Bank settlements, underscoring the ongoing expansionist policies of the Netanyahu administration. 

New Arab for more

by ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Beating up on neocons used to be a specialize sport without wide appeal. With all due false modesty I offer myself as an early practitioner.

Beating up on neocons used to be a specialize sport without wide appeal. With all due false modesty I offer myself as an early practitioner. Back in the mid-to-late-1970s, when I had a weekly column in the Village Voice, I used to have rich sport with that apex neocon, Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary. I nicknamed him Norman the Frother and freighted him with so many gibes that he made the mistake of publicly denouncing me in his magazine, exclaiming that “Cockburn’s weekly pieces have set a new standard of gutter journalism in this country,” a testimonial I still proudly feature on the back of my books.

The neocons’ political hero in those days was Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, much venerated in Israel and the corporate offices of Boeing for his ardor and constancy in sluicing US taxpayers’ money into their treasuries. But instead they got Jimmy Carter, who, on a couple of occasions, was downright rude to Menachem Begin. So the neocons abandoned the Democrats and threw in their lot with Ronald Reagan.

Now here we are on the downslope of 2003 and George Bush is learning, way too late for his own good, that the neocons have been matchlessly wrong about everything. The neocons told Bush that eviction of Saddam would rearrange the chairs in the Middle East, to America’s advantage. Wrong. They (I’m talking about Wolfowitz’s team of mad Straussians at DoD) told him that there was irrefutable proof of the existence of weapons of mass destruction inside Iraq. Wrong. They told him it would unlock the door to a peaceful settlement in Israel. Wrong. They told him that Ahmed Chalabi had street cred in Iraq. Wrong. They told him it would be easy to install a US regime in Baghdad and make the place hum quietly along, like Lebanon in the 1950s. Wrong.

And of course the neocons, who have never forgiven the UN for Resolutions 242 and 338 (bad for Israel), told Bush that he should tell the UN to take its charter and shove it. Bush, who appreciates simple words and simple thoughts, took their advice, and on Sunday night had it served up to him by his speechwriters as crow, which he methodically ate in his eighteen-minute speech, saying the UN has an important role in Iraq.

Now many are gloating at the neocons’ discomfiture and waiting for their downfall. Click go Madame Defarge’s knitting needles as she waits beside the guillotine. Here come the tumbrels, inching their way slowly through the rotting cabbages and vulgar ribaldry of Republican isolationists. Here’s a palefaced Douglas Feith. Up goes the fatal blade, and down it flashes. Behold, the head of a neocon! The next tumbrel carries a weightier cargo: Richard Perle and Elliott Abrams. Still not enough. Madame Defarge knits on, and her patience is soon rewarded. Here come Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, the latter defiantly jotting a coda to Rumsfeld’s Rules. They are swiftly dispatched and the crowd moves off to torch The Weekly Standard and string up its editor, Bill Kristol.

Maybe not all of them, but some neocon will surely pay the price for dropping Bush’s approval rating into the mid-50s. But will the basic neocon line, dominant for so long in Washington, suffer a dent? Not in any fundamental way. To appreciate this, one has only to look at the current posture of prominent Democrats. Are they glorying in Bush’s embarrassment and the humiliating and costly disaster for the United States consequent upon its attack on Iraq? Take Senator Joe Biden. His immediate reaction to Bush’s speech on Sunday was to insist that the President would need, and should get, more money than the $87 billion requested by the White House.

Then Biden gave the neocons a lesson in how to pay lip service to internationalism and “our allies”: “What we need isn’t the death of internationalism or the denial of our stark national interest. What I want to talk about today is a more enlightened nationalism that understands the value of international institutions but supports the use of military force–without apology or hesitation–when we must.”

Study the zigzag rhetoric of Howard Dean and you find the same essential approach, though Dean has just outraged the neocons by calling for an “evenhanded” US role in any resolution of the Palestinian issue (a posture he arrived at, please note, after taking fire from the left for being a whore for AIPAC). On February 20, Katha Pollitt’s antiwar candidate told Salon that “if the U.N. in the end chooses not to enforce its own resolutions, then the United States should give Saddam thirty to sixty days to disarm, and if he doesn’t, unilateral action is a regrettable, but unavoidable, choice.” The next day he said the UN had to do it. In June, at the Council on Foreign Relations, Dean said, “I would add at least 50,000 foreign troops to the force in Iraq. It is imperative that we bring the international community in to help stabilize Iraq. If I were President, I would reach out to NATO, to Arab and Islamic countries, to other friends to share the burden and the risks.” Dean has made trenchant criticisms of Bush’s rationale for the attack and of how it has been conducted, but he still proclaims, “Failure in Iraq is not an option.”

With the exception of Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun, no Democratic candidate is calling for anything other than that the United States “stay the course” in Iraq, with more money, more troops and, if possible, the political cover of the UN. Senator Kerry, who favored the US attack last spring, won’t commit himself to supporting the request for $87 billion but adds carefully, “I believe we must do what we need to do” to bring peace to Iraq. Edwards still justifies his support for Bush’s war. Don’t even ask about Lieberman. A few neocon heads may roll, but the policy won’t change. It’s fun to demonize the neocons and rejoice in their discomfiture, but don’t make the mistake of thinking US foreign policy was set by Norman Podhoretz or William Kristol. They’re the clowns capering about in front of the donkey and the elephant. The donkey says the UN should maybe clean up after them, and the elephant now says the donkey may have a point. Somebody has to come out with a dustpan and broom.

The Nation for more

by ELLEN O’REGAN

Sister universities VUB and ULB, as well as associated university hospital UZ Brussels, have strongly criticised comments about abortion made by Pope Francis on his flight home from Belgium on Sunday. They call on the Belgian government to ensure “consequences” for his statements.

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to Belgium over the Pope’s comments, which De Croo has said were “unacceptable”.

During an in-flight press conference on Sunday as the Pope flew from Brussels back to Rome (after a four-day visit to Belgium), the head of the Catholic Church labelled doctors who perform abortions as “hitmen”.

“On this you cannot argue. You are killing a human life,” the pontiff said. He also called Belgium’s late King Baudouin a “saint” for refusing to sign legislation legalising abortion in 1990. This unprecedented refusal required Baudouin abdicate for a day rather than to carry out the monarch’s formal function.

During a mass in King Baudouin Stadium on Sunday, the Pontiff confirmed that he would begin the beatification process for Belgium’s fifth King, a preliminary step needed before a deceased person can be canonised as a saint.

Visiting King Baudouin’s tomb on Saturday, Pope Francis sparked anger among civil organisations in Belgium when he spoke of Baudouin’s “courage” in not signing a “murderous” abortion law.

In an open letter published in De Standaard this week, VUB, ULB and UZ Brussels said that the Pope’s comments cannot be allowed to go “without consequences”.

“Freedom of speech is sacred to us, and the Holy See may also make use of it. But whoever makes slanderous accusations is no longer exercising freedom of speech, but is guilty of spreading hatred,” the letter reads.

Brussels Times for more

by CLAUDIA LOPEZ LLOREDA

Precision medicine relies on genetic data that’s lacking in Latin America — especially for Indigenous groups.

When Andres Moreno-Estrada began studying genetics back in the early 2000s, the high cost of sequencing DNA was the biggest barrier to understanding the role of genes in human health and disease. But with time, the problems shifted.

“Technology is no longer the limit,” said Moreno-Estrada, now a population geneticist at the National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity in Mexico. “Sequencing or getting genetic data is cheaper than before. The problem is in the unbalanced way this genetic information is being generated worldwide.” Researchers today rely on genetic data that’s disproportionately drawn from people with European ancestry, and mounting analyses suggest that their databases fail to capture the full scope of human genetic diversity. The result is a set of clinical tools that may not work as well for people whose ancestors lived outside of Europe.

Those issues are especially acute in Latin America, where new research suggests that more robust genetic data could allow physicians to better target certain medical treatments, especially for Indigenous groups.

At stake is the practice of precision or personalized medicine, which uses individual variability, including genes, to make decisions regarding diagnosis or treatments of health conditions. A certain medication, for example, may be highly effective for people carrying one version of a gene — but may not work, or could even be harmful, to people with another version. In an ideal world, physicians would simply find out which specific version of the gene each patient has, and then give them the right drug with the right dosage. In the absence of that kind of personalized data, they typically rely on other information, such as a patient’s ethnic identity, that allows them to make an informed guess about whether a particular genetic variant is likely to be present.

But when physicians don’t have detailed genetic information available for certain communities, they can’t make those kinds of informed guesses.

Consequently, communities that are underrepresented in these biobanks are left behind in terms of care, said Eduardo Tarazona-Santos, a human geneticist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. And labeling people as belonging to a broader group can miss subtle, important patterns in genetic variation that could help clinicians make better decisions.

A new analysis from Tarazona-Santos’ team, published in the journal Cell, highlights how certain populations thought to be homogenous differ in genes related to drug responses. The analysis revealed that Andean and Amazonian individuals in Peru, some coming from communities that are only about a hundred miles apart, tend to differ in key genes that influence how individuals metabolize and respond to heart medications.

Tarazona-Santos, who himself has Indigenous ancestry, is worried about the dearth of data. Certain genes, his team has found, don’t look the same even in Indigenous populations that are geographically close.

The paper examined samples from 294 individuals — some from the arid Andean highlands and some from the Amazon. They looked at genetic variants involved in responses to rosuvastatin and warfarin, two drugs that can be used to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, among other issues.

Undark for more

by JAMES L. FITZSIMMONS

The ancient Maya believed that everything in the universe, from the natural world to everyday experiences, was part of a single, powerful spiritual force. They were not polytheists who worshipped distinct gods but pantheists who believed that various gods were just manifestations of that force.

Some of the best evidence for this comes from the behavior of two of the most powerful beings of the Maya world: The first is a creator god whose name is still spoken by millions of people every fall – Huracán, or “Hurricane.” The second is a god of lightning, K’awiil, from the early first millennium C.E.

As a scholar of the Indigenous religions of the Americas, I recognize that these beings, though separated by over 1,000 years, are related and can teach us something about our relationship to the natural world.

Huracán, the ‘Heart of Sky’

Huracán was once a god of the K’iche’, one of the Maya peoples who today live in the southern highlands of Guatemala. He was one of the main characters of the Popol Vuh, a religious text from the 16th century. His name probably originated in the Caribbean, where other cultures used it to describe the destructive power of storms.

The K’iche’ associated Huracán, which means “one leg” in the K’iche’ language, with weather. He was also their primary god of creation and was responsible for all life on earth, including humans.

Because of this, he was sometimes known as U K’ux K’aj, or “Heart of Sky.” In the K’iche’ language, k’ux was not only the heart but also the spark of life, the source of all thought and imagination.

Yet, Huracán was not perfect. He made mistakes and occasionally destroyed his creations. He was also a jealous god who damaged humans so they would not be his equal. In one such episode, he is believed to have clouded their vision, thus preventing them from being able to see the universe as he saw it.

Huracán was one being who existed as three distinct persons: Thunderbolt Huracán, Youngest Thunderbolt and Sudden Thunderbolt. Each of them embodied different types of lightning, ranging from enormous bolts to small or sudden flashes of light.

The Conversation for more

by RAJU RAMGOPAL

Hindutva groups in the US are making false claims of widespread Hinduphobia, in an attempt to ‘compete’ with Islamophobia and antisemitism.

The narratives of victimhood being propagated by Hindutva supporters in the US are remarkably similar to those of White supremacists. In both cases, privileged groups are attempting to portray themselves as the real victims. In addition, Hindutva supporters see Zionists as useful allies in their effort to draw parallels between antisemitism and “Hinduphobia.”

These overlapping interests are being leveraged quite effectively by Hindu supremacists to push their agenda in the US in favor both of Hindu elites and the Narendra Modi government.

Their claims of widespread “Hinduphobia” are being given a sympathetic and sometimes apologetic hearing by many US lawmakers, interfaith groups and human rights organisations, which fail to look critically at the underlying data.

The victim card

Hindutva supporters have learnt from the Israel lobby how to play the victim card to accumulate political power disproportionate to their numbers. This has allowed them to convince US lawmakers and governors to support their regressive positions on matters like stopping legislation against caste discrimination.

More often than not, their policy positions are in sync with the Modi government and are designed to shield it from any criticism in the diaspora.

The most recent example is California’s Assembly Bill AB 3027 on transnational repression. The bill was introduced in response to the attempted assassination of an American Sikh leader, allegedly by operatives of the Indian government.

But the bill would also provide an improved sense of personal security to many Indian Americans who have taken a principled stand against the policies of the Modi government and are already facing repression of various sorts – for example, threats to Overseas Citizen of India privileges; blocking of social media accounts and baseless allegations spread by the BJP’s propaganda wing known as the IT Cell.

Of course, India has every right to defend itself against terrorism, but Modi’s recent statement doubling down on India’s right to assassinate adversaries overseas is being taken very seriously by human rights activists in the diaspora.

AB 3027 is currently stalled in the California Senate Appropriations Committee, and Hindutva groups like HinduACTion and the HAF are taking credit, calling it an “anti-Hindu venomous bill” that “implicitly targets Indian Americans”.

#BREAKING: We are glad to see that California’s #AB3027 bill on “transnational repression” has now failed to advance out of the Senate Appropriations Committee and is in suspension!

On August 6, CoHNA filed a formal letter of opposition detailing our concerns regarding the… pic.twitter.com/WV7tBwfVPs— CoHNA (Coalition of Hindus of North America) (@CoHNAOfficial) August 16, 2024

This baseless argument is very similar to the self-serving argument used by these groups to oppose SB 403 caste discrimination bill, which had sailed through the legislature, only to be vetoed by California Governor Gavin Newsom at the urging of a major donor to Democrats.

The fact of the matter is that the AB 3027 bill had received support from several law enforcement agencies, which recognise the need for state-level training to combat foreign governments’ repression tactics within the US. One would have thought that those worried about potential unfair targeting of Indian Americans would have welcomed such training.

Hindutva groups are clearly placing the interests of a foreign government over the safety and security of Californians.

Playing politics

Another self-victimisation strategy by Hindu supremacists is to claim that any criticism of Hindutva ideology is an attack on all Hindus and on India. This is very similar to the recent assertions by Zionists that any criticism of Israel is itself antisemitic.

However, in order to sustain the analogy with the Jewish community, they need to convince US lawmakers and the courts to view Hinduphobia on par with antisemitism and Islamophobia. To this end, they are busy with a spate of advocacy efforts to legitimise the notion that Hinduphobia is rampant in the US.

There is just one problem: there are only a handful of recent incidents that have been categorised as “anti-Hindu” by law enforcement. In fact, the Federal Bureau of Investigation consistently ranks anti-Hindu hate crimes at the lowest end of 30 or more communities tracked in its hate crimes statistics.

Even among those incidents, many recent ones are attributed to Khalistani separatists, who unfortunately choose Hindu temples as targets to send their political message to the Indian government.

In order to justify the claim of rampant Hinduphobia, organisations such as the Hindu American Foundation are now casting a much wider net by redefining “Hinduphobia” itself, contrary to the commonly understood definition of a phobia.

They have prepared a glossary of terms that they claim are “Hinduphobic,” which includes terms like Brahmanism, dual loyalty, exotic, model minority, Hindu fatalism, Hindutvadi, bhakt and savarna.

“When the spectrum of terms and tropes listed in this glossary are used regularly, over time, the perception of Hindus as grotesque, untrustworthy, bigoted, evil, or violent grows and generates greater and greater levels of danger to Hindus’ lives and wellbeing,” they explain.

They want ‘Hinduphobia’ recognized so they can use it as a tool to shut down discussions of caste and of human rights violations in India. It’s pure gaslighting.— Sonia Sikka (@SoniaSikka4) August 12, 2023

This a blatant attempt to censor honest dialogue in the community. For example, Dalits and Bahujans refer to privileged dominant castes as savarnas, a term popularised by Dr. Ambedkar, and now used routinely in caste conversations. It would be adding insult to injury to suggest that the use of the term is now considered “Hinduphobic.”

White supremacists

In their quest to assert themselves in the US, Hindutva groups have increasingly been looking to partner with White supremacists. Unlike White supremacists, Hindutva groups already draw considerable power from the frameworks of minority rights in the US and multiculturalism born out of the civil rights struggle. But the similarities in their “self-victimisation” strategies and their invocation of the right to defend themselves against fictional attacks on their culture lend themselves to a natural partnership.

One such partnership is led by the Republican Hindu Coalition, founded by the Hindu billionaire and Trump supporter Shalab Kumar, and chaired by Steve Bannon, the former advisor of Donald Trump. One of their major goals is to build a “Hindu Holocaust Memorial” in Washington DC, a plan that Trump has endorsed.

In July, the Republican Hindu Coalition was in Washington to participate in the National Conservatism Conference, NatCon 4, which featured prominent right-wing personalities from several parts of the world.

At the conference,Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ideologue Ram Madhav declared that under the leadership of Modi, India had already attained its National Conservatism goals and is now in a position to play the vanguard role in taking the conservative agenda forward world-wide.

One report about the event said that Madhav “would now like the Indian role in America to be…as influential as the pro-Israel lobby…Madhav also wants the US to embrace the Modi government’s model of dealing with India’s religious minorities and its Muslim neighbours.”

The RSS leader also claimed that over a billion Indians support his vision of National Conservatism. This is a vast exaggeration, given that only about one-third of India’s voters typically support the BJP. In the US diaspora, surveys estimate that only 69% of Hindus support Modi and 40% of them disapprove of Hindu majoritarianism.

Where this could go

These are dark times for Hinduism when a small section of the community is trying to reserve for itself the right to decide who’s a “real” Hindu and who is anti-Hindu. Anyone who does not share their narratives of Hindu victimhood and antipathy towards other faiths is being labeled “anti-Hindu”.

This is a travesty.

The march towards the abyss can only be stopped by Hindus who wish to reclaim a tolerant and inclusive faith. They must unequivocally condemn Hindutva bigotry and hate crimes in India. In the diaspora, we must for the sake of future generations of Indian-Americans soundly reject the misappropriation of the term “Hinduphobia” in their self-victimisation strategies to gain political ground and expose the nexus between Zionist extremists, White supremacists and Hindutva advocates.

The scholar Mahmood Mamdani, who has written about the state of mind of majority Hutus leading up to the Rwanda genocide, says that “self-victimisation can be a warning sign that could be used to prevent genocide”. In Rwanda, the world ignored those warning signs and paid a heavy price in human lives.

India has already gone past such warning signs, with state complicity in violence against the minorities and open calls for Muslim boycotts and genocide by people claiming to be Hindu priests. It is imperative that the world not make the same mistake again by placing geo-political interests over the ground realities in Modi’s India.

Raju Rajagopal is a Co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights, which opposes Hindu supremacy and caste discrimination and speaks up for minority rights.

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by BERNARD D’MELLO

Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) foremost leader, is, as of June 9, 2024, in his third consecutive five-year term in office as India’s Prime Minister. But unlike his earlier two terms in office, when the BJP had a majority in Parliament, he now heads a coalition government. A business-as-usual line of action, however, seems to be carrying the day. The Modi regime since 2014 has unleashed what I have called semi-fascism, which has been nourishing India’s sub-imperialist tendencies.¹ In this article, I try to understand sub-imperialist India’s role in U.S. imperialism’s Indo-Pacific, anti-China “pivot” project.² (New Delhi, of course, denies any role in China’s “containment.”)

How did India emerge as a sub-imperialist power and key collaborator with the United States in the U.S. Indo-Pacific anti-China project? I suggest the answer lies in the political-economic foundations of India’s “dependent development” and sub-imperialism. Within this structural setting, India has sought to derive “national advantage” from the trade and technology wars, as well as the New Cold War unleashed by U.S. imperialism against China. Key to this process is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad), a strategic security dialogue between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, paralleled by joint military exercises (named “Exercise Malabar”) of extraordinary scope. The U.S. imperialism/Indian sub-imperialism relationship has deepened following the putting in place of agreements related to consolidation of the interoperability of the U.S. and Indian armed forces. These moves are coordinated in opposition to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and China’s presumed “String of Pearls” strategy. The reignition of hostility along the India-China border (the “Line of Actual Control,” or LAC) reflects an aspect of the relationship. Though directly antagonistic dimensions of the relationship are also present, India-U.S. relations in their entirety must be seen within “the whole,” centered on China’s resistance to U.S. imperialism.

Legacy of the British Raj: India’s 1962 China War

The British Raj (rule) left a recurring flashpoint in the Indian subcontinent in the form of ill-defined borders, and independent India has followed in its footsteps. Independent India fueled the fire of Tibetan separatism by extending help and support to Tibetans hostile to Beijing. By the 1950s, it had also claimed the territory of Aksai Chin (in 1958); insisted on complete adherence to the so-called McMahon Line; de facto junked UN Security Council Resolution 47 (adopted April 20, 1948) on the right to self-determination in Kashmir; and circumscribed—in certain aspects—the sovereignty of Nepal, Sikkim (which was eventually absorbed into India in 1974), and Bhutan.³

Monthly Review for more

by ELIZABETH HANKINS

Scholars, health practitioners and health freedom advocates around the world say that efforts to universalise public health through the draft Pandemic Agreement and amendments to the International Health Regulations are rife with the kind of opportunities that unchecked power affords.

“It was not just the SARS-cov-2 virus. That was just the jumping off point?–?and jump we did, a world in perfect synchronicity. The frantic response knew no bounds: there was the shifting target of the virus, and the new genetic therapeutics hailed as traditional vaccines. And what of the failure to approve cheap and effective off-patent therapeutics? The register continues?–?several lockdowns, denial of early lifesaving treatment, and the fever pitch censoring?–?and censuring?–?of intelligent dissent. We would do well to recognise and address these well-documented shortcomings and exercise extreme caution before a repeat spells disaster for every WHO partner state.”  A Pandemic Reflection

During the 77^th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, Switzerland from 27 May to 1 June 2024, Ministers of Health the world over convened to consider amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) that were last amended in 2005, as well as to establish a new Pandemic Agreement (Treaty). While this could sound innocuous, if not cooperative, the potential meaning and impact of these two instruments could be staggering for international public health. In effect, these drafts were intended to set up legally binding commitments under which the WHO’s 194 Member States would undertake to follow WHO recommendations regarding the management of health emergencies. Strengthened with centralised power, the WHO’s Director-General (DG) would have enhanced authority to unilaterally declare Public Health Emergencies of International Concern (PHEIC), and during such emergencies, exercise increasing powers over member nations. This would radically change how pandemics or threats thereof are managed, further shifting public health policy away from sovereign nations to a global, untempered body. 

This important role ought not to be vested in a single individual. Instead, it ought to be entrusted to a body free from conflicts of interest and adequately representing a cross-section of regions, cultures and disciplines, to assess the transmissibility, morbidity and mortality caused by a disease, and to determine response mechanisms appropriate for specific settings and diverse cultures in a bid to promote the highest possible holistic health outcomes (physical, social, psychological, economic, etc.) for everyone. What is perhaps most concerning is that much of the global population and its leaders remain largely unaware of these proposed radical changes and potential impact on their national systems and populations.

Reportedly crafted with the intention of learning from failures in the management of the COVID-19 crisis and building upon its successes, had the two instruments been adopted as proposed prior to tabling at the 77^th WHA, they would have accomplished the opposite. The WHO’s failures during the pandemic and its now-discredited exaggeration of disease outbreaks and risk (both of which have trended downward in recent years) are well documented. Nevertheless, the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (WGIHR) and the International Negotiating Body (INB) responsible for the preparation of the Pandemic Agreement both pressed forward with unusual haste to complete negotiations on the two documents to be voted on at the 77^th WHA. 

In the process, the WHO contravened its own legal requirements for voting by disregarding Article 55(2) of the current IHR that reads: “The text of any proposed amendment shall be communicated to all States Parties by the Director-General at least four months before the Health Assembly at which it is proposed for consideration.” In like manner, the Pandemic Agreement was intended to be delivered by 29 March 2024, for a similar intent of providing time for reflection prior to commitment to vote. But it was also under negotiation right up until the opening of the 77^th WHA. In the end, the 77^th WHA adopted significantly diluted amendments to the International Health Regulations and shelved a vote on the Pandemic Agreement. Dr Meryl Nass has written a helpful “Complete Article-by-Article Analysis of the Adopted IHR and How it Differs from what was Proposed by WHO in February 2023”.

The Elephant for more

by LAM LE

Recruiters are wooing new workers with bonuses and gifts.

• Vietnam is the preferred location for tech manufacturers diversifying from China.
• As Apple suppliers expand production in Vietnam, competition for workers has intensified.
• Recruiters solicit prospective workers on TikTok, promising cash rewards and free accommodation.

For Apple suppliers in Vietnam, the end of summer is recruitment season. In the months ahead of the busy holiday shopping rush, companies like Luxshare and Foxconn try to fill thousands of permanent and temporary assembly jobs, building products like AirPods and iPads. Competition for these jobs was once fierce. But in the past couple of years, as more manufacturers relocate from China to Vietnam, the benefit of choice has shifted to the workers.

“There are more factories competing for the same pool of workers, and so many have had to increase perks and find ways to attract workers,” Tong Diep Anh, marketing director at Viec 3 Mien, a recruitment company for Apple manufacturers, told Rest of World. “In the past, when demand for work was high, workers had to pay money to get a job. Now that the job market is saturated, workers have a choice.”

On TikTok and Facebook, manufacturers and their recruiters try to attract the attention of potential workers by posting videos and hosting daily livestreams about the jobs they offer. Some promise monthly wages of up to 12 million dong ($492), plus sign-on bonuses.

“Did you come on your own or through a referral?” a recruitment host asks a job candidate at Foxconn, in a video posted on TikTok. 

“On my own,” the worker says. “Okay, the company will award you 500,000 dong,” the host replies, adding that the bonus of about $20 is valid for everyone who applies in the next two months. “Brothers and sisters, friends who refer a worker will also be awarded 500,000 dong.” Vuong Van Hung, a security guard at Luxshare, gives his TikTok viewers a tour of the sports and gaming facilities at his workplace. TikTok/@vuongvanhung99

Just last year, a slump in Vietnam’s electronics manufacturing put tens of thousands of workers out of a job. The second quarter of 2024, however, saw the sharpest increase in orders for Vietnamese manufacturers in more than a decade, according to data from S&P Global.

“Now that these laborers, especially the younger generations, have had other jobs, it is not easy to get them back to work in factories with simple and rather boring tasks and long working hours,” David Yuen-Tung Chan, a researcher at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, told Rest of World over email. “They have a better idea about how to select factories. That could be a good signal for the industry to care more about decent work practices so as to attract workers.”

Vietnam is the most popular location for tech manufacturers wishing to diversify away from China to avoid U.S. tariffs. The country registered large foreign direct investment in new projects and expansion in the fields of semiconductors, energy, component manufacturing, and electronics in the first eight months of this year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment. 

Apple suppliers and their vendors have notably increased their presence in Vietnam, with Luxshare, Foxconn, and Goertek all opening up new factories. In 2015, Vietnam hosted just eight Apple suppliers; by 2023, the country had 35 suppliers assembling AirPods, iPads, and MacBooks.

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by LUCIA CHOLAKIAN HERRERA

Hundreds of teachers’ college students make their way through the streets of Mexico City, chanting and marching in unison. Half-covered by bandanas, their faces reveal piercing eyes, defiant as they walk along Reforma Avenue heading towards the Zócalo, the city’s central square.

They howl together, a guttural, deafening chorus that drowns out the noise of Mexico City: “Alive they took them, alive we want them.”

A decade after the case sent shockwaves across Mexico and beyond, the fate of the students remains shrouded in silence.It is September 26, 2024, on the fourth consecutive day of mobilizations in the capital, just hours before the 10-year anniversary since 43 normalistas from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College were forcibly disappeared. A decade after the case sent shockwaves across Mexico and beyond, the fate of the students remains shrouded in silence. The disappeared were young men just like the demonstrators that fill the city streets, their lives violently suspended in time and place.

A few days later, on October 1, Claudia Sheinbaum will be sworn in as Mexico’s first woman president. A protege of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, she was elected in June with nearly 60 percent of the vote. On the Ayotzinapa anniversary, Sheinbaum promised to work with the families of the victims to uncover the truth. Yet, her commitments echo the unfulfilled promises of her predecessor, and it remains to be seen how she will address Mexico’s crisis of disappearance.

The “Historical Truth”

Ayotzinapa remains an inconvenient truth, an open wound in the Mexican psyche. On that fateful night in 2014, five buses carrying students were attacked by municipal and federal police, the army, and organized crime groups in Iguala, in the state of Guerreo. The assault left six dead and 43 missing, igniting national and international outrage in a nation where mass graves have become all too common. An estimated 100,000 people are missing across Mexico, a grim statistic that reflects a deepening forensic crisis.

The investigation has faced a decade of obstruction and deceit, with officials manipulating narratives to shield those responsible. In 2015, the Attorney General’s Office attempted to close the case by installing a “historical truth,” asserting that the students were intercepted by members of the cartel Guerreros Unidos, killed, and incinerated in a garbage dump 15 miles away. Established through state torture and the fabrication of evidence, this narrative systemically erased the role of the Mexican military and police in perpetrating the crime. 

However, family members of the disappeared, experts like the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, and investigative journalists—including Marcela Turati, Pepe Jimenez, and John Gibler—refused to accept this false narrative. They tirelessly retraced the events and pressured authorities to reopen investigations that linked the case directly to higher authorities, including top military officials.

AMLO’s Unfulfilled Promises

When Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) took office in 2018, he promised to prioritize uncovering the truth behind Ayotzinapa. Two days after his inauguration, he signed an executive order creating a new commission to investigate the case and invited back the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), a committee of international specialists formed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which had been expelled by the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto in 2016.

“He told us we were going to know the truth about what happened to our kids,” says Francisco Lauro Villegas, the father of one of the missing students, at the anniversary protest in Mexico City. Yet six years later, that promise remains unfulfilled. The investigation stalled when it revealed evidence of top military involvement, a line that many observers believe AMLO could not—or would not—cross.

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