position:attorney general

  • Carfentanil: The Drug War Goes Nuclear, by Crawford Kilian | The Tyee
    http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/09/09/Carfentanil-Drug-War

    That one kilo of carfentanil in the Calgary bust was enough to kill every person in Canada, with enough left over to wipe out Sweden and Finland. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction reports that “Carfentanil is said to be 10,000 times more potent than morphine.” As a dust, it could be inhaled or attach to mucous membranes, like the tongue, with almost instantly fatal effect.

    Chinese opioid manufacturers can evidently produce large quantities of carfentanil without running into occupational health and safety issues, and they know how to mail it to Canada without leaving a telltale trail of dead postal clerks, parcel handlers, and CBSA inspectors.

    And the risks should surely convince us that it’s time to legalize and regulate cocaine and heroin.

    #drogues #overdoses #santé #trafic

    • Trump’s Border Wall Could Impact an Astonishing 10,000 Species

      The list, put together by a team led by Dr. Gerardo J. Ceballos González of National Autonomous University of Mexico, includes 42 species of amphibians, 160 reptiles, 452 bird species and 187 mammals. Well-known species in the region include the jaguar, Sonoran pronghorn, North American river otter and black bear.


      http://therevelator.org/trump-border-wall-10000-species

    • Border Security Fencing and Wildlife: The End of the Transboundary Paradigm in Eurasia?

      The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe has seen many countries rush to construct border security fencing to divert or control the flow of people. This follows a trend of border fence construction across Eurasia during the post-9/11 era. This development has gone largely unnoticed by conservation biologists during an era in which, ironically, transboundary cooperation has emerged as a conservation paradigm. These fences represent a major threat to wildlife because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to seasonally important resources, and reduce effective population size. We summarise the extent of the issue and propose concrete mitigation measures.

      http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002483
      #faune #Europe #Europe_centrale #Europe_de_l'Est #cartographie #visualisation

    • Rewriting biological history: Trump border wall puts wildlife at risk

      Mexican conservationists are alarmed over Trump’s wall, with the loss of connectivity threatening already stressed bison, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, bears and other animals.
      About one-third of the border, roughly 700 miles, already has fencing; President Trump has been pushing a controversial plan to fence the remainder.
      A wall running the entire nearly 2,000-mile frontier from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, conservationists warn, would be catastrophic for borderland ecosystems and many wildlife species, undoing years of environmental cooperation between the two countries to protect animals that must move freely or die.
      The wall is currently a key bargaining chip, and a sticking point, in ongoing immigration legislation negotiations taking place this week in Congress. Also expected this week: a federal court ruling on whether the administration can legally waive environmental laws to expedite border wall construction.


      https://news.mongabay.com/2018/02/rewriting-biological-history-trump-border-wall-puts-wildlife-at-risk
      #bisons

    • A Land Divided

      The national debate about border security doesn’t often dwell on the natural environment, but hundreds of miles of public lands, including six national parks, sit along the U.S.-Mexico border. What will happen to these lands — and the wildlife and plants they protect — if a wall or additional fences and barriers are built along the frontier?


      https://www.npca.org/articles/1770-a-land-divided
      #parcs_nationaux

    • R ULES C OMMITTEE P RINT 115–66 T EXT OF THE H OUSE A MENDMENT TO THE S ENATE A MENDMENT TO H.R. 1625

      US spending bill requires “an analysis, following consultation with the Secretary of the Interior and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, of the environmental impacts, including on wildlife, of the construction and placement of physical barriers” (p 677)

      http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20180319/BILLS-115SAHR1625-RCP115-66.pdf
      Extrait partagé par Reece Jones sur twitter
      https://twitter.com/reecejhawaii/status/977304504700780544

    • Activists Vow Fight as Congress Funds Portions of Border Wall

      Last week Congress voted to appropriate some monies to build new fortifications along the United States–Mexico border, but border activists in the Rio Grande Valley say the fight against President Donald Trump’s border wall is far from over.

      The nearly $1.6 billion in border wall funding included in the omnibus spending bill that Trump signed Friday provides for the construction of some 33 miles of new walls, all in Texas’s ecologically important Rio Grande Valley. Those walls will tear through communities, farms and ranchland, historic sites, and thousands of acres of protected wildlife habitat, while creating flooding risks on both sides of the border. But far from admitting defeat, border activists have already begun mapping out next steps to pressure Congress to slow down or even halt the wall’s construction.

      https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/activists-vow-fight-congress-funds-portions-border-wall

    • State attorney general, environmental group to appeal decision on Trump’s border wall

      A ruling by a San Diego federal judge allowing construction of President Donald Trump’s border wall to go ahead will be appealed by two entities that opposed it, including the state Attorney General.

      Both the Center for Biological Diversity and Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed formal notices of appeal on Monday seeking to reverse a decision in February from U.S District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel. The judge ruled that the Trump administration did not abuse its discretion in waiving environmental laws in its rush to begin border wall projects along the southwest border.

      The center had said after the ruling it would appeal, and Becerra also hinted the state would seek appellate court review at the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

      The notices declare an intent to appeal. They do not outline arguments to be made on appeal or why each group believe that Curiel got it wrong.

      In a prepared statement Becerra said, “When we said that a medieval wall along the U.S.-Mexico border does not belong in the 21st century, we meant it. There are environmental and public health laws in place, and we continue to believe that the Trump Administration is violating those laws. We will not stand idly by. We are committed to protecting our people, our values and our economy from federal overreach.”

      The lawsuits challenged a law that allowed the federal government not to comply with environmental and other laws and regulations when building border security projects. They argued the law was outdated and Congress never intended for it to be an open-ended waiver for all border projects, and contended it violated constitutional provisions of separation of powers and states’ rights.

      In his decision Curiel said both that the law was constitutional and it gave the Department of Homeland Security wide latitude over border security.

      Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said in response to the Curiel ruling that the administration was pleased DHS “can continue this important work vital to our nation’s interest.”

      “Border security is paramount to stemming the flow of illegal immigration that contributes to rising violent crime and to the drug crisis, and undermines national security,” O’Malley said.

      http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-border-appeal-20180409-story.html

    • Les murs n’arrêtent pas que les humains

      Des États-Unis à la Malaisie, en passant par Israël ou la Hongrie, les hommes construisent de multiples murs pour contraindre les déplacements de nos semblables. N’oublions pas, explique l’auteur de cette tribune, que nous ne sommes pas les seuls à habiter la Terre et donc à pâtir de ces barrières.

      La #forêt_de_Bialowieza a quelque chose de mythique et de sacré. Âgée de plus de 8.000 ans, elle est la dernière forêt primaire d’Europe. S’étalant sur 150.000 hectares entre la Pologne et la Biélorussie, inaccessible aux visiteurs sans guide assermenté, elle constitue un sanctuaire d’espèces témoignant de la richesse des mondes anciens. Le bison d’Europe y vit encore de manière naturelle, côtoyant élans, cerfs, loups, lynx, etc.

      En 1981, à l’époque du rideau de fer, l’URSS a décidé de clôturer la frontière entre la Pologne et la Biélorussie, coupant à travers cette forêt et séparant en deux la dernière population de bisons d’Europe (environ 500 individus de part et d’autre). Cette clôture est symboliquement forte, car elle témoigne de la coupure existentielle (« ontologique », diraient les philosophes) que les humains se sont imposée vis-à-vis des autres êtres vivants. Ces derniers semblent ne pas exister à nos yeux.

      Mais cette séparation est plus que symbolique, elle est concrète. Les murs dressés par l’espèce humaine représentent une menace importante et sous-estimée pour de nombreux êtres vivants non humains.
      Murs de béton, de pierre, de boue, de sable ou de brique, de barbelés, de grilles en acier ou de clôtures électrifiées

      On en trouve surtout aux frontières : entre les États-Unis et le Mexique, la Corée du Nord et du Sud, Israël et la Cisjordanie, la Malaisie et la Thaïlande, l’Inde et le Pakistan, l’Iran et l’Irak, la Chine et la Mongolie, le Botswana et le Zimbabwe, etc. Ils prennent la forme de murs de béton, de pierre, de boue, de sable ou de brique, de barbelés, de grilles en acier ou de clôtures électrifiées, et viennent accompagnés de routes, de casernes, de lumières et de bruits. Leur nombre a considérablement augmenté depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001. Par exemple en Eurasie (sans le Moyen-Orient), il existe aujourd’hui plus de 30.000 km de murs, grillages et barbelés aux frontières.

      Ces murs affectent évidemment les populations humaines en brisant les trajectoires personnelles de millions de personnes. Ils affectent aussi les autres espèces [1]. À Białowieża, par exemple, la séparation a empêché les flux génétiques (et a donc fragilisé) des populations de bisons, d’ours, de loups et de lynx. Pire, 25 ans après la destruction du rideau de fer entre l’Allemagne et la République tchèque, les jeunes cerfs (qui n’avaient jamais vu de clôtures) ne traversaient toujours pas la frontière [2].

      En mai 2018 paraissait dans la revue Bioscience un article cosigné par dix-huit grands noms de l’étude et de la protection de la biodiversité (dont Edward O. Wilson) et signé par 2.500 scientifiques, qui alertait sur les « conséquences inattendues mais importantes » de ces murs frontaliers sur la biodiversité [3]. Ce cri d’alarme n’est pas le premier [4], mais il résume bien l’état des lieux de la recherche, et aussi l’état de préoccupation des chercheurs.
      Lorsque les habitats se fragmentent, les territoires des populations se réduisent

      Les murs nuisent à la biodiversité de plusieurs façons. Premièrement, ils peuvent blesser ou tuer des animaux directement, quand ils s’emmêlent dans les fils barbelés, sont électrocutés ou marchent sur des mines antipersonnelles.

      Deuxièmement, ils fragmentent et dégradent les habitats. Par exemple la frontière de 3.200 km entre le Mexique et les États-Unis traverse les aires de répartition géographique de 1.506 espèces natives (parmi lesquelles 1.077 espèces animales) dont 62 sont sur la liste des espèces en danger. Le mur menace cinq régions particulièrement riches en biodiversité (on les nomme « hotspots ») qui retiennent presque tous les efforts de conservation et de « réensauvagement » (rewilding). Lorsque les habitats se fragmentent, les territoires des populations se réduisent, et le nombre d’espèces présentes sur ces petites surfaces se réduit plus que proportionnellement, rendant ainsi les populations plus vulnérables, par exemple aux variations climatiques. Les clôtures frontalières contribuent aussi à accroître la mortalité de la faune sauvage en facilitant la tâche des braconniers, en perturbant les migrations et la reproduction, et en empêchant l’accès à la nourriture et à l’eau. Par exemple, le mouton bighorn (une espèce en danger) migrait naturellement entre la Californie et le Mexique mais ne peut aujourd’hui plus accéder aux points d’eau et aux sites de naissance qu’il avait l’habitude de fréquenter.

      Troisièmement, ces murs annulent les effets bénéfiques des millions de dollars investis dans la recherche et les mesures de conservation de la biodiversité. Les scientifiques témoignent aussi du fait qu’ils sont souvent l’objet d’intimidations, de harcèlements ou de ralentissements volontaires de la part des officiers responsables de la sécurité des frontières.

      Enfin, quatrièmement, les politiques de sécurité mises en place récemment font passer les lois environnementales au deuxième plan, quand elles ne sont pas simplement bafouées ou oubliées.
      Des centaines de kilomètres de clôtures de sécurité aux frontières extérieures et intérieures de l’UE

      Le double phénomène migrations/clôtures n’est pas prêt de s’arrêter. En 2015, un afflux exceptionnel d’êtres humains fuyant leurs pays en direction de l’Europe a conduit plusieurs États membres à réintroduire ou renforcer les contrôles aux frontières, notamment par la construction rapide de centaines de kilomètres de clôtures de sécurité aux frontières extérieures et intérieures de l’UE. Le réchauffement climatique et l’épuisement des ressources seront dans les années à venir des causes majeures de guerres, d’épidémies et de famines, forçant toujours plus d’humains à migrer. Les animaux seront aussi de la partie, comme en témoigne la progression vers le nord des moustiques tigres, qui charrient avec eux des maladies qui n’existaient plus dans nos régions, ou encore l’observation du loup en Belgique en mars 2018 pour la troisième fois depuis des siècles…

      Les accords entre pays membres de l’Union européenne au sujet des migrations humaines seront-ils mis en place à temps ? Résisteront-ils aux changements et aux catastrophes à venir ? Quel poids aura la « #Convention_des_espèces_migrantes » (censée réguler le flux des animaux) face aux migrations humaines ?

      En septembre 2017, un bison d’Europe a été aperçu en Allemagne. C’était la première fois depuis 250 ans qu’un représentant sauvage de cette espèce traversait spontanément la frontière allemande. Il a été abattu par la police.

      https://reporterre.net/Les-murs-n-arretent-pas-que-les-humains
      #Bialowieza

    • Les murs de séparation nuisent aussi à la #faune et la #flore

      3419 migrants sont décédés en Méditerranée en tentant de rejoindre Malte ou l’Italie. C’est ce que révèle un rapport du Haut commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés publié le 10 décembre. Il y a les barrières naturelles, et les murs artificiels. Pendant deux mois, le web-documentaire Connected Walls s’attaque aux murs de séparation entre quatre continents : le mur entre l’Amérique du Nord et l’Amérique latine incarné par les grillages entre les Etats-Unis et le Mexique, celui entre l’Europe et l’Afrique incarné par les barbelés qui séparent les enclaves espagnoles du Maroc. Tous les 10 jours, Connected Walls publie un nouveau documentaire de cinq minutes sur une thématique choisie par les internautes. Cette semaine, ils ont sélectionné la thématique « animal ».

      Cette semaine, sur Connected-Walls,Valeria Fernandez (USA) et Fidel Enriquez (Mexico) ont suivi John Ladd dont la famille possède un ranch dans l’Arizona, à la frontière mexicaine, depuis cinq générations. Depuis la construction du mur frontalier en 2007, les choses ont changé pour lui et pour les animaux.

      De leur côté, Irene Gutierrez (Espagne) et Youssef Drissi (Maroc) ont rencontré Adam Camara, un jeune de Guinée Équatoriale qui a tenté de traverser plusieurs fois le détroit entre le Maroc et l’Espagne. Lors de sa dernière tentative, il a reçu l’aide d’un mystérieux ami.
      Pour chaque thématique, un partenaire associatif a carte blanche pour rédiger une tribune. Celle-ci a été rédigée par Dan Millis, de l’organisation écologiste Sierra Club :

      « Les animaux se moquent bien des frontières politiques. Le jaguar de Sonora n’a pas de passeport, et le canard morillon cancane avec le même accent, qu’il soit à Ceuta ou dans la forêt de Jbel Moussa. Les murs et les barrières ont cependant un impact considérable sur la faune et la flore. Par exemple, les rennes de l’ancienne Tchécoslovaquie ne franchissent jamais la ligne de l’ancien Rideau de Fer, alors même que cette barrière a disparu depuis 25 ans et qu’aucun des rennes vivant aujourd’hui ne l’a jamais connue. Les quelques 1000 kilomètres de barrières et de murs séparant les États-Unis et le Mexique détruisent et fragmentent l’habitat sauvage, en bloquant les couloirs de migration essentiels à la survie de nombreuses espèces. Une étude réalisée grâce à des caméras installées au niveau des refuges et des zones de vie naturellement fréquentés par la faune en Arizona a montré que des animaux comme le puma et le coati sont bloqués par les murs des frontières, alors que les humains ne le sont pas. »


      https://www.bastamag.net/Connected-Walls-le-webdocumentaire-4545
      #wildelife

    • Border Fences and their Impacts on Large Carnivores, Large Herbivores and Biodiversity: An International Wildlife Law Perspective

      Fences, walls and other barriers are proliferating along international borders on a global scale. These border fences not only affect people, but can also have unintended but important consequences for wildlife, inter alia by curtailing migrations and other movements, by fragmenting populations and by causing direct mortality, for instance through entanglement. Large carnivores and large herbivores are especially vulnerable to these impacts. This article analyses the various impacts of border fences on wildlife around the world from a law and policy perspective, focusing on international wildlife law in particular. Relevant provisions from a range of global and regional legal instruments are identified and analysed, with special attention for the Bonn Convention on Migratory Species and the European Union Habitats Directive.

      https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/reel.12169

    • Border Security Fencing and Wildlife: The End of the Transboundary Paradigm in Eurasia?

      The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe has seen many countries rush to construct border security fencing to divert or control the flow of people. This follows a trend of border fence construction across Eurasia during the post-9/11 era. This development has gone largely unnoticed by conservation biologists during an era in which, ironically, transboundary cooperation has emerged as a conservation paradigm. These fences represent a major threat to wildlife because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to seasonally important resources, and reduce effective population size. We summarise the extent of the issue and propose concrete mitigation measures.


      https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002483

    • Butterfly Preserve On The Border Threatened By Trump’s Wall

      The National Butterfly Center, a 100-acre wildlife center and botanical garden in South Texas, provides a habitat for more than 100 species of butterflies.

      It also sits directly in the path of the Trump administration’s proposed border wall.

      The federal spending bill approved in September includes $1.6 billion in 2019 for construction of the wall. In October, the Department of Homeland Security issued a waiver to 28 laws protecting public lands, wildlife and the environment to clear the way for construction to proceed.

      https://www.npr.org/2018/11/01/660671247/butterfly-preserve-on-the-border-threatened-by-trumps-wall
      #papillons

    • Wildlife advocates, local indigenous tribes protest preparations for new border wall construction

      The federal government this week began moving bulldozers and construction vehicles to the Texas border with Mexico to begin building a new six-mile section of border wall — the first new wall under President Donald Trump, administration officials confirmed Tuesday.

      The move immediately triggered angry protests by a local butterfly sanctuary — The National Butterfly Center — and local indigenous tribes who oppose the wall and say construction will damage natural habitats. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the wall will run through land owned by federal government. The dispute came amid an administration claim that a caravan of 2,000 migrants had arrived in northern Mexico along the Texas border.

      “We’re a recognized tribe and no one’s going to tell us who we are especially some idiots in Washington,” said Juan Mancias of the indigenous peoples’ tribe Carrizo-Comecrudo, who led protests on Monday. “We’re the original people of this land. We haven’t forgot our ancestors.”

      So far, the Trump administration has upgraded only existing fencing along the border. The president has called for some $5 billion for new wall construction, and Democrats have refused, resulting in a budget dispute that shut down the government for five weeks.

      This latest Texas project relies on previously appropriated money and won’t require further congressional approval. Construction plans for the Rio Grande Valley, just south of McAllen, Texas, call for six to 14 miles of new concrete wall topped with 18-foot vertical steel bars.

      Last year, Homeland Security Secretary Kristen Nielsen waived a variety environmental restrictions, including parts of the Endangered Species and Clean Water Acts, to prepare for construction in the area. Construction on the Rio Grande Valley project is expected to start in the coming weeks.

      Marianna Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center, remains a staunch advocate against the border wall. She met this week with authorities who she said wants to buy the center’s land for wall construction.

      She traveled to Washington last month to explain the environmental damage that would be caused by the construction in testimony on Capitol Hill.

      “The bulldozers will roll into the lower Rio Grande Valley wildlife conservation corridor, eliminating thousands of trees during spring nesting season for hundreds of species of migratory raptors and songbirds,” Wright told the House Natural Resources Committee.

      When asked by ABC News what message she has for people who aren’t there to see the impact of the new border wall, Wright paused, searching for words to express her frustration.

      “I would drive my truck over them, over their property, through their fence,” she said.

      DHS continues to cite national security concerns as the reason for building the border wall, with Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen saying in a statement Tuesday that migrants in the new caravan that had arrived at the Texas border would try to cross over illegally.

      “Such caravans are the result of Congress’s inexcusable failure to fully fund a needed physical barrier and unwillingness to fix outdated laws that act as an enormous magnet for illegal aliens,” Nielsen said in a statement.

      The last so-called caravan that caused alarm for the administration resulted in thousands of migrants taking shelter in the Mexican city of Tijuana. Just across the border from San Diego, many waited several weeks for the chance to enter the U.S.

      https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wildlife-advocates-local-indigenous-tribes-protest-preparations-border/story?id=60859814
      #résistance #peuples_autochtones #Carrizo-Comecrudo #McAllen #Texas

    • As Work Begins on Trump’s Border Wall, a Key Wildlife Refuge Is at Risk

      Construction is underway on a stretch of President Trump’s border wall cutting through the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. Biologists warn the steel wall will disrupt carefully preserved habitat critical for the survival of ocelot, jaguarundi, and other threatened species.

      As Tiffany Kersten descends from a levee into a verdant forest that stretches to the Rio Grande more than a mile away, she spots a bird skimming the treetops: a red-tailed hawk. Later, other birds — great blue herons, egrets — take flight from the edge of an oxbow lake. This subtropical woodland is one of the last remnants of tamaulipan brushland — a dense tangle of Texas ebony, mesquite, retama, and prickly pear whose U.S. range is now confined to scattered fragments in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in south Texas. The ecosystem harbors an astonishing array of indigenous wildlife: ocelot, jaguarundi, Texas tortoise, and bobcat, as well as tropical and subtropical birds in a rainbow of colors, the blue bunting and green jay among them.

      But the stretch of tamaulipan scrub Kersten is exploring, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, won’t be around much longer. About 15 feet from the forest edge, Kersten — a board member of a local conservation group — spots red ribbons tied to tree branches on both sides of the trail. Soon, an excavator will uproot those trees to make way for a 140-foot-wide access road and an 18-foot-high wall atop the levee, all part of the Trump administration’s plan to barricade as much of the Texas/Mexico border as possible. On Valentine’s Day, two days before I visited the border, crews began clearing a path for the road, and soon the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will plant a cement foundation in the levee and top it with a steel bollard barrier.

      This construction is the first project under a plan to build 33 miles of new wall along the levee in South Texas, with $641 million in funding that Trump requested and Congress authorized last year. That 33-mile stretch, cutting through some of the most unique and endangered habitat in the United States, will be joined by an additional 55 miles of wall under a funding bill Trump signed February 15 that allocates another $1.375 billion for wall construction. The same day, Trump also issued a national emergency declaration authorizing another $6 billion for border walls. That declaration could give the administration the power to override a no-wall zone Congress created in three protected areas around the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

      Since the mid-20th century, ranches, oil fields, and housing tracts have consumed 97 percent of the tamaulipan brushland.

      Since the mid-20th century, ranches, farms, oil fields, subdivisions, and shopping centers have consumed 97 percent of the tamaulipan brushland habitat at ground zero of this new spate of border wall construction. That loss led Congress to create the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in the 1970s and spurred a 30-year-effort by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, conservation organizations, and private landowners to protect the remaining pockets of tamaulipan brushland and restore some of what has been lost. The Fish and Wildlife Service has purchased 10,000 acres of cropland and converted it back into tamaulipan woodlands; it hopes to replant another 30,000 acres. The refuge, now totaling 98,000 acres, has been likened to a string of pearls, with connected jewels of old-growth and restored habitat adorning the 300-mile lower Rio Grande Valley.

      Into this carefully rebuilt wildlife corridor now comes the disruption of a flurry of new border wall construction. Scientists and conservationists across Texas warn that it could unravel decades of work to protect the tamaulipan brushland and the wildlife it harbors. “This is the only place in the world you can find this habitat,” says Kersten, a board member of Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, a non-profit group that works closely with the Fish and Wildlife Service on the corridor program. “And only 3 percent of this habitat is remaining.”

      For all its efforts to turn cropland into federally protected habitat, the Fish and Wildlife Service finds itself with little recourse to safeguard it, precisely because it is federal property. The easiest place for the federal government to begin its new wave of border wall construction is the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, which includes the picturesque La Parida Banco tract, where I joined Kersten. Under a 2005 law, the Department of Homeland Security can waive the environmental reviews that federal agencies such as the Fish and Wildlife Service typically conduct for projects that could alter federally protected lands.

      The tract Kersten and I visited is one of four adjacent “pearls” in the wildlife corridor — long , roughly rectangular parcels stretching from an entrance road to the river. From west to east they are the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge’s La Parida Banco tract, the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, the refuge’s El Morillo Banco tract, and the privately owned National Butterfly Center. A levee runs through all four properties, and the first sections of fence to be built atop it would cut off access to trails and habitat in the refuge tracts. Citizens and local and state officials have successfully fought to keep the fence from crossing the National Butterfly Center, the Bentsen-Rio Grande state park, and the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge farther downstream — at least for now. If Trump’s national emergency declaration survives court challenges, the border barriers could even be extended into these holdouts.

      When the wall and access road are completed at La Parida Banco, a crucial piece of intact native habitat will become isolated between the wall and the river. Species that either rely on the river for water or migrate across it will find pathways they’ve traversed for thousands of years blocked.

      While biologists are concerned about the impacts of the wall all along the U.S.-Mexico border, the uniqueness of South Texas’ ecosystems make it an especially troublesome place to erect an 18-foot fence, they say. The 300-mile wildlife corridor in South Texas, where the temperate and the tropical intermingle, is home to an astounding concentration of flora and fauna: 17 threatened or endangered species, including the jaguarundi and ocelot; more than 530 species of birds; 330 butterfly species, about 40 percent of all those in the U.S.; and 1,200 types of plants. It’s one of the most biodiverse places on the continent.

      `There will be no concern for plants, endangered species [and] no consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service,’ says a biologist.

      “This is a dry land, and when you have dry land, your diversity is near the water,” says Norma Fowler, a biologist with the University of Texas at Austin who studies the tamaulipan brushland ecosystem. She co-authored an article published last year in the scientific journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment warning of the consequences of the new wall for the region’s singular ecosystems and wildlife. Since the wall can’t be built in the river, it’s going up a mile or more north of it in some areas, placing both the riparian habitat right along the river and the tamaulipan thornscrub on higher ground at risk.

      “Both of those habitats have been fragmented, and there’s not much left,” Fowler says. “Some of it is lovingly restored from fields to the appropriate wild vegetation. But because they’ve waived every environmental law there is, there will be no concern for plants, endangered species. There will be no consultation with the Fish and Wildlife Service.”

      When the wall rises, the barrier and the new patrol road alongside it will cut an unusually wide 140-foot swath to improve visibility through the dense brush. In her article, Fowler estimated that construction of the border wall would destroy 4.8 to 7.3 acres of habitat per mile of barrier. The fence will also cut off access to the river and habitat on the Mexican side of the border for many animals. Including bobcats, ocelot, jaguarundi, and javelina. Some slower-moving species, like the Texas tortoise, could be caught in floods that would swell against the wall.

      If new walls must be built along the Rio Grande, Fowler says, the Department of Homeland Security should construct them in a way that causes the least harm to wildlife and plants. That would include limiting the footprint of the access roads and other infrastructure, designing barriers with gaps wide enough for animals to pass through, and using electronic sensors instead of physical barriers wherever possible.

      One of the most at-risk species is the ocelot, a small jaguar-like cat that historically roamed throughout Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Arizona, but that numbers only about 80 today. The sole breeding population left in the U.S. is in South Texas, and it is wholly dependent on the dense shrubland in the Lower Rio Grande Valley that the wall will bisect. Some species could be wiped out altogether: The few sites where Physaria thamnophila, a native wildflower, still grows are directly in the path of the wall, Fowler says.

      With 1,254 miles of border — all following the languid, meandering course of the Rio Grande — Texas has far more of the United States’ 1,933-mile southern boundary than any other state, yet it has the fewest miles of existing fence. That’s because much of the Texas border is private riverfront land. The first major push to barricade the Texas border, by the George W. Bush administration, encountered opposition from landowners who balked at what they saw as lowball purchase offers and the use of eminent domain to take their property. (Years later, some of those lawsuits are still pending.) Federal land managers also put up a fight.

      Natural areas already bisected by a Bush-era fence offer a preview of the potential fate of the Rio Grande wildlife refuge.

      When Ken Merritt — who oversaw the federal South Texas Refuge Complex, which includes the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, Santa Ana, and the Laguna Atascosa refuge near where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico — questioned the wisdom of a barrier through Santa Ana during the Bush administration, he was forced out of his job.

      “I was getting a lot of pressure,” says Merritt, who still lives in the valley and is retired. “But it just didn’t fit. We were trying to connect lands to create a whole corridor all along the valley, and we knew walls were very much against that.”

      Natural areas already bisected by the Bush-era fence offer a preview of the potential fate of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. A few miles downstream from the La Parida tract, the Hidalgo Pumphouse and Birding Center, which anchors the southern end of the tiny town of Hidalgo, now looks out at a stretch of steel bollard fence atop a concrete wall embedded in the levee.

      On a recent Monday morning, a few tourists milled about the gardens behind the pumphouse, listening to the birds — curve-billed thrashers, green monk parakeets, kiskadee flycatchers — and enjoying the view from the observation deck. Curious about the wall, all of them eventually walk up to it and peek through the four-inch gaps between the steel slats. On the other side lies another pearl: a 900-acre riverside piece of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge called the Hidalgo Bend tract. It was once a popular spot with birders drawn to its ferruginous Pygmy owls, elf owls, and other wildlife. But since the wall went up in 2009, few birders visit anymore.

      At The Nature Conservancy’s Sabal Palm Preserve, a 557-acre piece of the wildlife corridor near the Gulf of Mexico, a wall installed in 2009 cuts through one of the last stands of sabal palm forest in the Rio Grande Valley. Laura Huffman, regional director for The Nature Conservancy, worries that the more walls erected on the border, the less hope there is of completing the wildlife corridor.

      Kersten and others remain unconvinced that the danger on the border justifies a wall. She believes that sensors and more Border Patrol agents are more effective deterrents to drug smugglers and illegal immigrants. Earlier on the day we met, Kersten was part of a group of 100 or so protestors who marched from the parking lot at nearby Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park to the adjacent National Butterfly Center, holding signs that read “No Border Wall” and “Solidarity Across Borders.” One placard listed the more than two dozen environmental and cultural laws that the Trump administration waived to expedite the fence. Among them: the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires environmental analysis before federal projects can begin; the Endangered Species Act; the Clean Water Act; the Migratory Bird Treaty Act; the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act; the National Historic Preservation Act; and the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act.

      Even as the wall goes up in the refuge, preparations for this year’s restoration projects are moving ahead. Betty Perez, whose family has lived in the Lower Rio Grande Valley for generations, is one of several landowners who grow seedlings for replanting on refuge lands each year. At her ranch, about a 45-minute drive northwest of the La Parida Banco tract, she’s beginning to collect seeds to grow this year’s native shrub crop: coyotillo, in the buckthorn family; yucca; Texas persimmon.

      Next to a shed in her backyard sit rows of seedlings-to-be in white tubes. To Perez, the delicate green shoots hold a promise: In a few years, these tiny plants will become new habitat for jaguarundi, for ocelot, for green jays, for blue herons. Despite the new walls, the wildlife corridor project will go on, she says, in the spaces in between.

      https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-work-begins-on-trumps-border-wall-a-key-wildlife-refuge-is-at-risk

    • Border Wall Rising In #Arizona, Raises Concerns Among Conservationists, Native Tribes

      Construction has begun on President Trump’s border wall between Arizona and Mexico, and conservationists are furious. The massive barrier will skirt one of the most beloved protected areas in the Southwest — Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, recognized by the United Nations as an international biosphere reserve.

      On a recent drive along the borderline, a crew was transplanting tall saguaro cactus out of the construction zone.

      “There may be misconceptions that we are on a construction site and just not caring for the environment,” intones a voice on a video released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the project. “We are relocating saguaro, organ pipe, ocotillo...”

      But a half-mile away, a big yellow bulldozer was scraping the desert clean and mowing down cactus columns that were likely older than the young man operating the dozer.

      Customs and Border Protection later said 110 desert plants have been relocated, and unhealthy ones get bulldozed.

      This scene illustrates why environmentalists are deeply skeptical of the government’s plans. They fear that as CBP and the Defense Department race to meet the president’s deadline of 450 miles of wall by Election Day 2020, they will plow through one of the most biologically and culturally rich regions of the continental United States.

      The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has warned that the wall, with its bright lights, human activity and impermeable barrier, could negatively impact 23 endangered and at-risk species, including the Sonoran pronghorn antelope. And the National Park Service says construction could destroy 22 archaeological sites. Yet, for this stretch of western desert, the government has waived 41 federal environmental laws to expedite construction.

      “This is a wall to fulfill a campaign promise. It’s really clear. And that’s what makes so many of us so angry. It’s being done so fast outside the rule of law and we know it’ll have an incredible impact,” says Kevin Dahl, Arizona representative for the National Parks Conservation Association. He sits beside a serene, spring-fed pond fringed by cattails, and dive-bombed by dragonflies. It is called Quitobaquito Springs, and it’s located on the southern edge of the #Organ_Pipe_Cactus_National_Monument.

      A biologist peers into a rivulet that feeds this oasis in the middle of the Sonoran desert.

      “These guys are very tiny, maybe half the size of a sesame seed. Those are the Quitobaquito tryonia. And there are literally thousands in here,” says Jeff Sorensen, wildlife specialist supervisor with Arizona Game and Fish Department. He’s an expert on this tiny snail, which is one of three species — along with a mud turtle and a pupfish — whose entire universe is this wetland.

      The springs have been used for 16,000 years by Native Americans, followed by Spanish explorers, traders and farmers.

      But the pond is a stone’s throw from the international border, and the path of the wall. Conservationists fear workers will drill water wells to make concrete, and lower the water table which has been dropping for years.

      “We do have concerns,” Sorensen continues. “Our species that are at this site rely on water just like everything else here in the desert southwest. And to take that water away from them means less of a home.”

      The Trump administration is building 63 miles of wall in the Tucson Sector, to replace outdated pedestrian fences and vehicle barriers. CBP says this stretch of desert is a busy drug- and human-trafficking corridor. In 2019, the Tucson sector had 63,490 apprehensions and seized more than 61,900 pounds of illegal narcotics. The Defense Department is paying Southwest Valley Constructors, of Albuquerque, N.M., to erect 18- to 30-foot-tall, concrete-filled steel bollards, along with security lights and an all-weather patrol road. It will cost $10.3 million a mile.

      The rampart is going up in the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot-wide strip of federal land that runs along the U.S. side of the border in New Mexico, Arizona and California. It was established in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt.

      Congress refused to authorize money for construction of the wall in Arizona. Under Trump’s national emergency declaration, the Defense Department has reprogrammed counterdrug funding to build the border wall.

      In responses to questions from NPR, CBP says contractors will not drill for water within five miles of Quitobaquito Springs. The agency says it is coordinating with the National Park Service, Fish & Wildlife and other stakeholders to identify sensitive areas “to develop avoidance or mitigation measures to eliminate or reduce impacts to the environment.” Additionally, CBP is preparing an Environmental Stewardship Plan for the construction project.

      Critics are not appeased.

      “There is a whole new level of recklessness we’re seeing under Trump. We thought Bush was bad, but this is a whole other order of magnitude,” says Laiken Jordahl, a former national park ranger and now borderlands campaigner with the Center for Biological Diversity.

      There was an outcry, too, back in the late 2000s when President George W. Bush built the first generation of bollard wall. Those barriers topped out at 18 feet. The structures rising southwest of Tucson are as tall as a two-story building. They look like they could hold back a herd of T-rexes.

      The Trump administration is using the same Real ID Act of 2005 that empowered President George W. Bush to build his border wall without heeding environmental protections. But the pace of waivers is quickening under Trump’s aggressive construction timeline. Under Bush, the Department of Homeland Security issued five waiver proclamations. Under Trump, DHS has issued 15 waivers that exempt the contractors from a total of 51 different laws, ranging from the Clean Water Act to the Archeological Resources Protection Act to the Wild Horse and Burro Act.

      “The waivers allow them to bypass a lot of red tape and waive the public input process,” says Kenneth Madsen, a geography professor at Ohio State University at Newark who monitors border wall waivers. “It allows them to avoid getting bogged down in court cases that might slow down their ability to construct border barriers along the nation’s edges.”

      The most important law that CBP is able to sidestep is the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA—known as the Magna Carta of federal environmental laws. It requires a detailed environmental assessment of any “federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment.” NEPA covers most large federal construction projects, such as dams, bridges, highways, and waterway projects.

      Considering the construction of 450 miles of steel barriers on the nation’s southern boundary, “There is no question that NEPA would require preparation of an environmental impact statement, with significant input from the public, from affected communities, tribal governments, land owners, and land managers throughout the process. And it is outrageous that a project of this magnitude is getting a complete exemption from NEPA and all the other laws,” says Dinah Bear. She served as general counsel for the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality for 24 years under four presidents.

      To some border residents, barriers — regardless how controversial — are the best way to stop illegal activity.

      “I support Donald Trump 100%. If you’re going to build a wall, build it!” declares rancher John Ladd.

      His family has bred cattle in Arizona since it was a territory. Their ranch backs up to the Mexican border near the town of Naco. The surrounding mountains purple at dusk, as a bull and his harem of cows munch gramma grass.

      Time was when the Ladd ranch was overrun by people crossing the border illegally. They stole things and cut fences and left trash in the pastures. Then in 2016, at the end of the Obama years, CBP built a fence, continuing what Bush started.

      Ladd reserves judgment on the propriety of a wall through a federally protected wilderness. But for his ranch, walls worked.

      “When this 18-foot wall went in, it was obvious that immigrants quit coming through here,” he says. “It was an immediate improvement with the security of our border as well as our houses.”

      Other border neighbors feel differently.

      The vast Tohono O’odham Nation — nearly as big as Connecticut — shares 62 miles with Mexico. The tribe vehemently opposes the border wall. Several thousand tribal members live south of the border, and are permitted to pass back and forth using tribal IDs.

      Already, border barriers are encroaching on the reservation from the east and west. While there is currently no funding to wall off the Arizona Tohono O’odham lands from Mexico, tribal members fear CBP could change its mind at any time.

      “We have lived in this area forever,” says Tribal Chairman Ned Norris, Jr. “And so a full-blown 30-foot wall would make it that much difficult for our tribal citizens in Mexico and in the U.S. to be able to actively participate with family gatherings, with ceremonial gatherings.”

      Traditions are important to the Antone family. The father, son and daughter recently joined other tribal members walking westward along State Highway 86, which runs through the reservation. They were on a pilgrimage for St. Francis.

      Genae Antone, 18, stopped to talk about another rite of passage. Young Tohono O’odham men run a roundtrip of 300 miles from the reservation, across the border, to the salt flats at Mexico’s Sea of Cortez.

      “The salt run, for the men, that’s really important for us as Tohono O’odham. For the men to run all the way to the water to get salt,” she said. “Some people go and get seashells. So I don’t really necessarily think it (the border wall) is a good idea.”

      The Antone family — carrying a feathered walking stick, a statue of the virgin, and an American flag — then continued on its pilgrimage.

      https://www.npr.org/2019/10/13/769444262/border-wall-rising-in-arizona-raises-concerns-among-conservationists-native-tri
      #cactus

    • Les murs frontaliers sont une catastrophe écologique

      On les croyait en voie d’extinction, ils se sont multipliés : les murs et autres clôtures aux frontières pour empêcher les migrations humaines ont un impact délétère sur de nombreuses espèces en morcelant leurs habitats naturels. Une raison de plus de s’y opposer, pour ce chroniqueur de gauche britannique.

      C’est au XXIe siècle que convergent les catastrophes humanitaires et environnementales. L’effondrement climatique a contraint des millions de personnes à fuir de chez elles, et des centaines de millions d’autres risquent le même sort. La famine qui dévaste actuellement Madagascar est la première que les Nations unies ont qualifiée de conséquence probable de l’urgence climatique [un lien contesté] ; elle ne sera pas la dernière. De grandes métropoles s’approchent dangereusement de la pénurie d’eau à mesure que les nappes souterraines sont vidées. La pollution de l’air tue 10 millions de personnes par an. Les produits chimiques de synthèse qui se trouvent dans les sols, l’air et l’eau ont des retentissements indicibles sur les écosystèmes et les êtres humains.

      Mais, à l’inverse, les catastrophes humanitaires, ou plus précisément les réactions cruelles et irrationnelles des gouvernements face à ces crises, peuvent aussi déclencher des désastres écologiques. L’exemple le plus frappant est la construction de murs frontaliers.

      En ce moment, avec l’aide de 140 ingénieurs militaires britanniques, la Pologne entame la construction d’une paroi en acier de 5,5 mètres de haut sur 180 kilomètres, le long de sa frontière avec la Biélorussie. L’aide des militaires britanniques facilitera la signature d’un nouveau contrat d’armement entre le Royaume-Uni et la Pologne, d’un montant approximatif de 3 milliards de livres.
      L’illusion de la chute du mur

      Le mur est présenté comme une mesure de “sécurité”. Pourtant, il protège l’Europe non pas d’une menace mais du dénuement absolu de personnes parmi les plus vulnérables du monde, en particulier des réfugiés venus de Syrie, d’Irak et d’Afghanistan qui fuient les persécutions, la torture et les massacres. Ils ont été cruellement exploités par le gouvernement biélorusse, qui s’est servi d’eux comme arme politique. Ils sont maintenant piégés à la frontière en plein hiver, gelés et affamés, sans nulle part où aller.

      À la chute du mur de Berlin, on nous a promis l’avènement d’une nouvelle époque plus libre. Depuis, beaucoup plus de murs ont pourtant été érigés qu’abattus. Depuis 1990, l’Europe a construit des murs frontaliers six fois plus longs que celui de Berlin. À l’échelle mondiale, le nombre de frontières clôturées est passé de 15 à 70 depuis la fin de la guerre froide : il existe actuellement 47 000 kilomètres de frontières matérialisées par des barrières.

      Pour ceux qui sont piégés derrière ces obstacles, la cruauté du capitalisme est difficile à distinguer de la cruauté du communisme.

      (#paywall)
      https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/faune-les-murs-frontaliers-sont-une-catastrophe-ecologique

    • An endangered wolf spent days searching for a mate. The border wall blocked him.

      It is the first time researchers have directly observed how border fences hinder the Mexican gray wolf, which is on the verge of extinction.

      One chilly early morning in November, a wolf roamed southwest of Las Cruces, New Mexico, on the southern border of the U.S. He was probably driven by the call for survival and wanted to mate, researchers say.

      In his search for a mate or for better opportunities, the wolf tried to cross the dangerous Chihuahuan Desert, a region he knows very well because it has been his species’ habitat since time immemorial.

      This time, however, he was unable to cross. The barriers that make up the border wall prevented him from crossing the border into Mexico.

      “For five days he walked from one place to another. It was at least 23 miles of real distance, but as he came and went, he undoubtedly traveled much more than that,” said Michael Robinson, the director of the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization that defends and monitors species that are in danger of extinction — like this Mexican gray wolf, whom they called Mr. Goodbar.

      Robinson lives in Silver City, very close to Gila National Forest. He noticed the wolf’s adventures when he was reviewing a map from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that records the locations of the wolves using GPS devices they have on necklaces. It is the first time researchers have directly observed how the border wall hinders the life of the species, which is at risk of extinction.

      “Mr. Goodbar’s Thanksgiving was forlorn, since he was thwarted in romancing a female and hunting together for deer and jackrabbits,” Robinson said. “But beyond one animal’s frustrations, the wall separates wolves in the Southwest from those in Mexico and exacerbates inbreeding in both populations.”

      The dangers of the wall

      The Center for Biological Diversity and other organizations have said the border wall cuts off connections for wildlife in the area. The center has filed multiple lawsuits to stop the construction of barriers between the two countries and protect the populations of gray wolves and other endangered animals.

      The organization announced Dec. 21 that it plans to sue the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection for failing to protect ocelots and other species during the construction of border levees along the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

      “It is hypocritical to use safety as an excuse to repair levees and then ignore federal laws that protect people and wildlife. These alleged repairs are seen more as an excuse to rush the construction of the border wall,” Paulo Lopes, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement.

      The organization said more than 13 miles of levees will be built on the land of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, traversing family farms and other private property in Hidalgo County, Texas.

      Ocelots have been in danger of extinction since 1982, and according to official data, it’s estimated that fewer than 50 of them remain in the U.S., all in South Texas.

      Restoring their habitat, including creating wildlife corridors, is a priority for the Rio Grande Wildlife Refuge, but the levees project — which involves removing vegetation along the river to build a control zone 150 feet wide with new roads for law enforcement agencies, as well as lighting systems, cameras and sensors — threatens the ocelot’s habitat.

      Building a wall on the border between Mexico and the U.S. was one of former President Donald Trump’s main campaign promises, and 450 miles of the project were completed during his presidency. The Biden administration suspended construction work, but Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, began construction of his own wall on Dec. 20.

      “President Biden should knock down the wall,” Robinson said. “Allowing Mexican gray wolves to roam freely would do right by the sublime Chihuahuan Desert and its lush sky-island mountains. We can’t allow this stark monument to stupidity to slowly strangle a vast ecosystem.”
      Challenges to survival

      By March, the Fish and Wildlife Service had estimated that 186 specimens of the Mexican gray wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) were in the wild, an increase of 14 percent over 2020. The population has increased for five consecutive years. Only 35 of the wolves are in Mexican territory, according to Mexican government data.

      In some ways, the fight to preserve the wolves is a success story, because, from 1915 to 1972, U.S. authorities poisoned and trapped almost all of the wolves in the wild. Three of the last five surviving wolves, captured from 1977 to 1980, were bred in captivity along with the progeny of four previously captured Mexican wolves.

      Because of a lawsuit filed by the center, the descendants of those seven wolves were reintroduced in the Southwestern U.S. in 1998. On the Mexican side, the wolves’ release began in 2011.

      The subspecies is about 5 feet long, usually weighs 50 to 80 pounds and lives in herds of four to nine. Their gray and rust-color fur is abundant. They live from two to eight years, and, despite protective measures, very few die of natural causes.

      Historically, their habitat has been the border: They used to live throughout southwestern Texas, southern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona and as far south as central Mexico. Today they are found only in the Gila ecosystem, in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, and in the Sierra de San Luis, in northern Mexico.

      Despite the modest but constant growth of its population, activists and experts have made multiple calls to maintain the protections for the species. Mr. Goodbar, who was born at the Sedgwick County Zoo in Kansas and was released in the desert area of ​​Arizona in 2020, is the result of such measures.

      The wolf’s adventurous and exploratory spirit is part of the species’ most basic instincts. It also runs in the family.

      Wolves from Mexico twice entered the U.S. at the beginning of 2017. One crossed through the point where Mr. Goodbar couldn’t make it and then returned to Mexico. Two months later, a female crossed into Arizona, and authorities captured her to appease complaints from people linked to the livestock industry.

      She is Mr. Goodbar’s mother, and she is still in captivity.

      “If the barriers remain on the border, and more are being built, that is going to have an impact on the genetic diversity of the wolves, because it could affect their reproduction. If the wall could be knocked down, at least in some key areas, it has to be done. That will allow for wildlife connectivity,” Robinson said.
      A problem of borders

      Researchers at the Center for Biological Diversity say wolves aren’t the only species threatened by the border wall.

      The telemetry studies of Aaron Flesch, a researcher at the University of Arizona, have found that the mountain owl, a bird in the area, flies at an average height of 4.5 feet, so border fences would also affect it.

      In addition, other animals, such as the cacomixtle, which is similar to a racoon, and the northern fox need to travel through large areas of the Chihuahuan Desert to feed and reproduce, so the barriers are obstacles to their habitats.

      Aislinn Maestas, a public affairs specialist for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement published in the El Paso Times that it was “speculative” to suggest that a barrier may have affected the wolf’s movements, adding that the wolf has continued to roam widely.

      However, the ecological impacts of border barriers have been widely documented. Roads and farmland isolate wildlife, but nothing else separates some species as effectively as border walls.

      The fence erected between Slovenia and Croatia in 2015 could lead to the gradual extinction of the lynx in the Dinaric Mountains. Carcasses of bears, deer and lynx that died horribly after they got caught on their quills are often found throughout the area.

      The barrier between India and Pakistan has caused the population of the Kashmir markhor (a rare wild goat) to collapse. The world’s longest border fences divide China, Mongolia and Russia, isolating populations of wild donkeys, Mongolian gazelles and other endangered species from the steppes.

      Modern wildlife researchers have warned that even in large protected areas, wildlife species are at risk of extinction if they can’t disperse and mix with populations elsewhere.

      Robinson, the activist, said that only once was he able to see a Mexican gray wolf in the wild. “They are incredible animals and play a key role in balancing nature,” he said.

      After his days trying to cross the border in November, Mr. Goodbar headed north toward Gila National Forest, where most of the Mexican wolves live. The area is very close to where Robinson lives, and he usually hears the powerful howls and sees the footprints the wolves leave on their wanderings across the border.

      “At any moment he will leave again. That is their nature, regardless of the walls that human beings build," Robinson said.

      https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/endangered-wolf-spent-days-searching-mate-border-wall-blocked-rcna10769

      #loup

  • #Netanyahou cité au #procès de la mafia du #CO2
    https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/190516/netanyahou-cite-au-proces-de-la-mafia-du-co2

    Arnaud #Mimran et Benyamin Netanyahou, en 2003 à Monaco © DR Actuellement jugé à Paris pour la fraude à la #TVA sur le marché du CO2, Arnaud Mimran a déclaré ce 19 mai avoir financé l’actuel premier ministre israélien à hauteur d‘un million d’euros. L’affaire remonterait à 2001.

    #France #blanchiment #Carbone #escroquerie #Israël #Mouly

    • AG to Probe French Tycoon’s Claim He Gave Netanyahu 1M Euros; PM: Money Was for Hasbara
      http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.723307

      Paris court says evidence shows Arnaut Mimran gave Netanyahu the sum, but a Haaretz investigation reveals State Comptroller received no reports of such a donation in last decade; Netanyahu: ’I received the money as a private individual for public diplomacy campaign for Israel.’
      Sharon Pulwer and Barak Ravid Jun 05, 2016
      Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit has instructed that an examination be made of suspicions against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised by the court testimony of French businessman Arnaud Mimran, Channel 10 News reported last night.

      Mimran, who is the key suspect in a huge fraud case in France, told a Paris court that he gave 1 million euros to Netanyahu’s election campaign. During the court session the chairman of the judges’ panel said the payment to Netanyahu was in the evidence file. Mimran mentioned the payment when he was being questioned about his activities in 2009, but did not say specifically to what campaign he had contributed.

  • Le ministre séoudien des affaires étrangères, prêt à se recycler dans la stand-up comedy: Saudi Arabia confirms royals gave $681 million to Malaysia’s Najib, “a genuine donation with nothing expected in return”
    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/16/world/saudi-arabia-confirms-royals-gave-681-million-malaysias-najib

    Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir called the money a “genuine donation” in comments Thursday to Malaysian reporters in Istanbul after a meeting with Najib.

    […]

    “It is a genuine donation with nothing expected in return. And we are also fully aware that the attorney general of Malaysia has thoroughly investigated the matter and found no wrongdoing,” Al-Jubeir said. “So, as far as we are concerned, the matter is closed.”

  • Has there been a breakthrough in Hamas-Egypt ties? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/hamas-visit-egypt-renew-ties.html#

    The official commented, “The meetings addressed a number of important security topics, such as the abduction of four Hamas figures in the Sinai Peninsula on Aug. 20, 2015, Hamas’ demand to permanently open the Rafah crossing and Egypt’s accusation of Hamas being involved in the assassination of former Egyptian Attorney General Hisham Barakat in June 2015. In addition [talks covered] the continuation of work in some tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Sinai. Although we have emphasized our noninterference in internal Egyptian affairs, we continue to control our security borders with Sinai.”

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/hamas-visit-egypt-renew-ties.html#ixzz43ubqOmhX

  • Trying to Drive a Wedge Between ’Good’ and ’Bad’ Arabs - Opinion - Haaretz - Israeli News Source Haaretz.com
    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.706443
    The law to oust Arabs is designed precisely to avert the day in which Jewish Israeli society realizes that its dispossession-settlement legacy is dangerous to Arabs and Jews alike.
    Amira Hass Mar 02, 2016 6:00 AM

    MK Ayman Odeh, Haneen Zoabi and Jamal Zakalka from the Joint Arab List.(Dudi Vaknin)

    Apparently we’ll have to start getting used to the Knesset minus our representatives from the Joint Arab List. Without Aida and Jamal, without Haneen and Dov, without Ahmad and Ayman. It won’t be easy, because their presence there provided a sliver of hope that sanity was still possible; the sanity of a state that exists for all its citizens, who belong to two national groups.

    The so-called Suspension Law, which passed its first Knesset vote on Monday, aims to cause a rift between “good” and “bad” Arabs. Suspending Balad party members from Knesset sessions, and outlawing the Islamic Movement’s northern branch, were added episodes in the series of exclusions, and passed fairly easily. But as list chairman Ayman Odeh pointed out, if the “bad” ones (Balad) are expelled, it will be difficult for him to remain in the Knesset. We, their voters – Arabs and Jews alike – will be deterred from voting for the ones Uri Ariel, Avigdor Lieberman and Ayelet Shaked, in their Judeo-democratatorship generosity, approve as “good.”

    The law to expel Arab Knesset members also aims at the left (Jewish and Arab). It seeks to drive a wedge not only between “good” and “bad” Arabs but between the left and the liberals-lite. The law very likely will not target the social feminists of the Labor Party; even without it, they are very gingerly when talking about blood, Gaza Prison and the settlements.

    No law would be enacted forbidding “incitement” against CEOs, or against the owners of companies that pay disgraceful wages to female employees. The Jewish discourse allows such subversive statements as long as pay remains low, and the corporate chieftains continue to get extraordinary tax breaks. The members of Meretz can even continue to proudly and freely represent the interests of the LGBT and secular communities in Israel. It isn’t sure, though, that Zouheir Bahloul (Zionist Union) can bite his tongue forever, or that Esawi Freige (Meretz) will concentrate on expanding the Kafr Qasm industrial zone and nothing more in order to be deemed kosher by Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi).

    On Monday, Revital Swid (Zionist Union) said, rightly, “Hatred of Arabs is blinding the MKs into passing a law that no attorney general supports.” Indeed, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit, formerly the IDF’s chief military advocate, called the law problematic, but also clarified that the problem is not constitutional. The law is legal, just as it is legal to demolish Umm el-Hiran and expel its Bedouin residents again, like it is legal not to supply water and electricity to “unrecognized” Palestinian villages (on both sides of the Green Line), and it is legal to expropriate their land.

    Swid also told the chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice committee, MK Nissan Slomiansky: “The day will come that it [the law] gets used against you. One day there will be a majority here who decides that anybody who does not condemn the hilltop youth and support the kingdom of Israel is subverting the State of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state. What will you do on that day?”

    That’s the thing: Once the psychosis of expulsion gains momentum, we have to brace for an even crazier, rightward-leaning, repressive stage. The law to oust Arabs is designed precisely to avert the day in which Jewish Israeli society realizes that its dispossession-settlement legacy is dangerous to Arabs and Jews alike.

    The Joint Arab List, despite and because of its tensions within, represents a chance for genuine normalcy in our binational state. Yes, with contradictions, with problems that haven’t been solved yet, with resentments and differences in viewpoints. The fact that Palestinian MKs represent Jewish voters (however few we may be) and that a Jewish MK represents Palestinian voters, too, laid the groundwork for a different future. This future is now looking all the more illusory.

  • More than $1bn deposited in Malaysian prime minister’s account – report | World news | The Guardian
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/01/more-than-1bn-deposited-malaysian-prime-minister-account-najib-razak

    Deposits into Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak’s bank accounts ran to hundreds of millions of dollars more than previously identified by probes into state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the Wall Street Journal has reported.

    Citing two unnamed people familiar with flows into Najib’s accounts and a person familiar with one overseas investigation, the report said more than $1bn was deposited from 2011 to 2013, far more than the $681m earlier identified.

    The paper said global investigators believe much of the $1bn originated with the state fund, known as 1MDB, but did not specify where the extra money came from or what happened to it.

    The report contradicts a conclusion reached recently by Malaysia’s chief law officer.

    Attorney general Mohamed Apandi Ali cleared Najib in January of any corruption or criminal offences, saying the $681m transferred into Najib’s account was a gift from a member of Saudi Arabia’s royal family and that most of it was returned.

  • Selfishness on refugees has brought EU ‘to its knees’
    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/selfishness-on-refugees-has-brought-eu-to-its-knees-1.2477702

    The “ruinously selfish” behaviour of some member states towards refugees has brought the European Union to its knees, former attorney general Peter Sutherland has said.

    In a sharp denunciation of Europe’s failures on migration and social integration, Mr Sutherland, who is special representative to the United Nations secretary general for migration, said political “paralysis and ambivalence” was threatening the future of the EU and resulting in the rise of xenophobic and racist parties.

    With a population of 508 million, the EU should have had no insuperable problem welcoming even a million refugees “had the political leadership of the member states wanted to do so and had the effort been properly organised,” Mr Sutherland said. “But instead, ruinously selfish behaviour by some member states has brought the EU to its knees.”

  • Sleeves ’rolled up’: Canada’s new justice minister eager to get started | CTV News
    http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/sleeves-rolled-up-canada-s-new-justice-minister-eager-to-get-started-1.26440

    Canada’s new justice minister says her “sleeves are already rolled up” and she’s looking forward to tackling several issues in her portfolio, including doctor-assisted suicide legislation and calls for an inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women.

    Jody Wilson-Raybould told CTV’s Canada AM Thursday morning she has met with some of the officials and is going through the briefing material they’ve prepared for her to decide on her first priorities.
    Doctor-assisted suicide is certainly a priority that we need to move forward with sensitivity and urgency,” she said from Ottawa.

    Also, the inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, this is a concrete commitment we made in our platform and certainly again one that needs to be approached with sensitivity, openness and honesty.
    Several First Nations groups have applauded Wilson-Raybould’s appointment as minister of justice and attorney general, noting she’s the first aboriginal person to hold the post.
    Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde says it’s worthwhile to point out that Wilson-Raybould wasn’t “pigeon-holed” into the ministry of aboriginal affairs simply because she is indigenous.

  • Israel’s Security Cabinet Sets 4-year Minimum Sentence for Stone-throwers
    Cabinet also clarifies rules of engagement, which now allow police to open fire when lives of officers or civilians are at risk, Netanyahu says.

    Barak Ravid 24.09.2015 20:27
    read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.677421Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.677421

    The security cabinet has decided to issue a temporary order that would set a four-year minimum sentence for stone- and firebomb-throwers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bureau said Thursday. The order is to remain in effect for three years.
    Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein voiced opposition to legislating minimum sentencing for such crimes, instead recommending a temporary order that would remain in effect for a year. However, the cabinet decided to issue the order for three years at Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked’s insistence.
    Officials who took part in the meeting noted that the ministers accepted the attorney general’s position that the minimum sentencing would only apply to adults who throw stones and firebombs. They also accepted his recommendation to leave a loophole that would allow judges to deviate from the minimum sentence as long as they can justify it. 
    The prime minister’s bureau noted the minimum sentence constitutes just a fifth of the 20-year maximum sentence for throwing stones and firebombs.
    At the conclusion of Thursday’s meeting, Netanyahu said that his cabinet wishes to change what has become the “norm,” where one "can hurl these lethal and murderous objects without response and without being foiled."
    According to the prime minister’s bureau, part of the meeting focused on clarifying the rules of engagement, and conveying these rules to the police. The ministers were presented with scenarios in which opening fire is justified, i.e. when the life of a police officer or a civilian life is at risk. The ministers were also explained the limitations of opening fire.
    “Until recently, police officers would open fire when their own lives were at risk,” Netanyahu said. “From now on, they will be allowed to open fire – and they will know they have a right to do so – when anyone’s life is in danger.” 
    The cabinet also decided to take measures against minors over the age of 14 who throw stones, as well as their parents. The measures include revoking stipends of parents whose children are sentenced to prison. The cabinet will examine the legality of fining parents to minors aged 12-14, and imposing bail on parents to minors under the age of 12.
    At the end of the meeting, Netanyahu addressed the unrest on Temple Mount, asserting that Israel is maintaining the status quo.
    “Any claims about our intentions to harm sites holy to Islam are nonsense,” he said. “We are not the ones to change the status quo. Those who take pipe bombs to mosques are the ones changing the status quo.”
    He said Israel will take action to maintain law and order and called on the Palestinian Authority to “stop the wild incitement.”

    • #Direct_Provision

      Direct Provision is a controversial system of dealing with asylum seekers in the Republic of Ireland.[1] Direct Provision is how the State meets its obligations with regards to the accommodation of Asylum Seekers. It is designed to be a cashless system, with residents in receipt of full board accommodation, with their food, utilities etc. fully paid for by the State, while unlike most other EU states, those in Direct Provision have full mainstreamed access to the health system (and education system for children). Asylum seekers in Direct Provision are automatically entitled to full medical cards. The length of time people spend in Direct Provision has been criticised by human rights watchdogs, with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission calling the delays faced by asylum applicants as “systemic and pernicious”.[2]

      The system of Direct Provision was originally introduced as an “emergency measure” in 1999, before the scale of the asylum crisis became clear.[3] In 2002 there were almost 12,000 applications for asylum. At the start of 2014, there were 4,360 people in direct provision, with more than 3,000 people have been in the system for two or more years. At the same time, there were more than 1,600 people who have spent five or more years in direct provision.[4]

      Direct Provision has been labeled “inhuman and degrading” in a court case being taken against Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton and the Attorney General Maire Whelan, asserting that the system is illegal under both the Irish Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, and all other international human rights conventions that Ireland has subscribed to, .[5] This case is being vigorously defended by the State on all grounds, including on the basis that it fulfills Ireland’s obligations, that is broadly in line (and in many cases better) than the situation in other EU states, and that at a time of competing calls for finite resources, it is not feasible for the State to grant the right to work, access to full social welfare and access to the public housing and/or rent supplement to asylum seekers. The Irish Government’s Special Rapporteur on Child Protection, Dr Geoffrey Shannon, has called it “institutionalised poverty”, although in addition to having all of their expenses met, adults in Direct Provision centres are given €19.10 weekly, while children are given €9.60 per week. Many child asylum seekers have been sent here alone while some are born into the direct provision life and that is all they have ever known.[6] In June 2014, there were more than 1,000 asylum cases waiting to be heard in the High Court.[7] The Irish Refugee Council has reported that young people living in Direct Provision centres are more prone to depression and suicide, and in the case of three young people in particular, aged between 11 and 17, stated "for different reasons, these three young people have all expressed the view that they can’t see the purpose of living’,[8]


      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Provision

  • REDACTED COMMUNICATION SENT TO COUNSEL IN MATTER OF SUIT AGAINST MORRISON & FOERSTER ET AL ON AUGUST 7, 2015

    Dear Counsel:

    I hope you are well and are enjoying the summer.

    This will serve to discuss various matters dealing with the two above referenced actions. At times, each counsel is addressed individually and at times issues are addressed to all (or the majority of) counsel collectively, as follows:

    1. YOLO COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES DAVID ROSENBERG AND DAVID REED — First, as to the part of this communication addressed to Messrs. Michael Fox, Keith Fink and Olaf Muller, please be informed that an upcoming federal action of Levi v. Girardi & Keese will include one cause of action seeking only equitable relief against “Yolo County Superior Court.” Since your clients (Judges David Rosenberg and David Reed) are part of the “Yolo County Superior Court”, I wanted to give you a heads-up of the upcoming action, as well as to inform you that it is unrelated to the topics which were previously the subjects of various agreements.

    Simply put, and as discussed in more detail below as events relate to other parties, there have been serious new developments dealing with: a) Yolo DA / AARP b) Michael Cabral / Yolo and Riverside DA’s offices/ SNR Dentons - Rod Pacheco - James Hsu / Yolo County’s Cache Creek Casino - Chief Marshall Mckay/ Mark Friedman / DLA Piper / Kapor Enterprises.

    As far as (a) — developments involving Yolo DA and AARP, etc, note that last week I learned that AARP — where George Davis (formerly a California Bar BOG member who voted to press false criminal charges against me with Yolo DA, president of AARP-California, and with strong financial ties to CCPF) and Barbara O’Connor (AARP and AARP Foundation Director, Link America Foundation Director - whom I caught in major alleged fraud re Washington DC party to celebrate the “linking” of the two Americas — which in actuality was a Barack Obama inauguration party - and employee of Sacramento-based Donna Lucas’s Public Affairs) — has bestowed an unusual grant of $40,000 on the Yolo County District Attorney (see attached press-release and HERE ) headed by Jeff Reisig and Jonathan Raven.

    As far as (b) — developments involving Yolo / Riverside Assistant District Attorney Michael Cabral — note that during the pendency of the criminal action against me, a very unusual theory was explored by which Cabral had been transferred from Riverside County DA to Yolo County DA for the sole reason of falsely and maliciously criminally prosecuting me in order to intimidate me into silence and otherwise confiscate incriminating evidence through the execution of an invalid search warrant.
    At that time, I looked into those facts and rejected the theory dealing with Cabral (See story HERE). About one month ago, I learned that Cabral is no longer with the Yolo DA, and has returned back home to the Riverside County District Attorney.

    As you may recall and as I stated previously, I agreed to a plea of no contest to a charge of misdemeanor attempted extortion as a stopgap measure since I was under duress on various fronts. As part of the plea bargain I agreed to, among other things, not contact the State Bar of California Board of Governors/Trustees directly, and other overreaching conditions.

    Both as a journalist and as a victim of the above alleged malfeasance, I am obviously interested in informing the State Bar of California Board of Governors/Trustees and the public vis-a-vis press releases, published articles, and by contacting other journalists of those events. However, per conditions imposed on me while under duress as part of the plea bargain in the criminal matter by Judge Reed, I am prohibited from directly contacting BOG members. As such, in addition to suing some of the above named and others in federal court, I plan to ask the same federal court for relief to allow me to freely exercise free speech.

    As such, if the attorneys for Judges Rosenberg and Reed believe that advancing an action against Yolo County Superior Court for equitable relief is not consistent with the spirit or language of our prior agreements, please let me know.

    Note that from my perspective past events are all forgotten history and there is absolutely no desire to rehash old claims against Rosenberg and Reed. In fact, as I mentioned to Rosenberg’s attorney (Mr. Fink) over the phone, I am a huge fan of Rosenberg and was recently disappointed that he was not appointed as a justice to the California Supreme Court given his outstanding judicial qualities, experience, and political background (i.e. former chief of staff to Governor Jerry Brown; Judicial Council member; mayor of Davis, etc).

    2. SERVICE OF BRIEF AND APPENDIX — California Rules of Court Rule 8.124 (e)(1)states that “a party preparing an appendix must: (A) Serve the appendix on each party, unless otherwise agreed by the parties....”

    As far as the service of the appendix, I am hoping that each party will agree to waive formal service and instead agree that the service of a searchable PDF Appendix via electronic mail is sufficient. Note that I will be advising the court of my request and the responses received from counsel, if any.

    Similarly, I am hoping that you will also agree to waive formal service of a hard copy of the appellant’s brief and to instead agree that the service of searchable PDF and/or Microsoft Word version of the brief via electronic mail is sufficient. I will also be letting the court know that I made this request of counsel and the responses received, if any.

    I would like to urge everyone to agree to the above in order to save a tree, costs, and the unnecessary labor of printing, copying, and binding thousands of pages.

    3. SETTLEMENT DISCUSSIONS — As applied to the two above referenced actions, I would like to remind everyone that the window to engage in settlement discussions has been closed, as was stated previously. As such, due to multitudes of reasons, in connection with the above two referenced actions, please refrain from extending any settlement offers, attempting to engage in settlement negotiations, or offering anything of value. The only exception will be if the undersigned originates a proposal.

    4. DOCKET — As far as the matter pending before the California Third District Court of Appeal, note that the docket maintained by the court contains many inaccuracies and is otherwise lacking. For example, a search for the last name of defendant/respondent “James Brosnahan” yields no result. Ditto defendants Freada Kapor Klein, Michael Cabral, Mark Friedman (only the name of the late distinguished Morton Friedman OBM appears), Fulcrum Property (only “Fulcrum Davis” appears, which I assume is associated with the Friedmans), Mary Cary Zellerbach, Martin Investment Management, Ronald Olson, Jeff Bleich, Chris Young, Kamala Harris, Douglas Winthrop, Holly Fujie, Ophelia Basgal, and others.

    As such, I ask that each of you contact the court of appeal on behalf of your respective clients — similar to the 4th entry of the docket by which the attorney for Darrel Steinberg independently wrote the court to advise that Steinberg is a respondent, see HERE — to inform the court of the problem and ask for it to be rectified.

    Moreover, please ensure that the name of your clients are spelled correctly i.e. “Munger,Tollis” or “Freada, Kapor, Klein” are not the correct spelling, at least based on my understanding.

    The attorney representing Ms. Kamala Harris is requested to inform the court to remove a comment by which the docket states that Ms. Harris was sued in her capacity as the attorney general or forward proof where I allege she was sued in such capacity.

    The attorney from Locke Lord representing defendants Cary Zellerbach and Martin Investment is asked to inform the court to correct the docket which does not mention either yourself, your firm, or your clients. Also with respect to your client that has thus far managed to avoid service, please be advised that the California statute of limitations is tolled and I intend to pursue claims against her either in state or federal court. REDACTED

    5. SKADDEN ARPS — ISSUES RE RAUOL KENNEDY REPRESENTATION OF CALIFORNIA JUDICIARY — Mr. Russell, as you may recall, in reply to my inquiry you wrote: "My colleague Raoul Kennedy does indeed represent Justice Robert Mallano in Mallano v. Chiang et al., LASC Case No. BC533770. As you may know, Judge Elihu Berle granted class certification in Mallano on January 15, 2015. The class members have not yet been identified because notice has not been circulated, nor has the period for opt outs occurred. Nevertheless, regardless of which judges or justices eventually become members of the class, pursuant to section 811.9 of the California Government Code, the “fact that a justice, judge, subordinate judicial officer, court executive officer, court employee, the court, the Judicial Council, or the Administrative Office of the Courts is or was represented or defended by the county counsel, the Attorney General, or other counsel shall not be the sole basis for a judicial determination of disqualification of a justice, judge, subordinate judicial officer, the county counsel, the Attorney General, or other counsel in unrelated actions.” Cal. Gov’t Code § 811.9. As a matter of law, there is no conflict. The statute is attached for your reference."

    As a reply, I wrote in part that the statute applies only to one justice, and in the case at hand Mr. Kennedy represents (as of now and assuming none chose to opt out) the entire qualified panel of justices of the Third District and that, most importantly, per the statute, the representation must be the “sole” basis. Here, the representation of Skadden/ Kennedy is NOT the sole basis. Rather, there is an additional basis for the disqualification — which is the fact that Skadden itself is also a DEFENDANT in the “unrelated action.”

    In any event, this will serve to inform you that I intend to seek to disqualify any and all judicial officers who are clients of your firm. As such, I ask for you to please forward a list identifying the class members and all those who chose to opt-out of the litigation.

    6. MORRISON & FOERSTER: Mr. Besirof, associate Davis indicated that you replaced Mr. Dresser as the attorney in this matter. Please let me know if you have any questions or require certain clarification. Since you are new to the case and since it is summer, if you need extra time to catch up on materials as far as the filing of an appellate respondent brief, I am extending to you (and by extension everyone else) an additional 60 days in which to file your brief.

    7. DEFENDANT MARK FRIEDMAN / COUNSEL - BROTHER PHILIP FRIEDMAN — Mr. Friedman, in connection with events dealing with Michael Cabral / Yolo DA / Chache Creek Casino and SNR Dentons, can you please provide a list of all the partnerships between defendant Mark Friedman and the Rumsey / Yocha Dehe tribe which operates Cache Creek Casino in Yolo County?

    A lawsuit (attached) the tribe/casino filed against your brother and REDACTED lists the following: Government Property Fund,LLC; Government Property Fund II, LLC ; Government Property Fund III, LLC ; Government Property Fund IV, LLC ; 4330 Watt,LLC; Fulcrum Management Group LLC ; Fulcrum Friedman Management Group, LLC ; Illiniois Property Fund, GPF ; and Illinois LLC. Are these partnership still in effect ?

    Also, for purposes of determine potential conflicts of interest in the current pending matter as far as your ability to serve as legal counsel given your role as a potential witness, please inform me whether Paragraph 108 of the lawsuit which states: “The other Vectors partners included REDACTED and Opper, as well as Friedman, Friedman’s father and brother, and John Krasznekewicz (a Friedman friend)” refers to you, Philip Friedman. In essence, what I am asking is are you the Vector partner or is the brother alluded to someone else ? Also, starting in 2006 to the present, were you involved in any other partnership with the tribe and the casino ?

    8. MUNGER TOLLES & OLSON: Mr. Senator, if not a bother, I will appreciate if your firm would forward me the following:

    a - copy of the report prepared by your colleague Bart Williams dealing with alleged misconduct by Joe Dunn, especially in connection to a trip overseas by which Dunn was accompanied by Howard Miller of Girardi & Keese and Tom Layton. As you may be aware, accompanying the Yolo County District Attorney officers during the execution of the search warrant at my home was also Tom Layton — who served as liaison. As such, if said report is in the public domain, I will appreciate if you forward a copy.

    b - your colleague Jeffrey Bleich recently solicited as clients a group of UC Davis APA law students in connection with their bid to admit post-mortum an APA applicant to the State Bar of California. If not a bother, will it be possible for you to please forward to me a copy of the motion and all other pleading submitted to the California Supreme Court.

    9. FREADA AND MITCHELL KAPOR / LEVEL PLAYING FIELD INSTITUTE : Mr. Medina, at your earliest, I will appreciate if you please address the following:

    a. In order to determine your status as potential witness, can you please forward your employment history to date beginning from around 2006 ? Were you ever employed at the DLA Piper office in Sacramento ? If yes, can you please state the dates of your employment.

    b. Are you and your clients in a position to disclose who is paying Kapor and LPFI’s attorney’s fees? If it is DLA Piper who set you up to defend the two or otherwise is paying your attorney’s fees, please let me know. As you may know, DLA Piper managing partner Gilles Attia, daughter Sarah Attia, and partner Steve Churchwell played a huge role in CaliforniaALL / Obama for America. Also, separately and around the same time, there is an allegation that DLA Piper laundered $50,000 to “Obama Victory Fund” through defendant Level Playing Field Institute / Kapor Enterprises vis-a-vis the so called “Kapor Maneuver.”

    c. Recently, I have learned from a YOU-TUBE video featuring Mr. Kapor that he is heavily invested in what he refers to as “Ed-Tech” companies.

    It will be appreciated if you let me know if Mr. Kapor, his wife, or their entities have any business relationships with Steve Poizner or former California Bar Foundation treasurer Lindsay Lee — both of whom are also involved with Ed-Tech.

    d. Yesterday, just as I was about to send you settlement business proposals, much to my chagrin and indignation, I encountered the following article in USA Today. Under the heading of “Kapors pledge $40 million investment in tech diversity” it stated, among other things: “Mitch Kapor and wife Freada Kapor Klein will invest $40 million over three years in a set of initiatives designed to give women and underrepresented minorities a better shot at becoming technology entrepreneurs.” The article further stated that “Kapor Capital will make more than $25 million in investments in technology start-ups working to narrow the achievement gaps. At least half of the companies will have founders from underrepresented groups.” (See story http://tinyurl.com/p33dxlx )

    My understanding is that any and all non-profit and for-profits companies operated in the State of California are deemed to be “business establishments” that come within the purview of Civil Code Section 51 known as The Unruh Civil Rights Act.

    Be advised that the plan by the Kapors and Kapor Capital to “make more than $25 million in investments in technology start-ups working to narrow the achievement gaps. At least half of the companies will have founders from underrepresented groups” runs afoul of The Unruh Civil Rights Act which reads: “All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual orientation are entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.”

    In other words, Kapor Capital’s plan to pick and choose “founders from underrepresented groups” (based on the article, women and “underrepresented minorities”) is unlawful. If you or your clients disagree, please forward an explanation. Otherwise, I shall await word from you that there has been a change of plans.

    e. As you may be aware, starting around 2000, the former executive-director of the State Bar of California (Ms. Judy Johnson) secretly served as the president of the “California Consumer Protection Foundation” ("CCPF") an entity which obtained millions of dollars from class-action “cy pres” awards and from fines, settlements and payments the CPUC — during the time Michael Peevey and Geoff Brown served as commissioners — imposed on various utility companies. For example, anytime a merger took place i.e. between various cell-phone companies such as Verizon, millions were paid to CCPF.

    CCPF, in turn, funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to entities in South-Central Los Angeles [with very close connection to State Bar of California BOG members Shrimpscam’s Gwen Moore and George Davis], a dubious entity in Venice for “Youth Radio”, an entity headed by Michael Shames, various Asian-American entities with close connections to State Bar officials (Holly Fujie and Madge Watai — Little Tokyo Service Center, etc.) and money to entities headed by associates of Justice Ming Chin.

    Based my estimation, around $3 million cannot be accounted for, and separately I alleged that CCPF submitted false reports to the IRS. Months before the execution of the search warrant, I complained to the IRS against CCPF as well as filed an ethics complaint against Judy Johnson and others with the State Bar of California. Later, as you may recall, the State Bar of California BOG voted to file criminal charges against me, alleging among other things, that the CCPF ethics complaint constituted criminal conduct which served as one basis for the search warrant.

    Based on my recollection, it also appeared that CCPF may have funneled money to entities established by the Kapors. Since all the materials have been confiscated by the Yolo DA and are otherwise inaccessible, at your earliest, I will appreciate the names of those entities and the dates / amounts each of these contribution.

    f. Please consider this a formal request for “Kapor Center for Social Impact” to produce its 3 last 990 forms submitted to the IRS. If you need me to request this information from the entity directly, please let me know.

    Thank you for your attention to these matters. Please let me know if you have any questions.

  • Palestinian Center for Human Rights
    http://www.pchrgaza.org/portal/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11117:seek-out-and-prosecute-
    Monday, 22 June 2015

    PCHR today called on the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, and the Attorney General, Jeremy Wright QC, to urgently liaise to ensure that immediate decisions are made regarding the arrest and (if the evidence permits) prosecution before the a Court in England and Wales of Shaul Mofaz with a war crimes offence contrary to the Geneva Conventions Act 1957 (GCA). It is essential the decisions are made today, 22 June 2015, before Mr Mofaz is able to leave the UK.

    PCHR calls on the public and members of civil society to immediately contact the Attorney General’s office via email - correspondence@attorneygeneral.gsi.gov.uk - to ensure that he understands the strength of public feeling about the fair application of the rule of law to all those suspected of committing serious offences under international criminal law.

    It is understood that Mr Mofaz, who left Israeli political life earlier this year, is in London on Monday, 22 June 2015, on a private visit and that the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, has not accorded Mr Mofaz any form of immunity from the fair application of English criminal law. After learning of his visit to London, on 21 June, and acting on behalf of Gazan victims of alleged war crimes, PCHR sent the police and Crown Prosecution Service evidence relating to Mr Mofaz to enable the police to arrest him on suspicion of committing an offence contrary to the GCA.

  • Bahrain upholds 6-month sentence for activist over tweet | GulfNews.com
    http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/bahrain/bahrain-upholds-6-month-sentence-for-activist-over-tweet-1.1510938

    DubaI: An appeals court in Bahrain upheld a six-month jail sentence against prominent dissident Nabeel Rajab on Thursday for a tweet deemed insulting to the kingdom’s security establishment, state news agency BNA said.

    He was convicted for “publicly insulting two government bodies,” the attorney general’s office was quoting as saying, referring to the defence and interior ministries.

    Rajab has been a leading figure in protests by the tiny island kingdom’s opposition since the 2011 Arab Spring.

    He has accused the government of repression and torture. The tweet at the centre of his case accused authorities of not tackling the threat of hardline militant groups like Daesh.

    Bahrain has been in turmoil for 18 months, with the opposition agitating for democratic reforms.

    The kingdom denies discrimination and says it has rolled out reforms and monitoring for abuses by the security forces.

    In an open letter to the New York Times last month, Rajab urged greater freedom of expression in Gulf countries.

  • Israel’s attorney general to block coalition deals aimed at funding settlements - Israel - Israel News | Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.655665

    Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein is expected to oppose any distribution of funds as part of Likud’s coalition agreements with Habayit Hayehudi and United Torah Judaism, particularly those earmarked for the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division.

    In an opinion published in February, Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber wrote that the government must stop funding the Settlement Division, either through the general budget or directly to the department. Consequently, the 2015 budget will not include funding of the division.

    Weinstein approved the opinion and is therefore expected to oppose its contravention in the coalition agreements.

    Under the coalition agreement signed between Habayit Hayehudi and Likud late last week, 50 million shekels (around $13 million) will be added to the budget of the WZO’s Settlement Division, which funds infrastructure for West Bank settlements and which Agriculture Minister-designate Uri Ariel will control.

    According to a directive issued by the attorney general in April with regard to political agreements with funding ramifications, money is not to be earmarked in a way that gives the sense that it “belongs” to parties or factions, and a political agreement is not to be implemented at all if it earmarks funding to a specific entity.

    The directive was issued out of concern that such earmarking of funds could make the receiving entities dependent on the parties that wrote the agreement “to their benefit,” and could also often constitute a cover for personal or political gain. The directive requires professionals in the various ministries to weigh in on any such political agreements before they are signed.

    Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government faces its first challenge even before being sworn in later this week. Netanyahu will have to ensure that all 61 members of the coalition vote to amend the Basic Law on the Government tomorrow, in order to enable an increase in the size of the cabinet. Only then will Likud begin to hand out portfolios.

    This morning, the outgoing cabinet will be asked to approve Netanyahu’s request to postpone implementation of the clause restricting the cabinet to 18 members. Netanyahu will also ask the cabinet to allow him to renew the controversial tradition of appointing ministers without portfolio to his new cabinet, along with increasing the number of deputy ministers.

    The outgoing cabinet is expected to ask the Knesset to move these amendments ahead by expedited legislation, and to vote on the second and third readings as early as Monday. MK Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) said Saturday that his faction would petition the High Court of Justice against the move.

    As part of the coalition agreement, Likud and Habayit Hayehudi also agreed on the appointment of a team to review ways to legalize unauthorized settlement outposts and unauthorized buildings within settlements. The government has not promised to renew construction in West Bank settlements and in Jerusalem, despite Habayit Hayehudi’s demand for such a commitment.

    The outposts team – which is likely to include the cabinet secretary, a representative of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and two representatives of Justice Minister-designate Ayelet Shaked and Ariel – will only have three months to formulate its recommendations.

    The coalition agreement features a special arrangement whose purpose is to prevent Shaked from obtaining total control of the Ministerial Committee for Legislation (the body that determines which bills the coalition will advance and which will be blocked). As justice minister, Shaked will chair the committee.

    Likud took action to curb her power out of fear she will delay legislation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports, or accelerate the passage of controversial draft laws behind his back. Under the coalition agreement, Netanyahu will appoint a deputy to Shaked, with whom she must coordinate the committee’s agenda. “If the deputy requests that a vote be delayed, it shall be delayed until a new arrangement is agreed between the deputy and the chairwoman of the committee, or until the prime minister decides otherwise,” the agreement states.

    Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett requested a billion-shekel addition to the budget of the Education Ministry, which he will head, but in the end his party will be allotted 630 million shekels to support its goals in the areas of education, welfare, settlement, culture, religion and agriculture. The money will come out of coalition funds that, prior to the 2013 election, Bennett referred to as “pocket change.”

    The coalition agreement also stipulates that the government is “to examine claims of a rise in illegal missionary activities in Israel and the steps to deal with them, as needed.” Likud and Habayit Hayehudi also agreed to establish a forum for communication among the parties in the coalition on the issue of religious services.

    The Gush Katif Heritage Center, meanwhile, will be allotted a three-year budget of 15 million shekels that will also cover the costs of commemorating the 10-year anniversary, later this year, of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

  • Beaucoup d’Israéliens font appel à des mères porteuses au Népal.
    Au lendemain du séisme, ces femmes seraient autorisées à venir en Israël

    It takes an earthquake in Nepal to talk about surrogacy in Israel - World - Israel News | Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/.premium-1.653963

    In the wake of Saturday’s earthquake in Nepal, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein’s approval of a plan permitting surrogate mothers in Nepal who are carrying the fetuses of Israeli parents to enter Israel is a reflection of the ethical and legal complications involved in international surrogacy.

    The surrogate mothers in Nepal carrying Israeli fetuses, who are Indian citizens, will be required to appear before the local Israeli consular official, and to state that they are seeking to come to Israel of their own free will. The consul will advise the women of the risks involved in flying while pregnant, and will verify that no undue influence has been exerted on the women to get them to travel to Israel in advance of delivering the babies that they are carrying.

  • Ferguson is what happens when you run a police force as a profit-making business – Quartz
    http://qz.com/356013/ferguson-is-what-happens-when-you-run-a-police-force-as-a-profit-making-business
    https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/ferguson-racial-economics.jpg?w=1600

    The US Department of Justice investigation into civil rights violations (...) depicts the police and courts as a gang, expropriating money from the city’s black population—with revenue collection as the driving force behind racial discrimination.

    Attorney General Eric Holder said there was not sufficient evidence to prove that officer Darren Wilson had willfully committed a civil rights violation when he shot and killed Michael Brown, but that city officials routinely violated citizens’ rights to free speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, and equal treatment under the law.

    (…) Officers sometimes write six, eight, or, in at least one instance, fourteen citations for a single encounter. [s]ome compete to see who can issue the largest number of citations during a single stop. (...)

    This was driven by the city’s desire to use criminal fines as an increasingly large part of its budget, seeking increases in fine revenue of more 30% year over year—not exactly the sign of a functioning criminal-justice system. In 2015, these fines are expected to make up almost a quarter of the city’s general fund, some $3.09 million.

    #police #répression #racisme #gang
    (& voir le dernier roman de Spinrad)

  • TO: JASON RUSSELL / SKADDEN ARPS

    RE; THIRD DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL NO. C077192 / Potential Conflict of Interest Re Skadden Arps and Justices of Third District Court of Appeal

    At your earliest, I would appreciate if you forward to me your and
    Skadden Arps’s positions as to potential conflicts dealing with the
    fact that Skadden Arps and partner Raoul Kennedy represent a class of
    more than 3,000 active and retired California state judges/justices
    who were illegally deprived of salary increases in a class-action
    defended by California Deputy Attorney General Jonathan Rich.

    Can you kindly advise if any of the justices (such as, for example,
    Justice Vance Raye) of California’s Third District Court of Appeal are
    members of the class and otherwise are clients of Skadden Arps ? If
    yes, I will appreciate if you let me know as soon as possible.

    Notwithstanding the above, I also noted that Mr. Kennedy’s profile is
    nowhere to be found on Skadden’s web site (See
    http://www.skadden.com/professionals?letter=K ) whereas the StateBar of California lists him as associated with Skadden. See
    http://members.calbar.ca.gov/fal/Member/Detail/40892 Is Mr. Kennedystill part of Skadden, and if yes, what is his position?

    Thank you.

  • Diplomacy Post – Indonesian firing squads execute six drug convicts
    http://dippost.com/2015/01/18/indonesian-firing-squads-execute-six-drug-convicts

    Six prisoners were executed in Indonesia early Sunday morning despite international pleas for a last minute reprieve, local media reported.

    One woman and four men were killed by firing squad simultaneously on Nusa Kambangan prison island, south of Java, at 12.30 a.m. local time (1730GMT Saturday), Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo told MetroTV.

    A second woman was executed at 12.46 a.m. in Boyolali prison, Central Java province, he added. All six had been convicted of drugs offenses.

    Hopefully, this will have a deterrent effect,” Prasetyo said.

    They were confirmed dead ten minutes after the firing squads opened fire and their bodies collected by ambulances for burial or cremation.

    The four men were from Brazil, Nigeria, Malawi and the Netherlands. One woman was a Vietnamese national while the other was Indonesian.

    Appeals for them to be spared were ignored, leading to Brazil and the Netherlands to recall their ambassadors to Jakarta.
    (…)
    The executions were the first in Indonesia since Widodo came to power. Last month, the president said he would refuse clemency for 64 drugs offenders facing execution, citing the harm caused to Indonesian society by illegal narcotics.
    (…)
    Indonesia has said 20 executions are scheduled for this year.

    • President Jokowi : Indonesia’s Newest Mass Murderer - The Jakarta Globe
      http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/opinion/president-jokowi-indonesias-newest-mass-murderer

      According to President Jokowi and Vice President Jusuf Kalla, drug trafficking leads to thousands of fatalities every year. It is therefore an “extraordinary crime” for which the only appropriate penalty is death by firing squad.

      Ever since that fateful day on Dec. 9, when Jokowi stood before an audience of students and condemned 64 felons to a bloody execution, we have been led to believe that drug trafficking is, in itself, a lethal offense, and that drug traffickers can therefore be held personally responsible for overdose deaths and other tragic, drug-related accidents.

      [T]here will be no clemency for convicts who committed narcotics-related crimes,” Jokowi said. “There are between 40 and 50 Indonesians, mostly young people, who lose their lives every day due to drug use…

      Similarly, when Kalla was asked whether the 64 executions would contravene the “right to life,” which is enshrined in Indonesia’s Constitution as well as international law, the vice president argued that it is the drug traffickers who violate human rights when they supply deadly substances to an illicit market: “[E]veryone must obey the law,” he simply stated, “[and] drugs cause the deaths of others… It’s fair: the president will not give clemency to those who destroy the nation.
      (…)

      Double standards

      Jokowi believes that drug trafficking is an immoral enterprise chiefly because it leads to needless fatalities. He believes that 40 to 50 Indonesians die each day from drug use, and therefore believes that 14,600 to 18,250 Indonesian drug users die each year.

      These figures, which originally appeared in a 2013 National Narcotics Agency (BNN) report, are of course estimates; but for the sake of argument we’ll agree to take the stats at face value.

      So let’s say it’s true: let’s say that exactly 50 Indonesians die each day from drug use, and let’s also say Jokowi’s rationale for executing the supposed culprits is morally and logically sound: i.e. drug traffickers deal in dangerous substances, the dangerous substances kill our children, and we should therefore kill the drug traffickers.

      If you truly believe that this line of reasoning offers a useful moral principle for Indonesia’s justice system to uphold, then you should be more than willing to see a tobacco baron or an automobile tycoon vanquished before a firing squad.

      Consider the proprietors of Indonesia’s two great tobacco companies – Budi Hartono of Djarum and Susilo Wonowidjojo of Gudang Garam – who also happen to be at number one and number two respectively on Indonesia’s rich list.

      These two men have been in the tobacco business for several decades, and have been handsomely rewarded with a combined net worth of over $24.5 billion. But if we attempt to quantify how many deaths these men are jointly culpable of – using Jokowi’s logic, that is – we would find that Mr. Hartono and Mr. Wonowidjojo have “killed” literally millions of people.

      Just look at the World Lung Foundation’s 2008 study, which concluded that tobacco consumption kills at least 200,000 Indonesians per year, in addition to a further 25,000 who die each year from second-hand smoke.

      If we grant that the WLF’s figures are as accurate as the BNN’s drug death statistics, then we must concede that passive smoking alone kills more Indonesians per year than all illegal drugs combined, and that active smoking kills 10 times more Indonesians per year than all illegal drugs combined.

      Yet somehow, according to the thinking of Jokowi and Kalla, it is Indonesia’s illegal drug problem that warrants a “state of emergency” and a spate of 64 “shock therapy” executions, rather than its much more deadly tobacco epidemic. Meanwhile, of course, Budi Hartono and Susilo Wonowidjojo are laughing all the way to the Forbes 500.

      If President Jokowi and Vice President Kalla really do care about saving lives, and if they really do believe that this can be achieved by executing the “kingpins” who trade in dangerous substances, then why not execute Budi Hartono and Susilo Wonowidjojo?

      Is it not obvious that these two men – if we are to use Jokowi’s logic – have been directly “responsible” for millions of preventable deaths over the years? And more repulsive still, just like our so-called “kingpins” on death row, Hartono and Wonowidjojo have made an exquisite personal fortune as a result.

      This sort of double standard has to stop.

      #Indonésie #Jokowi #drogue #peine_de_mort

  • Des menaces de mort contre les journalistes de Haaretz sur la page Facebook de Ronen Shoval candidat d’extrême droite - Signalé par Charles Enderlin (Twitter)

    http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.636488

    Facebook users have called for the murder of Haaretz journalists, responding to a call by a right-leaning politician who wants an investigation into Haaretz’s editors on suspicion of “defeatist propaganda” under Statute 103 of Israel’s penal code.

    Ronen Shoval, who is running in right-wing party Habayit Hayehudi’s primary, called for the investigation on Facebook over the weekend. This came after Haaretz had run a cartoon in which its graphic designers paid tribute to the cartoonists killed in the terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in France.

    Shoval, a founder of the Im Tirtzu movement that an Israeli court has described as having fascist "similarities,” wrote: “If we have learned anything, it is that terror attacks are the result of an atmosphere of incitement.”

    According to Shoval, “Unfortunately, the attorney general will not do a thing, as usual. But determined lawmakers can change this situation.”

    A raft of death threats came in. “We must do what the terrorists did to them in France, but at Haaretz,” wrote Facebook user Chai Aloni. “Why is there no terror attack at Haaretz?” wrote Moni Ponte.

    “Let the terrorists eliminate them,” wrote Daniella Peretz. “With God’s help, the journalists at Haaretz will be murdered just like in France,” wrote Miki Dahan. As Danit Hajaj put it, “They should die.”

    “Haaretz is where the terrorists should have gone,” wrote Riki Michael. “Death to traitors,” added Moshe Mehager. “I hope that terrorism reaches Haaretz as well,” wrote Tuval Shalom. “With God’s help, [there will be] a Hamas operation that kills all of you, like the journalists in France,” wrote Ruti Hevroni.

    Haaretz’s editorial staff said the cartoons published in the project were a personal gesture by the newspaper’s designers, not the editorial board, and this is how they were presented.

    “It is astonishing that in the framework of the global debate over freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and at a time when journalists have been killed over the existence of this right, Internet users are demanding that Haaretz completely censor a cartoon whose c

    ontent they do not like,” a spokesman for Haaretz’s editorial staff said.

    “[The cartoon represents] the personal view of the cartoonist, just as the cartoons in Charlie Hebdo expressed the opinions of the cartoonists who worked there and were published in the name of freedom of expression, even though they were provocative and angered many people. The role of caricature, or of any other visual message, is to arouse thought and debate.”

    Shoval responded to the wave of Facebook comments on Sunday afternoon, promising to remove the offending remarks. “Thank you for drawing my attention to the severe comments posted on my page,” Shoval said. “I will make sure to erase them quickly; as you said, I understand that incitement leads to murder. In the same breath, I ask you to remove the caricature immediately.”

    Visuel dans l’article

  • Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/07/us/politics/energy-firms-in-secretive-alliance-with-attorneys-general.html

    The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.

    But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.

    Attorneys general in at least a dozen states are working with energy companies and other corporate interests, which in turn are providing them with record amounts of money for their political campaigns, including at least $16 million this year.

    #corruption

  • Sommé de révéler ses sources sur la #CIA, un journaliste du « New York Times » va « continuer à se battre »
    http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2014/08/15/somme-de-reveler-ses-sources-sur-la-cia-un-journaliste-du-new-york-times-va-

    Les procureurs poursuivent M. #Risen depuis 2006, réclamant qu’il confirme le nom d’un homme qu’ils estiment être sa source dans son livre State of War, sur la CIA et l’administration Bush. M. Risen refuse notamment sa convocation pour témoigner au procès d’un ancien responsable de la CIA, Jeffrey Sterling, accusé d’avoir rendu publiques des informations confidentielles. Au début de juin, la Cour suprême des Etats-Unis avait refusé de se saisir de l’affaire, maintenant donc l’injonction faite au journaliste.

    C’est bien pire en fait,

    Where’s the Justice at Justice ? - NYTimes.com
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/opinion/sunday/maureen-dowd-wheres-the-justice-at-justice.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&_r=0

    Attorney General Eric Holder wants to force Risen to testify and reveal the identity of his confidential source on a story he had in his 2006 book concerning a bungled C.I.A. operation during the Clinton administration in which agents might have inadvertently helped Iran develop its nuclear weapon program. The tale made the C.I.A. look silly, which may have been more of a sore point than a threat to national security.

    But Bush officials, no doubt still smarting from Risen’s revelation of their illegal wiretapping, zeroed in on a disillusioned former C.I.A. agent named Jeffrey Sterling as the source of the Iran story.

    The subpoena forcing Risen’s testimony expired in 2009 , and to the surprise of just about everybody, the constitutional law professor’s administration renewed it — kicking off its strange and awful aggression against reporters and whistle-blowers.

    Holder said in May that “no reporter who is doing his job is going to go to jail,” trying to show some leg and signal that his intention is benign, merely to put pressure on Sterling so that he will plead guilty before his trial.

    The president and the attorney general both spoke nobly about the First Amendment after two reporters were arrested in Ferguson, Mo., while covering the racial protests in the wake of Michael Brown’s death.

    Obama said that “here, in the United States of America, police should not be bullying or arresting journalists who are just trying to do their jobs and report to the American people on what they see on the ground.”

    Holder seconded the sentiment, saying that “journalists must not be harassed or prevented from covering a story that needs to be told.”

    So why don’t they back off Risen? It’s hard to fathom how the president who started with the press fluffing his pillows has ended up trying to suffocate the press with those pillows.

    How can he use the Espionage Act to throw reporters and whistle-blowers in jail even as he defends the intelligence operatives who “tortured some folks,” and coddles his C.I.A. chief, John Brennan, who spied on the Senate and then lied to the senators he spied on about it?

    “It’s hypocritical,” Risen said. “A lot of people still think this is some kind of game or signal or spin. They don’t want to believe that #Obama wants to crack down on the press and whistle-blowers. But he does. He’s the greatest enemy to press freedom in a generation .”

    #james_risen

  • With Zoabi’s suspension, Knesset moves toward fascism - Opinion Israel News | Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.607924

    On Monday, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein decided not to open criminal proceedings against MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad) for saying that the kidnappers of Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel weren’t terrorists. Weinstein noted that in that same interview she voiced her objection to the kidnapping, creating a “real doubt” about whether her statement broke the law; moreover, he said, indictments that restrict speech should be rare. But he added that his decision dealt only with the criminal aspects, and not the administrative or ethical ones.

    Yesterday, the Knesset Ethics Committee used that statement to justify its decision to suspend Zoabi from plenum debates for six months, based on a law allowing MKs who violate the Knesset’s code of ethics to be suspended. Usually this panel only discusses statements made within the Knesset itself. It’s not the committee’s job to punish an MK for making political statements, however unpopular, and especially not when they were made outside the Knesset.

    The committee based itself on a rule stating that an MK “is a public trustee whose duty is to represent his electorate in a way that promotes human dignity, social progress and the good of the state.” Though MKs can act on their own interpretation of the good of the state, it said, Zoabi’s statement, made at a very sensitive time, did not promote the good of the state, violated her obligation as a public trustee and undermined public faith in the Knesset.

    In short, Knesset members believe there’s only one permissible view of what constitutes the good of the state, and not only does the majority determine what it is, but it also tries to prevent anyone with a different view from expressing it. This reveals a lack of understanding of substantive democracy and effectively replaces it with a dictatorship of the majority. There’s no one view of “the good of the state” in controversial issues, and anyone who says there is, while denying others the right to differ, is paving the way to fascism and tyranny.

    One can disagree with Zoabi’s statement, but it was legal. Since she didn’t voice support for the abduction, she wasn’t supporting terror. Nor did another statement cited by the committee, one in favor of “popular resistance,” constitute a call for violence; as Zoabi has stressed repeatedly, it’s a call for nonviolent resistance.

    The Ethics Committee must not become a forum for political persecution where the majority imposes its views on the minority. Letting the panel punish MKs for their views may well violate their substantive parliamentary immunity, which is supposed to protect them from legal repercussions for voicing opinions in the fulfillment of their parliamentary duties. Initially, this immunity was granted to protect MKs from political persecution by the executive, but today, protecting them from persecution by their colleagues is no less important. The High Court of Justice has stressed the importance of this immunity in preserving MKs’ independence, and especially in protecting the minority from the majority.

    The last Knesset also stripped Zoabi of some of her parliamentary privileges, including her diplomatic passport, over her participation in a Turkish-sponsored flotilla to Gaza that turned violent. This decision was challenged in a High Court petition which argued that substantive immunity protects MKs not only against indictment, but also against sanctions imposed by the Knesset. The deliberations lasted three years, until the 18th Knesset was dissolved in 2013, at which point the court dismissed the petition on the grounds that it was now purely theoretical. It thereby missed an opportunity to state explicitly that the Knesset can’t punish MKs for political statements. It must be hoped that this time, it will overturn the Ethics Committee’s decision swiftly.

    This decision appears to be part of a broader persecution of Israel’s Arab minority. The committee was used to delegitimize certain views, while not imposing sanctions on other MKs who made offensive statements – like Avigdor Lieberman, who called for boycotting Arab businesses, or Miri Regev, who called asylum seekers a “cancer.” The severity of the punishment also bolsters this contention. When former MK Menachem Porush termed Justice Mishael Cheshin “a pig,” the committee made do with a reprimand, and when former MK Aryeh Eldad said that anyone who cedes territory deserves death, he was suspended for just one day.

    It’s regrettable that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein – unlike his predecessor Reuven Rivlin, now the president, who spoke out against political persecution of Arab MKs in general and Zoabi in particular – was the person who led this latest move against Zoabi. This unacceptable and discriminatory decision, which seeks to impose artificial boundaries on the political discourse, is another stage in the dismantling of Israeli democracy.

    #Israël #Fascisme #Totalitarisme #Discrimination #Apartheid #Gaza #Palestine

  • Oliver Lewis
    Deputy Attorney General
    Department of Justice, State of California
    1300 I Street, Suite 125
    Sacramento, California 94244

    Re: Defendant Kamala Harris

    Dear Mr. Lewis:

    1. In a letter dated July 3, 2014, you informed me that your office is representing defendant Kamala Harris in the action I have filed in Yolo County Superior Court. Please note that I strongly object to such representation because Ms. Harris has been sued in her capacity as a private individual for misconduct which took place before she assumed the position of Attorney General of the State of California — specifically, misconduct she undertook together with her brother-in-law (Tony West), who was employed at that time at Morrison & Forester (alongside James Brosnahan and Chris Young) in her capacity as a member of Obama for America.

    As such, I believe that your office’s representation of Ms. Harris under these circumstances is inappropriate, and ask that your office cease from representing Ms. Harris. If you disagree with my position, I would appreciate if you can forward an explanation.

    2. Your letter also states that on July 3, 2014 you attempted to file a demurrer to the complaint, to be heard on July 25, but were told by the clerk of the court that it will not assign a hearing date. My understanding is that the last day to file any motion for a hearing date of July 25 was June 27, 2014 (for service by mail). As such, the clerk was correct in rejecting your papers.

    Nevertheless, as a courtesy, I will not seek entry of default judgment against Ms. Harris, and will await word from the Court as to when it will hear your demurrer.

    If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.