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Por lo general, las poblaciones de vertebrados no están disminuyendo

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sloth
Las pérdidas extremas en unas pocas poblaciones provocan una disminución aparente de vertebrados a nivel global. Un perezoso en  Bocas del Toro. Foto por Steve Paton — Smithsonian.

Biodiversidad de vertebrados – un rayo de esperanza

por STRI

Poblaciones de vertebrados -desde aves y peces hasta antílopes, en general, no están disminuyendo, a pesar de lo que se ha pensado y dicho anteriormente.

En un artículo publicado recientemente en la revista Nature, un equipo de biólogos dirigido por la Universidad de McGill, descubrió que las cifras en declive de poblaciones de vertebrados de todo tipo están impulsadas por un pequeño número de poblaciones atípicas cuyo número está cayendo a tasas extremas. Una vez que estos valores atípicos se separan del resto, surge una imagen muy diferente y mucho más esperanzadora de la biodiversidad global.

(Las poblaciones son grupos de individuos de la misma especie que viven en un área en particular y, por lo tanto, la disminución del tamaño de la población precederá a la pérdida de especies).

Los reportes de muertes son exagerados.

Todo se reduce a las matemáticas, los modelos y distintos enfoques para calcular promedios.

Típicamente se han estimado que las poblaciones de vertebrados han disminuido en promedio por más del 50% desde 1970, basado en datos históricos de monitoreo de la vida silvestre. “Sin embargo, dados los métodos matemáticos previos utilizados para modelar poblaciones de vertebrados, esta estimación podría surgir de dos escenarios muy diferentes: disminuciones sistemáticas generalizadas, o algunas disminuciones extremas”, explica Brian Leung, ecologista de la Universidad de McGill, Catedrático UNESCO de Diálogos para la Sostenibilidad, asociado de investigación del Instituto Smithsonian de Investigaciones Tropicales y autor principal del estudio. En este artículo, los investigadores se plantearon la interrogante de manera diferente.

Usando un conjunto de datos de más de 14,000 poblaciones de vertebrados de todo el mundo recopiladas en la base de datos Living Planet, los investigadores identificaron aproximadamente el 1% de las poblaciones de vertebrados que han sufrido disminuciones extremas de población desde 1970 (como reptiles en áreas tropicales de América del Norte, Central y del Sur) y aves en la región del Indo-Pacífico). Cuando se cuentan este 1% extremo, los investigadores descubrieron que cuando se agrupaban todas juntas, en general las poblaciones de vertebrados restantes no aumentaban ni disminuían.

“La variación en este agregado global también es importante. Algunas poblaciones realmente están en peligro y regiones como el Indo-Pacífico están mostrando disminuciones sistemáticas generalizadas. Sin embargo, la imagen de un ‘desierto de biodiversidad’ mundial no está apoyada por la evidencia.” Comentó Leung. Esto es bueno, sería muy desalentador si todos nuestros esfuerzos de conservación durante las últimas cinco décadas tuvieron poco efecto”.

“Nos sorprendió lo fuerte que fue el efecto de estas poblaciones extremas en el impulso de la estimación anterior del declive global promedio”, agrega la coautora Anna Hargreaves, profesora del Departamento de Biología de McGill. “Nuestros resultados identifican regiones que necesitan una acción urgente para mejorar la disminución generalizada de la biodiversidad, pero también razones para esperar que nuestras acciones puedan marcar la diferencia”.

Para leer “Clustered versus catastrophic global vertebrate declines” por Brian Leung et al en Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2920-6

La investigación fue financiada por the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
doi.org: 10.1038/s41586-020-2920-6

Editorials: Panama has been warned; and Joe knows

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The SINAPROC disaster relief agency on a rescue mission to recover someone swept away by flood waters. It was the unfortunate usual result: a lifeless body recovered. So many rainy season drownings result from lack of or failure to use common sense around storm drains, streams and rivers. A lot of other casualties are of people living where they should not be, in harm’s way. Photo by SINAPROC.

As bad as it was it was just a warning

Sideswiped by two hurricanes in quick succession, very late into what has . traditionally been the hurricane season. We might be lucky to say it was just a freak event to go down in the record books for future generations to ponder. A bit more realistic would be that it’s a warning of climate changing in that direction.

We found all sorts of weaknesses in our defenses.

• Illegal construction in flood plains, some of it with the connivance of local officials, much of it makeshift housing built by poor folks with nowhere else to go.
• Buildings erected in places clearly vulnerable to landslides.
• An underdeveloped road transport system, such that in many places there were no practical detours around bridges carried away by floods or roads blocked by cascades or rocks or mud.
• Already inadequate storm drainage systems in many areas overloaded way past their maximums.
• Populated areas, from islands in the San Blas Archipelago to parts our main cities, that are clearly not prepared to survive even a slight rise in mean sea levels.
• Admirable and sometimes even heroic work by joint task forces from several agencies, but many of which were just not equipped for the tasks they faced.

Let’s play down the interminable processes of blame assignment and move forward from here.

Under poor leadership we run the risk of an increasingly militarized police state, or the transfer of corruption opportunities from one set of public officials to another. We must always be on our guard. But to SENAN, SENAFRONT, the Transito cops and the other divisions of the Policia Nacional, this country’s Security Ministry ought to add a Corps of Engineers with wide-ranging tasks and a vast and varied set of civilian reserves who can be called into service when needed.

A big part of the debt crisis that Panama faces is the product of at least a decade and a half of corrupt dealings with thug construction companies. The losses to the Panamanian public are in the multi-billion-dollar range. Bid rigging practices have become both sophisticated and lowbrow arts, and the legal sophistries upholding these ways of doing business are in themselves good arguments for a new constitution and the expulsion of many individuals from the nation’s bench and bar. So why not create a public engineering corps, perhaps based in part on the US Army Corps of Engineers, to take charge of our important public works construction projects?

Worthy public building inspection is hard to come by in Panama. Proper zoning and building permit decisions vary in each community with each change in local government officials, but when disaster strikes it’s national government agencies that have to come in. So might prevention be nationalized in addition to relief, via a corps of engineers that’s in charge of building permits and the inspection of construction projects?

If the Colon city center, and parts of the nation’s capital, are to be saved from slowly but inexorably rising seas, do we want Odebrecht, or Bolota’s relatives, or the usual highway construction gangsters, in charge of building the dikes and levees that will be needed to save it? It would be much cheaper and more effective to have an engineering corps, calling up labor from a large pool of reserves, performing the design and construction work.

We have been warned. Let’s look ahead, plan ahead and organize the government for the challenges to come.

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The complaint from the one side….

Joe knows

Let’s first understand something about the US political system. With single-member congressional and legislative districts and in most places a first past the post style of determining winners – some places have runoffs if nobody gets a majority – the math of American elections is what gives the United States a two-party system. But each of those parties is a coalition of forces that would be different parties in another country’s form of democracy.

The Republican factions traditionally unify over common interests in protecting the property and privileges of the very rich. The Democrats tend to fight out all the main issues of their times: civil rights for many categories of people, the existence of labor unions, the Vietnam War, the social welfare net, alcohol and drug prohibition – these were all by and large fought out among Democrats.

A presidential primary season affected by Bernie Sanders’s heart attack and Michael Bloomberg’s expenditure of half a billion dollars baiting him about it, then cut short by the COVID-19 epidemic gave the nomination to Joe Biden. It wasn’t some sneaky theft, nor was it a conspiracy within the Democratic National Committee. People who think in such conspiratorial terms do themselves and the causes they support no favors.

In the Congressional primary season, the right side of the party set all sorts of rules to stop the left, then broke their own rules in several races against left incumbents. They backed a dynastic surname against Senator Ed Markey in Massachusetts and lost. They campaigned with racist and bigoted dog whistles against Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar in Michigan and Minnesota respectively and lost. One of the senior ranking House Democrats and 50-year dynasty were outed by left challengers in New York and Missouri. The left side of the party won a bunch of open seat primaries, and in the general election those Democrats who supported Medicare for All won their races while several Democratic incumbents who didn’t lost to Republicans. The House Democratic Caucus shifted to the left this year, with two runoffs in Georgia to determine whether control of the Senate shifts from the Republicans to the Democrats.

First things first for Democrats – those two races in Georgia are crucial.

Beyond that, none of the party’s factions would gain from a failed Biden presidency, and if Biden has much sense he’d realize that if he tears his party apart with divisive policies there won’t be enough Republicans available for him to reach out and accomplish anything. So Democrats may be used to bickering, but there will be a need to unite the factions around a core of policies.

Then everyone on all sides of US politics ought to realize that nothing can go back to exactly what it was. The diplomatic world, American society, US government finances at every level, international trade relations and the things that are possible after a great pandemic don’t allow any return to the past. Nor do the changing demographics of US society. There is no return to the norms of the World War II generation or even of the Baby Boomers. Presuming that there is would be as delusional as any of the weird conspiracy theories.

Joe Biden knows all of that. Let’s see what he can do in the face of a new situation, without too much prophecy based on what he did in former circumstances.

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Bear in mind…

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.

Lenny Bruce

My mother, with her excellent understanding, knew that prejudice squints when it looks, and lies when it talks.

Laure Junot Duchesse de Abrantès

If his IQ slips any lower, we’ll have to water him twice a day.

Molly Ivins – about a Texas politician

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¿Wappin? Viene el agua / Here comes the rain

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rain in Cocle
A day late, due to computer problems rather than the heavy rains
Un día tarde, por problemas informáticos más que por las fuertes lluvias

Cuando la lluvia sobre tu techo de zinc te provoca alucinaciones auditivas
When the rain on your zinc roof gives you audio hallucinations

The Beatles – Rain
https://youtu.be/cK5G8fPmWeA

Rómulo Castro – La Rosa de los Vientos
https://youtu.be/QUoV65mVgss

Aretha Franklin – I Wish It Would Rain
https://youtu.be/HltABBEaBbw

Willie Rosario – Lluvia
https://youtu.be/GLXmybkmdjQ

Vilma Palma e Vampiros – Mojada
https://youtu.be/dTyqrD5VJHQ

Of Monsters and Men – I of the Storm
https://youtu.be/tlCkafSYNJI

Lee Oskar – Before the Rain
https://youtu.be/3f56qh5PmUA

Enya – Echoes in Rain
https://youtu.be/8DDHulO485k

Etta James – Stormy Monday
https://youtu.be/oXnZLhss1g0

Prince – Purple Rain
https://youtu.be/TvnYmWpD_T8

Romeo Santos – La Tormenta
https://youtu.be/alxwWy5UtWk

Dido – Hurricanes
https://youtu.be/-mfladpK0AA

Mon Laferte – Vendaval
https://youtu.be/EIF6V9mE2ng

 

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Dinero

Colegio de Sociología: ¿Por qué Panamá no estaba preparada para Eta?

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glub
Inundaciones en el distrito de Barú. Foto de la cuenta de Twitter de Noriel Araúz.
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Jackson, Basic black nationalism for blue-eyed Democrats

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Reparations for slavery and subsequent oppression is a long-running debate on which African-Americans have varying opinions. There are questions like “Who would qualify?” and “Does anyone think that a check from the government can make a person, family or nation whole for generations of chattel slavery?” There are observations about how Germany paid reparations to some of the victims of the Nazi Holocaust. 

Black nationalism for Dems with blue eyes (etc.)

by Eric L. Jackson Malo (perhaps bad by definition, but a guy with blue eyes)

Did you notice? Joe Biden won the presidency not by splitting off disaffected Republicans, but on the strength of huge African-American turnouts in key states, mostly but not entirely in the major cities.

Did you notice? Among African-American voters, and in the lineup of black elected officials, there are generational, ideological and dynastic changes underway. Yes, there are a few more black conservatives than before, as shown by Donald Trump’s slightly better among black voters showing in 2020 than in 2016. But the 2016 numbers were skewed by a low black turnout. We might argue about why that was — Democrats already — but the striking datum this year was in the turnout of younger voters and that applied across most American raicial divides

Younger African-Americans went to the polls in droves, and only some 50,000 of them were so foolish to cast ballots, listed or write-in, for Kanye West. (Perhaps the verdict on both him and Donald Trump was a watershed cultural event that sounds the death knell for “reality” TV. Perhaps among black people young and old it was a ratificaion of Barack Obama’s old verdict: “Kanye West IS a jackass….”)

Black nationalism in the USA has a long history, heroes and villains and many, many strains. but as an electoral fact, sum up a cardinal tenet as as all other things being more or less equal, most black people prefer to be governed by other black people and vote accordingly.

All things very rarely ARE equal, so notice how black Detroiters, after a series of scandals reached their nadir with the mama’s boy — who ruined his mother’s honorable and progressive career as a congresswoman — “hip hop mayor” of infamous lore, chose a white mayor. Far more recently, Michigan Republicans ran a black candidate for US Senate. Mr. James, the black Republican, might have run on a platform in many ways similar to the record in office of Mr. Peters, in most ways a stodgy corporate Democat, but Michigan’s black voters went with the white man, who notwithstanding any faults can not be said to have aligned himself with white supremacists as everyone who supported Donald Trump’s re-election did.

~ ~

African-Americans trend Democratic, but woe to the Democrat who, in office, egregiously offends the black community. If it’s someone from a majority-black constituency, look for that elected official to be ousted by a primary challenger. If it’s from a larger, mostly non-black constituency, look for black voters to abstain more than cross over to the Republicans.

An infamous example was when the big business Democratic Leadership Council sort of Democrat, Jim Blanchard, ran for re-election as Michigan’s governor. The pre-election polls suggested that he would win in a romp. But he ran ads playing “tough on crime” aimed at battleground white suburbs — the white guard standing over a young black inmate screaming abuse was the worst — and on election day on the governor’s line only some 18% of Detroiters cast ballots. He lost, his friend Bill Clinton made him ambassador to Canada, and never again was Jim Blanchard prominent on the national or Michigan Democratic stage. He sobbed and moaned about having been betrayed by black leaders.

African-American voters sometimes make mistaken choices, and sometimes stick with black leaders with egregious faults in their performance. “Better the devil we know than…” and all that stuff. Or a basic Christian sense that we are all sinners. Or a social judgment that if you are poor, or are the target of discrimination, the economic pressures to be less than pure are greater. Trump’s crowd, of course, treats it as something very else.

From these circumstances white Democrats ought to gather another basic bottom line tenet of black nationalism as practiced in the USA: African-Americans will make their choices, which others may criticize but must respect. None of this white substitution of a “responsible negro spokesman” for the black community’s choice. Don’t complain after the fact about after black voters spurn a Democratic candidate, consult and take proper account beforehand.

~ ~

Appreciate diversity and complexity. Shallow “identity politics?” Those may be effective in some constituencies, and used to be more effective in other constituencies than they are now. The thing is to talk politics that matter to people with identities, speaking honestly as who and what you are, in terms that both speaker and listener understand.

After his break with the Nation of Islam, his hajj to Mecca and his travels in Africa, Malcolm X modified and deepened his thinking about the American predicament in general and about race relations in particular. In a famous incident in Detroit, he issued a stern rebuke to a black anti-Semite. He came to opine that racism is a diseast that any person of any race or nationality can catch, and that in his time, in the USA, it was a minor problem among black people and a big problem among white people. Seems that he was both right about that and that things have not changed all that much.

Suffice to know that “people of color” is only a relevant category in terms of understanding the broad spectrum of those who are often the targets of white racism. It is not a natural community.

In Brooklyn, there are some significant cultural differences among the descendants of American slaves and the progeny of the Afro-Antilleans who built the Panama Canal — even if they are intermarried, even if they have gone to the same New York schools. Just like “Hispanic” is not so useful a political category if you try to lump Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans as having much more in common than at some point (in some cases now) their families or lineages having varieties of the Spanish language in common.

~ ~

Democrats face an uphill double US Senate runoff that gives us a shot at taking control of the US Senate and removing the major obstruction to a successful early par of the Biden presidency. Our candidates are Rev. Warnock, the pastor of Martin Luther King Jr.’s old church and a black man, and Mr. Ossoff, a former Capitol Hill Democratic staffer and a Jew.

We should expect that Republicans will try to play off of anti-Semitism among black people to diminish Ossoff’s chances, and that they will play off of racism among Jews against Warnock. Just two items from a much larger slime bucket that they will throw at us.

So talk to people with identities that we may or may not share, about things that matter. And know that one of the identities that we do share is that fellow Americans are talking among ourselves, about the future of our country.

Lot of good armed resistance did for Malcolm. Members of the Nation of Islam with which he had broken gunned him down, and meanwhile two of his three bodyguards that day were police agents — one was FBI and the other the NYPD’s Bureau of Special Services “red squad.” Can we set aside the conspiracy theories, cutting down with Occam’s Razor to the simple appearance that violent rhetoric, not an intricate plan, set off a few violent men to do the deed? But guns are a recurring question among black nationalists — and with a wannabe black militia operating in Georgia, may again become an election factor in the coming weeks. This reporter recalls a 1970 debate between a member of the Black Panther Party and and a member of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the latter criticizing the Panthers for their emphasis on guns and recalling what the federal troops who were sent into Detroit did after the crowds and snipers ran the police off of the streets in the 1967 rebellion. “They will crush you as if you were a tiny bug, and here you go talking about being bad.”

 

 

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A hated legislature goes home early, police move in, part 1

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What if they gave a riot, and nobody came? Just in case, the riot squad was deployed near the PRD party headquarters. FRENADESO Noticias photo.

All that counts for them under control,
to an outsider nearly total disarray

by Eric Jackson

The National Assembly has two regular sessions, one from early January through the end of April, the other from the beginning of July to the end of October. During the previous session the new new coronavirus hit us and President Laurentino “Nito” Cortizo Cohen responded by declaring a state of emergency, invoking constitutional powers drafted with war in mind.

To “prevent panic” word went out from the government that any information about the health crisis that didn’t come from them was false. For a time most of the rabiblanco media obeyed those restrictions, while at the same time the journalists of most of the small media were locked down like everyone else, as were most government offices. News from Panama about Panama shriveled down to little more than government announcements and accidental videos circulated on social media.

Were there private contacts between the reporters and editors of the main media businesses and the rest of the business community? Of course there were, but at first taboos about telling how bad off a business is limited that part of crisis reporting.

What to do in the swirl on an information black hole? On Twitter, to hit the trending in Panama feed was to find that other than government announcements the usual fare was stuff about European soccer teams.

WHAT? An information hole? What a great opportunity for a politician who loves the limelight! That’s not all or even most of the deputies, though. Those interested in being president some day may grow in the glare, but those who are in it for the money, or making deals with those who are, prefer to work in the shade

At first some of the more extreme deputies who take their guidance from far right movements in other lands grumbled, as in Zulay Rodríguez standing up the assembly chamber to denounce quarantine rules and question the use of masks. The health minister at the time was on a continuum from dismissive to derisive, the deputy didn’t take her advice to self-quarantine, but in any case politicians used to thinking themselves immune to everything and acting like it quickly figured that other than in sparsely populated areas most Panamanians were taking the matter seriously.

By the start of this session a lot of people had died and the PRD caucus had been caught violating the decrees by meeting at a restaurant that was supposed to be closed to divide up the jobs. There were a few things that had to be done, a few things in which this or that legislator believes, but mostly some shows to be staged in a time when presidential decrees pre-empted a lot of what they might otherwise do.

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Do you want to hear her “unmask” the journalists and independent politicians whom she despises and brands as foreign – again? You can go to her YouTube channel (from which this still is taken) to hear that rant. Zulay Rodríguez has her following but by and large her colleagues don’t take her too seriously.

So what did they actually do?

…The city fathers, they’re trying to endorse
The reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse
But the town has no need to be nervous…

Bob Dylan, Tombstone Blues

Word came breathlessly down from the legislative palace at the foot of Ancon Hill that from July 1 through October 29, the deputies had passed 62 laws. They varied widely in importance and infamy.

EDITOR’S NOTE: At about this point on November 1, the laptop on which The Panama News is produced started to go haywire. It proved impossible to go on at the time, and the computer is still not fixed. But the story was and is intended to go on into the things things that the National Assembly did —the veto fights with President Cortizo, the very important matter of the national budget and so on — and was to end with the tale of police attacking protesters and arresting a journalist outside the legislative palace as the session ended. We will get to all of that, AND the subsequent Budget Committee meetings during the legislative recess, in a future article.

 

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Mandela’s Elders: Trump’s games threaten democracy

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Bendib
Cartoon by Khalil Bendib — OtherWords.

The Elders: Trump’s ‘baseless accusations’ of voter fraud threaten democracy worldwide

by Brett Wilkins – Common Dreams

A group of prominent former world leaders on Thursday expressed “deep concern” over President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede defeat to President-elect Joe Biden in the US presidential election, warning that his failure to do so is “putting at risk the functioning of American democracy.”

The Elders—a group that includes numerous former heads of state and government, as well as cabinet ministers, diplomats, activists, two former United Nations secretaries-general, and seven Nobel Peace Prize recipients—issued a statement decrying the “continued assertions of electoral fraud” by Trump, leading members of his administration, and the Republican Party.

Such allegations lack “any compelling evidence” and “convey a lack of respect for the integrity and independence of the democratic and legal institutions of the United States,” the group said.

Warning of “far-reaching consequences beyond the United States’ borders,” The Elders said “those who stand to benefit from the current impasse are autocratic rulers and malign actors who wish to undermine democracy and the rule of law across the world.”

“Notwithstanding any continuing legal challenges, President Trump should follow the example set by his predecessors and declare himself willing to accept the verdict cast by the American people at the ballot box,” the group added. “The executive powers available to the president until his successor assumes office… should be used judiciously in the interests of the whole United States, rather than for partisan gain.”

“Continued baseless accusations of subversion risk further deepening the instability and polarization in American society, and eroding public faith in institutions that is the bedrock of democratic life,” it warned.

Mary Robinson, chair of The Elders and a former Irish president, added: “It is shocking to have to raise concerns about US democratic processes as The Elders have previously commented on volatile and undemocratic situations in states such as Kenya, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe.”

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The refusal of @realDonaldTrump to follow the norms and processes of a transition of power puts the functioning of US democracy at risk. Republican leaders must respect the verdict cast by the American people at the ballot box.

Statement: https://t.co/1oYpdJmTp9 #Election2020 pic.twitter.com/DylYBrTv6D

— The Elders (@TheElders) November 12, 2020

“President Trump’s refusal thus far to facilitate a smooth transition weakens democratic values,” stressed Robinson. “His fellow Republicans must now affirm their faith in the US Constitution, democratic institutions, and the rule of law, so the country can begin a process of reconciliation.”

This is the second time The Elders have weighed in on the US presidential election this week. On Monday, the group released a statement congratulating Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on their victory and expressing hope that “the incoming administration, as well as seeking to unite a divided country, will seize the opportunity to renew America’s commitment to the multilateral system at a time when US leadership is urgently needed.”

“This includes taking a leading role in efforts to keep global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius by recommitting the US to the Paris climate agreement, supporting global collaboration on tackling Covid-19 by reversing plans to withdraw funding for the World Health Organization, and prioritizing the strengthening of nuclear arms controls,” the statement said.

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The Elders congratulate President-elect @JoeBiden and express hope for a sea-change in #US engagement on global issues.

Rejoin the #ParisAgreement
Reverse plans to defund the @WHO
Reach agreement with #Russia on New START nuclear arms controls. https://t.co/LtsvZweJz4 pic.twitter.com/VqcQhw5sZ3

— The Elders (@TheElders) November 9, 2020

Created in 2007 by anti-apartheid activist, Nobel Peace Laureate and former South African President Nelson Mandela, The Elders works to promote “a world where people live in peace, conscious of their common humanity and their shared responsibilities for each other, for the planet, and for future generations.”

Current members include former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, and former Liberian President and Nobel Peace Laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Among the group’s former members are four Nobel Peace Prize recipients: former US President Jimmy Carter, South African archbishop and anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari.

 

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Castro, El plebiscito en Puerto Rico

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pr

Puerto Rico: el independentismo en su despegue electoral

por Nils Castro — Rebelión

Se especula sobre el valor del plebiscito según el cual el 3 de noviembre, junto con las elecciones norteamericanas, el pueblo de Puerto Rico habría votado por su anexión a Estados Unidos. Al contrario, ese día los puertorriqueños volvieron a demostrar que el estatus colonial de la Isla está en crisis.

En realidad, en esa fecha se votó para elegir gobernador, así como senadores y diputados el Congreso borinqueño. A esto, el saliente gobierno anexionista local le añadió un llamado plebiscito sobre si los electores desean o no la “estadidad”, es decir, anexionarse. Un evento cosmético, ya que el Congreso norteamericano ‑el órgano facultado para decidir sobre la situación de Puerto Rico‑ no lo consideró vinculante.

Lo sustantivo del día fue la elección de autoridades y legisladores, y sus resultados transparentan el verdadero estado de cosas. El tradicional bipartidismo puertorriqueño se hunde. El anexionista Partido Nuevo Popular (PNP) pudo elegir por un pelo al nuevo gobernador Pierluisi, y el Partido Popular Democrático ‑el del régimen de Estado Libre Asociado‑ logró sacar una mayoría de uno en ambas cámaras. Pero los dos sacaron sus peores votaciones (el ganador obtuvo 20% menos sufragios que en la elección anterior), ante el ascenso de los independentistas.

Tras décadas de enfrentar persecuciones políticas, clientelismo oficial e imposiciones coloniales, el Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño (PIP) saltó de su tradicional 5% al 14%. Junto a él, dos nuevos partidos afines, sumaron otro 20%. En total, un inédito 34% de votación independentista. Como se sabe, en la Isla la legislación colonialista le prohíbe aliarse a los partidos con registro, so pena de perder el registro, lo que impide a las organizaciones afines compartir candidaturas.

En cuanto al plebiscito, que esta vez jugó un papel marginal, la votación no fue por la estadidad, sino contra el Estado Libre Asociado (ELA), su única alternativa. Solo confirma que el ELA ya está demasiado agotado, sistema político de la inoperancia, la corrupción y la crisis. Antaño ofrecía la ficción de una alternativa “blanda”, sin la vergüenza de la anexión ni los imponderables de la independencia, a la que por décadas le restó electores.

Lo ocurrido destapa dos cosas que ahora pesarán: uno, que la estadidad ganó por un margen exiguo; demasiado pobre para dar justificar una discusión en Washington ni considerarlo algo de peso en Puerto Rico. Si ahora habrá discusión en el Congreso norteamericano será por el abrupto crecimiento electoral independentista, no por este desleído plebiscito.

La otra, que el PIP tuvo la mayor votación de su historia y reeligió a sus senadores y diputados. Sus líderes históricos están más que satisfechos, particularmente por el buen desempeño de sus principales relevos, Juan Dalmau, nuevo secretario general y senador reelecto ‑que fue su candidato a gobernador‑ y María de Lourdes Santiago, vicepresidenta del partido y también senadora reelecta.

 

Nils Castro es un analista político y escritor panameño.

 

 

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Ashrawi, Gush Shalom: Tributes to Saeb Erekat

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The straightforward diplomat behind Arafat and Abbas — in memoriam Saeb Erekat

by Adam Keller – Gush Shalom (the Israeli Peace Bloc)

My first contact with Saeb Erekat was when he was not yet in politics – as a lecturer at Al-Najah University.

When I was invited to a university ceremony which I could not attend, and I called him to express my regret.

At the later occasions where I went as part of a Gush Shalom delegation to meet President Arafat, and still later President Abbas, Dr. Saeb Erekat was always there at the President`s side.

In conversations with him he was strikingly open and straightforward.

Also in more official appearances he was an unlikely diplomat who conveyed confidence, courage and emotion, and that he is interested in doing business with those who had something real to offer.

The Trump Middle East approach made him very bitter.

That he died days after Trump`s demise, of which he probably was not aware, is intensely sad.

He will be missed in whatever hopeful turn to come.

May the memory of his devotion be a consolation for his family and friends.

 

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Reich, Trump’s last stand

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take him away
Archive photo by Ken Eytan – KPFA / Wikimedia.

A final attempt of a desperate,
bitter man to cling to power

by Robert Reich – Common Dreams

Joe Biden has won. He will be our next president.

Normally, the loser of the race would give a gracious concession speech, and accept the results.

That won’t happen this time around, because Donald Trump is a pathological narcissist who will never admit defeat. But there’s no legal requirement for the losing candidate to formally concede—it’s just another tradition Trump will choose to ignore.

He can bluster and protest all he wants, but like it or not, the Constitution and federal law establish a clear timeline of how electoral votes are processed, and when the new president takes office. Here’s how that process normally plays out, how Trump might try to undermine it, and why he is unlikely to succeed.

The first date to look out for is December 8th. After Election Day, states have until this date, called the “safe harbor” deadline, to resolve any election disputes. Each state has a unique process outlined in its state constitution for this, and the federal deadline was created so that state electoral disputes don’t drag on endlessly.

Next is December 14th. This is when the electors meet in their states, and cast paper ballots for president and vice president. And then governors certify the electors’ votes.

The governor sends these certified results to Congress by December 23rd.

On January 6th, 2021, the newly sworn-in Congress meets in a joint session to officially accept each state’s Electoral College votes and count them. This is normally a ceremonial event in which the already-settled results of the election are simply made official. This is when the presidential race formally ends.

Lastly, on January 20th, the president and vice president are inaugurated.

Normally, no one pays much attention to this process before Inauguration Day because it goes off without a hitch. But we’ve seen that Trump will do anything to hold onto power. It’s important to know how and when he might try to undermine this process, and also understand how unlikely it is he’ll succeed.

Trump backers are trying to push Republican-controlled state legislatures to appoint their own slates of Trump electors. That’s why the campaign has launched empty legal challenges to perfectly normal vote counts—trying to sow enough doubt to give the state legislatures political cover to appoint their own electors.

This isn’t likely to happen. It would be challenged as an unconstitutional power grab, since state legislatures have almost always deferred to the results of the state’s popular vote in assigning electoral votes. And not to mention, it would spark massive public outrage.

Thankfully, it doesn’t look like Republican legislators in any of the key swing states want to expend their political capital defending a failed president, and some have even explicitly come out against this plan.

All this is to say, be patient, keep the faith, and don’t fall into Trump’s cry for attention. We must see this for what it is: A final attempt of a desperate, bitter man to cling to power.

Joe Biden will be our next president.

 

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