From now on, Israeli Army soldiers and officers had better think twice about obeying orders to destroy Palestinian homes. Ruins of the home of Fatenah and ‘Azzam Idris i in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of East Jerusalem. There had been two apartments in the building: one was home to the 8-member Idris family and the other to their relative Mai who lived there with her husband Baha a-Deb’i and their two minor children. Photo by ‘Amer ‘Aruri – B’Tselem.
The International Criminal Court ruling is a game-changer
The judges of the International Criminal Court in The Hague ruled unequivocally that the court has full authority to hear and decide on Palestinian complaints of violations of International Law by the State of Israel and its army. Thereby, the rules of the game have fundamentally changed.
To date, the only judicial authority authorized to hear cases relating to acts by the Israeli Army in the Occupied Territories had been the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. In spite of prolonged wild incitement waged by Israeli right-wing circles against the Supreme Court and its judges, in practice the Supreme Court was and remains extremely forgiving towards the occupation army, rejecting the vast majority of appeals lodged by Palestinians.
When it comes to the judges of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, it’s a completely different matter. The Hague Court is bound by the provisions of International Law, specifically by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 which sets out in detail what an occupying state is allowed — and what it is forbidden — to do in a territory under the military rule of its army. Many of the acts that the IDF routinely undertakes in the territories under its rule may turn out to be serious violations of International Law.
For example: Just a few days ago, on the morning of Monday, February 1, a large military force arrived in the tiny village of Hamsa al-Fouka in the northern Jordan Valley. The soldiers destroyed dozens of residential buildings and sheep pens, leaving 85 Palestinian residents – 45 of them children – homeless and exposed in the open air. The soldiers also demanded that the residents completely leave Hamsa al-Fouka and move to another location that the army would determine for them, threatening that if they did not leave voluntarily, they would be forcibly transferred by the army.
This act of destruction and devastation carried out by the army — and it is certainly not the first of its kind — has gone virtually unnoticed by the Israeli public and political system. Knesset Members who habitually engage in loud and vociferous debates failed to take up this issue. But make no mistake: outside the borders of the State of Israel, there are those who constantly monitor and closely record such acts.
At the International Court, indictments can certainly be filed against IDF officers and settlers as well as against officials and ministers in the Government of Israel. Among other things, acts of wanton destruction — carried out especially against small and highly vulnerable Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley and the South Hebron Hills — can certainly lead to the filing of indictments against everybody involved.
From now on, IDF officers should think twice about obeying an order to participate in such acts of destruction, and risk serious consequences. Officers who nevertheless decide to continue participating in these acts of destruction had better make an effort to keep their identities secret, constantly wear masks regardless of the Covid-19 situation, and in general start acting like law-breakers evading law enforcement — because that is exactly what their legal status is about to become.
Decision-makers in the State of Israel have been well aware in recent weeks that the decision of the judges in The Hague was imminent, and that President Trump – who tried to intimidate the International Court by series of blatant threats – is no longer in the White House. It is surprising that in such a situation the decision-makers continued to order soldiers and officers to go on destroying Palestinian homes, when knowing that those who carry out such orders may have to pay a heavy price.
Defense Minister Gantz should look up from his clashes with the Prime Minister and his party’s precarious electoral situation, and think about the consequences of the Hague judges’ decision — the consequences for himself personally, both regarding his former position as Army Chief of Staff and his present one as Defense Minister, and the changing judicial situation of the soldiers and officers for whom he is responsible as being in charge of Israel’s military system.
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These vaccines deliver mRNA, coated in lipid (fat), into cells. Once inside, your body uses instructions in the mRNA to make SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins. The immune response protectsaround 95% of people vaccinated with either vaccine from developing COVID-19.
Such mRNA vaccines have many benefits. They are quick to design, so once the manufacturing platform is set up, mRNA vaccines can be designed to target different viruses, or variants, very quickly. The vaccine manufacturing is also fully synthetic, and doesn’t rely on living cells like chicken eggs, or cultured cell lines. So this technology is here to stay.
However, there are still issues we need to improve on to help make mRNA vaccines become more practical and affordable for the entire world, not just first-world countries. Here are four areas mRNA vaccine researchers are working on.
1. How to make them more stable at higher temperatures
We know mRNA and its lipid coat is relatively unstable in a fridge or at room temperature. That’s because RNA is more sensitive than DNA to enzymes in the environment that will degrade it.
To overcome this, researchers are working on testing what happens when different types of additives are included, hoping they will extend the vaccines’ shelf life. These additives have been used in vaccines before and include, for example, small amounts of common sugars.
Another approach is to freeze-dry mRNA vaccines into a powder for storage. The idea is to then add water to “reconstitute” the vaccine powder before injection. California-based company Arcturus is trialling this strategy in a phase III clinical trial in Singapore.
CureVac, which is also developing an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, has already overcome some of these challenges. It has produced a vaccine stable for three months at fridge temperature.
2. How to reduce the amount of vaccine in each shot
The current mRNA vaccine doses range from 30 micrograms (Pfizer/BioNTech) to 100 micrograms (Moderna). In phase I clinical trials, lower doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were also active.
Could we go lower than this? CureVac has developed a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine with a dose of 12 micrograms through a combination of innovations in mRNA sequence and lipid formulations. However, the details of this remain proprietary.
Self-amplifying mRNA is another approach to reduce vaccine doses. Self-amplifying mRNA is engineered to make more copies of itself once delivered into cells. This means only a small initial dose is needed.
Self-amplifying and standard mRNA. Theoretically, lower doses are needed with self-amplifying RNA to generate the same antigen levels (Author provided).
While more research will be needed to understand self-amplifying mRNA vaccines, this could reduce costs, as less material is needed.
3. How to switch from two doses to one
Current mRNA COVID-19 vaccines need “boosting”. This is where the first injection primes the immune system, then a second one, three to four weeks later, boosts the immune response.
It would be much simpler if a single shot could give the same efficacy. And if COVID-19 remains with us, in the future we will need to boost the immune response regularly, such as with yearly flu vaccines.
In this case, a once-a-year booster shot will be a single injection, rather than the current strategy.
Again, self-amplifying mRNA may be useful. Arcturus announced encouraging results from a single injection of a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine.
In research involving mice, posted online but not yet formally published in a journal, a single injection of a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine showed a robust immune response.
Another approach was developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for protein vaccines. This uses micro-spheres of polymer that can release the vaccine into the body at day one and day 21. This could “boost” in a single injection. A similar micro-sphere approach could be used with mRNA vaccines.
4. How to keep ahead of viral variants and have boosters ready
We know mRNA vaccine technology is well suited to rapidly responding to emerging viral variants. That’s because the chemical and physical properties of mRNA remain the same, even with small sequence changes required to match viral mutants. This means making modified mRNA vaccines for mutants is quick and simple.
mRNA vaccines designed for different variants have similar manufacturing and packaging processes. This simplifies the response to emerging mutations, such as the UK and South African (SA) variants (Author provided).
The main hurdle for a varied sequence will be regulatory approval. However, in a recent interview, the US Food and Drug Administration suggested mRNA vaccines against mutated versions may be accepted with a small clinical trial (or no trials for future mutations). We don’t know if Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration will take a similar approach.
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Stunning, small, rotund and beautifully marked plumage are just a few adjectives that describe this bird. Ranging from Honduras to Ecuador, they are usually seen in the lower parts of the forest foraging for ants. The species ranges all along the Atlantic Side and from Veraguas to the canal area on the Pacific Side. They are very common on the Pipeline Road. This species is known in many Spanish-speaking places as the Hormiguero moteado.
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Plumaje impresionante, pequeño, rotundo y bellamente marcado son solo algunos de los adjetivos que describen a esta ave. Desde Honduras hasta Ecuador, por lo general se las ve en las partes más bajas del bosque en busca de hormigas. La especie se extiende a lo largo de l viertente del Caribe y desde Veraguas hasta el área del canal en la vietiente del Pacífico. Son muy comunes en el Camino del Oleoducto. Esta especie es conocida en muchos lugares de habla hispana como el Hormiguero moteado.
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Mexico: Vaccination registry excludes important sectors of the population
by Amnesty International
Registration on the website that the Mexican government set up on 2 February for the vaccination of people over 60 years old requires a Unique Population Registration Number (CURP), excluding large numbers of the population who do not have this document, and thus putting public health at risk, warned the Alianza Movilidad Inclusiva en la Pandemia, a coalition of more than 30 organizations and shelters in Mexico and Central America, led by the Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración, AC (IMUMI), the Grupo de Monitoreo Independiente del Salvador (GMIES) and Amnesty International.
“The COVID-19 vaccine should not be subject to a single document as there is no universal form of identification in Mexico, where the state has substituted this on a discretional basis with National Electoral Institute credentials, passports, and in this case the CURP. To make it so is to leave in limbo the migrant population, deported Mexicans, binational people who have not been able to prove their Mexican nationality for lack of an apostille, indigenous internal migrants, and those who, due to conditions of exclusion or the backwardness of municipal institutions, have not been able to acquire a birth certificate or have theirs corrected,” said Gretchen Kuhner, director of IMUMI, on behalf of the Alliance.
The organizations denounce that the Mexican government has not made public any plan to allow people who do not have a CURP to access vaccinations. They also note that throughout the pandemic the Mexican government, through the National Migration Institute and in the absence of sanitary vigilance, has failed to provide people on the move with effective access to health care or measures to stop the spread of the virus.
In Central American countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica, similar failures have been observed to include migrants, deportees and other sectors of the population in vaccination plans, by requiring documents that not everyone in those places has.
“Access to the vaccine for everyone, including those on the move across different countries in Central America, regardless of their migratory status, is crucial. It must be provided without discrimination. It’s not a privilege, it’s about guaranteeing a level playing field,” said Vinicio Sandoval, executive director of GMIES.
“We call on the governments of Mexico and Central America, especially on their health authorities, to coordinate the management of pathways to vaccination, putting people’s needs at the forefront of their policies without exceptions and with differentiated approaches to gender, the need for international protection and movement, to ensure no one is left behind,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International.
“These authorities must generate health policies and vaccination plans that are inclusive in practice, to avoid putting public health at risk at national and regional level. Health is a human right that cannot be denied to anyone for any reason, including their nationality or immigration status.”
[Editor’s note: Panama faces many of the same issues, and will even more so with our land borders reopened.]
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Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. The two martyred preachers were both rivals and allies in politics and religion. When the white racist director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, tried to set them against each other, they got together and compared notes. US Library of Congress photo.
Martin Luther King Jr. y Malcolm X. Los dos predicadores martirizados eran rivales y aliados en política y religión. Cuando el director racista blanco del FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, trató de enfrentarlos, se reunieron y compararon notas. Foto de la Biblioteca del Congreso de EEUU.
Heathen back, yeah, ‘pon the wall
Las espaldas del pagano están en la pared
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Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during a press conference on January 30, 2019, as Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Repsresentatives Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), and Ken Buck (R-Co.) stand around him as a bipartisan group announced reintroduction of a joint Senate and House resolution to end US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Photo from the Office of Senator Bernie Sanders.
Senator Bernie Sanders was among thosewelcomingthe White House announcement Thursday that the United States will limit its role in the Saudi-led war on Yemen by ending support for “offensive operations,” with the Vermont Independent calling the development “a tribute to the work of so many activists over the years.”
“Yemen needs food, medicine, and healthcare — not bombs and blockades,” the senator tweeted.
In a statement, Sanders pointed to the legislative effort he undertook three years ago along with Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah ) to end US participation in the bombing campaign of Yemen — now in its sixth year — as well as sustained activism by peace advocates.
“For many years, activists in Yemen and around the world have worked to bring an end to the devastating Saudi-led war in Yemen, which has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” said Sanders.
“In 2018,” he continued, “I helped lead an effort to pass the first War Powers Resolution in history, calling for the United States to end its unauthorized participation in that war.”
President Joe Biden also announced Thursday that career diplomat Timothy Lenderking would serve as special envoy to Yemen, which was also welcomed by Sanders.
Today’s announcement that the White House will end military support for the Saudi-led war in the Yemen war is a tribute to the work of so many activists over the years.
“Today’s announcement by President Biden that the United States will end support for offensive operations in the Yemen war, and his naming of a Special Envoy to help resolve this conflict and bring aid and reconstruction to Yemen, are important steps,” said Sanders, “and a tribute to the work of so many activists over the years.”
At his Thursday speech at the State Department, Biden said that in addition to a halt on support for offensive operations, the United States would end “relevant arms sales” and back a ceasefire effort to help end what he called a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”
As the Associated Press reported,
The ending of US support for the offensive will not affect any US operations against the Yemen-based al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, group, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. […]
While withdrawing support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen, the Biden administration said it intends to help the kingdom boost its defenses against any further attacks from Yemen’s Houthis or outside adversaries. The assurance is seen as part of an effort to persuade Saudi Arabia and other combatants to end the conflict overall.
Despite such caveats to Thursday’s announcement, MPower Change campaign director Sijal Nasralla said in a statement that it still represents “a real, monumental victory.”
“We celebrate this massive step forward even knowing that under the war on terror, the United States will still have carte blanche to bomb Yemen, even if the immense suffering from this particular campaign ends,” he said. “We also know that we must end the forever wars, and the Authorization for Use of Military Force that legally powers it.”
Like Sanders, Nasralla gave a “massive thank you” to international peace activists “who began the effort under the Obama administration, kept it up under Trump, and have brought us to this moment under Biden.”
“Let’s remember,” he said, that “this coalition effort saw one of the only real votes in Congress in decades to curb US imperialism,” referring to Sanders’ war powers resolution. “Trump vetoed it then, but it helped lay the groundwork for this moment.”
Nasralla called for continued pressure “to push the US to end all of its forever wars.”
In a statement last month Shireen Al-Adeimi, a Yemeni-American and an assistant professor at Michigan State University, urged the new administration to ensure that a full end to US complicity in the war.
“I call on President Biden to end every aspect of this war,” Al-Adeimi said. “One day, Yemenis will have a chance to pick up the pieces and chart their own course, free of international meddling and intervention.”
US support for the war, which began under the Obama-Biden administration, has been linked to alleged war crimes in Yemen.
The United Nations has repeatedly warned that Yemen has been pushed to the brink of famine, and considers the country the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The war has killed, directly or indirectly, an estimated 230,000 Yemenis, the UN says.
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Nor are many outside of the chamber paying much attention anymore. Photo by the Presidencia.
Ever worse
These words are written in the course of a series of power outages, one of which lasted for more than eight hours in this part of Cocle province, and after the lights came back the Claro wireless Internet connection towers were out of whack. Meanwhile in Arraijan, no water, in some neighborhoods for days, and protests about that. Plus a “dialogue” about cutting social security benefits one way or another that’s so patently a set-up that the government can’t talk to either labor or retirees, so Nito does his photo op consultation with a group of children.
The economic news is almost uniformly bad. Fitch just lowered Panama’s bond rating again. The Riu and Ramada hotels here have declared bankruptcy. Dozens of people die of COVID-19 every day, but we are told that restrictions are being lifted and tourism will suddenly and magically snap back.
Will the “influencers” come to the rescue? A list of them, and what they are being paid, leaked out. Except that the government says that the list is secret and won’t talk about it. The powers that be won’t deny what was published either. Mostly it’s a bunch of young adults of dubious talents and credentials. It looks like some are getting paid more than PanCanal pilots, at first glance… BUT WAIT! People who were listed as being paid by the government to influence public opinion are saying that they are not now, never were and wouldn’t be. As in, the apparent hallmarks of a “botella” scheme, wherein payrolls are padded with fictional employees and those parts of the planilla get drained off by corrupt public officials.
Yes, there is the odd opposition figure speaking out about the abuses. No, there is no obvious alternative waiting in the wings. It’s a given that at the next opportunity – the 2024 elections or some sort of an earlier referendum – people are going to vote against Nito Cortizo and his PRD. But that really isn’t a plan.
Will we ever get over claiming our respective dibs, acknowledge that across the board there have been terrible losses that are not going to be made up anytime soon? Can we ever agree to scrap the old arrangements and start on some new ones? It’s hard to expect that when the privileged jump the vaccine line and nobody gets held to account for it.
Let’s wise up, Panama.
February being Black History Month in the USA – Panama has a different one in May – local Democrats ought to recognize some of the black history that the party made here. In its 21st century iteration, Democrats Abroad Panama was reorganized after the 2000 election defeat more than by anyone else by a black man, the late Bill Speed. Well before that, for most of the 20th century Democrats were organized here under the aegis of the Canal Zone Democrats. The organization arose from a segregated white-minority colony that was formally abolished in 1979. The Canal Zone Democrats were mostly like Southern white Democrats of that time. The two-thirds black majority of the Zone’s civilian population was not a factor – hardly any of them were US citizens. But in 1964, a civil rights movement among the African-American troops, the Concerned Brothers, signed up as Democrats, marched into the meeting where party leaders and convention delegates were chosen, and elected a racially integrated slate. That summer the Canal Zone delegation voted to seat the Mississippi Freedom Democrats rather than Mississippi’s whites-only official delegation. As shown above, the Freedom Democrats got their hearing and an odd compromise was made.
Democrats Abroad: A US political party among sovereign nations
It’s a conceptual problem among US political activists and operatives in general, but it takes on special force in Democrats Abroad (DA). Are we a “brand” that appeals to various “markets,” or are we a “political party” that tries to represent various “constituencies?”
Some countries do much more to promote the political participation of their citizens living abroad than does the United States. The use of the US diplomatic missions and the diplomatic pouch to send ballots is a tenuous and ill-defined gain for American citizens living outside the USA, but many countries open polling stations in their diplomatic missions for their expatriate citizens to vote. SOME countries have legislators specifically elected to represent citizens living in foreign lands. But under US federalism citizens vote in states and locales – generally in the last place where they resided – according to the election laws of those states but with a thin veneer of federal voting rights protection.
Republicans afford fewer intra-party rights to overseas citizens – no global GOP presidential primary, no expatriate Republicans representation as such at their national conventions, nor on the Republican National Committee. Democrats have these things.
But is Democrats Abroad selling a brand, much as if a multinational hawking potato chips from Australia to Belgium to Chile, or representing a political party’s movements and constituencies in such places? And to the extent that we do the latter, how well do we do this, and what are the practical limits to doing this? Given our diverse membership and all manner of particularities, can Democrats Abroad represent a constituency like, for example, the Georgia Democrats do?
A basic issue of customary international law is that countries are sovereign and foreigners are supposed to respect this. It’s a rule embedded in DA statutes that country chapters shall not comment about or become involved with the politics of the countries where they are established. You don’t find Democrats Abroad Panama making pronouncements about how wonderful or horrible President Cortizo or his party are. But are we allowed to say things to the Panamanian government about things that affect us? Or to petition the US government to in turn make representations to its Panamanian counterpart about things that affect, say, our ability to vote from abroad in US elections, or say, the immigration status of significant parts of the gringo community?
It got even dicier recently when in the social media of a DA country chapter something critical was said about the government of a different country and there was a palpable fear that the criticized third nation would take it out on members of the DA chapter there. It may be that DA needs to adjust its rules so that its global officers may reside in the USA, such that some benighted regime may not expel one of the global officers and in this way force the organization to change its leadership.
When Hillary Clinton, recently having been US Secretary of State, ran for the presidency, word from her partisans in the DNC and from some DA operatives was that there would be no comment about US foreign policy. Period. No discussion about Clinton’s record in office. No discussion about international human rights issues. Antiwar Democrats had to sit down and shut up. No criticism of a system of economic globalization on corporate terms. It’s one of the reasons why she got crushed in the 2016 DA global primary.
Come 2017 and we had a GOP administration and reports of Russian interventions in the 2016 campaign, largely through pseudonymous characters in the universes of Facebook and Twitter. So did Russia-bashing become de rigueur? Did, by default, DA become in effect a neoconservative organization. And on the other hand, was it still necessary to shut up about the prime minister of Israel openly siding with Donald Trump in US elections? Or for that matter Trump making endorsements in British elections? Somehow DA muddled its way through these thing, despite no consensuses of the membership about such questions.
Other matters run to Washington’s policies with respect to US citizens living abroad. DA does take a position in favor of residency based taxation – US citizens living overseas don’t pay income tax on money earned abroad being the basic desire. That affects the wealthiest US expats but as to taxes paid mostly does not affect most DA members. Things like the decline of consular services for American citizens – and rising prices of those available – inexplicably get little attention.
Then there are issues within expatriate communities of relevance. Do we allow anti-maskers who also holler against Panama’s gun laws to define the American community here? Do we encourage our members and the community in general to learn Spanish, or just fall into all the banal discussions about ‘Where can I find and English-speaking ____ who will work for bottom dollar?’ Do we address the US citizens here for whom English is a second language in English only?
If it’s a brand, you might just make reference to marketing surveys. If it’s a political party, there is a need to inquire as to who we are. THEN, on top of the latter, the US two-party system makes each major party a coalition of forces that would be separate parties in a place like Italy or Israel.
Some weighty questions here, which can be politically existential. But passing a resolution would be no magic wand. We deal with far more nuanced and complicated issues.
US National Endowment for the Humanities photo.
Anyone who wants to talk of the stupidity of 1914 has only to remember the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
Barbara Tuchman
Bear in mind….
A bully is not reasonable – he is persuaded only by threats.
Marie de France
When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is harder to release a nation from servitude than to enslave a free nation.
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The Democratic Party establishment is now issuing a go-slow warning to the new president they backed.
They instruct that, while Biden should undo the most repressive and regressive edicts of Trump, he should not attempt the kind of big-idea, Rooseveltian structural changes that progressives advocate. They claim that it was Biden’s moderate, incremental campaign for a return to pre-Trump normalcy that got him elected.
If ignorance is bliss, these champions of the corporate-run status quo must be ecstatic. I was out there in the thick of last year’s election, and it definitely was not establishmentarians who saved our nation from a second Trump term.
While many party insiders insisted that Biden should be the Democratic candidate, they didn’t have the voter credibility or outreach to elect him. Big donors and powerful lawmakers don’t go door to door, send millions of personal text messages, or volunteer to organize mass rallies.
Rather than working with insurgent grassroots activists, the old guard that controls the party apparatus largely got in the way of success, arrogantly refusing to back progressive nominees and deflating the morale of volunteer activists. While Biden’s muted campaign of “I’m not Trump” was calming to moderates, it stamped out any spark of enthusiasm that more voters might have had if he’d been a more robust champion of people’s needs.
Still, the ones who carried Biden into the Oval Office, despite his 50-year career of political meekness, were the grassroots organizers and union volunteers, people of color activists, women’s networks, youth groups, and so many other rebels against the corporate order that the Democratic powers now demand we preserve.
Biden’s presidential legacy — and the Democratic Party’s future — are dependent on his breaking with Washington insiders and aligning with insurgent progressive activists who would reconnect the party to its anti-establishment roots and make it, like FDR did, a party of the people once again.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was an establishment politician from an aristocratic family. But the times demanded action, the people who voted him into office got militant and he acted with them to save a nation. Nowadays? The new president is a lifetime insider, but his legacy now depends on working with those the status quo has failed. Shutterstock photo.
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