#ministerial challenges

[townpostin]

Saryu Roy Challenges Food Supply Minister Banna Gupta over Alleged Dept Misconduct

Former minister accuses current official of potential grain misappropriation MLA Roy calls for vigilance in food distribution, citing concerns of black market diversion. JAMSHEDPUR – Jamshedpur East MLA Saryu Roy has launched a scathing attack on Jharkhand’s current Food Supply Minister, accusing him of potential misconduct and issuing a bold challenge. In a press release, Roy alleged the…

[easterneyenews]

Sunak and Starmer launch ‘personal attacks’ in final debate

PRIME MINISTER Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Keir Starmer went head-to-head on Wednesday (26) in their last debate before an election next week, with both launching highly personal attacks over their and their parties’ credibility.With Sunak’s Tories trailing Labour by around 20 points in the polls, the prime minister went on the attack, accusing Starmer of not being straight with the country on migration, tax and women’s rights, and urging voters not to “surrender” to the Labour.Starmer responded that Sunak was too rich to understand the concerns of most ordinary Britons. A snap YouGov poll said the debate had been a tie, with both on 50%.

[sayruq]

Wallonia has issued a ban on the transit of all arms from its territory towards Israel, the region's Minister-President Elio Di Rupo (PS) confirmed to Le Soir. The decision followed an investigation by Belgium's francophone national news channel RTBF, as well as Le Soir and De Morgen, which revealed that 70 tonnes of munitions and explosives had transited via Liège airport to Israel since Hamas attack on 7 October. This was despite a commitment made in February by the Walloon government to prevent lethal weapons from passing via the region to the Jewish State. The media investigation revealed that a legal loophole had allowed arms transit to continue, with the military material sent from New York and stopping in Liège en route to Tel Aviv. Shipments were handled by Challenge Airlines, an airfreight logistics company which operates predominantly via transit hubs in Israel, Malta, and Belgium. The company's CEO, Yossi Shoukroun, is himself an Israeli national.Commenting on the details of the cargo, Wies De Graeve of Amnesty International in Flanders confirmed that the material was "military equipment from the US passing via the Israeli-American airfreight company Challenge". The airline was able to exploit a legal blind spot by transiting via Liège without transferring goods between aircraft. Until now, planes did not require a licence to make a short stop in Wallonia airports providing that cargoes were not moved from the aircraft. But on Monday, Di Rupo's office signed a ministerial decree forbidding all transit of arms towards Israel, regardless of whether the cargo leaves the aircraft or not.

[vote-democrat-president-congress]

In Plain Sight, Republicans Are Still Trying to Undermine the Election

Some of the most important and alarming reporting during the 2024 election cycle has centered on what used to be one of the sleepiest and least divisive corners of election administration — the vote certification process. Specifically, the nationwide effort by Republicans to install state election officials who are prepared, if not motivated, to undermine and possibly block the certification of vote totals. If that were to happen in the right counties in the right states, it could tip the outcome of the entire election.

Republicans are not being secretive about this. According to an investigation by Rolling Stone, nearly 70 battleground-state election officials have openly “questioned the validity of elections or delayed or refused to certify results.”

Certification has long been a routine ministerial task, unencumbered by partisanship, as the investigation points out. Increasingly, though, that’s not the case in the Trump era, now that Republicans have reprogrammed themselves to believe that it is impossible for them to lose any election except by fraud.

The danger comes not only from isolated kooks who get their news from Rudy Giuliani news conferences. Last week in Georgia, the Republican-controlled state election board approved a measure that could unleash local election officials to do their own research and delay certifying vote counts (those that Trump doesn’t win outright, anyway).

Put aside for the moment that this new rule appears to be in conflict with longstanding Georgia law that requires certification in absence of a court challenge. The bigger problem here is in how we choose our president — via the Electoral College — and how much power that winner-take-all system gives a single state to influence the outcome of the entire election.

Americans experienced this firsthand in 2000, when the quirks of Florida’s ballot design allowed George W. Bush to win the whole state — and with it the White House — by a mere 537 votes. In 2016 and 2020, battleground states like Arizona and Georgia were decided by extraordinarily tight margins; as Trump’s threatening phone call to the Georgia secretary of state demonstrated, a swing of just a few thousand votes would have shifted all 16 of the state’s electoral votes from Joe Biden to him.

Thankfully, key election officials that year put their civic obligations above their partisan preferences, ensuring that the vote count in 2020 was reliable. Today, most local election officials and poll workers are still honest, hardworking citizens doing a thankless job. But as political rhetoric becomes more toxic and infused with partisanship, many of those workers are leaving or being driven out, replaced by single-minded people with a partisan agenda instead of a patriotic spirit.

None of this would be an issue under a national popular vote. Biden eked out his 2020 win in the Electoral College, but all together he won seven million more votes than Trump. A few dozen or hundred or even a few thousand well-placed votes would not have made any difference. In 2000, 2016 and 2020, of course, they made all the difference.

Jesse Wegman, NYTimes Editorial Board Member

[soon-palestine]

The report, “Handcuffed like dangerous criminals”: Arbitrary detention and forced returns of Sudanese refugees in Egypt, reveals how Sudanese refugees are rounded up and unlawfully deported to Sudan – an active conflict zone – without due process or opportunity to claim asylum in flagrant violation of international law. Evidence indicates that thousands of Sudanese refugees have been arbitrarily arrested and subsequently collectively expelled with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimating that 3,000 people were deported to Sudan from Egypt in September 2023 alone.

“It is unfathomable that Sudanese women, men and children fleeing the armed conflict in their country and seeking safety across the border into Egypt, are being rounded up en masse and arbitrarily detained in deplorable and inhumane conditions before being unlawfully deported,” said Sara Hashash, Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“Egyptian authorities must immediately end this virulent campaign of mass arrests and collective expulsions. They must abide by their obligations under international human rights and refugee law to provide those fleeing the conflict in Sudan with safe and dignified passage to Egypt and unrestricted access to asylum procedures.”

For decades, Egypt was home to millions of Sudanese people studying, working, investing or receiving healthcare in the country, with Sudanese women and girls, as well as boys under 16, and men over 49 exempt from entry requirements. Around 500,000 Sudanese refugees are estimated to have fled to Egypt after the armed conflict erupted in Sudan in April 2023. However, in the following month, the Egyptian government introduced a visa entry requirement for all Sudanese nationals, leaving those fleeing with little choice but to escape through irregular border crossings.

The report documents in detail the ordeals of 27 Sudanese refugees who were arbitrarily arrested with about 260 others between October 2023 and March 2024 by Egypt’s Border Guard Forces operating under the Ministry of Defence, as well as police operating under the Ministry of Interior. It further documents how the authorities forcibly returned an estimated 800 Sudanese detainees between January and March 2024 who were all denied the possibility to claim asylum, including by accessing UNHCR, or to challenge deportation decisions.

The report is based on interviews with detained refugees, their relatives, community leaders, lawyers and a medical professional; as well as a review of official statements and documents and audiovisual evidence. The Egyptian ministries of defence and interior did not respond to Amnesty International’s letters sharing its documentation and recommendations, while the Egyptian National Council of Human Rights, the national human rights institution, rejected the findings claiming that authorities comply by their international obligations.

The spike in mass arrests and expulsions came after a prime ministerial decree issued in August 2023 requiring foreign nationals in Egypt to regularize their status. This was accompanied by a rise in xenophobic and racist sentiments both online and in the media as well as statements by government officials criticizing the economic “burden” of hosting “millions” of refugees.

It has also taken place against the backdrop of increased EU cooperation with Egypt on migration and border control, despite the country’s grim human rights record and well-documented abuses against migrants and refugees.

In October 2022, the EU and Egypt signed an €80 million cooperation agreement, which included building up the capacity of Egyptian Border Guard Forces to curb irregular migration and human trafficking across Egypt’s border. The agreement purports to apply “rights-based, protection oriented and gender sensitive approaches”. Yet, Amnesty International’s new report documents the involvement of the Border Guard Forces in violations against Sudanese refugees.

A further aid and investment package, under which migration is a key pillar, was agreed in March 2024 as part of the newly announced strategic and comprehensive partnership between the EU and Egypt.

“By cooperating with Egypt in the migration field without rigorous human rights safeguards, the EU risks complicity in Egypt’s human rights violations. The EU must press Egyptian authorities to adopt concrete measures to protect refugees and migrants,” said Sara Hashash.

“The EU must also carry out rigorous human rights risk assessments before implementing any migration cooperation and put in place independent monitoring mechanisms with clear human rights benchmarks. Cooperation must be halted or suspended immediately if there are risks or reports of abuses.” Arbitrary arrests from streets and hospitals

The mass arrests have mostly taken place in Greater Cairo (encompassing Cairo and Giza) and in the border areas in the governorate of Aswan or inside Aswan city. In Cairo and Giza, police have conducted mass stops and identity checks targeting Black individuals, spreading fear within the refugee community leaving many afraid to leave their homes.

Following arrest by police in Aswan, Sudanese refugees are transferred to police stations or the Central Security Forces camp, an unofficial detention place, in Shallal region. Those arrested by Border Guard Forces in Aswan governorate are detained in makeshift detention facilities including warehouses inside a military site in Abu Simbel and a horse stable inside another military site near Nagaa Al Karur before being forced into buses and vans and driven to the Sudanese border.

Conditions in these detention facilities are cruel and inhumane, with overcrowding, lack of access to toilets and sanitation facilities, substandard and insufficient food, and denial of adequate healthcare.

Amnesty International also documented the arrest of at least 14 refugees from public hospitals in Aswan, where they were receiving treatment for serious injuries sustained during road accidents on their journeys from Sudan to Egypt. Authorities transferred them – against medical advice and before they had fully recovered – to detention, where they were forced to sleep on the ground after surgery.

Amira, a 32-year-old Sudanese woman who fled Khartoum with her mother was receiving treatment at an Aswan hospital following a car crash on 29 October 2023 that left her with fractures to the neck and the back. Nora, a relative of Amira, told the organization that the doctors told her she would need three months of medical care, but after just 18 days police transferred her to a police station in Aswan where she was forced to sleep on the ground for around 10 days. Cold and rat-infested detention facilities before collective expulsions

Amnesty International’s Evidence Lab reviewed photos and verified videos from January 2024 of women and children sitting on dirty floors amidst rubbish in a warehouse controlled by Egyptian border guards. The former detainees said the warehouses were infested by rats and pigeon nests and those detained endured cold nights with no appropriate clothing or blankets. Men’s warehouse conditions were overcrowded, with over a hundred men crammed together and limited access to overflowing toilets, forcing them to urinate in plastic bottles at night.

At least 11 children, some under the age of four, were detained with their mothers at these sites.

Israa, who has asthma, told Amnesty International that guards at the overcrowded horse stable near Nagaa Al Karur village ignored her request for an inhaler, even when she asked to buy one at her own expense.

After periods of detention ranging from a few days six weeks, police and Border Guard Forces handcuffed males and drove all detainees to the Qustul-Ashkeet border crossing and handed them to Sudanese authorities, without individualised assessment of risk of serious human rights violations if returned. None was given the opportunity to claim asylum even when they had registration appointments with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), asked to speak to UNHCR or pleaded not to be sent back. Such forced returns violate Egypt’s international obligations under human rights and refugee law, including the principle of non-refoulement.

Border Guard Forces expelled Ahmed, his wife and two-year-old child together with a group of roughly 200 detainees, on 26 February 2024, after detaining them for six days in Abu Simbel military site.

Since the conflict in Sudan began, Egyptian authorities have failed to provide statistics or acknowledge their policy of deportations.

[thatssosussex]

Columbia Day 1- At the last event of the day, Prince Harry and Meghan participated in the Responsible Digital Future Summit at the Universidad EAN, one of the top-ranking universities in Latin America. A central focus of the summit was the urgent need to highlight online safety in the Global South. Despite the majority of research on the mental health effects of social media being conducted in the Global North, 88% of the world’s population and most adolescents reside in the Global South. This region faces particular challenges, with Latin American teenagers checking social media an average of 67 times a day, compared to the global average of 45 times.

The summit addressed these issues by exploring innovative solutions and strategies to ensure that technology serves the common good, particularly in regions that are often underrepresented in global tech dialogues. The conversation highlighted how The Archewell Foundation’s extensive global reach and unique programming are well-positioned to influence cultural and policy changes, especially in anticipation of the country’s Global Ministerial Conference scheduled for November. (8/15/24)

[saintmeghanmarkle]

This post is SPITTING FACTS about what titles KC can remove from Harry. FACT: KC can strip Harry of Prince and HRH. This is not a youtube opinion but the informed opinion of a highly credentialed professor emeritus of public law by u/Positive-Vibes-2-All

This post is SPITTING FACTS about what titles KC can remove from Harry. FACT: KC can strip Harry of Prince and HRH. This is not a youtube opinion but the informed opinion of a highly credentialed professor emeritus of public law I had it up to my wazoo reading and hearing conflicting opinions of what KC is able to do regarding titles so I went searching for a rock solid answer."Master Graham Zellick is a Senior Master of the Bench and former Reader, is emeritus professor of public law and former Principal of Queen Mary & Westfield College, sometime Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, a former editor of Public Law, and was Chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, President of the Valuation Tribunal for England and a member of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. He is an Honorary Fellow of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge and of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies."In no uncertain terms, Zellick states that KC can remove HRH and Prince"....The title of Prince is likewise in the gift of the Monarch. As with ‘HRH’, it is usually acquired by coming within a class or category stipulated in letters patent, but it can also be done individually.....There is no reason why the Sovereign cannot remove these titles, a decision which again could not be challenged in the courts, since the royal prerogative in relation to honours and titles is said to be unreviewable or ‘non-justiciable’. The exercise of prerogative powers is in principle subject to supervision by the courts in the same way that statutory powers are – as Boris Johnson discovered in 2019 when his attempt to prorogue Parliament was annulled by the Supreme Court – but powers exercised by the Monarch personally otherwise than on ministerial advice or in relation to honours fall into the non-justiciable category. "​imho It would be more fitting and send a stronger message and cut deeper to strip the title Prince then stripping Harry of his Dukedom which as Zellick explains at the link would need to be done by parliament. Harry is the one who should bear the brunt of responsibility, he has been the traitor to his family, he is just as responsible as Markle for employing scum like Boozy and other sugars to name just two instances of his treachery.​https://ift.tt/36MDgNh'. post link: https://ift.tt/zNryWkq author: Positive-Vibes-2-All submitted: August 18, 2024 at 10:23PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[mariacallous]

On Sunday, June 9, Israeli minister Benny Gantz, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet and Netanyahu’s main putative challenger for the position of prime minister, resigned from the government along with his fellow party member Gadi Eisenkot. The resignation comes at an awkward time for the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, which has been making a significant effort to promote a cease-fire and hostage release deal, proposed by Israel, outlined by Biden in a speech on May 31, and adopted by the U.N. Security Council as Resolution 2735. Gantz and Eisenkot, major proponents of such a deal within the Israel war cabinet, are now out of decisionmaking circles. Should Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, accept the deal, which he has not so far, Netanyahu would now have heightened political incentive to balk at his own proposal. But the resignation may also serve to catalyze political changes in Israel that may hasten a change of leadership, something the Biden administration would welcome. While there is no guarantee that Gantz’s resignation will bring Israel’s elections any closer, it was a necessary step for any major political change.

The Israeli war cabinet is formed

As the details and magnitude of the October 7 terrorist attack became clear, there were immediate calls in Israel for a national emergency government that would include centrist opposition leaders alongside Netanyahu. Israelis shared a sense of historic crisis and were prepared for a major war. The official leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, offered to join the cabinet, but he demanded that Netanyahu exclude Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, two far-right ministers, from his security cabinet. Netanyahu refused, with the rationale that after the emergency government eventually dissolved, he would have lost his base. It was an early sign that politics would continue to play a substantial role in the prime minister’s decisions, even in the depths of the crisis.

Gantz, the other major opposition leader, joined the cabinet nonetheless, satisfied instead by the creation of a “mini” war cabinet that excluded the two far-right ministers from the management of the war.

In the Israeli system, the prime minister is not the commander in chief of the military. Rather, the cabinet serves in that role, as a committee, with most powers bestowed on a smaller security cabinet (formally, the “ministerial committee for national security affairs”) of which Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are members. Netanyahu and Gantz thus formed an ad-hoc forum, the mini-war cabinet, with three official members: Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant of Netanyahu’s own Likud party, and Gantz. They were joined by three observers, Eisenkot; Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s confidante and former ambassador to the United States; and Aryeh Deri, the most veteran minister and leader of the Shas party. Notably absent were the far-right ministers.

Resignations and consequences

Gantz and Eisenkot joined the emergency cabinet on a temporary basis, for the duration of the war’s initial phases, and with the public expectation that they might resign by the end of 2023 or early 2024. Months past that, their resignations now have implications for Israeli policy and politics.

By May, as tensions with the Biden administration over Israel��s Gaza strategy had grown, Gallant publicly called out Netanyahu and criticized the latter’s lack of strategy for what Gaza might look like after Hamas. Without defined strategic goals, no operational or tactical objectives could succeed. Gallant demanded that Netanyahu state that he does not plan for a return to Israeli occupation, as existed before the Oslo II Accords of 1994. This dramatic challenge to Netanyahu also created an opening for Gantz.

In May, Gantz finally signaled his intent to resign. He laid out conditions for his staying in the government and set an ultimatum that he would leave if they were not met, which Netanyahu rebuffed the same day. In policy terms, his most notable demand echoed Gallant, demanding that Netanyahu elucidate the beginning of a strategy for the day after in Gaza.

Gantz, Gallant, and Eisenkot are all retired generals with a long, shared history in the military. Ganz is the former chief of staff of the military, a high-profile role that is more influential in Israel than the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is in the United States, for example. As the only lieutenant general in the Israeli military and the commander of everyone in uniform, the chief of staff commands a great deal of attention from a public who face, in theory, universal conscription. When Gantz was appointed to the top military post in 2011, he was, in fact, the second choice of the cabinet. Netanyahu, the prime minister at the time, and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak had preferred Gallant, who was considered more hawkish on Iran, but was disqualified by a public committee due to ethical concerns. Eisenkot was appointed as Gantz’s deputy in 2013 and eventually succeeded him at the top military post. 

Now in government and civilian clothes, the former generals were at times allies in the war cabinet, despite representing different parties. Their demand for strategic thinking about the day after also reflected their desire to see some role, even if limited, for the secular, West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) in Gaza, which Netanyahu has rejected. The centrist ministers’ departures weaken that prospect, possibly strengthening the hands of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who would prefer to see the collapse of the PA altogether.

Elections are not imminent … probably

The resignations also had political motivations. Gantz has led Netanyahu in the polls ever since October 7, but his lead has narrowed significantly. If elections were held today, polls now suggest the possibility of an inconclusive election, though still with a clear advantage to the opposition. If these were the results of the next election, Gantz would need to cobble together a coalition reminiscent of the coalition headed by Lapid and Naftali Bennett, an act of political acrobatics that only held together for slightly over a year.

Elections are not scheduled for over two years, however. Even with Gantz’s resignation, Netanyahu’s original coalition, which consists of 64 out of 120 members of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, still holds a clear majority. It could fracture in different scenarios, but none of them is very likely in the short term.

First, with Gantz’s and Eisenkot’s resignations, centrist Likud members, such as Gallant, may opt to defect and try to replace Netanyahu. This would be a very risky move for them politically, but it may become more likely if demonstrations against the government, already growing, return to the large scale that Israel had seen before October 6. Gantz’s presence in the government, and especially the war’s continuation, made the environment less conducive to such public pressure until now.

Netanyahu’s far-right partners may also bring about his downfall if he veers to the center. In particular, they have already warned that should Hamas accept the cease-fire and Netanyahu move forward with the deal (a “surrender,” as Smotrich termed it), they would topple the government. This, of course, makes such a scenario less likely.

Finally, there is a small chance that Netanyahu’s Haredi partners, who are the most conservative religiously but not the most hawkish in terms of national security, might destabilize his coalition. Haredi men are exempt from military service, due to political maneuvering, a highly emotive grievance for the majority of Jewish Israelis who do serve, especially in a time of war and bereavement. With the Supreme Court now demanding a legislative basis for the exemption, Netanyahu’s coalition is struggling to put one in place. Seeing a political opening, Gantz made conscription, in some form, one of his central demands of Netanyahu. Should such a legal standing not be found, the Haredim may follow through on their threats to resign, though they are unlikely to get a better deal with another prime minister later, and so have incentives to remain.

One final option remains: Netanyahu could call for elections himself if he found an opportune moment or excuse. Netanyahu has identified his opposition to a Palestinian state as a winning ticket in a population traumatized by October 7 and loath to take any security risks in negotiations with Palestinians. Netanyahu would hope to portray himself as the one man able to withstand international pressure on Palestinian sovereignty. He will undoubtedly hope to return to the theme of his recent election campaigns, portraying himself as being “in a league of his own” in global diplomacy. One opportunity for a campaign image of Netanyahu on the global stage will come soon, currently scheduled for July 24, when he speaks before a joint session of Congress.

[waitmyturtles]

From The New York Times: [Thai] Lawmakers Block Prime Minister Candidate From New Vote, Drawing Protests

[July 19, 2023: Pasting here to bypass the NYT paywall. I thought this was an excellent overview of the recent history of Thai elections, and how the Senate confirmation process works. Again, remember: references to what’s happening politically will likely make it into the dramas we watch later this year and next. By Mike Ives and Muktita Suhartoto.] 

Protests erupted in Bangkok on Wednesday, hours after Thailand’s conservative establishment suspended a progressive leader and lawmakers denied him the chance to stand for a second parliamentary vote for prime minister.

The candidate, Pita Limjaroenrat, leads a party that won the most votes in a May election after campaigning on an ambitious reform platform that challenged the country’s powerful conservative establishment. He lost an initial parliamentary vote for prime minister last week.

Late Wednesday, lawmakers voted to deny Mr. Pita, 42, the chance to stand for a second vote on the grounds that Parliament’s rules do not permit a “repeat motion.” Mr. Pita’s supporters see that as a not-so-subtle move to keep him out of power.

The mood in Bangkok, Thailand’s muggy capital, was anxious as protesters hit the streets on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Pita’s supporters have been expressing outrage online toward an establishment that often pushes back against Thailand’s democratic process.

“In my heart, I knew this would happen, so it didn’t come as a shock,” said Wichuda Rotphai, 41, one of hundreds of people who gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday to support Mr. Pita’s doomed bid for premier. “But I’m still disappointed, and I can’t accept it.”

Here’s what to know.

What does Pita Limjaroenrat stand for?

Mr. Pita’s party, Move Forward, has proposed ambitious policies for challenging Thailand’s powerful institutions like the military and the monarchy. The party won 151 seats in Parliament, the most of any party, and 10 more than Pheu Thai, the party founded by the exiled populist Thaksin Shinawatra, whose influence still towers over Thai politics.

Mr. Pita’s party has formed an eight-party coalition, which nominated him for prime minister last week. He came up short in the first vote because the Senate is controlled by military-appointed lawmakers who oppose his candidacy and the Move Forward platform.

I’m confused. Why are senators so tied to the military?

Becoming prime minister requires a simple majority of the 500-seat House of Representatives and the 250-seat Senate.

But the rules governing Senate appointments were drafted by the military junta that seized power from a democratically elected government in a 2014 coup. They effectively give senators veto power over prime ministerial candidates.

Last week, Mr. Pita won only 13 votes from the 249 senators who voted for prime minister. Mr. Pita acknowledged in an Instagram post on Wednesday afternoon that he was unlikely to become prime minister.

“It’s clear now that in the current system, winning the people’s trust isn’t enough to run the country,” he wrote.

Why was it such an uphill battle?

Mr. Pita had faced a slew of challenges even before Parliament denied him a chance to stand for a second vote.

The Constitutional Court said on Wednesday morning, for example, that it was suspending Mr. Pita from Parliament until a ruling is made in a case involving his shares of a media company. Investigators are trying to determine whether Mr. Pita properly disclosed owning the shares before running for office, as required by Thai law.

The court’s ruling forced Mr. Pita to leave the chamber. It would not necessarily have prevented his coalition from nominating for a second time. But Parliament saw to that on its own.

Mr. Pita’s supporters have said the investigation is one of many ways that the establishment has been trying to unfairly derail his candidacy.

So who will be prime minister?

Before the drama on Wednesday, Mr. Pita had said if it became clear that he could not win, his party would allow its coalition partner, Pheu Thai, to nominate its own candidate.

Pheu Thai probably will do just that, but is also likely to form a brand-new coalition, one that is more palatable to conservative lawmakers who cannot stomach Mr. Pita and Move Forward.

Pheu Thai’s candidate would likely be Srettha Thavisin, 60, a property mogul with little political experience. If a new coalition materializes, he could be voted in as prime minister as early as this week.

Mr. Srettha would immediately present a sharp contrast to the current prime minister, former Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the 2014 military coup.

A more remote, but not impossible, scenario is that Pheu Thai allows a party from the conservative establishment to nominate a candidate as a condition for joining a new coalition. That candidate could be Gen. Prawit Wongsuwan, 77, the deputy prime minister in the current government.

What would a Srettha victory represent?

Many would see it as a triumph for the democratic process in Thailand, a country with a long history of mass protests and military coups. Some foreign investors would also see a potential boost for a sluggish, coronavirus-battered economy.

But many of Move Forward’s progressive supporters would be angry about the establishment blocking their party from forming a government. On Wednesday evening, a demonstration reflecting that anger was taking shape at the city’s Democracy Monument.

The size of the protests over the next days or weeks will likely depend on who becomes prime minister. If it’s Mr. Srettha, demonstrations could be sporadic and modest. If it’s General Prawit or another military figure, they could be sustained and intense.

Ms. Wichuda, the protester, was one of hundreds who gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday afternoon, peering through its gates at police officers in riot gear. She said that while she did not agree with Mr. Pita’s contentious pledge to revise a law that criminalizes criticism of the monarchy, she still felt he had been “robbed” by politicians who were afraid to give a younger generation the chance to improve the country.

“If they can do such things to people with money and power,” she said, “what will be left for us, the common people, who have no position and no title?”

[racefortheironthrone]

What are your thoughts on Tony Benn? Because much as I admire him in some ways he does come across as a bit impractical in an idealistic way, with his challenge to Healey and describing the 1983 general election as a triumph for socialism.

I'm of very mixed opinions about Tony Benn.

On the one hand, I think he was a very sincere and well-meaning man with fairly laudible beliefs (although he did I think have a problem where he would sometimes prioritize following a consistent ideological line over his personal moral instincts, which I think were more reliable).

On the other hand, I don't think he was very good at his job and would have done better as a social movement organizer than as a politician and government minister - or at the very least, I think he would have been better suited to a ministerial portfolio that spoke to his strengths, which were much more in the area of social policy rather than economic policy.

So as Minister for Technology or as Secretary of State for Industry or Energy, I'm sympathetic to his support for industrial democracy in and out of nationalized industries, but he wasn't ultimately very good at putting worker control into practice. And that's the thing; when you're in government, you have to be able to translate your beliefs into effective public policy.

Likewise, I think his Alternative Economic Strategy was just a bad strategy for achieving left-wing economic objectives:

it focused on the very blunt instruments of direct economic controls on prices and imports and finance rather than more flexible approaches that would have fewer negative side effects.

it had a heavy emphasis on issues that Benn cared about (like nationalization and industrial democracy) but weren't really relevant to how to deal with stagflation in the short term.

meanwhile, it under-emphasized policies to deal with unemployment and ironically relied on a rather standard "commercial Keynesian" solution for reflation rather than more social democratic alternatives.

the anti-European/autarkic emphasis of the AES was profoundly counter-productive, especially for the economic context of Britain in the 1970s.

finally, it really neglected the crucial question of how to develop state capacity. In part because Benn really didn't get along with the Civil Service and viewed them as essentially hostile, the AES didn't spend nearly enough time on how to develop the expertise, coordination, staffing, etc. needed to carry out economic policies that were very heavy lifts.

So yeah, "impractical in an idealistic way" is fair.

[head-post]

Macron urges to “rethink” ties with Russia, new government under pressure

French President Emmanuel Macron stated that it would be crucial to reassess Europe’s relationship with Russia after the war in Ukraine, while the French government faces pressure from the opposition.

Macron made the comments during a peaceful gathering hosted by the Community of Sant’Egidio in Paris on Sunday.

We will have to think about a new form of organisation of Europe and rethink our relations with Russia after the war in Ukraine. This is undoubtedly the greatest challenge of our time, because our current order is incomplete and unjust. It is incomplete because it was conceived at the end of World War II, and therefore did not have in its heart the problems that later emerged and became dominant.

He also noted that “most countries on this planet and many of the most populous countries did not exist when the seats were allocated”. He therefore called for a rethinking of the world order.

Meanwhile, the new government of Prime Minister Michel Barnier is facing pressure from opposition politicians on both sides of the political spectrum amid growing threats of a vote of no confidence in parliament. Barnier is due to present a budget plan for 2025 that takes into account what he called the country’s “very serious” financial situation.

The long wait for a functioning government ended late Saturday night, 11 weeks after Macron called an early general election. Left-wing opposition politicians have already said they will challenge Barnier’s government with a vote of no confidence, with national-oriented politicians also criticising its composition.

Macron argued that the left could not muster enough support to form a government that would not be immediately overthrown by parliament, and rejected the National Rally candidate due to the party’s alleged extremist heritage. Instead, he turned to Barnier to lead the government, relying mainly on parliamentary support from allies.

Shaky government

Negotiations over the allocation of 39 cabinet posts continued until the official announcement on Saturday, insiders said, with moments of sharp tension between the president and his prime minister.

Leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called the new line-up “a government of the general election losers.” France, he said, should “get rid” of the government “as soon as possible.” On Monday, he responded to accusations against him on X:

On Tuesday, September 24, I have to go and respond to a complaint for insult filed by a Macron minister about my reaction to a banned conference in Lille. On Friday, a Marseille lawyer proclaims herself a “Zionist” and threatens to kill two MPs on a restaurant terrace by exploding their cell phones! Which prosecutor will react? Yet how many people like Rima Hassan and Mathilde Panot have been summoned by the courts for “apology for terrorism”? Is there a difference? Of course. None of them have threatened to kill anyone. So? And the Marseille bar? Silence. Surprising, isn’t it?

Thousands of people took to the streets of Paris and other French cities on Saturday in a left-wing protest to denounce what they called the results of July’s election. Socialist Party chairman Olivier Faure called Barnier’s cabinet “a reactionary government that gives democracy the finger.”

Although Macron’s Renaissance party had to abandon some key positions, it still won a majority of 12 ministerial posts out of 39. However, former French President Francois Hollande called the cabinet “the same as before, but with an even stronger presence of the right.”

A vote of no confidence requires an absolute majority in parliament, which would then force the government to resign immediately. However, this is currently an unlikely scenario, as the right and the left, sworn enemies, would have to vote unanimously.

Read more HERE

[invisibleicewands]

Nye at the National Theatre review: Micheal Sheen brings zest to this lumpy story of the founder of the NHS

Michael Sheen’s performance as the creator of the NHS Aneurin Bevan here is, fittingly, a triumph against the odds. The Welsh Labour MP known as ‘Nye’ faced down doctors, oppositional Tories led by Churchill, and sceptics in his own party to bring in our universal healthcare system in 1948.

Sheen, by turn, is battling a lumpy and obvious script by Tim Price and the challenges of Nye’s stutter, schoolboyish zeal and “f***ing stupid hair”. He’s also barefoot and in podgily unflattering pyjamas throughout, like a soft toy bought in haste in a hospital gift shop.

Yet his charisma, along with goodwill toward the NHS, gets Rufus Norris’s playfully earnest co-production for the National and Wales Millennium Centre over the line.

Nye’s in his jim-jams because we first meet him in 1960, in hospital for an op on an ulcer that turns out to be something more serious. The show unfolds as a deathbed flashback.

Nye’s challenges and triumphs are ticked off one by one. Guilt about his miner father dying of “black lung”? Check. Poverty and unemployment? Check. Becoming an autodidact, a campaigning councillor and a maverick socialist MP? Check, check, check.

Bevan’s exceptionalism shines through, but with so much history to cover the show feels skimpy at times. His role in the General Strike of 1926 is skipped over: the Second World War and subsequent Labour landslide are condensed into four minutes.

The comparisons Price draws between self-serving, right-wing politicians then and now feel heavy handed, even to a knee-jerk lefty like me. “You don’t need to steamroller everyone all the time,” as Nye’s future wife Jennie Lee (Sharon Small) tells him. Quite.

On the plus side, the general air of reverence is frequently undercut with humour. Tony Jayawardena is a hilariously brazen Churchill. Stephanie Jacob’s Attlee glides around the stage behind a motorised Prime Ministerial desk like a beady, centrist Davros. Nye and his rivals, and Jennie and his childhood friend Archie (Roger Evans), often descend into juvenile, sweary abuse.

Norris and designer Vicki Mortimer also use the large cast rather than massive sets to invoke a sense of scale and scope. Legions of the impoverished and ranks of implacable, masked doctors are projected onto the hospital curtains that whisk back and forth across the stage.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Bethan McKernan at The Guardian:

The Israeli politician and former military chief Benny Gantz has followed through on a threat to resign from Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency war cabinet, leaving the prime minister more reliant than ever on far-right elements of his coalition government. Gantz, a major Netanyahu rival, former defence minister and leader of the centre-right National Unity party, joined the three-man war cabinet as a minister without portfolio in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October attack, a move he said was for the sake of the country’s unity. But as Israel’s war effort in Gaza dragged on, disagreements over strategy and how best to bring the 250 Israeli hostages home spilled into the open, culminating in Gantz accusing the prime minister of pushing strategic considerations such as a hostage deal aside for his own political survival. Last month, he gave Netanyahu an ultimatum of 8 June to present concrete “day after” plans for the Gaza Strip.

Gantz delayed his resignation speech by a day after the unexpected rescue of four Israeli hostages in an operation that the health ministry in Gaza said killed 274 people and injured another 696. The withdrawal of his party also means Gadi Eisenkot, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) general and war cabinet observer, and the minister without portfolio, Chili Tropper, are also stepping down. “Netanyahu is preventing us from progressing towards a true victory,” Gantz said in a televised address on Sunday night. “For this reason we are leaving the emergency government today, with a heavy heart, yet wholeheartedly.”

Gantz also called on Netanyahu to set a date for elections, adding: “Do not let our nation tear apart.” The move does not immediately pose a threat to Netanyahu, as the prime minister still controls a majority coalition in parliament. It does, however, affect the Israeli government’s respectability on the international stage; centrist Gantz is well liked in Washington, where he was seen as a useful brake on Netanyahu, and his absence means the prime minister’s far-right allies are likely to now have more sway over the trajectory of the war in Gaza and the growing threat of war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister, slammed Gantz, saying “there is no less stately act than resigning from a government in time of war” as “the kidnapped are still dying in the Hamas tunnels”, and the extremist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has already asked Netanyahu for Gantz’s seat on the war cabinet. Both ministers have repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the coalition if Israel makes any concessions to Hamas in a hostage and ceasefire deal.

[...] Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, are the only two remaining members of the war cabinet, and also often do not see eye to eye. The prime minister is now said to be considering shuttering the war cabinet and reverting to a former model in which security issues are first discussed in a limited forum before being presented to regular cabinet meetings, in which he seeks ministerial approval. The longtime prime minister, facing corruption charges as well as scrutiny over the security failures that led to 7 October, is widely believed to see staying in office as his best chance of escaping prosecution. He also needs to parry an internal challenge from the two ultra-Orthodox parties in his coalition over the issue of military conscription.

Benny Gantz resigns from Israel’s war cabinet.

[hero-israel]

Honestly the right wing has soured Israel’s image so much both at home and abroad that I’d basically consider them anti-Zionist at this point

In effect if not in goal.

Let's really highlight what the criminals and terrorists got, in exchange for keeping Netanyahu out whatever golf-course white-collar prison sentence was awaiting him for illegal gifts of champagne (no, really):

Even if the reasonableness standard is abolished – other paths of legal recourse to challenge government decisions exist. The courts, led by the High Court of Justice, will be able to review government and ministerial decisions using other doctrines of administrative law. These include proportionality, discrimination, conflict of interest, bias, lack of factual basis, arbitrariness and extraneous considerations..... [The court could also use] the Estoppel principle... Estoppel is an equitable doctrine, a bar that prevents one from asserting a claim or right that contradicts what one has said or done before, or what has been legally established as true.

So from a list of about ten different totally subjective and squishy guidelines the courts can use to overturn laws, this government just abolished ONE of them. Gosh, do you think a good Jewish lawyer could maybe just wordswap in "contradicting established truth" instead of "unreasonable"? Or maybe "lack of factual basis" instead of "unreasonable"? To get rid of PRECISELY ONE WORD, they dynamited Israel's economy, military readiness, diplomacy, and social bonds, like literally nothing else in 75 years. Who the fuck, even on the furthest right, could possibly call it worthwhile?

Of course this happened on Tisha B'av.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Saudi Arabia showcases mining opportunities during ministerial visit to Brazil

Saudi Arabia has invited Brazilian companies to invest in its mining sector, highlighting substantial growth opportunities during a visit by its top minister to the South American country. 

At a roundtable meeting hosted by the Federation of Industries in Sao Paulo, Saudi Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar AlKhorayef said that mineral production is a global issue requiring international leadership and collaboration due to its critical role in the global energy transition. 

Saudi Arabia aims to attract international players as its mining sector prepares for expansion under the government’s initiative aligned with Saudi Vision 2030. This effort seeks to enhance licensing transparency, promote national industries, and boost local content development and job creation.

During the meeting, the minister said: “The Kingdom recognizes that global mineral production challenges require collective leadership. Our strategy for real progress is rooted in collaboration, and while we maintain our ambitious goals, we focus on forging strong partnerships worldwide.”

Continue reading.

[usafphantom2]

Finland approves deployment of the F-35A assembly line at Patria

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 04/03/2024 - 23:18in Military

The company Patria, in collaboration with the Finnish Ministry of Defense, is prepared to build an assembly facility in Finland for the production of F-35 Block 4 fighters.

The recent approval by the Ministerial Finance Committee of the Ministry of Defense's proposed lease of land and facilities is a significant milestone in the $9.6 billion acquisition agreement between Finland and Lockheed Martin, covering the delivery of 64 F-35A jets to the Finnish Air Force.

The automaker, a crucial component of the initial phase of the contract, will be located near the city of Nokia, with the beginning of the construction of the engine assembly building scheduled for the second half of 2024. The lease agreement for the site was signed in January between the Finnish Defense Forces and Defense Properties of Finland.

The Finnish Minister of Defense, Antti Häkkänen, emphasized the contribution of industrial cooperation to the defense industry of Finland, stating: “The F-35 agreement will generate critical experience in maintenance and repair, including reliability of maintenance, promoting significant know-how in Finland for the assembly and testing of F-35 engines.”

The assembly factory will collaborate closely with the regional aircraft center of Patria's aviation division in Tampere, with about 100 employees involved in various assembly functions at the facilities. Patria, in which the government holds a 50.1% stake, will work alongside the Norwegian company Kongsberg, which controls the remaining stake. In addition, Patria owns half of the Norwegian defense contractor Nammo.

The F-35s are scheduled to replace the former McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet jets of the Finnish Air Force, with retirement scheduled for 2030. The first batch of F-35 is expected to be delivered and deployed in the Arctic air bases in the regions of Lapland Finland by 2026.

The industrial cooperation component is expected to gradually expand by 2030, potentially covering the production or assembly of specific aircraft parts and systems in Finland. The Finnish Air Force has already carried out tests to evaluate the suitability of the F-35 to operate in extreme climatic conditions in the Arctic, with recent exercises including maneuvers on stretches of "closed road" in the Arctic and subarctic regions.

The ongoing exercises, such as the one-week Hanki 24 workouts in the northern part of the country, aim to better evaluate the adaptability of the F-35 to the challenging winter conditions of Finland, characterized by limited daytime light.

Tags: Military AviationF-35 Lightning IIIlmavoimat/Finnland Air ForceLockheed MartinPatria

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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