Netanyahu inaugurates new settler-only road in occupied West Bank

January 31, 2018

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transportation Minister Israel Katz inaugurated a new road on Tuesday that connects illegal settlements east of the occupied West Bank city of Qalqiliya, Israeli media reported. The road, which was given the name of Nabi Elias, is for use by Jews only.

“We place a special emphasis on advancing the planning and execution of strategic transportation projects in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank],” said Katz. He noted that this road is part of the current Israeli government’s efforts to promote transportation between settlements as well as the security and safety of Jewish settlers. He omitted the fact that the settlers and their settlements are illegal under international law.

“This road,” explained Netanyahu, “is part of the system of bypass roads that we are building throughout Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank] that serves the residents [settlers] of Judea and Samaria and the residents of the entire State of Israel.”

Quds Press reported Katz saying that paving the news bypass roads includes the expansion and reorganization of existing roads, and building tunnels to make connections with Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem easier.

The inauguration of this road came weeks after a pledge by Netanyahu to allocate NIS800m ($228m) for a security package as part of the 2018 budget. It will be used for settlement roads and infrastructure development. His move followed mass protests by Jewish settlers and their leaders, and confirms Israel’s status as a settler-colonial state.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180131-netanyahu-inaugurates-new-jews-only-road-in-occupied-west-bank/.

Israel says Poland agrees to talks in WWII legislation spat

January 29, 2018

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday night that Israel and Poland have agreed to hold talks seeking to resolve the uproar over proposed Polish legislation that would outlaw blaming Poland for any crimes committed during the Holocaust.

Earlier, Israel's Foreign Ministry had summoned a Polish envoy to express its displeasure at the bill. But Polish officials dug in their heels, saying the measure was being misinterpreted and its wording would not be changed.

Netanyahu then spoke by phone with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki late Sunday. "The two agreed that teams from the two countries would open an immediate dialogue in order to try to reach understandings regarding the legislation," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.

The prime minister said at his weekly Cabinet meeting earlier Sunday that Israel has "no tolerance for the distortion of the truth, the rewriting of history and the denial of the Holocaust." The lower house of the Polish parliament's bill calls for prison time for referring to "Polish death camps" and criminalizes the mention of Polish complicity.

The bill still needs approval from Poland's Senate and president. Still, it marks a dramatic step by the nationalist government to enforce its official stance that the vast majority in Poland — a country that was terrorized by Nazi Germany's occupation — acted heroically under those conditions. Historians say many Poles collaborated with the Nazis and committed heinous crimes.

The bill has sparked outrage in Israel and suddenly raised tensions with a close European ally. Israel declared independence in 1948 in the wake of the Holocaust and is home to the world's largest community of Holocaust survivors.

On Sunday, the Foreign Ministry summoned Poland's deputy ambassador, Piotr Kozlowski, to express Israel's opposition to the bill. It called the timing of the bill, passed on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, "particularly surprising and unfortunate" and said it expected the draft to be amended before final approval.

"The legislation will not help further the exposure of historical truth and may harm freedom of research, as well as prevent discussion of the historical message and legacy of World War II," a ministry statement said.

Speaking to reporters after his meeting, Kozlowski said the intent of the legislation is not to "whitewash" history. It is already a crime in Poland to deny that the Holocaust happened. "It is to safeguard it, to safeguard the truth about the Holocaust and to prevent its distortion," he said of the proposed legislation.

Polish authorities insisted they would not give in to the Israeli demands. "We will not change any provisions in the bill," said Beata Mazurek, spokeswoman for the ruling conservative-nationalist Law and Justice party, "We have had enough of Poland and Poles being blamed for German crimes."

Mark Weitzman, the director of government affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a U.S.-based group that battles anti-Semitism, called the law "an obscene whitewashing" of history. He said its wording could be used against Holocaust survivors talking about their personal experiences as well as researchers, teachers or anyone else documenting the Holocaust.

He urged Poland to "immediately terminate this law and put an end to all attempts to distort the history of the Holocaust for political purposes." The Polish prime minister on Sunday night compared Poles and Jews to two families who lived in the same house — Poland — before the war and were both victimized by the Nazis.

In a post on Twitter, Morawiecki said: "A gang of professional thugs enters a two-family house. They kill the first family almost entirely. They kill the parents of the second, torturing the kids. They loot and raze the house. Could one, in good conscience, say that the second family is guilty for the murder of the first?"

Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera in Warsaw contributed to this report.

Royal audience as SpaceX launches satellite for Luxembourg

February 01, 2018

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX had a royal audience as it launched a satellite for Luxembourg. The Falcon 9 rocket blasted off late Wednesday afternoon from Cape Canaveral, Florida, hoisting GovSat-1 for the government of Luxembourg and SES, the European country's prime satellite operator. The satellite will support both military and civilian security efforts.

Witnessing the launch were Luxembourg's Prince Guillaume and his wife, Stephanie. The country's prime minister, Xavier Bettel, and other high-ranking officials also were present. The rocket's first-stage booster — which also flew last spring — was not recovered this time. Instead, it dropped into the Atlantic.

With GovSat-1 now in orbit, SpaceX can focus on next week's debut of its new, big Falcon Heavy rocket. The test flight is scheduled for Tuesday.

Putin marks Stalingrad victory as tribute to Russian grit

February 02, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin attended commemorations Friday marking the 75th anniversary of the Nazi surrender that ended the battle of Stalingrad, lauding the Red Army's victory as a shining example of Russia's perseverance amid adversity.

Putin on Friday visited Volgograd, the current name of the city in southern Russia that stretches along the western bank of the Volga River. The city was renamed in 1961 as part of the Soviet Union's rejection of former dictator Joseph Stalin's personality cult. But the name Stalingrad remains inextricably linked to the historic battle that perhaps turned the tide of World War II more than any other.

The five months of fighting in Stalingrad between August 1942 and February 1943 is regarded as the bloodiest battle in history. The death toll for soldiers and civilians is estimated to have been an astonishing 2 million. Most of the city was reduced to rubble before Nazi forces surrendered on Feb. 2, 1943.

"Such degree of resistance, self-sacrifice and spiritual power were invincible, incomprehensible and terrifying for the enemy," Putin said. Putin hailed the Stalingrad victory as a reflection of the "courage of our soldiers and the talent of their commanders."

"The defenders of Stalingrad ... have left us a great heritage: love for the Motherland, the readiness to defend its interests and independence and to show resistance while facing any trials," he said.

Russian presidential candidate shuns Communist party dogma

January 31, 2018

LENIN STATE FARM, Russia (AP) — The Communist Party's candidate for president would seem to be an odd choice: He's a millionaire and proud of it. He also openly rejects the basic tenets of Communism. Pavel Grudinin is the Russian party's first new nominee in 14 years as it hopes to rejuvenate itself and broaden its appeal from its traditional base of aging voters who are nostalgic for the old Soviet Union.

Not that Grudinin — or any other candidate — has much of a chance of unseating President Vladimir Putin when Russia votes on March 18. The presence of Grudinin and other official candidates are largely viewed as a Kremlin ploy to boost voter participation in an election that has a foregone conclusion.

A low presidential vote turnout would be seen as an embarrassment for the Kremlin. That's why opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was leading a grassroots campaign for nearly a year before being formally barred from running, has been urging his supporters to boycott the presidential election and dent its legitimacy.

In contrast, Grudinin is urging voters to come to polls and bring change through the political process. The 57-year-old agricultural college graduate runs what is still known as the Lenin State Farm, a sprawling collective farm south of Moscow, the capital.

With his bushy mustache and salt-and-pepper hair, Grudinin's looks are often compared to those of a young Josef Stalin. Grudinin worked on the farm in the mid-1980s and was appointed its director a decade later.

While most of the collective plots outside Moscow were sold off years ago to property developers, the Lenin State Farm evolved into a successful private business, growing vegetables and raising livestock. Its signature product is strawberries, accounting for a third of all of them produced in Russia.

While metal or wooden strawberries adorn lampposts, fences and farm buildings in the town, Grudinin's self-promoted image of a farmer is not the whole story. He admits that his company over the years has made only a third to half of its income from agricultural production, which he blames on a lack of government subsidies and low wages for consumers who cannot afford his organic produce.

In fact, the Lenin State Farm makes most of its money from property deals, leasing and selling land for shopping centers. Corruption is rampant in the Moscow region, home to some of Russia's most expensive real estate. Yet many international corporations doing business here refuse to pay officials under the table.

Grudinin views his deals with companies like the Swedish furniture giant IKEA as a badge of honor, citing it as proof that he does not pay bribes. Grudinin owns 44 percent of the farm and runs it with 33 other shareholders. The Communist-capitalist prides himself on reinvesting the profits back into the business or creating housing, education and other benefits for the community.

The small town that bears the same name as the farm is dominated by two Disneyland-like castles with spires and a futuristic building that looks like a sports arena but is actually a high-tech, 1.7 billion-ruble ($30 million) school that the farm built for residents.

"We spend this money in line with socialist principles: We spend it on people," he says. Grudinin boasts that he is fighting corruption just like opposition leader Navalny — but "not only with words but also with deeds, by not paying bribes."

While Grudinin refuses to recognize Navalny as the only viable alternative to Putin, he is willing to appropriate some of the opposition leader's agenda. "We have too many bureaucrats and no one is responsible," Grudinin said on state television. "If I tell the rich 'instead of buying yachts, you should pay a higher income tax here, just like they do abroad,' then maybe we will replenish the budget and we will modernize education and health care."

Grudinin, who has declared 157 million rubles ($2.8 million) in income in the past six years, is no political novice. He sat on the local council in the early 2000s and was a member of the ruling United Russia Party until 2010.

In Putin's first presidential election in 2000, Grudinin was one of 100 proxies for him, representing or speaking on his behalf in the campaign. Asked if it feels strange now to run against Putin, Grudinin replies: "I wouldn't say I'm running against Putin. I stand for a different path for the country's development."

Although openly critical of the current political order — saying that "people don't trust the authorities" and that "corruption has taken the upper hand" — Grudinin is careful not to blame it all on the man who has been leading Russia for the past 18 years. Putin is just part of the system, he says.

That line echoes the rhetoric of his predecessor, long-time Communist Party chairman Gennady Zyuganov, who has run in four presidential elections since 1996. Once a searing critic of President Boris Yeltsin, the 73-year-old Zyuganov and the Communists have been coopted by the Kremlin. These days, the Communists support all crucial Kremlin directives, such as the 2014 annexation of Crimea, while dissenting on minor issues, which allows Putin to maintain a facade of democracy.

While running against Yeltsin in 1996, Zyuganov spooked Russia's oligarchs and foreign investors by promising to re-nationalize the strategic sectors of the economy while still allowing private property. Grudinin rejects calls to ban private ownership of land — once a key tenet of Communism.

Unlike Russia's oligarchs who make headlines by buying foreign sports teams or giant yachts, Grudinin's investments like those in the town of 5,000 people have made him a popular figure. Pavel Samoilov, who works in a car repair shop, says he would love to work for Grudinin but the jobs on the farm are hard to get.

"People in the regions are much worse off than what they say on television," says Samoilov, 33. He says he admires Putin's foreign policy but says he has "allowed the country to come to ruin." Putin enjoys national approval ratings of over 80 percent. While Grudinin once was polling second to Putin, he has since fallen to a tie with perennial candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who has run for president six times.

Many of those who admire Grudinin still do not see him as a leader. Maria, a 40-year-old mother of two who wouldn't give her last name, sounded ecstatic about the well-equipped local school and kindergarten and likes Grudinin. But she won't vote for him.

"We need to vote for Putin because he is a strong leader," she said. "This is Putin's place."

Russian opposition leader arrested amid election protests

January 29, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — Protesters gathered across Russia on Sunday to support opposition leader Alexei Navalny's call to boycott the March presidential election, and Navalny himself was arrested while walking to the Moscow demonstration.

Many of the crowds that turned out in generally frigid weather skewed sharply young, apparently reflecting growing discontent among Russians who have lived most or all of their lives under President Vladimir Putin, who came to power on New Year's Eve 1999.

"As long as I've been alive, Putin has always been in. I'm tired of nothing being changed," said 19-year-old Vlad Ivanov, one of about 1,500 protesters who assembled in St. Petersburg. Navalny, Putin's most prominent foe, organized the protests to urge a boycott of Russia's March 18 presidential election, in which Putin is sure to win a fourth term. He was wrestled to the ground and forced into a police bus as he walked toward the demonstration on Moscow's Pushkin Square.

The anti-corruption campaigner was denied permission to be a presidential candidate because of an embezzlement conviction in a case widely seen as politically motivated. Late Sunday night, hours after police detained him, Navalny said on Twitter that he had been released before a trial. Russian news reports cited police earlier as saying he was likely to be charged with a public-order violation for calling unauthorized demonstrations.

Independent radio station Ekho Moskvy reported after his release that Navalny had not yet been presented with a charge. No figures were available for how many people participated in the protests, but the turnout was clearly smaller than for rallies Navalny organized last year. The size and scope of the earlier protests, which took place in provincial cities regarded as the center of Putin's support, rattled the Kremlin.

Protests were reported in dozens of cities, from the Pacific Coast to the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad. Navalny's web page showed a small group of protesters in remote Yakutsk, where it was minus 45 Celsius (minus 49 Fahrenheit).

A crowd that police estimated at 1,000 people, but appeared larger, assembled in central Pushkin Square, brandishing placards reading "They've stolen the election from us" and "Elections without Navalny are fake."

After that gathering dispersed, columns of protesters took off in several directions. One group skirted the Kremlin, then headed down the Novy Arbat, a prime shopping and entertainment area, and to the riverside government headquarters building informally called the Russian White House.

Shouting "Putin is a thief," some of the protesters threw handfuls of snow through the high spiked fence surrounding the building. Police did not interfere, a contrast to their typically quick and harsh responses to unauthorized gatherings.

The OVD-Info organization, which monitors political repression, reported that 257 people were arrested in the demonstrations throughout the country. Hours before the Moscow protest, police raided Navalny's headquarters, where there is a studio for live video transmissions. One broadcaster on the stream said police apparently were using a power grinder tool to try to get into the studio.

The anchors hosting the feed reported that police said they had come because of an alleged bomb threat. One anchor, Dmitri Nizovtsev, was detained by police, according to video broadcast from the headquarters. Navalny's Moscow coordinator, Nikolai Lyaskin, also was detained Sunday, the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

Several hundred demonstrators assembled in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, complaining both of Putin's rule and of Navalny's exclusion from the March 18 presidential election. "They took these elections away from us, they took away our votes. Our candidate was not allowed to run," said Vladivostok demonstrator Dmitri Kutyaev.

Navalny rose to prominence with detailed reports about corruption among top Russian officials, which he popularized on social media to circumvent state control of television.

Irina Titova in St. Petersburg contributed to this report.

From anteaters to zebras: London Zoo counts its creatures

February 07, 2018

LONDON (AP) — Gibbons Jimmy and Yoda, Max the Eurasian eagle owl and Bhanu the lion have stood up to be counted as London Zoo conducts its annual audit of creatures big and small. Zookeepers tallied 19,289 animals in the annual count of every mammal, bird, reptile, fish, amphibian and insect at the famous zoo.

The penguins, at least, made it easy Wednesday, lining up flipper to flipper. Some concessions are made. Ants, for example, are counted en masse. This year's event was delayed after a fire just before Christmas that killed four meerkats and an aardvark.

But Mark Haben of the Zoological Society of London says the count "brought everyone together and really allowed us all to support each other, and really focus on our animal breeding for this year."