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      in US Politics

      Republicans considering more than 100 bills to restrict voting rights

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      Happy Thursday,After an election filled with misinformation and lies about fraud, Republicans have doubled down with a surge of bills to further restrict voting access in recent months, according to a new analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice.There are currently 106 pending bills across 28 states that would restrict access to voting, according to the data. That’s a sharp increase from nearly a year ago, when there were 35 restrictive bills pending across 15 states.Among the Brennan Center’s findings:More than a third of the bills would place new restrictions on voting by mail
      Pennsylvania has 14 pending proposals for new voter restrictions, the most in the country. It’s followed by New Hampshire (11), Missouri (9), and Mississippi, New Jersey and Texas (8)
      There are seven bills across four states that would limit opportunities for election day registration
      There are also 406 bills that would expand voting access pending across 35 states, including in New York (56), Texas (53), New Jersey (37), Mississippi (39) and Missouri (21)
      The restrictions come on the heels of an election in which there was record turnout and Democrat and Republican election officials alike said there was no evidence of widespread wrongdoing or fraud. There were recounts, audits and lawsuits across many states to back up those assurances. Federal and state officials called the election “the most secure in American history”.Myrna Pérez, director of the voting rights and elections program at the Brennan Center, said the surge in anti-voting legislation was “countersensical” given that there were Republican and Democratic wins in key races across the country.“The volume of anti-voter legislation is certainly revealing that a nerve was struck,” she told me. “There are certainly people who are sensitive to the idea of more progress … It ultimately comes down to an anxiety over the browning of America and people in power are afraid of losing their position.”Attacking voting by mailMany of the restrictions have to do with placing new barriers around voting by mail, a process that a record number of Americans used in 2020 (46% of Americans cast a mail-in ballot in 2020, compared with just 19% four years ago). In Arizona, a state that Joe Biden flipped, Republicans are weighing measures that would make it easier to remove voters from a permanent mail-in voting list and to require voters to get their ballots notarized. In Pennsylvania, there are proposals in the GOP-controlled legislature to get rid of no-excuse absentee voting and to make it easier to reject a ballot based on a signature mismatch – an unreliable way to confirm a voter’s identity.And in Georgia, a state where Democrats won stunning upsets in the presidential race and two US Senate runoffs, Republicans are exploring whether to eliminate no-excuse absentee voting and to require voters to submit a copy of their ID when they vote by mail. Again, this comes after an election in which there was record vote by mail turnout, and the state’s top election official, a Republican, loudly pushed back on accusations of fraud.In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, could veto GOP-restrictions. But in Georgia and Arizona, Republicans control both the legislature and the governor’s mansion.There are a host of other voting restrictions states are considering:Ten states are considering new voter ID requirements, including six states that do not currently require voters to present ID at the polls, according to the Brennan Center.
      Two states, Mississippi and New Hampshire, are considering placing new limits on the kinds of IDs that can be used.
      Also worth watching …Oregon lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow people convicted of a felony to vote while they are in prison, the Appeal reported. If adopted, Oregon would join Maine and Vermont as the only two states in the country that allow this, as well as the District of Columbia. More

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      in World Politics

      The Nation-State vs. The Climate

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      For the past year, many commentators have assumed that once the COVID-19 pandemic fades away, the world’s governments will understand that another global task awaits them: addressing the consequences of climate change. COVID-19 has already upset those calculations, at least in terms of timing. Even when things appeared to be improving during the summer of 2020, none of the governments, even the ones that seemed most successful in controlling the pandemic, showed an interest in thinking about future challenges. Instead, they focused on how the consumer economy might get back to its “normal” pattern of continuous growth and how the accumulated debt provoked by the crisis could be accounted for.

      Initially, the realization that our societies can continue to function in non-optimal conditions, even after the shutdown of a significant proportion of economic activity, led to speculation about how we may no longer really need to spend hours in traffic jams, submit to choking air pollution and jump from one plane to another to get our pressing business done. A change of lifestyle seemed in the works. The idea emerged that we could to some degree adapt to something less frenetic than what had become the high-tension consumer society obsessively committed to exponential growth.

      Out of Many, Two: The American Art of Choosing Sides

      READ MORE

      The confusion wrought by an accelerating — and a more devious than anticipated — pandemic, now accompanied by the increasingly ambiguous hope that the arrival of vaccines will bring closure, has left all those hopes of lifestyle change in a state of suspended animation. 

      While no one can now predict what the economy will look like at the end of 2021 and whether the businesses forced to press the pause button for the better part of a year will function, most people are aware that the clock is still ticking on the climate crisis. The Guardian now informs us that humanity is crying out for an answer: “The biggest ever opinion poll on climate change has found two-thirds of people think it is a “global emergency.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Global emergency:

      1. For human beings, an existential threat.

      2. For politicians, a minor annoyance that urgently needs to be sidelined.

      Contextual Note

      Most people will not be surprised by the results of this survey, for the simple reason that the numbers tell us what most people actually think. In contrast, if we polled the governments of the world to find out how many had begun acting to counter this global emergency, the answer would be zero or close to zero. Until January 20 of this year, the most powerful economy in the world had decided to not even think about the question.

      Embed from Getty Images

      To demonstrate that at least thinking was now possible, on January 27, newly elected US President Joe Biden reaffirmed his commitment to return to the Paris Climate Agreement and “signed a sweeping series of executive actions — ranging from pausing new federal oil leases to electrifying the government’s vast fleet of vehicles — while casting the moves as much about job creation as the climate crisis.”

      For the moment, Biden’s plan is modest, to say the least. He has put more emphasis on purchasing emission-free vehicles (presumably made in the USA) with a view to creating jobs than on the work of transforming an economy built to deplete resources and deregulate the climate. One of his initiatives seeks to “identify new opportunities to spur innovation,” which is also more about economic growth and the creation of jobs than it is about economic paradigm shift.

      The Times offers this realistic reminder: “Mr. Biden called on the campaign trail for overhauling tax breaks to oil companies — worth billions of dollars to the oil, coal and gas industries — to help pay for his $2 trillion climate change plan, although that plan is expected to face strong opposition in Congress.” Recent history tells us that Congress is extremely accomplished at engineering bailouts and tax cuts for oil companies, but singularly lacks experience in actually taxing them. In contrast to the predicted inaction of the new administration, The Guardian notes the eagerness and sense of self-sacrifice of the ordinary people polled: “Even when climate action required significant changes in their own country, majorities still backed the measures.”

      Historical note

      For five hundred years, the world has been organized around two concepts: the nation-state and a globalized economy. The development of a global economy required the existence of nation-states with effective central governments. The emerging nation-states rapidly evolved to become mature managers of their own increasingly industrialized economy. They did so precisely because of their ability to mobilize the resources of a global economy. That implied setting the rules permitting them to exploit, effectively and efficiently, other people and their resources. The model of the nation-state could not have taken its modern form without pursuing a policy of deliberate colonialism tending toward economic empire.

      Along the way, modern nation-states, most of which began as monarchies, evolved into either democracies or people’s republics. This essentially meant offering a stake in the gains to the nation’s population to ensure its acceptance of a system that was built on exploiting other populations and resources. If many of the citizens of these democracies did not directly profit from the colonial system that defined the global economy, they at least had indirect access to some of the gains thanks to manufacturing and the gradual development of a consumer society. They could also feel privileged and culturally superior to those who were exploited overseas. This became a major psychological contributor to the stability of modern nation-states.

      It has also led to a state of severe, endemic instability for the entire planet. All political power lies in the individual nation-states who compete for their maximum share of global resources. No state is willing to give ground to another or even to a well-organized group of nations. No effective global conscience, let alone global government, is possible. At the same time, the people of the earth, and especially the young whose lives will extend decades into the future, are beginning to understand that something must be done while realizing that their own nation-state is not likely to make it happen.

      The United States has consistently preferred to defend the status quo of an economy. After all, it sets the economy’s rules — thanks to the dollar, its omnipresent military and its successful engineering of a global consumer economy. Republicans have built climate denial into their civic credo. Democrats have done what is necessary to appear more open than Republicans. But the party stalwarts, with Biden as the archetype, have shown no commitment to going further than seeming marginally more committed than the Republicans.

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      This poll demonstrates how the current global system based on the idea of competing democratic nation-states has betrayed the fundamental principle of democracy. When the ideology of democracy began to prevail in the late 18th century, its stated intention was to ensure that the interests of the people would prevail. Because all political logic was confined within the boundaries of individual states, the shared interests of the people of the earth could be forgotten or dismissed as irrelevant.

      That is what we are seeing today. Distancing himself from Donald Trump, Joe Biden promises to marginally reduce the massively disproportionate contribution of the US to global warming. To do so, he must emphasize job creation rather than seek a response to a global emergency. This solution implies more manufacturing, not less damage to the environment. With its global hegemonic position, the US is the only nation that can lead and set the tone for the rest of the world. The sad reality is that Biden and the Democrats cannot even lead at home. In all likelihood, the timid measures Biden is proposing will be blocked or watered down by the Republican opposition.

      Two-thirds of humanity are crying out for a solution to two obvious crises. The nation-states have demonstrated their ineptness at addressing the pandemic. Populations, even in peaceful countries like the Netherlands, are already revolting. What the nation-states have failed to do for their own populations reveals how unlikely it is that they can respond to the needs of all of humanity. It may be time to rethink all of our institutions. Or rather, it may be too late.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Iran disappointed over Biden administration's refusal to lift sanctions

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      Iran has responded with anger and disappointment to the new US secretary of state saying American sanctions against Tehran will not be lifted until it comes back into verifiable “full compliance” with its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal.Antony Blinken said Iranian compliance would take some time, indicating there is unlikely to be any major movement in negotiations until after the Iranian presidential elections in June.Blinken made his remarks at a press briefing, prompting some Iranians to claim the Biden administration was using the same failed bargaining tactics as Donald Trump.Hesameddin Ashena, adviser to the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, told Blinken on Twitter if this kind of approach had been effective, then “Donald Trump would not have left the White House waiting for a phone call from Iran”.The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has in a series of interviews and articles over the past fortnight set out a plan whereby Iran would come back into compliance with the deal as soon as the US lifted its panoply of sanctions. He also insisted Iran was not willing to renegotiate the existing deal, or to discuss its missile programme.Rouhani has highlighted the pain continued US sanctions has caused his country and himself personally. He said: “I testify to God that in these three years, there has not been a night that I can go to bed with peace of mind. During these three years, I felt responsible for the period of the imposed war and I felt that we were in the imposed war. People persevered, endured and suffered a lot.”Iran has moved away from the nuclear deal commitments, including by breaching agreed uranium enrichment limits and threatening from February to minimise the access UN inspectors have to its nuclear sites.The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, went to the Fordow nuclear site near Qom on Thursday to be briefed on uranium enrichment stockpiles and preparations for changes to the nuclear inspection regime. On the sidelines of the visit, Iranian officials said they intended to install more IR2m gas centrifuges in the next three months. They said Iran had 17kg of stockpiles of 20% enriched uranium, well above the limits set out in the agreement.Blinken has assembled a team with experience of negotiating with Iran, and it may be he is setting out a maximalist bargaining position before the start of any talks. He also has to ensure he takes a sceptical Congress with him.He said: “President Biden has been very clear in saying that if Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], the United States would do the same thing and then we would use that as a platform to build, with our allies and partners, what we called a longer and stronger agreement and to deal with a number of other issues that are deeply problematic in the relationship with Iran.“But we are a long ways from that point. Iran is out of compliance on a number of fronts. And it would take some time, should it make the decision to do so, for it to come back into compliance in time for us then to assess whether it was meeting its obligations. So we’re not – we’re not there yet, to say the least.”Blinken made the comments on the same day as speaking with his foreign minister counterparts in Germany, France and the UK to gauge their thinking. EU diplomats have also just returned from a visit to the Gulf states to discuss how to handle Iran.Blinken also said the US was suspending arms sales deals to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.The US stance had been prefigured in briefings by French officials earlier in the week, prompting Zarif to tweet on Tuesday: “Why on earth should Iran – a country that stood firm & defeated 4 years of a brutal US economic terrorism imposed in violation of JCPOA & UNSC Resolution – show goodwill gesture first? It was the US that broke the deal – for no reason. It must remedy its wrong; then Iran will respond.”Iran’s ambassador to the UN, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, writing in the New York Times, said: “Iran, for its part, has declared on numerous occasions that it is ready to return to the obligations initially agreed under the nuclear deal and expeditiously reverse the measures we have taken since, if all of the sanctions are withdrawn that were imposed and reimposed by the Trump administration after its illegal withdrawal from the accord.”Israeli military officials have broken protocol before Israel’s elections to warn against a US return to the nuclear deal.One issue for any negotiations is the precise US sanctions that Iran wants lifted, since some predate the signing of the nuclear deal in 2015. More

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      in Elections

      Biden killed the Keystone Pipeline. Good, but he doesn't get a climate pass just yet | Nick Estes

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      Joe Biden scrapping the Keystone XL permit is a huge win for the Indigenous-led climate movement. It not only overturns Trump’s reversal of Obama’s 2015 rejection of the pipeline but is also a major blow to the US fossil fuel industry and the world’s largest energy economy and per-capita carbon polluter.There is every reason to celebrate the end of a decade-long fight against Keystone XL. Tribal nations and Indigenous movements hope it will be a watershed moment for bolder actions, demanding the same fates for contentious pipeline projects such as Line 3 and the Dakota Access pipeline.Biden has also vowed to review more than 100 environmental rules and regulations that were weakened or reversed by Trump and to restore Obama-era protections to two Indigenous sacred sites, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, which are also national monuments in Utah. And he issued a “temporary moratorium” on all oil and gas leases in the Arctic national wildlife refuge, sacred territory to many Alaskan Natives.None of these victories would have been possible without sustained Indigenous resistance and tireless advocacy.But there is also good reason to be wary of the Biden administration and its parallels with the Obama administration. The overwhelming majority of people appointed to Biden’s climate team come from Obama’s old team. And their current climate actions are focused almost entirely on restoring Obama-era policies.Biden’s policy catchphrases of “America is back” and “build back better” and his assurance to rich donors that “nothing would fundamentally change” should also be cause for concern. A return to imagined halcyon days of an Obama presidency or to “normalcy”– which for Indigenous peoples in the United States is everyday colonialism – isn’t justice, nor is it the radical departure from the status quo we need to bolster Indigenous rights and combat the climate crisis.Obama’s record is mixed. While opposing the northern leg of Keystone XL in 2015, Obama had already fast-tracked the construction of the pipeline’s southern leg in 2012, despite massive opposition from Indigenous and environmental groups.His “all-of-the-above energy strategy” committed to curbing emissions while also promoting US “energy independence” by embracing domestic oil production. Thanks to this policy, the lifting of a four-decade limit on exporting crude oil from the United States, and the fracking revolution, US domestic crude oil production increased by 88% from 2008 to 2016.Domestic oil pipeline construction also increased – and so, too, did resistance to it. During the protests against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, Obama’s FBI infiltrated the Standing Rock camps. “There’s an obligation for protesters to be peaceful,” he admonished the unarmed Water Protectors at the prayer camps who faced down water cannons in freezing weather, attack dogs, mass arrests and the ritualistic brutality of a heavily-militarized small army of police.In 2018, Obama claimed credit for the United States becoming the world’s largest oil producer, urging industry elites in Texas to “thank” him for making them rich. Trump’s subsequent, and more aggressive, policy of “unleashing American energy dominance” built on Obama’s gains.Undoing four years of Trump – and the lasting damage it brought – can’t be the only barometer of climate justice. Nor should we lower our expectations of what is possible and necessary for Native sovereignty and treaty rights.Biden partly owes his election victory to Native voters. Arizona voting districts with large Native populations helped flipped the traditionally Republican state last November to his and Democrats’ favor. Native aspirations, however, don’t entirely align with Biden’s climate agenda, the Democratic party, or electoral politics.In Arizona, where Biden won the Native vote, the Forest Service could, in the coming months, hand over 2,400 acres of Chi’chil Bildagoteel, an Apache sacred site, to the Australian mining company Rio Tinto. In 2014, the Arizona Republican senator John McCain attached a rider to a defense authorization bill to allow the transfer of land to make way for a copper mine, which would create a nearly two-mile wide open-pit crater destroying numerous Native burial sites, ceremonial areas and cultural items in the process. (Last year, Rio Tinto blew up Juukan Gorge Cave, a 46,000-year-old Indigenous sacred site, to expand an iron ore mine in Australia.)A Democratic Senate passed Resolution Copper; Obama signed it into law; and Trump fast-tracked the environmental review during his last days in office. Resource colonialism is a bipartisan affair.Much like the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s dilemma with the Dakota Access pipeline, the Apache Stronghold, made up of members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe opposing the copper mine at Oak Flat, has little recourse. No law exists giving Native people control of their lands outside government-defined reservation boundaries.We must ask ourselves why Biden and his supporters can imagine a carbon-free future but not the end of US colonialismRio Tinto’s copper mine aims to meet at least a quarter of the United States’ annual copper needs, an essential metal that will be in high demand for renewable energy and electric vehicles. According to the World Bank, three billions of tons of metals and minerals like copper and lithium will be required by 2050 for wind, solar and geothermal power to meet the base target of the Paris agreement, which Biden has committed the US to rejoining.And before Trump left office, the Bureau of Land Management issued a final permit to the Canadian mining company Lithium Americas to create an open-pit lithium mine at Thacker Pass on traditional Paiute land in Nevada. The mine could bolster Biden’s $2tn “green energy” transition plan. Lithium is a key ingredient of rechargeable batteries, and it’s what attracted Elon Musk’s Tesla battery factory to Nevada. Last October, Biden reportedly told a group of miners that he planned to increase domestic lithium production to wean the country from foreign sources like China.These “green” techno fixes and consumer-based solutions might provide short-term answers, but they don’t stop the plunder of Native lands. Even the addition of Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo, to the Biden cabinet won’t fundamentally change the colonial nature of the United States. We must ask ourselves why Biden and his supporters can imagine a carbon-free future but not the end of US colonialism.But no matter who is US president, Indigenous people will continue fighting for the land and the future of the planet. For us, it has always been decolonization or extinction. More

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      in World Politics

      JCPOA 2.0: A Pinch of Hope and a Dose of Reality

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      On January 18, in an interview with Bloomberg, Qatari Foreign Affairs Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, speaking in the wake of the settlement of the Gulf feud, took the opportunity to argue that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) should sit down with Tehran. “The time should come,” he said “when the GCC sits at the table with Iran and reaches a common understanding that we have to live with each other. Sheikh Mohammed expressed optimism that with the Biden administration in place, Iran and the US will “reach a solution with what will happen with JCPOA” and that, in turn, will “help (relations) between the GCC and Iran. Everything is interconnected at the end of the day.”

      How Will Joe Biden Approach Iran?

      READ MORE

      The fact that Joe Biden is bringing many of Barack Obama’s staff back to the White House, in particular Wendy Sherman as deputy secretary of state, is what may have buoyed the Qatari foreign minister’s optimism about a renewed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Sherman was the lead US negotiator for the initial nuclear deal with Iran. Her new boss at the State Department will be Antony Blinken, a harsh critic of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement. Biden’s designated national security adviser is Jake Sullivan. Both men are on record as wanting to bring America back into a JCPOA 2.0.

      Obama 3

      Though Oman played a key role in negotiations with the Iranians in the first deal, other Gulf states (Saudi Arabia and the UAE) were left out of the loop, which only added to their anxiety that the Americans were being played for suckers by Tehran. This time around, it is to be hoped (in what has been called by some analysts “Obama 3”) that lessons have been learned and there will be consultation with the GCC as new negotiations with Iran get underway.

      Embed from Getty Images

      If that happens, the Bloomberg interviewer asked, would the Qataris be interested in playing a lead role as facilitators this time around? Sheikh Mohammed replied that “we want the accomplishment, we want to see the deal happening. … If Qatar will be asked by the stakeholders to play a role in this, we will be welcoming this idea.” He affirmed that Qatar will support anyone conducting the negotiations because Doha has good relations with both Washington and Tehran: “Iran is our neighbor … they stood with us during the crisis.”

      That fact alone may give the Qataris the inside track should the Americans choose to use them as a bridge to the Iranians. And it would be a role that the Saudis, in their efforts to curry favor with the Biden administration while wanting to appear to stand up strongly to Iran, may find useful as well.

      Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud has already staked out the kingdom’s position. In an interview he gave just ahead of the rapprochement with Qatar, he said Saudi Arabia was “in favor of dialogue with Iran” as well as “in favor of dialogue between the United States and Iran.” He went on to argue that the Trump administration had been open to dialogue but that it was “Iran that closed the doors to that dialogue.” That, it could be argued, is somewhat disingenuous, since Trump had adamantly refused, as a means of getting the Iranians to the table, to ease sanctions. Indeed, in the waning months of his presidency, he had ramped them even higher.

      Prince Faisal, though he called for talks, was clear that there must be “real dialogue” that “addresses significant issues of concern — not just nuclear non-proliferation … but also ballistic missiles and, most importantly, the destabilizing activity … Without addressing Iran’s malign role and Iran’s funding of armed groups and terrorist organizations in the region and its attempts to impose its will by force on other states,” Prince Faisal said, “we are not going to have progress.” In a message intended for the incoming president’s ears, he concluded: “I sincerely hope that the Biden administration will take that into account when it formulates its policy in the region, and I believe they will.”

      Time for War

      Meanwhile, a conservative Israeli think tank, the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), has just released a paper that says, forget about dialogue — it’s time for Israel to go to war with Iran. That sentiment is rooted in the author’s belief that the Iranians are hell-bent on securing nuclear weapons. Professor Efraim Inbar, the JISS president, writes that “Iran-Israel relations are essentially a zero-sum game, leaving Israel little choice but to act upon its existential instincts.” Noting numerous strikes by the Israel Defense Forces on Hezbollah in Syria and on Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, he argues that Israel is already at war: “Indeed, Israel has decided to wage a low-profile limited war, ‘the campaign between wars,’ to obstruct Iranian attempts to transform Syria and Iraq into missile launching pads.”

      Iran, Professor Inbar argues, will play a game of “talk and build” pretending to be serious about meaningful negotiations while building its nuclear capability — a point John Bolton, Mike Pompeo and others from the Trump administration have consistently made. “Essentially,” Inbar writes, “inconclusive talks preserve a status quo, a tense standoff in which Iran can go on uninhibited with its nuclear program. Indeed, bargaining, at which Iranians excel, and temporary concessions postpone diplomatic and economic pressures and, most importantly, preventive military strikes.” His solution is to suggest Israel “strike to pre-empt the return of Iran to the negotiating table.”

      And, despite the Abraham Accords, he doesn’t put much stock in Israel’s new friendships in the Gulf. To the contrary, he worries that “as Iran becomes more powerful in the region and the US security umbrella becomes less reliable, reorienting their foreign policy towards Tehran might become more attractive.”

      Granted, it is unlikely that Benjamin Netanyahu — preoccupied with keeping his political career alive as a way of avoiding prison — will seize on the professor’s bellicose strategy. That will be a relief, no doubt, to the Gulf states. The last thing they need is a war unleashed by their new Israeli friends right on the doorstep. Still, it points to the huge difficulties President Biden faces in attempting to revive the nuclear deal. His political foes and the right-wing media in America will move quickly to paint him as Tehran’s patsy. Regardless, the first step is to get the Iranians and the Americans around the table. Doha may be just about the best place to do that.

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      US takes aim at China territorial claims as Biden vows to back Japan

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      Joe Biden has vowed to strengthen the US’s alliance with Japan to counter growing Chinese military activity in the volatile Asia-Pacific region, including a commitment to defend the Senkakus, a group of islands in the East China sea administered by Tokyo but claimed by Beijing.The US president and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga agreed during a phone call that their countries’ security alliance was “the cornerstone of peace and prosperity in a free and open Indo-Pacific”.Biden’s vow to strengthen security arrangements in the region contrasted with the approach taken by Donald Trump, who publicly mulled withdrawing troops from Japan and South Korea, both key US allies.Trump also complained that Tokyo and Seoul were not paying enough towards their own security and called on them to buy more US-made defence equipment.“We managed to have substantial exchanges,” Suga said after his 30-minute call with Biden. “We agreed to strengthen our alliance firmly by having more phone calls like this.”Biden reaffirmed the US commitment to provide “extended deterrence” to Japan, a reference to the US nuclear umbrella, the White House said in a statement.They also agreed on the need for the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, as speculation mounts over how Biden intends to engage with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, over his nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.Japan is particularly concerned about frequent incursions by Chinese vessels into waters near the Senkaku islands, which are known as the Diaoyu in China.Biden’s “unwavering commitment” to defending the Senkakus was expected, but has taken on extra significance, coming a week after Beijing passed legislation authorising coast guard vessels to use weapons against foreign ships deemed to be involved in illegal activities around the uninhabited island chain.The two did not discuss the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, whose future is in doubt as the world continues to battle the Covid-19 pandemic, officials said.Suga’s predecessor, Shinzo Abe, established a rapport with Trump during rounds of golf in Japan and the US, and was the first world leader to meet him after his 2016 election victory.Suga said he hoped to “deepen my personal relationship with President Biden”, adding that he planned to visit Washington as soon as the coronavirus pandemic allowed.Media reports in Japan said the two leaders had agreed to call each other Joe and Yoshi.Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, had earlier told the Philippine foreign minister, Teodoro Locsin, that the US rejected China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea beyond what is permitted under international law.Blinken said Washington stood with the Philippines and other south-east Asian countries resisting pressure from Beijing, which has laid claim to wide areas of the South China Sea.“Secretary Blinken pledged to stand with south-east Asian claimants in the face of PRC [People’s Republic of China] pressure,” the state department said in a statement.China claims almost all of the energy-rich South China Sea, which is also a major trade route. The Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan have overlapping claims.The US has accused China of taking advantage of the distraction created by the coronavirus pandemic to advance its presence in the South China Sea.Blinken, who joined Biden’s administration this week, “underscored that the United States rejects China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea to the extent they exceed the maritime zones that China is permitted to claim under international law”, the statement said.US-China relations deteriorated under Trump over a host of issues, including trade, the pandemic, Beijing’s crackdown on the Hong Kong democracy movement and its persecution of Uighur Muslims. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden signals radical shift from Trump era with executive orders on climate change

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      [embedded content]
      Joe Biden has warned the climate crisis poses an “existential threat” to the world as he unveiled a radical change in direction from the Trump era by halting fossil fuel activity on public lands and directing the US government to start a full-frontal effort to lower planet-heating emissions.
      “We have already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis, we can’t wait any longer,” the US president said as he signed a battery of executive orders on Wednesday. “We see it with our own eyes, we feel it in our bones. It’s time to act.”
      Biden has instructed the US government to pause and review all oil and gas drilling on federal land, eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and transform the government’s vast fleet of cars and trucks into electric vehicles, in a sweeping new set of climate executive orders.
      “We desperately need unified national response to the climate crisis, because there is a climate crisis,” Biden said.
      He pledged to put “environmental justice” at the center “of all we do” to help mitigate the disproportionate effects of climate change on Black and brown communities in the US, with policy and funding changes.
      The president framed the actions as a remedy to pandemic-driven unemployment as well as an environmental benefit.
      Biden said that millions of well-paid jobs would flow from investments in clean energy such as solar and wind, as well as energy efficiency measures for homes and the clean-up of former oil wells.
      “These aren’t pie in the sky dreams, they are concrete actionable solutions,” the president said.
      “This isn’t time for small measures, we need to be bold. It’s about jobs, good paying union jobs, it’s a whole of government approach to put climate change at the center of our domestic, national security and foreign policies. We can do this, we must do this and we will do this.”
      The slew of executive actions direct the Department of the Interior to pause new oil and gas leases on public lands and offshore waters and launch a “rigorous review of all existing leasing”, according to a White House planning document.
      The directive opens up a path to the banning of all new drilling on federal land, a campaign promise made by Biden that has been widely praised by climate groups and caused outrage within the fossil fuel industry. Biden has called the climate crisis the “existential threat of our time” and the White House has said the new executive orders will help push the US towards a goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
      “President Biden and his administration are taking an important step in the right direction by limiting oil and gas development on federal lands,” said Robert Howarth, professor of ecology at Cornell University, who added that the world “must rapidly transition away from fossil fuels” to avoid disastrous climate change.
      Jesse Prentice-Dunn, policy director at the Center for Western Priorities, added that “Hitting pause on oil and gas leasing is a crucial first step toward reforming a rigged and broken system that for too long has put oil and gas lobbyists ahead of the American people.”
      Around a quarter of the US’s planet-heating emissions comes from fossil fuel production on public lands and it is estimated a national ban on leasing would reduce carbon emissions by 280m tons a year. Donald Trump’s administration opened up almost all federally owned land to drilling, a move cheered as a job creator by industry but decried by environmentalists and Native American tribes.
      “There has to be a balance point: people over money,” said Daniel Tso, a member of the Navajo Nation.”I welcome an end to federal fossil fuel leasing and the necessary transitions to more sustainable economies for the Navajo Nation.”
      Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, which represents oil and gas drillers in western states, has said her group will challenge the moratorium in court. “The environmental left is leading the agenda at the White House when it comes to energy and environment issues,” she said.
      Biden’s new set of executive orders, dubbed “climate day” by environmental campaigners, adds up to one of the most wide-ranging efforts ever taken by a US president to tackle the climate crisis, building upon his decision last week to re-enter the Paris climate agreement.
      Alongside the review of public lands, the Biden administration will install climate as an “essential element” of US foreign policy and national security, craft a strengthened national emissions reduction target, seek to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and will set a new goal of conserving 30% of American land and oceans by 2030. The new emissions goal may well be presented at an international climate summit that Biden is planning for Earth Day, on 22 April.
      The White House, for the first time, will have an office of domestic climate policy to coordinate Biden’s climate agenda alongside a national climate task force that will comprise of 21 government agency leaders to adopt a “whole of government” approach to reducing emissions. A review of scientific integrity practices will roll out.
      The orders also establish an environmental justice interagency council to address the racial and economic inequities exacerbated by climate change and air and water pollution. Biden hopes to pass a $2tn clean energy package through Congress and he will direct that 40% of investments will be aimed at disadvantaged communities.
      In all, the climate package is a strong repudiation of the Trump administration, which consistently sidelined or derided climate science, dismantled policies designed to lower emissions and withdrew from the Paris climate deal.
      “This is the single biggest day for climate action in more than a decade, and what makes it all the better is that President Biden and Vice-President Harris are just getting started,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. More

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      in World Politics

      Addressing the Fragile Limits of Female Autonomy

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      On October 22, 2020, the United States co-sponsored a Geneva Consensus Declaration on Promoting Women’s Health and Strengthening the Family. However, despite its name, this declaration states that “in no case should abortion be promoted as a method of family planning.” While it doesn’t legally impact access to abortion in the United States, it bars …
      Continue Reading “Addressing the Fragile Limits of Female Autonomy”
      The post Addressing the Fragile Limits of Female Autonomy appeared first on Fair Observer. More