The "Rules Based World Order" Never Looked Particularly "Rules Based"....,

WaPo  |  On Friday, Jordan’s King Abdullah II described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a war crime.” He said Israel was carrying out “collective punishment of a besieged and helpless people,” which ought to be seen as “a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.”

That may not trouble an Israeli leadership bent on retribution, argued Marc Lynch, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, but it’s a problem for the United States. “It is difficult to reconcile the United States’ promotion of international norms and the laws of war in defense of Ukraine from Russia’s brutal invasion with its cavalier disregard for the same norms in Gaza,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs.

While it seems the Biden administration is working behind the scenes to attempt to restrain Israel’s war cabinet, Gaza’s more than 2 million people are living in a nightmare of airstrikes and explosions and are running out of food, water and places for safe sanctuary. In his speech, Biden stressed the gap between Hamas and the ordinary Palestinians in their midst. “We can’t ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have an opportunity,” he said, pointing to the U.S. efforts to bring in humanitarian assistance — deliveries which aid groups say are staggeringly short of what’s required.

But that rhetoric rings hollow when set against the record of U.S. actions. “If the U.S. and other Western governments want to convince the rest of the world they are serious about human rights and the laws of war, principles they rightly apply to Russian atrocities in Ukraine and to Hamas atrocities in Israel, they also have to apply to Israel’s brutal disregard for civilian life in Gaza,” Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement after the U.S. veto.

A senior diplomat from a country in the Group of 20 major economies told me that “it’s this kind of behavior that had the Global South so cautious about what the West was doing” when they were cajoling foreign governments to follow their lead on Ukraine. The current U.S. role in blocking action on Gaza, the official added, speaking this weekend on condition of anonymity because they were not cleared to brief journalists, shows “how much of a double standard the U.S. or West’s strategy relies on.”

In Europe, there’s a growing recognition of this tension, too. “What we said about Ukraine has to apply to Gaza. Otherwise we lose all our credibility,” a senior Group of Seven diplomat told the Financial Times. “The Brazilians, the South Africans, the Indonesians: why should they ever believe what we say about human rights?”

It is also a reminder of the failure of the international community — but chiefly, the United States — to revive the dormant peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. “Today, Western governments are paying for their inability to find, or even to seek, a solution to the Palestinian question,” noted an editorial in French daily Le Monde. “In the current tense climate, their support for Israel — which is perceived as exclusive by the rest of the world — risks jeopardizing their efforts to convince Southern countries that international security is at stake in Ukraine.”

The diplomat speaking to the FT gloomily summed up the latest Gaza war’s impact: “All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost. … Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again.”

The Garden Intends To Clamp Down On Thought Crimes Among You Ashy-Assed Jungle Bunnies

NC  |  So, who in the EU will get to define what actually constitutes mis- or disinformation?

Surely it will be the job of an independent regulator or a judicial authority with at least clear procedural parameters and no or few conflicts of interest. At least that is what one would hope.

But no.

The ultimate decider of what constitutes mis- or dis-information, possibly not just in the EU but across multiple jurisdictions around the world (more on that later), will be the European Commission. That’s right, the EU’s power-hungry, conflict-riddled, Von der Leyen-led executive branch. The same institution that is in the process of dynamiting the EU’s economic future through its endless backfiring sanctions on Russia and which is mired in Pfizergate, one of the biggest corruption scandals of its 64-year existence. Now the Commission wants to take mass censorship to levels not seen in Europe since at least the dying days of the Cold War.

In this task the Commission will have, in its own words, “enforcement powers similar to those it has under anti-trust proceedings,” adding that “an EU-wide cooperation mechanism will be established between national regulators and the Commission.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) broadly supports many aspects of the DSA, including the protections it provides on user rights to privacy by prohibiting platforms from undertaking targeted advertising based on sensitive user information, such as sexual orientation or ethnicity. “More broadly, the DSA increases the transparency about the ads users see on their feeds as platforms must place a clear label on every ad, with information about the buyer of the ad and other details.” It also “reins in the powers of Big Tech” by forcing them to “comply with far-reaching obligations and responsibly tackle systemic risks and abuse on their platform.”

But even the EFF warns that the new law “provides a fast-track procedure for law enforcement authorities to take on the role of ‘trusted flaggers’ and uncover data about anonymous speakers and remove allegedly illegal content – which platforms become obligated to remove quickly.” The EFF also raises concerns about the dangers posed by the Commission’s starring role in all of this:

Issues with government involvement in content moderation are pervasive and whilst trusted flaggers are not new, the DSA’s system could have a significant negative impact on the rights of users, in particular that of privacy and free speech.

And free speech and a free press are the foundation stones of any genuine liberal democracy, as notes the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU):

The First Amendment protects our freedom to speak, assemble, and associate with others. These rights are essential to our democratic system of governance. The Supreme Court has written that freedom of expression is “the matrix, the indispensable condition of nearly every other form of freedom.” Without it, other fundamental rights, like the right to vote, would cease to exist. Since its founding, the ACLU has advocated for broad protection of our First Amendment rights in times of war and peace, to ensure that the marketplace of ideas remains vigorous and unrestricted.

A Transatlantic “Wish List”

The DSA and the Biden Administration’s proposed RESTRICT Act (which Yves dissected back in April) were among the topics discussed during Russell Brand’s recent interview of Matt Taibbi. Both bills, said Taibbi, are essentially a “wish list that has been passed around” by the transatlantic elite “for some time,” including at a 2021 gathering at the Aspen Institute:

The governments want absolute, full and complete access to all data that these platforms provide. And then they want a couple of other things that are really important. They want to have the authority to come in and moderate or at least be part of the process of moderation. And they also want people who are called trusted “flaggers” — that’s how they’re described in the European law — to have access to these platforms as well. What they mean by that are these outside quasi-governmental agencies who tell these platforms what they can and cannot print about things like vaccine safety.

In other words, the legal environment for free speech is set to become even more hostile in Europe. And possibly not just Europe. As Norman Lewis writes for the British online news website Spiked, the DSA will not only force the regulation of content on the Internet, but could also become a global standard, not just a European one:

What Caused The Riots In France?

fp  |  French police are plagued by “a double problem of racial discrimination and brutality, with neither one being acknowledged by governments past and present,” said Sebastian Roché, an expert on policing at Sciences-Po university in Grenoble.

In France, images of similar incidents “have emerged in the past, but not as damning as these ones,” said Éric Marliere, a sociologist at the University of Lille. “We are looking at a very violent scene that reminds of the George Floyd case” and has contributed to accelerating the protest movement, he said. 

This is also yet another major headache for French President Emmanuel Macron, who’s seeking to rebuild his political capital at home and abroad after months of crippling strikes over his pension reform, and has now had to postpone a scheduled trip to Germany in order to deal with the new crisis, after being forced to leave early from a European summit in Brussels to hurry back to Paris last week.

French police have a long history of heavy-handedness, particularly with ethnic minorities. In the early 1960s, officers under the command of Paris police chief Maurice Papon killed dozens, if not hundreds, of Algerians taking part in a demonstration for independence. Over the following decades, the heavily immigrant, poverty- and crime-ridden suburbs at the margins of France’s biggest cities posed a constant challenge for police. But tensions between residents and security forces in the banlieues have grown worse over the past 15 years, according to Roché, particularly as a result of the 2005 riots. 

Back then, “the police were taken by surprise and lost control of the situation,” he said. In the following years, under different governments, a new approach was developed to police the banlieues, he said, one that largely revolved around the tougher units—such as the anti-criminality brigades, which are specifically designed to carry out arrests and tend to attract the most hot-headed elements. Officers also started being equipped with “LBDs,” riot guns firing rubber bullets that can cause severe injuries or even death.

“The logic became: ‘The police aren’t there to connect with people, earn their trust, and reassure them, but to detain them,’” Roché said. “A police officer who arrives in a banlieue arrives with their LBD, in a position to impose their point of view by force and instill fear,” he said.

This approach continues to be in fashion today. In the thick of the recent violence, Alliance Police Nationale and UNSA, two police unions, defined the rioters as “savage hordes” and “vermin,” against which police are “at war.”

In line with this rhetoric, French cops tend to be more trigger-happy than their European counterparts. The rough French average of 44 people killed by police every year since the turn of the decade pales compared to the hundreds who die in the United States, but it’s much higher than in Germany or the United Kingdom. Some of it may have to do with the lower standards and shorter training that have resulted from Macron’s efforts to quickly beef up police ranks after he came into office in 2017. In recent years, admission rates have gone from one in 50 candidates to one in five. New recruits are now only getting eight months of training, compared to three years in Germany.

These Polacks Out'chere Just Really Doing The Most....,

polskieradio |  The war in Ukraine has weakened the Franco-German axis that once defined Europe, with the balance of power now shifting toward the UK and Poland, a British political scientist has claimed. 

In an op-ed featured in the British news magazine The New Statesman, Maurice Glasman, a political scientist from St Mary's University in London, highlights the profound impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on the existing order in Europe.

Glasman argues that the invasion has not only disrupted the balance of power across the continent but has also had consequences for the European Union, Poland's wpolityce.pl website reported on Thursday.

Prior to the crisis, the EU functioned under a shared leadership model, with France and Germany at the helm. France assumed a dominant role in military and diplomatic affairs, while Germany focused on economic matters, according to Glasman.

However, he says the legal framework governing the EU was rooted in the primacy of EU law within member states, which ultimately created tensions in both eastern and western Europe.

These tensions were exemplified by Britain's decision to withdraw from the EU, as well as the opposition voiced by Poland and Hungary on social issues.

“The status quo was based on an understanding over the export of gas (as well as oil and coal) from Russia to Germany, most obviously through the Nord Stream pipeline," according to Glasman.

He writes: "Berlin and Moscow held the fate of Central Europe in their hands once more. German economic interests were predominant, partly because the EU did not develop a unified military strategy of its own."

Significant shift in European landscape

Glasman further states: “This is what made the status of Ukraine so explosive. Its integration into either the EU or NATO was not in German interests. It would undermine its economic interests, as the only serious industrial economy within the EU, which were predicated upon cheap energy imports from Russia.”

In his analysis, Glasman highlights the fact that the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has resulted in a significant shift in the European landscape, particularly in the realms of economics and military affairs, wpolityce.pl reported.

Glasman says this shift has exposed Germany's relative weakness and hesitancy in the military sphere, sentiments that are shared by France.

He argues that in the event of a military confrontation with Russia, power and resources within Europe would gravitate towards NATO, subsequently leading to a resurgence of influence from the United States and the United Kingdom.

He writes that “it was widely assumed within academic and elite political discourse that Brexit would lead to the marginalization of Britain within Europe, and to the consolidation of the Franco-German axis within the EU. The opposite has been the case.”

He continues: “Following the invasion of Ukraine, Britain took an unambiguous position of military and political support for the beleaguered Ukrainian state. While the US was offering President Volodymyr Zelensky asylum, Britain immediately transferred weapons and led the western European political response with an unprecedented array of economic sanctions against Russia. It seemed as if Brexit had strengthened its freedom of action at a time of war."

All Is Not Well In "The Garden" As Video Games Cause A Week Of Serious Unrest...,

Telegraph  |  French police said they were “at war” with “savage hordes of vermin” on Friday night as France was rocked by violent waves of riots and looting and about 1,000 more people were arrested.

Two of the country’s top police unions threatened a revolt unless Emmanuel Macron’s government restored order after protests broke out over an officer’s shooting of a teenager outside Paris.

“Today the police are in combat because we are at war. Tomorrow we will enter resistance and the government should be aware of this,” they said.

It came as British travellers were warned about the risk of curfews and travel restrictions due to the spiralling upheaval and vandalism around France.

A domestic intelligence note seen by Le Monde has warned riots could become increasingly “widespread” and go on for “the coming nights”.

The French government announced on Friday that all major public gatherings that could “pose a risk to public order” would be banned. Various rock concerts have been pulled. Some 45,000 police were deployed. 

The Interior Ministry said 994 arrests were made during Friday night, with more than 2,500 fires. The night before, 917 people were arrested nationwide, 500 buildings targeted, 2,000 vehicles burned and dozens of stores ransacked.

While the number of overnight arrests was the highest yet, there were fewer fires, cars burned and police stations attacked around France than the previous night, according to the Interior Ministry. Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, claimed the violence was of “much less intensity”.

Hundreds of police and firefighters have been injured, including 79 overnight, but authorities have not released injury tallies for protesters.

Protests have continued into a fourth night, with rioters in Paris on Saturday night setting fire to a bus and clashing with police. Unrest has also spread to Lyon and Grenoble.

Meanwhile, security will be beefed up during the upcoming Tour de France bike race, which is due to start in Spain on Saturday.

Mr Macron faced intense pressure on Friday to impose a state of emergency as he called on parents to keep their children at home and blamed video games for “intoxicated” young protesters.

In updated travel advice, the Foreign Office said: “Locations and timing of riots are unpredictable. You should monitor the media, and avoid areas where riots are taking place.”