Mon, May 24, 2021, 3PM (CT). TOPICS: League City, Webster set to adjust city boundaries for North Landing Boulevard extension; Local, state officials continue to advocate against high-speed rail as Texas Central moves forward; Public schools can’t require students, staff to wear masks after June 4, Gov. Abbott says; Bill that would make it a felony for Texas protesters to obstruct emergency vehicles heads to the governor’s desk; Gov. Greg Abbott announces end-date for Texans to receive federal pandemic-related unemployment benefits; Texas’ divisive bill limiting how students learn about current events and historic racism passed by Senate; What critical race theory is — and isn’t; Senate Republicans scramble to derail creation of Capitol riot commission; Big Candy Is Angry; When Belarus forced down a plane, it may have committed state-sponsored hijacking; Iran, a Longtime Backer of Hamas, Cheers Attacks on Israel; Indian media have gone easy on Modi. That’s changing because of the pandemic; More. [AUDIO/VIDEO] #KPFTHouston 90.1FM

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League City, Webster set to adjust city boundaries for North Landing Boulevard extension; Local, state officials continue to advocate against high-speed rail as Texas Central moves forward; Public schools can’t require students, staff to wear masks after June 4, Gov. Abbott says; Bill that would make it a felony for Texas protesters to obstruct emergency vehicles heads to the governor’s desk; Gov. Greg Abbott announces end-date for Texans to receive federal pandemic-related unemployment benefits; Texas’ divisive bill limiting how students learn about current events and historic racism passed by Senate; What critical race theory is — and isn’t; Senate Republicans scramble to derail creation of Capitol riot commission; Big Candy Is Angry; When Belarus forced down a plane, it may have committed state-sponsored hijacking; Iran, a Longtime Backer of Hamas, Cheers Attacks on Israel; Indian media have gone easy on Modi. That’s changing because of the pandemic; More.

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Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information TEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
1. 1. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2021
2. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
3. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
4. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX) <– UPDATED LINK
5. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
6. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
7. Waller County (TX) Elections
8. Chambers County (TX) Elections
9. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG. Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
10. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
11. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting CentersHARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
  1. 1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
    2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
    3. Current utility bill
    4. Bank statement
    5. Government check
    6. Paycheck
    7. A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
  2. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
    1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
    2. Sick or disabled;
    3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
    4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
  3. Make sure you are registered:
  4. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
  5. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
  6. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
  7. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
League City, Webster set to adjust city boundaries for North Landing Boulevard extension; By Jake Magee | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 7:00 AM May 21, 2021 CDT
1. [For the second time in recent weeks,] League City will give up some of its land to Webster to help make a proposed road extension a reality. [Last time it was League City and Friendswood.]
2. For years, League City has had plans to extend Landing Boulevard where it intersects with FM 518 west of I-45. …
3. Agreeing to pay for a portion of the road, Webster officials asked League City if the two cities could alter their boundaries a bit. Webster leaders want the entirety of the east-west road within its city limits, [League City City Manager John Baumgartner, said].
4. “They want a boundary adjustment to put all that road in their community,” he said. “We as cities try to create logical boundaries, [and Webster’s request] made sense to us.”
5. Project Management Director Angie Steelman said the deal makes sense to ensure the project is fully completed. …
6. There is an Exxon gas station within League City that will end up in Webster’s city limits after the land swap is finalized. League City officials said it makes sense to allow the gas station to become a part of Webster. …
7. The project will alleviate congestion in League City by giving motorists another north-south road to reach I-45. …
Local, state officials continue to advocate against high-speed rail as Texas Central moves forward; By Danica Lloyd |COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:57 PM May 21, 2021 CDT | Updated 4:56 PM May 21, 2021 CDT
1. Officials with Texas Central, the company behind the proposed high-speed rail project between Houston and Dallas, announced earlier this month a $1.6 billion contract with Kiewit Infrastructure South Co. and affiliate Mass. Electric Construction Co. to install the train’s core electrical systems.
2. This announcement comes about a year and a half after the involvement of these two companies was announced. …
3. According to Texas Central’s website, officials said construction could start this year and be fully operational by 2026, but this timeline has been delayed multiple times in recent years. …
4. Waller County Judge Trey Duhon testified virtually before the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee just days after Texas Central announced the contract. In his remarks, he noted the current estimated costs of the high-speed rail project are much higher than previously projected, and Texas Central has only secured a small portion of private funding. He asked members to ensure the project is not funded with taxpayer dollars.
5. Additionally, he brought up the issue of eminent domain as the train developers look to acquire private property along the proposed route.
6. “If it is built, the project will hit rural and minority communities along the proposed route, like mine, the hardest,” Duhon said. “[This includes communities] at the other end of the proposed route in South Dallas, where entire low-income and minority neighborhoods would be displaced because only one route was ever considered.” …
Public schools can’t require students, staff to wear masks after June 4, Gov. Abbott says; By Anna Lotz | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 1:44 PM May 18, 2021 CDT | Updated 1:44 PM May 18, 2021 CDT
1. Public schools cannot require students, teachers, parents, and other staff members or visitors to wear masks after June 4, Gov. Greg Abbott declared in an executive order issued May 18. However, according to a press release from his office, schools may continue with current mask-wearing guidelines through June 4.
2. Executive Order GA-36 prohibits government entities in Texas from requiring or mandating mask wearing; this includes counties, cities, public health authorities and government officials in addition to school districts, according to the release.
3. While Abbott’s previous Executive Order GA-34 issued March 2 stated no jurisdiction can require a person to wear a face covering, local governments imposing a mask mandate beginning May 21 can be subject to a fine of up to $1,000, Executive Order GA-36 reads. …
Bill that would make it a felony for Texas protesters to obstruct emergency vehicles heads to the governor’s desk; The Senate passed House Bill 9, filed in response to last year’s nationwide protests against police brutality, on a 25-5 vote. Gov. Greg Abbott has already indicated his support. by Bryan Mena | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | May 22, 2021 Updated: 4 hours ago
1. The Texas Senate [18 Republicans and 13 Democrats] voted 25-5 to pass a bill that would raise criminal penalties and require jail time for people who knowingly obstruct emergency vehicles from passing through a roadway or who block a hospital entrance. It now heads to the governor’s desk to be signed into law.
2. The bill is in response to last year’s nationwide protests against police brutality, which were sparked by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. …
Greg Abbott announces end-date for Texans to receive federal pandemic-related unemployment benefits; By Hannah Zedaker | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:49 PM May 17, 2021 CDT | Updated 4:00 PM May 17, 2021 CDT
1. Effective June 26, unemployed Texans will no longer be eligible to receive the $300 weekly unemployment supplement from the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation program … Gov. Greg Abbott informed the U.S. Department of Labor on May 17 that Texas would be opting out of further federal unemployment compensation related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. … Abbott decided to opt out … due to the vast number of well-paying jobs that are available statewide. According to the Texas Workforce Commission, nearly 45% of posted jobs offer wages that are greater than $15.50 per hour and approximately 76% pay more than $11.50 per hour; only 2% of posted jobs pay around the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
3. … Abbott said in a statement. “According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the number of job openings in Texas is almost identical to the number of Texans who are receiving unemployment benefits. That assessment does not include the voluminous jobs that typically are not listed, like construction and restaurant jobs. …”
4. [T]he news release stated that Abbott’s decision was also necessary due to the high number of fraudulent unemployment claims that are being filed. According to the TWC, nearly 18% of all claims for unemployment benefits during the pandemic are confirmed or suspected to be fraudulent, which totals more than 800,000 claims worth as much as $10.4 billion, if all claims had been paid. …
5. Abbott’s announcement comes just days after nearly 40 local chambers of commerce and business associations across Texas signed a letter to Abbott and TWC Chairman Bryan Daniel urging the state to opt out of the benefits program
6. “We are hearing from out [SIC] constituencies all over the state that finding and hiring workers in Texas in increasingly difficult,” the letter reads. “Employers believe that supplemental unemployment insurance benefit payments from Washington are disincentivizing work and resulting in many good Texas jobs going unfilled. We believe it is time to realign government incentives behind the goal of rebuilding our economy together.”
7. According to Texas Labor Market Information, the state’s unemployment rate sat at 6.9% in March 2021—down from its 12.9% peak in April 2020. However, this is still higher than the state’s prepandemic unemployment rate of 3.7% in February 2020.
8. MIKE: $300/wk unemployment would be equivalent to $7.50/hr for a 40 hour week. The current Federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, or $15,500/yr. Maybe employers need to pay a living wage to get people off unemployment.
Texas’ divisive bill limiting how students learn about current events and historic racism passed by Senate; The bill aims to ban critical race theory in public and open-enrollment charter schools. Supporters say it merely ensures students aren’t taught that one race or gender is superior to another. Critics say it limits how race in America is taught. by Kate McGee | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | May 22, 2021
1. After hours of passionate debate about how Texas teachers can instruct school children about America’s history of subjugating people of color, the state Senate early Saturday morning advanced a new version of a controversial bill aimed at banning critical race theory in public and open-enrollment charter schools.
2. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, introduced a reworked version of House Bill 3979 that also requires the State Board of Education to develop new state standards for civics education with a corresponding teacher training program to start in the 2022-23 school year. The Senate approved the bill in an 18-13 vote over opposition from educators, school advocacy groups and senators of color who worry it limits necessary conversation about the roles race and racism play in U.S. history.
3. The bill now heads back to the Texas House, which can either accept the Senate’s changes or call for a conference committee made up of members from both chambers to iron out their differences.
4. What critical race theory is — and isn’t; By Faith Karimi | CNN | October 1, 2020 — Updated 3:45 PM ET, Mon May 10, 2021
  1. Critical race theory recognizes that systemic racism is part of American society and challenges the beliefs that allow it to flourish.
  2. “Critical race theory is a practice. It’s an approach to grappling with a history of White supremacy that rejects the belief that what’s in the past is in the past, and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it,” said Kimberlé Crenshaw, a founding critical race theorist and a law professor who teaches at UCLA and Columbia University.
  3. Critical race theorists believe that racism is an everyday experience for most people of color, and that a large part of society has no interest in doing away with it because it benefits White elites.
  4. Many also believe that American institutions are racist and that people are privileged or oppressed because of their race.
  5. While the theory was started as a way to examine how laws and systems promote inequality, it has since expanded. …
  6. Crenshaw is one of its founding scholars and hosted a workshop on the critical race theory movement in 1989. But the idea behind it goes back much further, to the work of civil rights activists such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer and Pauli Murray.
  7. “Everything builds on what came before,” Crenshaw said, adding that “the so-called American dilemma was not simply a matter of prejudice but a matter of structured disadvantages that stretched across American society.”
  8. Crenshaw said she and others “took up the task of exploring the role that law played in establishing the very practices of exclusion and disadvantage.” …
  9. … “At this point, it is wider than any specific discipline or school of thought. It isn’t even exclusively American,” Crenshaw said. …
  10. Critics have slammed the theory, with conservatives accusing it of poisoning discussions on racism. …
  11. President Trump opposed the teaching of the 1619 Project in schools and banned federal agencies from conducting racial sensitivity training related to critical race theory. His administration called it “divisive, anti-American propaganda.” …
  12. But Crenshaw notes that merely acknowledging the nation’s history of racism has long been vilified as unpatriotic and anti-American.
  13. “It bears acknowledging that we’ve been here before: For his non-violent agitation for civil rights, MLK was targeted by the FBI as the most dangerous man in America,” she said.
  14. “The civil rights and Black freedom movements were targeted, surveilled and disrupted by the FBI. Black Lives Matter has been framed by some in law enforcement as a terrorist organization. So racial justice work … has always had an uneasy relationship with the federal government.”
[U.S.] Senate Republicans scramble to derail creation of Capitol riot commission; Minority leader Mitch McConnell opposes a bill for a 9/11-style panel that could unearth embarrassing facts about the role of Trump and his supporters. By Hugo Lowell | COM | Mon 24 May 2021 02.00 EDT, Last modified on Mon 24 May 2021 02.02 EDT
1. [I]n the end, the stance reflects the fear from McConnell and top Senate Republicans that extending their support to an inquiry likely to find Donald Trump at fault for inciting the Capitol attack could be used as a cudgel against Republicans ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
2. Both McConnell and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy are determined to put Republicans in the majority in both chambers next year, and both leaders regard the commission as an obstacle in their paths.
Big Candy Is Angry; As more states legalize recreational cannabis, Wrigley and others are suing over look-alike THC treats. They’re protecting their brands — and also, they argue, your kids. By Valeriya Safronova | COM | May 22, 2021
1. [A lawsuit was filed in May by] the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, owned by the candy behemoth Mars Inc., … against five companies for selling cannabis-infused edibles that look like … Skittles, Starburst and Life Savers. Though the suit focuses on intellectual property rights, the plaintiffs also argue that the copycat products could lead people, particularly children, to mistakenly ingest drugs. …
2. America is at an interesting crossroads: one where Big Candy, vilified in the wellness era as a primary source of refined sugar, has become an unlikely sheriff in the Wild West of recreational marijuana consumption roamed by pandemic-stressed adults.
3. In recent years, lawsuits similar to the one filed by Wrigley have been brought by the Hershey Company (against TinctureBelle for products resembling Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Heath bars, Almond Joy bars and York peppermint patties), Mondelez International (against a company hawking Stoney Patch Kids) and Ferrara Candy Company (against a store selling Medicated Nerds Rope). These lawsuits have all been settled, with the smaller companies agreeing to halt production and sales of the offending products.
4. Many public health officials fret that without proper regulation, accidental ingestion cases will continue to rise among children as the availability of edibles grows. Some poison control centers have already observed this trend in their data.
5. For example, there were 122 cases of exposure to THC for children under 5 in Washington State in the first nine months of 2020, compared to 85 for the same time period in 2019. The most common side effects reported included vomiting, lethargy and chest pain.
6. While many edible companies operating in states where medical or recreational cannabis is legal strive to comply with their local regulations, the illegal market is still thriving. …
7. “The situation has become more and more egregious,” said Christopher Gindlesperger, a spokesman for the National Confectioners Association, a trade organization in D.C. with 350 members, including Mars Inc., Hershey’s, Ferrara and Mondelez. “The cannabis companies cannot and should not be allowed to tarnish existing brands at will. It creates consumer confusion.”
When Belarus forced down a plane, it may have committed state-sponsored hijacking; International treaties outlaw false communications that might endanger a flight. By Yuval Weber | COM | May 23, 2021 at 4:14 p.m. CDT
1. Earlier Sunday, Ryanair Flight 4978 from Greece to Lithuania was over Belarusian airspace, when it was contacted by local air traffic control. The controllers claimed that there might be a bomb on board and ordered the plane to land in Minsk, Belarus’s capital city.
2. The evidence suggests they were concerned with a very different threat — to the regime of Belarus’s longtime autocratic ruler, Alexander Lukashenko. One of the passengers on the plane was an opposition journalist, Roman Protasevich, whom Belarusian authorities wanted to take into custody. According to reported eyewitnesses: “One guy was very distressed [when we were diverted to Minsk]. Later we were taken out of the plane in groups of 4. He told us who he was and added ‘I am facing a death penalty here.’ He was accompanied by military all the time.”
3. Belarus seems to have used a fake bomb threat to force a plane to land upon the personal command of Lukashenko, according to Belarusian state media, so that it could grab a political dissident, in an act the U.S. ambassador to Belarus, Julie Fisher, called “dangerous and abhorrent.” …
4. … Protasevich is the former editor in chief of Nexta, a channel on the Telegram social media service that plays a key role in reporting on the protest movement against Lukashenko. …
5. Protasevich had reported being hassled in the airline queue in Athens by Russian speakers who took a picture of his documents. As the flight approached its destination in Lithuania, Belarusian air traffic control ordered the plane to Minsk, which they asserted was the nearest international airport, although Vilnius was much closer. At that point, the plane was intercepted by an armed fighter jet (which was personally ordered by Lukashenko) and prevented from leaving Belarusian airspace.
6. After escorting the plane to Minsk, the authorities removed the passengers and luggage from the plane and arrested Protasevich. He faces 12 to 15 years in prison and the mistreatment that opponents of the regime regularly receive.
7. Officials from other countries are beginning to react. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said, “Hijacking of a civilian plane is an unprecedented act of state terrorism,” which “cannot go unpunished.”
8. These are strong words — but unless some unexpected evidence emerges, they may be justified. Belarus is a signatory to the 1971 Montreal Civil Aviation Convention and the 1988 Airport Protocol, which obliges it to suppress unlawful acts to civil aviation. The two provisions explicitly prohibit threats to the safety of passengers and crew on board civil aviation, including “[performing] an act of violence against a person on board an aircraft in flight if that act is likely to endanger the safety of that aircraft” and “[communicating] information which he knows to be false, thereby endangering the safety of an aircraft in flight.”
9. The convention and protocol have been signed and ratified by nearly every state. They underpin airport and airline security standards across the world. These treaties are why joking about bombs in the security line leads to arrest and being disruptive on an aircraft in the air will lead to emergency landings. Without these treaties, there would be no commonly shared standards for civil aviation requirements, severely restricting air travel between countries.
10. If Belarus used force to divert a civilian aircraft from its intended destination for a political purpose unrelated to physical security, then it may have committed a state-sanctioned hijacking and sabotage of civil aviation. …
11. Weakening global norms on civil aviation would mean that airlines would have to take account of geopolitics when devising flight paths, perhaps having to check the political activities of their passengers to avoid state-sanctioned hijacking. Pilots wouldn’t know whether information about a bomb on board is real or a prelude to a state-sanctioned action to ground a plane. At minimum, these problems would cause longer and more expensive flights for individuals and cargo and disrupt the global economy. …
12. If Belarus believed the Ryanair flight was a threat, it had authority to make it land. That’s a big if. Global rules give countries ‘complete and exclusive sovereignty’ over their airspace but also expect them not to manufacture threats. By Ashley Nunes | COM | May 23, 2021 at 4:27 p.m. CDT
  1. The picture of what caused the incident is getting clearer. Ryanair — which is one of the largest airlines in the world — issued a statement saying “nothing untoward” was found on its plane and it was eventually cleared to leave Minsk after several hours on the ground. …
  2. Matters were complicated by reports from Belarusian state authorities themselves that Lukashenko personally ordered a warplane to intercept the Ryanair jet. If true, this raises the question as to whether Lukashenko orchestrated a fake bomb threat to arrest one of his political opponents. An adviser to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has suggested this was in fact the case. Carl Bildt, the European Council’s co-chair on foreign relations, went one step further, calling the event “piracy — plain and simple.” …
  3. … The question is whether Belarus really believed there was a threat: It’s quite clear that if Belarus — which is signatory to the aforementioned rules — believed air safety was threatened, it could act accordingly to mitigate the threat. However, there are two ways in which Belarus could be in breach of these guidelines. First, if it manufactured the threat and forced the plane to land in Minsk. Alternatively, it could be in breach if it did not manufacture the threat but still forced the plane to land in Minsk for purposes that were not related to a threat.
  4. We don’t know whether either is true, but there is evidence suggesting something strange may have happened. One potential problem for the Belarusian government is that the plane was closer to its intended destination, Vilnius, than it was to Minsk. Procedures generally dictate that in the event of an emergency, a plane should land as soon as possible. This should have meant having passengers and crew members met by Lithuanian, not Belarusian, authorities. The United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization has suggested Belarus’s actions may violate the Chicago Convention.
  5. The question then arises as to what the pilot ought to have done. Airspace may fall under national jurisdiction, but pilots have the ultimate say on matters of air safety. For example, U.S. federal regulations clearly state that the pilot is “directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of (their) aircraft.” During emergencies, pilots are also empowered to “deviate from any rule … to the extent required to meet that emergency.” This means that if pilots believe that following government instructions compromises the safety of their aircraft, they can disobey those instructions.
13. U.S. condemns Belarus for forcing down passenger plane to arrest foe; “This shocking act perpetrated by the Lukashenka regime endangered the lives of more than 120 passengers,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. By DAVID COHEN | POLITICO.COM | 05/23/2021 06:58 PM EDT, Updated: 05/23/2021 08:24 PM EDT
  1. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday condemned Belarus for forcing down a civilian airliner over its airspace in order to arrest a dissident on the flight.
  2. Faking a bomb threat, Belarus used fighter aircraft to force down a Ryanair flight and arrest journalist Raman Pratasevich.
  3. “The United States strongly condemns the forced diversion of a flight between two EU member states and the subsequent removal and arrest of journalist Raman Pratasevich in Minsk,” Blinken said in a statement. “We demand his immediate release.” …
  4. Blinken’s statement followed criticism of Lukashenka — also rendered as Lukashenko — by the American ambassador to Belarus, as well as a number of congressional leaders.
  5. “Lukashenka and his regime today showed again its contempt for international community and its citizens,” U.S. Ambassador Julie Fisher tweeted.
  6. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) joined lawmakers from Europe in issuing a condemnation. …
  7. They urged the International Civil Aviation Organization to keep planes from flying over Belarus and pushed NATO and the EU to sanction Belarus. …
  8. Other European leaders condemned Belarus’ action. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the episode was “an unprecedented act of state terrorism,” and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the action “outrageous and illegal.” …
Iran, a Longtime Backer of Hamas, Cheers Attacks on Israel; Tehran jumped at the chance to portray militants’ barrages on Israel as revenge for Israeli attacks on Iran. But Israel says Tehran played no role in the latest conflict. By Farnaz Fassihi | COM | May 23, 2021
1. The leadership of Iran, engaged in a long shadow war with Israel on land, air and sea, did not try to conceal the pleasure it took in the most recent Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
2. Over the 11 days of fighting this month, Tehran praised the damage being done to its enemy, and the state news media and conservative commentators highlighted Iran’s role in providing weaponry and military training to Palestinian militants in Gaza to hammer Israeli communities.
3. Iran has for decades supported Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza and whose own interests in battling Israel align with Iran’s. Experts say that over the years, Iran has provided Hamas with financial and political support, weapons and technology and training to build its own arsenal of advanced rockets that can reach deep into Israeli territory.
4. But in the assessment of Israeli intelligence, Hamas made its decisions independently of Iran in the latest conflict.
5. In the past year, Israel orchestrated a string of covert attacks on Iran, including the sabotaging of Iran’s nuclear facilities. While Iran’s leaders have made no secret of their desire to punish Israel for the wave of attacks, they have struggled to find an effective way to retaliate without risking an all-out war or derailing any chance for a revised nuclear accord with the United States and other world powers.
6. So the conservative factions in Iran that had been urging payback for the Israeli strikes seized on a chance to portray the thousands of rockets fired by the Gaza militants as revenge. …
7. One analyst in Israel suggested that Iran’s leadership believes that the new military capabilities displayed by the militants in Gaza during the conflict, in both quantity and range of rockets, might make Israel think twice before launching its next covert strike.
8. Iran viewed the rocket attacks as “re-establishing deterrence” for further Israeli attacks on its soil, said Meir Javedanfar, a political analyst in Tel Aviv who teaches Iranian security studies at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.
9. But Israel’s foreign ministry spokesman, Lior Haiat, said this month that he had no intelligence connecting Iran to a role in the recent crisis.
10. Iran does not reveal the details of how it arms Palestinian militants. But …Tehran had provided Hamas and another smaller Palestinian militant group in Gaza, the Islamic Jihad, with blueprint technology and training for how to domestically build an arsenal of advanced rockets with a range to target all of Israel’s territory.
11. Fabian Hinz, an independent expert on Iran’s military, said Iran had in the past sent to Gaza key components of the rockets that were fired at Israel and taught Palestinians to become resourceful in securing raw material locally. Militants have learned from Iranian experts how to use water pipes and how to repurpose unexploded shells to build up their artillery, he said.
12. But analysts said smuggling Iranian-made weapons and rockets into Gaza was extremely difficult because of a strict land and sea blockade enforced by Israel. Iran was able to transfer military hardware and components for building rockets through underground tunnels connecting Gaza to Egypt for a brief time after the Arab Spring of 2011. But analysts said that the current Egyptian government had cracked down on the route.
13. While Iran’s hard-liners may have been eager for retribution, public opinion within the country is far from monolithic when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many do not see the Palestinian struggle as their fight and oppose the government’s funneling millions of dollars to an array of proxy militant groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen that could be used to address urgent economic problems at home.
14. “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, my life for Iran” has been a popular slogan chanted every time protests against the government arise. …
15. The rockets that were fired into Israel killed 12 people and sowed terror across much of the country. But they also invited a devastating response from Israel’s vastly superior military, whose airstrikes killed scores of militants, destroyed 340 rocket launchers and caused the collapse of 60 miles of underground tunnels.
16. While the Israeli strikes may temporarily set back the military capability of Iran’s Gaza allies, Israel’s international standing does seem to be taking a beating with cracks in the once rock-solid support of Western allies. …
17. Then Israel’s airstrikes in Gaza killed at least 230 Palestinians, including 65 children, according to Palestinian officials. The assault also displaced more than 77,000 civilians. The heavy toll, which outraged Arab public opinion, could dim the prospects of any more countries in the region normalizing relations with Israel anytime soon. …
18. While Israel will have to continue to contend with Iran’s influence in Gaza going forward, Tehran’s support for the militants there is just one of the many factors standing in the way of a longer-term peace, said Javedanfar, the political analyst.
19. “Confronting Iran is only going to be part of the solution for Israel’s challenge in Gaza,” [said Meir Javedanfar, a political analyst in Tel Aviv who teaches Iranian security studies at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.]. “A bigger part of the challenge can be solved with smarter Israeli policies in Jerusalem.”
20. Gaza Strip — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
21. Israel — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Indian media have gone easy on Modi. That’s changing because of the pandemic; By Diksha Madhok, CNN Business |Updated 12:50 AM ET, Mon May 24, 2021
1. For weeks, India has been engulfed by a brutal second wave of Covid-19 infections, with millions of new cases. There have been nearly 300,000 Covid-related deaths recorded by the [Indian] Health Ministry since the pandemic began, even though the actual figure is likely much higher.
2. While the human toll of the disease has been immense, journalists like Gaur are not just covering the tragedy of the situation. They’re also fighting for transparency and accountability from a government that has tried to clamp down on criticism of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his handling of the pandemic.
3. As the crisis unfolded, Modi was initially slammed by the international press for not doing enough to prevent the catastrophe, and for downplaying the number of fatalities. The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, who is a close ally of Modi, has been accused of intimidating citizens and journalists reporting on oxygen shortages in the state. New Delhi has even asked Twitter to remove tweets about Covid-19, including some that were critical of Modi. …
4. Critics of the government — from opposition politicians and judges to regular citizens and even a prestigious medical journal — say that despite the scale of the tragedy, the country’s leaders have focused more on image management rather than tackling the disaster. The government, meanwhile, has said that it wants to stop individuals from spreading fake or misleading information.
5. To get the real story, many media outlets have increasingly been doing some traditional shoe-leather journalism.
6. This reporting has surprised many readers: India’s vast media have become increasingly subservient to Modi’s government since the Hindu nationalist was first elected Prime Minister seven years ago. The ruling party has used a range of tactics, ranging from forcing advertisers to cut off outlets that are critical of its policies to shutting down channels, to ensure the press is reshaped into its cheerleader.
7. “Mainstream media, particularly broadcast media, really glosses over the Modi government’s failures, even while appearing neutral,” said Abhinandan Sekhri, CEO of Newslaundry, an award-winning independent news website that focuses on media and journalism.
8. But papers like Dainik Bhaskar “have not pulled their punches and have really gone after the government” with their coverage of the pandemic, even as some prominent TV channels remain as “sycophantic as ever,” he added.
9. In Modi’s home state of Gujarat, three of the top local language newspapers — Sandesh, Divya Bhaskar and Gujarat Samachar — have consistently questioned the official statistics on the second wave through their coverage. …
10. This type of accountability reporting hasn’t been the norm at many leading Indian media outlets for the past few years. But it is hard to sell the government’s narrative to readers as Covid-19 cases continue to rise uncontrollably across the country.
11. “The pandemic concerns 99% of the population. They [media owners] are also shrewd businessmen and they know that toeing the government line at this point makes no sense,” said Mahesh Langa, a Gujarat-based journalist with the English language The Hindu newspaper, which has also written about the large-scale of under-reporting of deaths in the state. …
12. [I]t is becoming increasingly difficult for many media platforms to be servile when there is mounting public anger against Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, Sekhri added.
13. “They realize their reporters will get beaten up if they go on the streets,” and not report the truth, he said.
14. But telling the truth can get journalists in trouble. “India is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists trying to do their job properly,” according to Reporters Without Borders, which ranks the nation 142 out of 180 regions on its World Press Freedom Index.
15. “In the last decade, 154 journalists in India were arrested, detained, interrogated or served show-cause notices for their professional work,” according to an analysis by Free Speech Collective. “Sixty-seven of these were recorded in 2020 alone.”
16. There’s also the mental toll that doing such reporting takes. “If you are not mentally strong, you will not be able to stand the scenes that unfold in the field,” said Dhaval Bharwad, deputy chief photographer for Divya Bhaskar, which is also owned by the Dainik Bhaskar Group.
17. Despite the challenges, many Indian journalists appear ready to continue trying to get to the truth.
18. Prime Minister Narendra Modi could have prevented India’s devastating Covid-19 crisis, critics say. He didn’t. By Julia Hollingsworth | CNN | Updated 9:06 AM ET, Sat May 1, 2021
19. ‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’: Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe; It’s hard to convey the full depth and range of the trauma, the chaos and the indignity that people are being subjected to. Meanwhile, Modi and his allies are telling us not to complain. by Arundhati Roy | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Wed 28 Apr 2021 18.50 EDT, Last modified on Thu 29 Apr 2021 10.48 EDT

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig

"An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy."

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