Category Archives: Post Human

WASHINGTON The Israeli government is blocking an American citizen from taking his post with Human Rights Watch in Israel, accusing the group of engaging in politics in the service of Palestinian propaganda.

The 39-year-old Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization sent a request in July 2016 for its new Israel and Palestine program director, Omar Shakir, to start his assignment in October. The approval process is supposed to take 60 days, but Human Rights Watch heard nothing back until Monday.

The group received a letter from Israels Interior Ministry denying the work permit on the grounds that we were not a real human rights organization, said Shakir, a California native of Iraqi descent with a masters degree from Georgetown and a law degree from Stanford.

The Interior Ministry cited guidance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a letter explaining its decision not to grant Human Rights Watchs request. The opinion received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that, for some time now, this organizations public activities and reports have engaged in politics in the service of Palestinian propaganda, while falsely raising the banner of human rights, and therefore recommended denying the application, the letter stated.

The Israeli government did not respond to The Huffington Posts requests for comment.

Mohamad Torokman/Reuters

Human Rights Watch has operated in Israel for three decades, Shakir said. The last director of the Israel and Palestine program was an Israeli national and did not need a work permit. However, previous regional directors needed and received work permits from the Israeli government, he added.

On theIsrael/Palestinepage on its website, Human Rights Watch criticizes Israel for severe and discriminatory restrictions on Palestinians human rights and for building unlawful settlements in the occupied West Bank. But it also criticizes the Palestinian Authority for arresting dissenting students and activists and Hamas security forces in Gaza for using torture.

This decision and the spurious rationale should worry anyone concerned about Israels commitment to basic democratic values, Iain Levine, who oversees Human Rights Watchs research and reporting, said in a statement. It is disappointing that the Israeli government seems unable or unwilling to distinguish between justified criticisms of its actions and hostile political propaganda.

Human Rights Watch pointed to a law Israel passed last July that increased reporting requirements for organizations that support Palestinian groups and receive foreign funds, but not for those that support the expansion of Jewish settlements.

Human Rights Watch got a vote of support onThursday from the U.S. State Department, whose acting spokesman, Mark Toner, said it strongly disagreed with Israels description of the group.

HRW is a credible human rights organization and even though we do not agree with all of their assertions or conclusions, given the seriousness of their efforts, we support the importance of the work they do, Toner said. We reference HRW reports in our own reporting, including our annual human rights reports.

Human Rights Watch was founded in 1978 to monitor compliance with the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which included guarantees of human rights. The nonprofit now operates in some 90 nations to report on human rights conditions. In 1997, a group it co-founded, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Israel joins Egypt, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea on the list of nations that refuse entry to Human Rights Watch to monitor human rights conditions.

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Israel Accuses Human Rights Watch Of 'Propaganda,' Denies Access - Huffington Post

A research project is examining how the establishment of Russias Northern Sea Route has shaped the lives of residents along the countrys northern coast, amid the booms and busts of industrialization.

Most discussion about ABOUT Russias Northern Sea Route focuses on shipping traffic and sea ice. However, an anthropological study is taking a different tack, by looking at how industrialization along the route has affected northern residents.

Connecting the ports of Norway and Japan, the Northern Sea Route (NSR) is roughly half the distance of the southern route between the same two destinations through the Suez Canal. This translates to a saving of around 10 days of travel and related fuel costs. However, the NSR is often impassable for parts of the year due to sea ice. As climate change claims more and more summer ice, though, the routes navigational window is rapidly changing, and could potentially grow to six months of the year by the end of the century. Ice levels were at the second lowest yearly minimum on record during last Septembers travel season, despite some areas holding more ice than normal, such as the Laptev Sea. For convoys equipped with icebreakers, its been a year of firsts for winter travel.

The Russian government celebrates the thaw as the beginning of a new era. For the respected Arctic anthropologist and research lead, Nikolai Vakhtin, its an era that must be studied. His latest project is a partnership between Tyumen State University in western Siberia and the European University in St. Petersburg. Vakhtin works out of the latter, in the same port city where Russias nuclear icebreakers are built (and recent birthplace of Arktika, heralded for her ability to slice through ice 4m/13ft deep). Soon, the team of 10 researchers will commence ethnographies in seaport communities along the coast of the Arctic Ocean from Murmansk in the west to Kamchatka in the east.

The Russian Arctic is a diverse region of roughly 2 million people, including settlers and members of some of the 41 groups represented by the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and Far East (RAIPON). Some communities share a long history of adaptation to change dating back to the frenzied fur trade of the 17th century. Other communities and cities emerged only in the 1950s. Still others, such as the coastal city of Khatanga near the coal-rich Taymyr Peninsula, are being repopulated by Indigenous peoples from surrounding communities following the exodus of settlers in the post-Soviet era.

The idea of the NSR dates back to the 16th century, Vakhtin explains, and its allure has persisted in step with dynamic military, economic and now climatic trends. The result is a region characterized by highs and lows, evidenced by modern hotels and abandoned infrastructure. As if following the jolting ups and downs on a heart monitor display, use of the NSRpeaked in the late 1980s, then slowed significantly in the 1990s. It downturned in the years following the Great Recession of the late 2000s, experienced a short spike in 201213, then dropped once more in 2015.Part of this wild ride is due to the NSRs diverse functions: global shipping route, strategic point of military control and facilitator of resource extraction.

On the shipping side, Sergey Balmasov from the Centre for High North Logistics explains that widespread use of the NSR is hampered by a host of restraining forces such as a slumped freight market, collapse in oil prices, icebreaker technology and seasonal navigation periods. If calculated solely based on ship movement from Asia to Europe without call to an NSR port, 19 vessels carrying around 200,000 tonnes were transported in 2016.

On the military side, it was during World War I that Russia began building infrastructure along the NSR to use as a blockade-free exit route, a trend that continued into the Cold War. Vakhtin explains that military motivations for development of the route persist, and though they fluctuate according to geopolitical tensions, its a powerful stimulant for economic growth in Arctic towns and cities.

But while the future of the Northern Sea Route as a global transportation corridor remains uncertain, its use as a route for moving Russian Arctic resources to eastern and western markets seems for the time being its most enduring material driver.

Although resource prices waver, extensive reserves of diamonds, nickel and liquefied natural gas (LNG) remain locked under the icy terrain, scraped free by glaciers. Interest in the Arctic is rising: It is connected with the rise of extracting industries, Vakhtin says.

Today, the NSR is used year-round by Nornickel, the worlds leading nickel producer, as it moves ore from Norilsk to processing plants in the Kola Peninsula. The Taymyr Peninsula holds significant coal deposits, while the Yamal Peninsula holds Russias largest gas reserves, propelling the construction of an LNG terminal and seaport in Sabetta. At least one platform for offshore oil extraction is in permanent operation in the Pechora Sea. For these industries, the NSR is an important route for raw building materials and supplies, Vakhtin explains. Though figures vary depending on exactly what movements are included, they totaled 6.9million tonnes in 2016.

Usage and viability of NSR as an export route to deliver natural resources out of the Arctic to the markets is on the rise for sure, echoes Balmasov, who is also the head of the Northern Sea Route information office. (He adds that the route still has a way to go given the general lack of backup infrastructure such as shipment and repair docks, fueling stations and communication, rescue and navigation hubs.) Pressure to complete the $27 billion LNG plant in Sabetta is so great that a Netherlands-based cargo vessel just made history by sailing through the route during the winter months albeit escorted by icebreakers to deliver materials for its construction. Similarly, a convoy of vessels carrying supplies destined for port infrastructure in Pevek made history in January by traveling through the western portion of the Siberian coast in the cold of winter. Theyve been locked in ice, however, for a month in Chaunskaya Bay, awaiting assistance from a nuclear icebreaker.

For the many communities along this route, such as the Nenets who herd reindeer and the growing population of Khatanga, these economic and climatic changes are shifting perceptions and realities. Its an environment ripe for study, and the need to know more about the local effects of development is the driver behind the archival work and ethnographies the team will be conducting within 10 selected communities along the route. The balance between industrial development and its influence on the local population is an important question that requires extended anthropological research, Vakhtin says.

At present we can only say that NSR will influence both the life and the perception of the local people. This, he says, includes both hopes and fears.

This article originally appeared onArcticDeeply. For weekly updates about Arctic geopolitics, economy, and ecology, you cansign up to the ArcticDeeplyemail list.

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Examining The Human Impact Of The Northern Sea Route - Huffington Post

A top U.S. art school is investigating an act of anti-Semitism on campus that may make some stomachs turn.

A swastika drawn in human waste was recently discovered in a gender-neutral bathroom in a dormitory at the Rhode Island School of Design.

This level of disrespect and vitriol is completely unacceptable and RISD Public Safety is investigating this isolated incident as both an act of vandalism and potentially a crime of hate, Jaime Marland, director of RISD public relations, said in a statement to The Huffington Post.

Marland added that college authorities held a community meeting with the affected dormitory floor and are encouraging anyone with information about the incident to come forward.

We are deeply committed to providing a safe and supportive campus environment for our students and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, she told HuffPost.

Its unclear whether the anti-Semitic incident was also aimed at LGBT students, given the national debate over trans students access to restrooms that match their gender identities.

Brown RISD Hillel, a Jewish campus organization,said it was saddened and angeredby what had happened.

To say we condemn the RISD graffiti is too mild and obvious a statement, said Rabbi Michelle T. Dardashti, an associate chaplain at the college.

Students of Jewish history understand that deadly anti-Semitism has been cyclical, thus current manifestations (in the forms of graffiti, bomb threats, cemetery vandalism and white-supremacist and alt right rhetoric) are hard to write off as trivial or innocuous, Dardashti said in an email to HuffPost.

Students told NBC 10that the swastika was just the latest of several feces-related acts of vandalism that have occurred on campus.

There have people using their own fecal matter in a harmful way in the bathrooms, in the showers, all over the bathroom, one student said.

The incident comes a time when the U.S. is witnessing a wave of anti-Semitism. Eleven Jewish community centers received bomb threats on Monday, forcing evacuations in ten states. After strong urging by press and fellow politicians, President Donald Trump finallydenounced anti-Semitism on Tuesday.

The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and Jewish community centers are horrible and painful and a very sad reminder of the work that must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil, Trump said.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights organization, has called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to create a special task force to investigate threats targeting Jewish community centers around the nation.

This story has been updated with comment from Rabbi Michelle T. Dardashti.

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Swastika Written In Human Feces Found In Bathroom At RISD - Huffington Post

Supporters of Amnesty International protest at the Thai embassy in Washington after the 2014 military coup. (File photo)

The government is still restricting people's human rights in a variety of ways, and is too keen on suppressing its critics, according to Amnesty International's annual report for 2016/2017 released Wednesday.

"The military authorities further restricted human rights" during the past year, the report said.

"Peaceful political dissent, whether through speech or protests, were punished or banned. Politicians and human rights activists faced criminal investigations and prosecutions."

It added: "Torture and other ill-treatment remained widespread."

It urged the government to take a more active approach in the protection of human rights.

It also said politicians and human rights activists were subjected to criminal investigations and prosecutions and were faced with legal retribution when disagreeing with the state, and condemned the instances when peaceful political dissent through speech or protests was punished or banned.

Responding to the report, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesman Sek Wannamethee said it failed to fully address the development of the human rights situation in Thailand.

The government is following its roadmap to bring the country to democracy and would not be budged from that course.

The constitution drafting process and the national referendum on the draft charter in August 2016 was open for the public and parties to voice their opinions through many channels, he said.

"Thailand observes the importance of freedom of expression and respect for human rights according to international principles. However, law and order as well as the prevention of rifts in society must also be considered," he said.

People who are facing lese majeste charges are allowed to defend themselves according to due legal process and have the rights to be judged fairly, he said.

In regards to Amnesty International's call for Thailand to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the MFA spokesman said Thailand signed in 2012, but related domestic legal processes are still in progress.

Amnesty International also urged the government to respect peaceful rallies in the interests of freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of movement.

Human rights defender Anchana Heemmina further asked the government to recognise and protect human rights defenders instead of using the law to prosecute them.

"The first thing is to withdraw the cases [of human rights] taken against critics, or not intimidate, or not arrest them and detain them in military camps," she said.

The group also wants to ban the use of torture in Thailand and urged the government to use alternative means to find evidence for cases instead of trying to get those under investigation to confess.

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Amnesty International: Thai human rights 'deteriorate' - Bangkok Post

=On 26 February Hollywoods brightest stars will gather in LA for the Oscars. The biggest film event on the calendar will provide a welcome distraction from the reality of a year that has seen assaults on human rights in almost every country.

Times like these can bring out the best in us, mobilizing people around the world to fight for what is right. Just like in the movies, sometimes extraordinary circumstances can make heroes out of ordinary people.

There are countless brave activists around the world who take great personal risks to defend human rights. Since its awards season, Amnesty International is paying tribute to four human rights heroes whose dramatic stories could - and should - be made into movies:

Its been almost two years since Zimbabwean journalist and activist Itai Peace Dzamara was dragged from a barbers chair by five armed men while he was getting a haircut.

Dzamara, the leader of a pro-democracy movement called "Occupy Africa Unity Square", had long been considered an enemy of the state by the Zimbabwean government. Just two days before his abduction he had delivered a speech at an opposition rally in Harare, calling for mass action against the deteriorating economic conditions in Zimbabwe.

If this were a movie, justice would have been done long ago. Dzamara would have been returned to his wife and children, and the men who abducted him held accountable.

But this isnt Hollywood. This is Zimbabwe, where basic rights and freedoms have been trampled on throughout the long years of Robert Mugabes reign. As Itai Peace Dzamara and his family know, anyone who dares to speak out is a target for intimidation, harassment and arrest, and theres no happy ending in sight.

Despite a court ruling ordering state security agents to investigate Dzamaras disappearance, there were gaps in the investigation and his whereabouts remains a mystery.

Goldman Environmental Foundation

Honduras has the highest number of killings per capita of environmental and land activists in the world. The vast majority of these killings go unsolved and unpunished.

One story that really stands out in this deadly context is that of Berta Cceres. Berta was the leader and co-founder of an organisation that was campaigning against the construction of a hydroelectric project on the ancestral lands of indigenous communities in Honduras.

In the early hours of 2 March 2016, she was murdered in her own home. Berta knew that she was putting her life in danger, but she was willing to take the risk to stand up for indigenous communities.

Like the audience of a horror movie, the people around Berta could see that terrible danger was coming her way but they were powerless to stop it.

Despite the stark warning that her death served, environmental activists in Honduras say that stopping their work is not an option - no-one else will defend their communities and rights. They continue Bertas work every day, reminding us that we should never take freedom for granted.

It is essential that Bertas assassination is solved, to show that there is a price to pay for attacking and killing environmental activists. Bertas story ended in tragedy, but we will not stop fighting until we are sure that other activists will not meet the same fate.

Sirikan Charoensiri, also known as June, is a young lawyer who has bravely stood up for human rights during a dark period of military rule in Thailand. In June 2015, she was on hand at a peaceful protest by pro-democracy student activists in Bangkok to monitor the situation and provide legal representation, if necessary.

She now finds herself facing sedition charges and a potential trial in a military court alongside her clients. She also faces charges in two additional cases relating to her defence of the student activists and could be imprisoned for up to 15 years.

As the Thai authorities have escalated their crackdown in the name of security, people who stand up for human rights in the country are increasingly falling foul of a government intent on silencing dissent.

As June herself put it: There is now an environment where risk is visible and imminent.

In Iran, human rights defenders and other peaceful critics are subject to relentless harassment. Over the past year, those jailed after shockingly unfair trials before Revolutionary Courts including lawyers, bloggers, students, womens rights activists, filmmakers and even musicians.

Human rights defender Narges Mohammadi knows better than most how vengeful the Iranian authorities can be towards anyone who dissents. She is currently serving a total of 22 years in prison for speaking out against issues such as Irans prolific use of the death penalty and acid attacks on women.

What makes her situation even worse is that she is critically ill and cannot receive proper medical care in prison. Just as cruelly, the authorities have at times denied her access to her young children, who had to leave Iran to live with their father in France after she was jailed.

Narges is a prisoner of conscience who should be lauded, not locked up, for her human rights work. We will continue to fight until she is free.

Itai, Berta, Sirikan and Narges are just a handful of the outstanding human rights activists around the world who deserve recognition, but have instead been silenced by forces of cruelty, injustice and repression. Take action now, and join us in fighting back.

Anna Neistat is the Senior Director of Research at Amnesty International. Follow her on Twitter at @AnnaNeistat

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Lifetime Achievements: Paying Tribute to 4 Human Rights Heroes - Huffington Post

On 21 February 2012, five brightly-dressed members of Russian feminist punk collective Pussy Riot took to the altar of Moscows Cathedral of Christ the Saviour to protest links between the Russian Orthodox Church and its chief saint Russian President Vladimir Putin. Virgin birth-giver of God, drive away Putin! they shouted from beneath now-iconic balaclavas.

The Punk Prayer was both a political statement and a powerful feminist message. Six months later, a judge sentenced three of the girls to two years in prison (one was rapidly released) on a conspicuously apolitical conviction of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.

These past five years, Russias involvement in crises in Syria and Ukraine has cast a dark shadow over relations with an increasingly cleaved-off West. The year 2015 saw opposition politician Boris Nemtsov murdered some 500 metres from the Kremlin walls.

Domestically, society has constricted people challenging the political status quo. However, low-key initiatives retain traction.

Artists are simply silent, says Russian curator and gallerist Marat Guelman, who left for Montenegro in early 2015. It is better not to say anything about politics, it is better to bypass these issues.

This is a major difference from five years ago. Despite persecution against Pussy Riot, people were not afraid to defend them, he says. It was a better time.

There are three topics artists and curators now avoid, says artist and feminist activist Mikaela. One is homosexuality . . . especially if it involves adolescents, she says, citing a 2015 exhibit about LGBT teens called Be Yourself. Authorities closed it and interrogated the galley owner. Then the war in Ukraine, she says. Russian Orthodoxy is the third topic you cannot tackle.

Marianna Muravyeva, a law professor at Moscows Higher School of Economics, says that aside from the government completely discarding human rights rhetoric, the most significant legal change is the gay propaganda law and legislation against those who insult the feelings of believers.

The latter came into force in July 2013. Since then, the Orthodox Church has made deeper societal incursions. Muravyeva says that the secular nature of the Soviet Union led to residual feelings of guilt towards the Church and now it uses that capital.

Mikaela observes a cultural expansion, citing a new TV channel, radio station and three new churches in her neighbourhood alone.

Orthodox activist attacks on exhibits have increased. In August 2015, they targeted an exhibit at one of Moscows most prominent art galleries. Its perpetrators were found guilty of petty hooliganism and handed a 1,000 rouble fine (14 by todays rates).

Any word written in Old Slavonic lettering is spirituality, says Guelman. Any work of art by a modern artist . . . depravity, sin, the impact of the West.

Similar groups are active across Russia, and galleries err on the side of caution. Perpetrators, while self-organised, believe their actions to be state-sanctioned, says Muravyeva. They are influenced by the kinds of messages conveyed by the government.

Nowadays, self-organisation is integral to artistic expression. Mikaela witnessed educational institutions and foreign foundations telling artists we are with you, we know you are smart but they cannot host political works for fear of closure. Not knowing where the invisible line lies foments uncertainty. Its self-censorship, she says.

Dissident artist Petr Pavlensky, notorious for nailing his scrotum to the Red Square in late 2013 (Fixation) and setting fire to the doors of the FSB in 2015, advocates personal agency.

Fixation was about a sense of helplessness in Russia that must be overcome; he tried to convey the amount of power the castrated have. Pavlensky says, Look, I have even less than you, says Guelman. The artist and his partner Oksana Shalygina are now in France intending to seek asylum after sexual assault accusations.

Some rise to the opportunity, such as Daria Serenko. She rides the Moscow Metro carrying political posters as part of Tikhy Piket or Silent Protest. Her 12 February sign depicted a girl with her head in her arms inundated by the comments received if a women alleges rape (she was probably drunk, what was she wearing?).

However, as a lone individual in a public space, she experienced hostility. Men, as always, laughed, she posted on Facebook afterwards. Earlier this month an anonymous group pasted painted plants accompanied by anti-domestic violence messages around Omsk, southwestern Siberia.

Their appearance corresponded with Putin signing legislation on 7 February decriminalising domestic abuse that causes minor harm. While it doesnt specifically mention women, Muravyeva says that the message women can manage on their own is a disaster.

On 27 January, after Russias parliament passed the final draft, pro-Kremlin tabloid Life released a video (He Beats You Because He Loves You) showing how to inflict pain without leaving a mark.

Heightened social awareness is aided by online networks. Since Punk Prayer, the proportion of people using the internet in Russia has exploded. In 2011, it was 33 per cent, while in 2016 it was 73 per cent, according annual Freedom House reports. Authorities have concurrently exerted stronger controls over it, eg. targeting individual social media users through broadly-worded laws against extremism.

Last July, the hashtag # (#IamNotAfraidtoSay) went viral. Women documented experiences of sexual violence. Russian organisation (Sisters), which helps survivors receive psychological support, receives 250-350 crisis calls annually.

Over the past year, the number of applications increased, because of the hashtag, it says. New media platforms Meduza and Wonderzine also emerged as more socially aware outlets. Previously all we had was LiveJournal communities, Mikaela says.

Bottom-up challenges are partially due to a generational shift. Nobody bothered before, says Muravyeva. Those children who were born after 95 . . . they were already born in a very free society they dont know what it is to be afraid, they dont know what it is to be self-censoring, what it is to be really scared of the state.

Aliide Naylor is a British journalist and former Arts and Ideas Editor of The Moscow Times.

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What's it like to be a human rights activist in post-Pussy Riot Russia? - New Statesman

Famine, plague, and war. These have been the three scourges of human history. But today, people in most countries are more likely to die from eating too much rather than too little, more likely to die of old age than a great plague, and more likely to commit suicide than to die in war.

With famine, plague, and war in their twilightat least, for nowmankind will turn its focus to achieving immortality and permanent happiness, according to Yuval Hararis new book Homo Deus. In other words, to turning ourselves into gods.

Hararis previous work, Sapiens, was a swashbuckling history of the human species. His new book is another mind-altering adventure, blending philosophy, history, psychology, and futurism. We spoke recently about its most audacious predictions. This conversation has been edited for concision and clarity.

Derek Thompson: In Homo Deus you predict the end of work, the end of liberal individualism, and the end of humanity. Lets take these one by one.

First, work. You have a smart and scary way of looking at the political implications of mass automation. At the end of the 19th century, France, Germany, and Japan offered free health care to their citizens. Their aim was not strictly to make people happy, but to strengthen their army and industrial potential. In other words, welfare was necessary because people were necessary. But you ask the scary question: What happens to welfare in a future where government no longer needs people?

Yuval Harari: Its a very scary scenario. Its not science fiction. Its already happening.

The reason to build all these mass social service systems was to support strong armies and strong economies. Already the most advanced armies dont need [as many] people. The same might happen in the civilian economy. The problem is motivation: What if the government loses the motivation to help the masses?

In Scandinavia the tradition of the welfare state is so entrenched that perhaps theyll continue to provide welfare even for masses of useless people. But what about Nigeria, South Africa, and China? They have been encouraged to provide services mostly in the hope of advancing prosperity, [which requires] having a large basis of healthy and smart citizens. But take that away and you might be left with countries with elites who dont care about the population.

Thompson: The last point is interesting, because, in Europe and the United States, the opposite seems more true: The population doesnt care about, or think it needs, the elite. Thats a part of how we got Trump and Brexit. Now you see these radical-right backlashes against the establishment sweeping across Europe. Why is this happening now?

Harari: Thats the big question. I didnt foresee it coming. Its not my expertise to look at the political situation in the U.S. or in Europe. But if you look at the objective condition of health and so forth, most people in the U.S. and Western Europe have better conditions than they used to. But they feel like they are being pushed aside and losing power. And they fear their children will have a worse life than they do today. I think these fears may be justified. But I dont think the antidote will work. Trump will not help Alabama voters regain their power.

Thompson: Americans might be richer and better educated than they used to be a generation ago, with better health care and superior entertainment options. But the fact of progress doesnt seem to matter. The story is all that matters. And the victorious Trump story was that Americas cities were falling apart and I alone can fix it.

Harari: [White Americans without a college degree] are a declining class within a declining power. The U.S. is losing power compared to the rest of the world, and within the U.S., the Trump voters are losing their status. Even though they are experiencing better conditions, the narrative self which is dominant in most people tells a story of decline, which says that the future will be worse than the present. And most peoples happiness depends on their expectations, not their conditions.

Thompson: Lets say the future for most people is a universal basic income, wonderful psychedelic drugs, and virtual reality video games. People dont starve. They arent miserable. But they also stop striving. The Walt Disney virtueschallenge yourself! go on an adventure!are sacrificed to live permanently inside of Disney-style entertainment. Is that utopia or dystopia?

Harari: Most philosophers will say that your hypothetical is a dystopia. A far worse world.

But you could argue that people already spend most of their lives in virtual games. Most religions are virtual games superimposed on the reality of life. Do this, and theres a penalty. Do that, and you get extra points. There is nothing in reality that corresponds to these rules. But you have millions of people playing these virtual reality games. So what is the difference between a religion and a virtual reality game?

Recently I went with my nephew to hunt Pokmon. We were walking down the street and a bunch of kids approached us. They were also hunting Pokemon. My nephew and these children got into a bit of a fight because they were trying to capture the same invisible creatures. It seemed strange to me. But these Pokmon were very real to the children.

And then it hit me: This is just like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict! You have two sides fighting over something that I cannot see. I look at the stones of buildings in Jerusalem and I just see stones. But Christians, Jews, and Muslims who look at the same stones see a holy city. Its their imagination, but they are willing to kill for it. Thats virtual reality, too.

Your hypothetical also raises a deep philosophical question: What is the meaning of life? Historically philosophers investigated questions that were interesting to only half a percentage of humankind.

Thompson: Right. What is ideal way to seek happiness? isnt a useful inquiry when the entire countryside is dying of plague.

Harari: Yes, but once you are free from considerations of famine and plague, this becomes a much more practical question: What is the meaning of life? If you design a self-driving car, you must design ethical algorithms in the case that its about to hit a child. Do you risk injury to the pedestrian, or the passenger? That is suddenly a very practical question. Philosophy, once an archaic system, becomes central once we take care of widespread death and misery.

Thompson: Alright, lets move from the end of work to the end of individualism.

You have a beautiful way of summarizing human beings relationship with authority. First, we believed that authority came from the gods. But that belief has yielded to modern liberalism, which tells us that authority comes from individuals. Democracy says power comes from the voters, not the divine. Capitalism says the consumer is always right, not the Bible. Marketers say beauty resides in the eye of the beholder, not in platonic forms.

But you have a ominous prediction that humans will merge with the computers, algorithms, and biochemical devices that make our lives better. We will yield our authority and identity to data and artificial intelligence. What invention or innovation in the world right now is the best example of this future?

Harari: I like to begin with the simple things. Look at GPS applications, like Waze and Google Maps. Five years ago, you went somewhere in your car or on foot. You navigated based on your own knowledge and intuition. But today everybody is blindly following what Waze is telling them. Theyve lost the basic ability to navigate by themselves. If something happens to the application, they are completely lost.

Thats not the most important example. But it is the direction were talking about. You reach a juncture on the road, and you trust the algorithm. Maybe the junction is your career. Maybe its the decision to get married. But you trust the algorithm rather than your own intuition.

The most important invention thats spreading now is biometric sensors. They may become ubiquitous. Humans will consult their biometric data to determine how to live. That is really interesting and scary stuff, because we will no longer be in charge of our identity. We will outsource our executive decisions to biometric readings of our neurochemical signals to decide how to live.

Thompson: Here is how I understand this idea. Its the future, and Im hungry on a Friday night. I think, Id like fried chicken. Then I consult my AI daemon, which can read by biochemical signals and predict my future emotions, and it says to me: Actually, Derek, a chicken salad will make you happier. So I eat salad.

On a case-by-case basis, this technology seems wonderful. Its making me so much healthier and happier. Technology is rescuing me from the natural errors of misreading my future wants and needs. But over time, I have disappeared, because I have outsourced my identity to a biochemical analyst.

Harari: Yes, exactly.

In this scenario, we will come to see that decisions dont come from a mystical soul but from biological processes in the brain. In the past we couldnt gather the data and analyze it. So you could imagine that there is a mystical, transcendental soul inside you making these decisions. From a practical perspective that was a good enough estimation. But once you combine a better understanding of the biochemical processes in the body with the computational power of big data then you have a real revolution, because this traditional notion of free will no longer make practical sense and you can have algorithm that make better decisions than an individual human.

Thompson: Thats fascinating, because I now think of these algorithms as bringing me closer to myself. If a fitness tracker encourages me to run more, or an entertainment algorithm discovers a song I love, Im happier. And I prefer myself happy.

But over time, my decisions have been reduced to brain signals and brain signal readers. I am not special, or sacred, or even individual. Im just a vessel for a bunch of signals that are best read by a computer. There is no room for me in that arrangement.

Harari: What really happens is that the self disintegrates. Its not that you understand your true self better, but you come to realize there is no true self. There is just a complicated connection of biochemical connections, without a core. There is no authentic voice that lives inside you.

Have you seen Inside Out? For me this was the tipping point in popular cultures understanding of the mind. For decades Disney sold us the liberal individualistic fantasy: Dont listen to your neighbors or government, just follow your own heart. But then in Inside Out, you go inside this little girl Riley, and you dont encounter a self or a core identity. What the movie shows to children and their parents is that Riley is a robot being manipulated by chemical processes inside her brain. The cataclysmic point in the story is your realize that none of the sources inside her are her true self. In the beginning you identify with Joy but the critical moment comes when you realize none of these emotions are Rileys true self. Its a balance between different sources.

And I think this is what will happen more and more on a general level. The very idea of an individual that exists, which has been so precious to us, is in danger.

Link:
The Post-Human World - The Atlantic

The recent case of three men accused of kidnapping a 19-year-old woman in Boynton Beach and trying to force her into prostitution is among a rapidly growing number of reported human trafficking incidents in Florida, state officials say.

The Florida Department of Children and Families counted nearly 1,900 reports of human trafficking statewide in 2016, a 54 percent increase from the previous year.

Advocates for victims have called human trafficking modern-day slavery. Under state and federal law, it is defined as soliciting, recruiting, harboring, transporting or otherwise obtaining another person to exploit him or her for labor, domestic servitude or sexual exploitation.

Human trafficking is something that can go on right before your eyes and you might not recognize it, said Sheila Gomez, the executive director of the Catholic Charities Diocese of Palm Beach, one of Palm Beach Countys largest family service nonprofits.

According to the Polaris Project a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. that tracks the number of calls to the national trafficking hotline Florida had the third-highest number of reported cases in 2016, behind only California and Texas.

South Floridas popularity among tourists and its transient populations help make it a popular target for the crime, some authorities say.

Any place where there are young adults, said Becky Dymond, the founder of Hepzibah House, a safe house in Palm Beach County for women who have been victims of trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Traffickers, theyll go to bus stops, halfway houses, sober houses, strip clubs, bars.

Today, Catholic Charities is expected to announce the receipt of a grant and the start of a partnership with the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office to combat human trafficking.

The Boynton Beach incident took place in the early morning hours of Feb. 9. The men entered a home on Northwest Fourth Street, two of them with guns drawn. One pointed a revolver at the 19-year-olds stomach, grabbed her by the back of her head and forced her to leave the house, police say.

An ad for the woman later appeared on the Backpage.com website advertising sexual relationships. An undercover detective arranged to meet her at a Boynton Beach motel, offering to pay $200, before the men were arrested. One of the men allegedly told officers they had gone to the Boynton Beach home to pimp the woman out.

Officials say violent acts such as this one are less common than scenarios where persuasion and kindness are used by a would-be trafficker to gain their targets trust.

Perhaps that person, they are really down on their luck or it could be a number of vulnerabilities, said Tanya Meade, president of the Human Trafficking Coalition of the Palm Beaches. At the end of the day, somebody uses elses vulnerability to make a profit.

Dymond estimates about 2,100 women in Palm Beach County are being commercially sexually exploited, not including those who are trafficked online. Women and men in drug recovery are particularly vulnerable to being manipulated by traffickers, she said.

All they have to do is go Hey, you can have as much coke as you want, Dymond said. Thats one of the tools they use to manipulate and maintain control.

Anti-trafficking organizations already are targeting at least one tool the Boynton Beach suspects are alleged to have used. This month, an unnamed Florida woman who says she was the victim of trafficking through Backpage and an anti-human trafficking organization filed a lawsuit in federal court in Orlando against the owners of Backpage.com

The online exploitation of teen girls is the biggest human rights violation of our time, said Carol Robles-Roman, the president and CEO of Legal Momentum, a New York-based womens rights organization that helped prepare the lawsuit. Backpage.com knowingly facilitated this evil and must be held accountable to the harmed girls and to the organizations that provide them services so they can heal and recover.

This past month, the site closed its adult advertisement section, citing government pressure, according to multiple published reports.

Statistics show the majority of reported human trafficking cases involve women, but it can also happen to men and boys, officials say.

There is no such thing as a typical victim, Meade said. They can be young people. They can be older. They can be male. It happens really across the socioeconomic (spectrum).

In many cases, calls to the trafficking hotline are made by a community member who observed something out of the ordinary, she said. According to the Polaris Project, signs of human trafficking include a person being unable to leave as he or she wishes, lacking control over his or her finances, and lacking control over his or her identificiation.

The biggest thing we always encourage people to do is just educate themselves about the issue, Meade said. If they see something that doesnt look right or feel right, call the hotline.

SEE ANYTHING

SUSPICIOUS?

Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888.

Read the rest here:
NEW: Human trafficking reports rise in Florida; young adults targeted - Palm Beach Post

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson professed in his Senate confirmation testimony that our values are our interests when it comes to human rights. Yet one of his State Departments first acts may be to abandon that stance with the tiny but strategic Persian Gulf state of Bahrain.

Concerns in Congress and the human rights community are high that the Trump team is planning to approve a multibillion-dollar sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter planes to Bahrain without any conditions, reversing an Obama administration decision to demand the government take small reform steps in exchange for the jets.

Im hoping the Bahrain deal is going to roll out without the restrictions, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said last month. I think it could happen soon.

If approved by State, the sale would reward a Sunni monarchy that has been cracking down on its majority-Shiite population and flouting U.S. requests for restraint.

Corker objected to the fact that the Obama administration attached human rights conditions to a congressional notification about the F-16 sales sent to Capitol Hill in September. Congress is given a chance to object to an arms sale before it goes through, but typically there are no conditions attached by that stage in the process.

This type of conditionality would be unprecedented and counterproductive to maintaining security cooperation and ultimately addressing human rights issues, Corker told me. There are more effective ways to seek changes in partner policies.

But other lawmakers view the question differently. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote to President Trump last week to argue against the sale.

Some people argue that our close ties with Bahrain are reason for America to avert its gaze and ignore the worsening human rights abuses, Wyden wrote. I and many others categorically reject this argument and believe instead that America is obligated to push her friends and partners to uphold basic human rights and the rule of law.

Wyden wants to know if the White House or State Department leadership consulted the departments Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor about the human rights situation in Bahrain and also how the sale contributes to U.S. national security. A department spokesman declined to comment, while the White House did not respond to my query.

Tom Malinowski, who served as the head of the bureau at the end of the Obama administration, said that the Bahrain case will show whether Congress will stand up for human rights if the Trump administration will not.

Heres the first test for Republicans who have been saying that we are going to continue to insist on human rights around the world, he said. Is this going to be a press release or are they going to do something about it?

Options for Congress are limited. In addition to Wyden, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has been outspoken about the need for reform in Bahrain. They could bring up a congressional resolution to oppose the F-16 sales, but similar efforts have not succeeded in the past. Last year, the Senate failed to advance a resolution put forward by Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) that opposed U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia over alleged human rights abuses in the war in Yemen.

Without congressional action, private bilateral pressures on the Bahraini government are unlikely to work. In 2015, the Obama administration lifted a four-year ban on arms sales to Bahrain after extensive negotiations. Per their agreement, the government of Bahrain released opposition leader Ibrahim Sharif. He was rearrestedon new charges only a few weeks later.

This wasnt just about human rights, this was about a country going back on its word at the highest levels, one senior Obama administration official said. It was about how the United States was treated.

The conditions Obama attached to the F-16 deal in September, which were never made public, were meant to be easy for the government to fulfill. They included the release of human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, who faces years in prison for tweeting and writing an op-ed in the New York Times, and allowing some organization by the regimes political opposition following the forced dissolution of the opposition al-Wefaq party.

None of those actions were taken, and the Bahraini government is now in the midst of a full-scale crackdown, said Cole Bockenfeld, deputy director for policy at the Project on Middle East Democracy.

If the Trump administration releases the sales now, that completely validates the Bahraini hard-liners view that they dont need to even pretend to be improving on human rights anymore, he said.

As Bahrain is a major non-NATO ally and host of the U.S. Navys 5th Fleet, its stability and security are in the United States national security interest. But if the Bahrain government doesnt allow for political dissent and basic human rights, both of those goals will be undermined over the long term, along with U.S. values and interests in the region.

Read more from Josh Rogins archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.

See the article here:
The Trump team's deal with Bahrain could ignore its human rights ... - Washington Post

Bread is served at a soup kitchen in central Israel. (photo credit:REUTERS)

The State of Israel likes to describe itself as the only democracy in the Middle East, which it is. Indeed, we Israelis have several reasons to take pride in our lively and vital democracy, whose citizens benefit from freedom of expression and other liberties despite multiple challenges and obstacles. Nonetheless, I would like to use the apt opportunity of the World Day of Social Justice, which is celebrated on February 20, to pose a question or two about the democratic and Jewish character of the State of Israel.

The concept of democracy is based on several core values without which no democracy can define itself as such. Human dignity is one of these core values. Being such an important tenet, it was even granted a basic law with a unique status in Israels law compendium: Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.

There is nothing new about human dignity as a central social issue. In fact, ancient Judaism repeatedly emphasizes that man was created in the image of God. Hence, harming a human being is the same as harming God. That said, let us stop and ask ourselves, to what extent does our current reality in Israel honor this fundamental principle?

Social exclusion and injustice are issues that impact a vast number of people in Israel of 2017. The figures point to a sad reality of nearly 2.5 million people living in poverty. The poor of Israel, comprised mainly of the weakest and most excluded groups of society the residents of slums and development towns, new immigrants, the Arab minority, foreign workers and more are grappling with a bleak reality characterized by inadequate educational and healthcare services, lack of basic material needs, food insecurity and more.

The entire scope of their personal resources are often channeled to physical and emotional survival. This live or die situation deprives the poor of the freedom or capability to exercise their various civil and political rights even though they live in a democratic country. Moreover, living in poverty seriously hampers their autonomous self-fulfillment as human beings.

I would like to argue that the non-fulfillment of basic needs inevitably leads to compromising human dignity, with basic needs referring not only to minimal nutrition but also to adequate educational and healthcare services and a safe environment. This is because the absence of these basic needs leads to wretched ignorance and compromised health, two things which have nothing to do with human dignity.

It is a sad fact that in todays Israel, a person can only benefit from her legal, political and other human rights if her basic existence is secured. Put differently, people deprived of fundamental conditions for existence are also dispossessed of their human dignity. By extension, I would argue that other social and economic rights, which are considered as being more than minimal basic needs, are in fact fundamental human rights because they provide human beings with the prerequisites for self-realization.

The natural conclusion of this may be simple to understand but are harder to implement. If we want to live in a country which is committed to human dignity, one that fulfills the ancient Jewish commandment of Beloved is the person created in Gods image (Pirkei Avot), then it is the states responsibility to ensure adequate (not just basic) living conditions to all of its citizens. In other words, Israel should adopt an accommodative social policy which provides each and every citizen and resident the conditions for realizing their human existence. Let us not forget that only a society committed to the flourishing of each and every individual will become a prosperous society.

It is time we revisit the vision of the founding fathers of Zionism, from all across the political spectrum from Jabotinsky through Herzl to Berl Katznelson and work toward a country committed to social justice and human dignity.

The writer is the director of the Community Division of BINA the Jewish Movement for Social Change.

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The recorded deed to Jerusalem

Link:
On human dignity in Israel - Jerusalem Post Israel News