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Ban on seafood from Russia might be path to sustainable, traceable fish industry

The U.S. is the world’s largest seafood importer, and a significant quantity of the fish being imported originates in Russia. However, to a large extent this is not reflected in our import statistics, as became clear in a recent House subcommittee hearing on a ban on Russian seafood set to take effect on June 23.

This is because in recent years an increasing amount of the seafood produced globally is first shipped to one county for processing before it is shipped to the country where it will be consumed. This creates significant environmental and social challenges as it masks where and under what conditions fish has been caught and also increases risk of mislabeling.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine is serious and sanctions are an obvious response. The fact that seafood is one of Russia’s larger export goods, with a significant share coming to the U.S. via third countries, makes improved traceability necessary for the sanctions to bite. This gives lawmakers an opportunity to also address one of the most serious challenges to fish stocks globally because the general lack of traceability can mask a number of activities abhorrent to many Americans. Hence, any mechanisms implemented to foster traceability in the seafood trade may be as important for the world as limiting Russian aggression. 

We know that more than a one-third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished. We know that there are fleets using forced labor to overfish unregulated fish stocks and that it is highly likely that some of this fish ends up on American dinner plates. The U.S. has instigated several initiatives to combat problematic seafood production practices, with dolphin-safe tuna and turtle excluder devices on shrimp gear among the most well-known.

However, these are just first steps in tackling what is known as “Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported” (IUU) fishing. The diversity of Russia’s fishing industry and the number of countries that can re-export Russian seafood means well designed initiatives also can be effective tools in combating unsustainable fishing practices and facilitating traceability worldwide.

That said, there are several challenges associated with instituting a global traceability system. For instance, China is both the world’s largest importer and then re-exporter of seafood, with 74 percent of its imported fish processed for re-exportation. A traceability system would have to be able to capture data about the fish.

China is also the world’s largest fishing nation, landing approximately 14 million tons of fish — about 15 percent of the annual global catch — with a significant share of its catches occurring in international waters, which also is implicated in IUU fishing.

This is an issue that has to be addressed if the U.S. seeks effective sanctions of Russian fish and if we want to address IUU fishing globally. The re-exports are also important for the U.S. fishing industry as China is the largest export market for American seafood and significant quantities are even shipped back to the U.S. Just take a look at the label the next time you buy frozen wild salmon.

Given its ample coastlines, why does the U.S. even need to import seafood? The answer is that U.S. fish stocks are sustainably managed but also fully utilized and production cannot be increased without compromising this sustainability. The only viable alternative is aquaculture, but that approach receives little public support.

Yes, there is a cost to implementing traceability systems. However, there are also ways to limit them. The leading role of the U.S. and the European Union (EU) as importers with similar concerns about Russian seafood as well as IUU fishing suggests that there is an opportunity for a global system to become “de facto” if required by these trade blocks. Hence, cooperation with the EU is important for the effectiveness of a traceability system, but also to ensure U.S. firms and consumers don’t have to bear the full cost of an unlevel playing field. The scope for international cooperation is therefore both significant and desirable.

The importance of Russian seafood exports and the desirability of effective sanctions of these exports provides a unique opportunity to create a lasting improvement in the global seafood system. Given that it does not require a significant extra step beyond what is necessary for effective sanctions of Russian seafood and our allies shared concerns about IUU fishing, we can hope that the measures taken by Congress will lead us to pursue this opportunity.

Frank Asche is a professor in the School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences and the Food Systems Institute at the University of Florida. He has published widely on seafood production and markets. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.

Source: TEST FEED1

John Mellencamp rips senators' response to gun violence

Singer John Mellencamp is calling out senators for their response to gun violence, saying lawmakers don’t care about Americans’ lives. 

“Only in America, and I mean only, in America, can 21 people be murdered and a week later be buried and forgotten, with a flimsy little thumbnail,” Mellencamp wrote on Twitter late Tuesday. “{A} vague notion of some sort of gun control law laying on the senators’ desks.” 

“What kind of people are we who claim that we care about pro-life?” Mellencamp asked. 

The “Hurts So Good” singer also said that politicians do not care about people, adding that he wouldn’t be surprised if another mass shooting happens soon. 

“Just so you know, anyone that’s reading this…politicians don’t give a f— about you, they don’t give a f— about me, and they don’t give a f— about our children,” Mellencamp wrote. “So with that cheery thought in mind, have a happy summer, because it will just be a short time before it happens again.” 

Mellencamp’s remarks came as Senate negotiators reached an agreement on bipartisan gun safety legislation. 

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act includes funding for school safety resources, expanded background checks for buyers under the age of 21, penalties for straw purchases of firearms and new protections for domestic violence victims. 

The bill, which was drafted in the wake of a string of mass shootings in the U.S., is expected to pass in the Senate, as 14 GOP lawmakers voted to advance it Tuesday evening. A final vote in the upper chamber is expected later this week.

Source: TEST FEED1

39 percent in new poll say they have watched, listened to Jan. 6 hearings

Nearly four in ten registered voters say they watched at least part of last week’s daytime hearings held by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to a new Politico-Morning Consult poll.

Eleven percent said they had watched the June 13 and June 16 hearings in full, 28 percent said they had watched part of the hearings and 62 percent said they hadn’t watched the hearings at all.

Each hearing has focused on a particular angle that builds the committee’s case that former President Trump was responsible for the Jan. 6 riot.

The two hearings polled centered on the acknowledgment by most of Trump’s inner circle that the former president lost the 2020 election and a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies on then-Vice President Pence to reject Electoral College votes.

They were held during the day after the panel scheduled its first session in the series during prime time as part of efforts to cut through to wide swaths of the American public. Nearly 20 million Americans watched the first hearing across broadcast and cable networks.

Most respondents — 58 percent — said they had heard at least some about last week’s two daytime hearings, while 21 percent said they had heard nothing at all.

That figure fell when asked if respondents had heard about specific revelations from the hearings. 

Thirty-eight percent said they had heard at least some about retired federal judge Michael Luttig’s statement to the panel that Trump and his allies instigated a war on democracy to stay in power, and 14 percent said they had heard a lot about the statement.

“The war on democracy instigated by the former president and his political party allies on January 6 was the natural and foreseeable culmination of the war for America,” Luttig said in a written statement to the panel.

Similarly, 37 percent said they had heard at least some about an email discussed at the hearing that showed Trump campaign attorney John Eastman asking for a presidential pardon following the Capitol riot, with 14 percent saying they had heard a lot.

But when asked about a new claim that Kimberly Guilfoyle, who worked for Trump’s 2020 campaign and is the former president’s son’s fiancee, was paid $60,000 for her speech at the Ellipse rally on Jan. 6, only 3 in 10 respondents said they had heard at least some about the revelation.

That claim was made during Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s (D-Calif.) interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper following one of the panel’s sessions and was not made during a hearing itself.

Fifty-one percent said they had heard nothing at all about the alleged payment to Guilfoyle, the highest figure among the specific revelations polled.

The poll was conducted between June 17 and June 20, which directly followed the two hearings polled but preceded the committee’s session on Trump’s pressure campaign against state and local officials held on Tuesday.

Pollsters conducted 2,004 online interviews with registered voters, and the margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump says it's 'not even a question' McCarthy should've put Republicans on Jan. 6 panel

Former President Trump in a new interview said it was “not even a question” that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) should have put GOP lawmakers on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol.

“Well, I think in retrospect, I think it would have been very smart to put [Republicans on the committee] and again, I wasn’t involved in it from a standpoint so I never looked at it too closely. But I think it would have been good if we had representation,” Trump told Punchbowl News in an interview.

McCarthy last year withdrew all of his Republican picks for the panel after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) rejected two of his choices — Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jim Banks (R-Ind.) — that voted to reject election results from certain states on the day of the riots.

“They were great and would’ve been great to have them,” Trump said of Jordan and Banks. “But when Pelosi wrongfully didn’t allow them, we should’ve picked other people. We have a lot of good people in the Republican Party.”

The House committee investigating Jan. 6 does have two Republican members: Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). But both are fervent Trump critics, and the former president complained to Punchbowl that the GOP hasn’t had much to say about the hearings.

The committee has thus far held three public hearings, with a fourth scheduled for Thursday. The hearings have featured testimony from former Trump White House and campaign officials, as well as state officials who all spoke about how the former president’s claims of widespread election fraud in 2020 were baseless and testified that they told Trump as much.

The former president has increased his attacks on the committee and its hearings in recent days, a sign the hearings have caught his attention as his role in the lead up to the insurrection at the Capitol comes back into the spotlight.

Trump’s frustration with McCarthy also comes as the California Republican is lining up a bid for the Speaker’s gavel should the GOP win back the majority in November’s midterms. Trump did not weigh in on whether he would endorse McCarthy for that role in the Punchbowl interview, but the former president’s backing would likely go a long way in shoring up support for McCarthy.

Source: TEST FEED1

920 dead in powerful Afghanistan earthquake: local reports

A powerful magnitude 5.9 earthquake on Wednesday killed more than 900 people in eastern Afghanistan, the highest death toll in the nation in decades, according to local reports.

The earthquake also injured 610 people, according to the Taliban’s state-run news agency, Bakhtar, which Deputy State Minister for Natural Disaster Management Mawlavi Sharfuddin Muslim. However, officials warned the toll is likely to rise.

The numbers cannot be currently confirmed as information around the quake in the remote region is scarce.

The news agency also posted cellphone video of the earthquake’s destruction from an unidentified man, with the footage showing destroyed homes in the area.

“I’m doing this video to show that all people here are under the building,” the man says, according to NPR. “Under that house, five people. This house, six people. And in this house, 13 dead bodies still under. All the village completely is destroyed.”

Rescue and search efforts in the area are ongoing, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) in Afghanistan.

–Developing

Source: TEST FEED1

Almost one-third say a state would be less desirable as a place to live if it banned abortions: poll

Nearly one-third of registered voters said in a new poll that their state would be less desirable to live in if it banned abortion, according to a new

The USA Today-Suffolk poll found that six in 10 voters said a state abortion ban would not affect their thinking on its desirability, 31 percent said it would make the state less desirable and 5 percent said it would be more desirable.

The proportion who said an abortion ban would make their state less desirable was higher for respondents aged 18 to 25 — clocking in at 42 percent — and those with a college degree.

The poll comes as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a dispute over a Mississippi state law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

A draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito on the case leaked in May showing a majority of justices was poised to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that protected abortion rights federally.

The Supreme Court is in the final weeks of its term with 13 decisions left, and the court is expected to release additional rulings on Thursday.

The White House is quietly preparing for the ruling, holding listening sessions with state officials, advocacy groups and other stakeholders on abortion rights regarding the legal barriers to abortion already in place in certain states.

But if the court overturns Roe, it may not reverse the headwinds Democrats face going into this year’s midterm elections.

The new poll found that two-thirds of respondents said the state of the economy mattered more than abortion rights, which was a bigger priority for 23 percent.

High inflation rates have plagued the Biden administration as the midterm elections approach, with inflation and the economy consistently ranking as top concerns for voters in recent polling. Concerns are also growing over a potential recession as the Federal Reserve rapidly raises interest rates to cool off demand and tame rising prices.

About 15 percent of voters in the USA Today-Suffolk survey indicated abortion was the most important issue to them. Forty-two percent also said they would vote for a candidate they disagreed with on abortion if they agreed with them on other issues, compared to 41 percent who said they would not.

Additionally, more than three-quarters of respondents — 77 percent — said a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe would have no effect on their likelihood to vote.

The pollsters conducted the survey of 1,000 registered voters between June 12 and June 15 over the phone. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.

Source: TEST FEED1

Israel’s government collapses — again. So, what now?

For the fifth time in four years, Israelis will return to the ballot box to vote for a new government. There is little indication that the next election will have a definitive result. Israelis may have to endure repeated elections beyond 2022 simply to get a slim majority to form a coalition government — and that has ramifications for the Middle East and U.S. interests. 

Israel is plagued by an electoral system that gives disproportionate influence to small parties, which usually are needed to get to the minimum threshold of 61 Knesset members to form a government. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so unfortunate if Israel didn’t have to deal with aggression by Iran and its proxy, Hamas. As Anna Ahronheim writes in the Jerusalem Post, “Israel cannot have both security and political instability. Israel’s enemies, be it in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, or the West Bank, are wide awake looking for an opportunity to strike.” 

Israel’s behind-the-scenes wars with Iran in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and with Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank, are off the radar for most Americans. In the north, Israel has been conducting the “War Between the Wars” to thwart Iranian entrenchment in Syria, stop the transfer of game-changing, precision-guided weapons and drones, and target Iranian-supported missile and drone factories. These operations potentially could spin out of control with a miscalculation, causing regional instability that affects American security interests.  

With the resurgence of Hamas-instigated terror operations in the West Bank, Israel has been preemptively conducting its “Break the Wave” operation to counter terrorist activity. But Hamas may see this time of Israeli political uncertainty as an opportunity to increase its attacks.

The political chaos is unfolding as President Biden plans to visit Israel in July. A few days ago, he thought he would be meeting with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, but now he likely will be meeting with foreign minister Yair Lapid as Bennett’s replacement. There is even a possibility that Defense Minister Benny Gantz could defect from the current coalition, swallow hard and rejoin former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom he had a falling out, in a new government to avoid elections. Biden has said that his mid-July trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel will be an attempt to bring “more stability and peace to the Middle East.”

Bennett comes from the Israeli right and Lapid from the center-left. The expectation is that Lapid may be more accepting of the Biden administration’s requests regarding the Palestinian Authority, the “two states for two peoples” solution, limiting settlement expansion, and America’s desire to reopen a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem. However, the Israeli electorate has leaned right since the Second Intifada, which began in September 2000, and likely would see such concessions as a betrayal. Most Israelis view the Palestinian Authority as a corrupt, unreliable partner, with a history of fomenting antisemitic ideology in textbooks, mosques and media. If Lapid makes concessions, he could be savaged by Israeli media and political opponents.  

The good news is that Israel’s military and security apparatus is apolitical and has decades of experience coordinating its tactical operations with the United States, even when its government has interim leadership. However, on a more significant geostrategic level, it is hard to make major decisions when you are a temporary prime minister. Israel’s moderate allies — the Gulf states, Egypt and Jordan — who are developing an American-initiated defense plan with Israel in response to Iran’s escalation, most assuredly would feel better if Israel’s political system were more stable. 

The messy Israeli democracy is hard for authoritarians to understand. To advance American policy interests, we need the Arab nations to deepen their relationships with Israel — as some have done with the Abraham Accords — as a counterweight to Iranian expansionism.  

As Dan Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, points out, U.S. officials “are used to conducting relations with Israel during political crises and election campaigns. The main principle is: Don’t interfere while Israel’s domestic political processes play out. Most normal business, particularly in security cooperation, can continue. While a minority government in Israel is fully empowered, in the case of elections, there may be some decisions a transition government in Israel cannot make.” 

The Biden administration reportedly is still trying to salvage an Iran nuclear deal — a reworking of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) forged under President Obama — and is keeping Israel abreast of the negotiations. However, Lapid’s political weakness may force him to take a tougher line with the U.S. Iran, as an enemy to the U.S., Israel and the West in general, seems in no hurry to rejoin the deal now, while U.S. sanctions against it are not fully enforced and the Iranian economy can stay afloat by selling oil to China — though competition with Russian oil exports recently has stepped up. 

Without secondary sanctions levied against China, Iran can continue to play hardball and undermine U.S. regional interests. Iran interpreted the U.S. not fully enforcing its sanctions not as a conciliatory gesture but as American weakness to be exploited. Expect Lapid or any Israeli prime minister to ask the U.S. to increase sanctions if Iran continues to develop its nuclear weapons program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently sanctioned Iran because it refuses to explain uranium found in undeclared nuclear sites, and Iran has removed cameras that were monitoring its nuclear facilities. If Iran reneges on its nuclear program commitments, only snap-back sanctions, as promised in the JCPOA, could possibly pressure Iran to change its behavior. Iran knows that America has no credible military threat, making the Iranians more stubborn in negotiations. 

There is broad support across the Israeli political spectrum for confronting Iran if it crosses the nuclear threshold — and it will be challenging for the Biden administration if Israel moves towards a significant military response.

American interests are also affected by Israel’s new confrontation with Russia in Syria. Until recently, Israel coordinated its air campaign against Iranian interests in Syria with Russia to avoid any Israeli-Russian conflict. Russia was working with Israel because it was in Russia’s interest to suppress Iranian entrenchment in Syria, since that could threaten Syrian stability. Last week, however, Israel bombed the Damascus Airport where Iran was transiting weapons, infuriating Russia. Taken to the worst extreme, this could escalate to an Israeli attack on Russian anti-missile systems if they were to be used against Israel, setting the region on fire. And with America’s plate full with the Russia-Ukraine war, the last thing Washington needs is a kinetic conflict between its primary ally in the Middle East and the Russian bear.  

The U.S.-Israel relationship will survive this political melodrama; the two democracies have navigated through similar challenges before and continued to coordinate their joint security approach to the region. But the situation is not ideal, by far — especially if an interim Israeli prime minister must make a significant decision that affects American national security interests in the coming months.

Dr. Eric R. Mandel is the director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Information Network. He regularly briefs members of Congress and their foreign policy aides. He is the senior security editor for the Jerusalem Report. Follow him on Twitter @MepinOrg.

Source: TEST FEED1

How long will this heat dome last?

(NEXSTAR) – A heat dome parked over the country has sent temperatures skyrocketing from Minneapolis to New Orleans. When will we see relief from the oppressive heat?

How soon your summer gets back to normal depends on where you live, explained Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

“For the areas west of the Mississippi, and even the Plains at this point, the worst of it is behind them – at least for this round,” Hurley said. But not everyone is so lucky.

On Tuesday, the hottest weather was found in the Midwest and Great Lakes Region. But starting Wednesday, those scorching temperatures would start to move further south, Hurley said. He expected the core of the heat dome Wednesday to be over Iowa, the Tennessee Valley, the lower Mississippi Valley, and the Southeast.

“The areas we’re most concerned about the next couple days are further south, like Alabama, Georgia and the Tennessee Valley, where we could see triple digit readings and record breaking highs,” Hurley said.

The coastal I-95 belt along the East Coast, from Maine down to Florida, was expected to be pleasant Wednesday, Hurley said. “But you won’t have to go too far west before you start getting into the heat,” he added, saying Pittsburgh was set to be in the 90s, for example.

Things shift again late Thursday into Friday. The Gulf Coast will still be hot, plus the Plains states will start to see temperatures ramp back up again. A band of unseasonably hot weather is forecast from Texas up the Dakotas, and Plains residents shouldn’t be surprised to have a widespread Heat Advisory issued later this week.

“In the latter part of the weekend, the heat will really start to press south and southeastward,” Hurley said. “By the time we get to Monday, temperatures are going to be very near normal over the southern tier.”

Monday is when the band of high pressure, or heat dome, over the U.S. will have shrunken away, leaving most parts of the country with the kind of summer heat they’re used to, the meteorologist said.

“It will just leave the southern tier, from the southern Plains through the deep South and the Carolinas with a lot of 90s and a sprinkling of 100s – but that’s very normal for this time of year.”

Source: TEST FEED1

We need a Women’s Bill of Rights

Earlier this month, Matt Walsh and The Daily Wire released a provocative documentary, “What Is a Woman?” The film is both a humorous and serious examination of a question we shouldn’t have to ask.

But ask it, we must. Because in America today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to talk about women’s rights in a common language.

Although most Americans still understand that a “woman” is an adult human female, gender ideologues want to redefine womanhood as a subjective state distinct from — and more important than — biological sex.

Up to this point, public attention on this issue has largely focused on the athletic arena and, in particular, on college swimmer Lia Thomas, a fully-intact male who previously competed on the University of Pennsylvania men’s team — and who dominated the women’s NCAA swimming championship. The female athletes competing against Thomas faced tremendous physical disadvantages: They were smaller, had less muscle mass, and less lung capacity. The public overwhelmingly recognized that the competition was unfair. The female athletes absorbed another message: Their bodies aren’t good enough to compete against even a hormonally impaired male and it may not be worth competing at all.

Our failure to legally define the word “woman” harms more than just female athletes. It makes available to biological men academic and other opportunities specifically designed to empower females. And it jeopardizes previously uncontroversial single-sex spaces, such as dorm rooms, sororities, locker rooms, correctional facilities and rape crisis centers.

To make matters worse, the women and girls who do not consent to these practices have been threatened, coerced and shamed into silence and submission. So much for consent.

All too frequently, the corruption of sex-based language is happening by administrative or judicial fiat, without the consent of the political branches or the people themselves. By redefining the word “sex” to mean “gender” or “gender identity,” unelected officials are rewriting laws that prohibit unjust sex discrimination to require unjust discrimination against women.

That’s why our organizations have joined forces to create a Women’s Bill of Rights, model legislation that would codify the common understanding of the words “female,” “woman” and “sex.”

The Women’s Bill of Rights does not create special rights for women. It doesn’t replace the Bill of Rights to our Constitution or create any entitlements. It simply clarifies the meaning of current sex-based laws and codifies longstanding precedent regarding single-sex spaces.

Unlike the outdated and long-expired Equal Rights Amendment, our Women’s Bill of Rights recognizes that there are important reasons to distinguish between the sexes when biology, safety and/or privacy are implicated. And it affirms that policies and laws that distinguish between the sexes are subject to intermediate constitutional scrutiny, which forbids unfair discrimination against similarly-situated males and females but allows the law to recognize sex differences in certain circumstances.

Although we call the model legislation the Women’s Bill of Rights in order to call attention to the many ways in which redefining sex disproportionately harms women, it is not just women’s rights and equal opportunity that are at stake: The legal redefinition of basic sex-based terms also threatens freedom of speech, accurate data collection, parental rights and scientific integrity.

Recognizing these threats, a group of federal legislators has introduced a version of our Women’s Bill of Rights as a bipartisan congressional resolution. Were it to pass, the congressional Women’s Bill of Rights would not prevent Congress or the states from enacting legislation to protect people based on characteristics such as “gender identity.” But it would prevent unelected bureaucrats or judges from twisting current law to accomplish through the back door what Congress lacks the political support to do via the democratic process. 

The resolution would require gender advocates to be transparent about their objectives and persuade the public, not simply impose their will through a linguistic sleight of hand. Most importantly, it would ensure that women have the language they need to advocate for themselves in law and in policy without having to pretend that biological sex differences don’t exist.

Matt Walsh is asking an important question. The Women’s Bill of Rights has the answer. And every elected official and candidate for office should tell us where they stand.

Jennifer C. Braceras is director of Independent Women’s Law Center. Lauren Adams is legal director of the Women’s Liberation Front.

Source: TEST FEED1