September, 19 2011, 12:25pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Palestinian UN Bid and Uniting for Peace
The Wall Street Journal reports in "Palestinian UN Move Options at UN Lead to Legal Threat to Israel's Military," that: "If the Palestinian Authority succeeds in winning even an incremental upgrade of its status at the UN, it could subject Israel's military to international courts for actions in Palestinian territory -- as well as allow Palestinian control of its Israeli-patrolled air space and national waters off Gaza.
WASHINGTON
The Wall Street Journal reports in "Palestinian UN Move Options at UN Lead to Legal Threat to Israel's Military," that: "If the Palestinian Authority succeeds in winning even an incremental upgrade of its status at the UN, it could subject Israel's military to international courts for actions in Palestinian territory -- as well as allow Palestinian control of its Israeli-patrolled air space and national waters off Gaza.
"Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Friday he would seek full U.N. membership through the Security Council. If the U.S. vetoes that effort, as it has vowed to do, the Palestinians have a second option for membership: go to the General Assembly.
"Francis Boyle, a legal adviser to Mr. Abbas, told The Wall Street Journal that he has advised the Palestinian president to take this step, which is made possible through a resolution, known as Uniting for Peace, that was introduced by the U.S. in 1950 to circumvent repeated Soviet vetoes of Security Council measures to help South Korea battle the North."
Reports indicate President Obama will be meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sometime before Wednesday when Obama is scheduled to speak at the UN. Reuters is reporting: "Abbas has said he will present the request for full UN membership during his speech to the General Assembly on Friday."
FRANCIS BOYLE, fboyle at law.uiuc.edu
Professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign and author of "Palestine, Palestinians, and International Law," Boyle said today: "Many have claimed that if the U.S. does indeed veto the Palestinian UN bid, the only option would be for the Palestinians to pursue upgrading Palestine's current observer status at the UN. This is incorrect. As Palestinian diplomats have recently noted, they can get the UN General Assembly to admit Palestine as a UN member state pursuant to the terms of its Uniting for Peace Resolution 377 (1950). So Obama's veto at the Security Council can be circumvented by the General Assembly through the Uniting for Peace Resolution."
Boyle was also legal advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization and Chairman Yasser Arafat on the Palestinian Declaration of Independence of Nov. 15, 1988, as well as to the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace negotiations and its chair, Dr. Haidar Abdul Shaffi, from 1991 to 1993.
See background on Uniting for Peace at the UN webpage
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
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Dozens of scientists are calling in no uncertain terms for a halt on research to create "mirror life," particularly "mirror bacteria" that could "pose ecological risks" and possibly cause "pervasive lethal infections in a substantial fraction of the plant and animal species, including humans."
The group of 38 scientists, who include Nobel laureates and other experts, addressed research into "mirror life"—mirror-image biological molecules—in a piece of commentary published in the journal Science published Friday, which accompanied a technical report that was released earlier in December.
One of the scientists, synthetic biologist Kate Adamala at the University of Minnesota, was working on creating a mirror cell but "changed track last year" after studying the risks, according to the Guardian.
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To that end, the authors of the commentary plan to convene discussions on the risks of mirror life and related topics in 2025, with the hope that "society at large will take a responsible approach to managing a technology that might pose unprecedented risks."
The ability to create mirror life is likely over a decade away and would require sizable investment and technical progress, meaning the world has the opportunity to "preempt risks before they are realized," according to the scientists.
When broken down into simple terms, mirror life sounds like something out of science fiction. All the biomolecules that constitute life have a "handedness" to them—"right-handed" nucleotides make up DNA and RNA, and proteins are formed from "left-handed" amino acids.
"So when we're talking about mirror-image life, it's kind of like a 'what if' experiment: What if we constructed life with right-handed proteins instead of left-handed proteins? Something that would be very, very similar to natural life, but doesn't exist in nature. We call this mirror-image life or mirror life," explained to Michael Kay, a professor of biochemistry at University of Utah's medical school.
Some scientists like Kay are interested in the medical possibilities of mirror-image therapeutics—which Kay says holds potential for treating chronic illness in a more cost-effective way—but both he and the authors of the recently published commentary are concerned about the potential threats posed by mirror bacteria.
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While publicly pledging to cooperate with reform efforts, Witty has defended his company's care denials in private and urged his employees not to engage with media outlets in the aftermath of Thompson's murder.
Contrary to Witty's depiction of his company in his Times op-ed, UnitedHealth has historically been an aggressive opponent of reform efforts aimed at mitigating the harms of for-profit insurance and building public alternatives. The Leverreported in 2021 that UnitedHealth Group "held a webinar to pressure its rank-and-file employees to mobilize against efforts in Connecticut to create a state-level public health insurance option."
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