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Prime Minister Theresa May has invited the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to London, according to reports.
Prime Minister Theresa May has invited the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, to London, according to reports.
Her visit comes amid a speeding up of executions in Saudi Arabia under the Crown Prince's leadership. Research by human rights organization Reprieve shows that 142 people were executed in Saudi Arabia this year. Around 70% of these executions were carried out after Mohammed bin Salman took power in June this year.
Reprieve has raised concerns for 14 political protesters whose death sentences were upheld over summer, and who face imminent execution. The 14 were convicted on the basis of 'confessions' extracted through torture. Among them is a disabled man, Munir al-Adam, and a juvenile, Mujtaba al-Sweikat. Mujtaba is one of six juveniles who face execution in the Kingdom on charges relating to protests.
The Crown Prince has also faced criticism over sweeping new counter-terrorism provisions signed in November.
Commenting, Maya Foa, Director of Reprieve, said:
"Theresa May has invited Mohammed bin Salman to Britain amid a wave of repression in Saudi Arabia. Despite the Crown Prince's rhetoric of reform, the reality is that on his watch, executions have sped up, dissent has been criminalised, and juvenile protesters are facing the swordsman's blade. The Prime Minister has talked about promoting British values in the wake of Brexit - she must show she means it, by calling on MBS to release juvenile protesters from death row."
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
"Palestinians don't just die, they get killed. They are actually being subjected to ethnic cleansing, to genocide for the last 75 years."
A U.K.-based Palestinian journalist took a Sky News presenter to task during a weekend interview in which the 23-year-old Gaza native challenged the Western media's misleading framing, double standards, and lack of critical context during coverage of Israel's war on the Gazan people.
Yara Eid—who is from Gaza City but lives in Edinburgh—pushed back after the Sky newsreader said that "it has been two weeks since Hamas first launched its attack on Israel that saw 1,400 people killed," and "since then, Palestinian officials say more than 4,000 people have died in Gaza."
Eid noted that the presenter referred to the Israelis murdered by Palestinian militants as being "killed," while describing Gazans slain by Israeli bombs, missiles, and artillery as having "died."
"I think language is really important to use because, as a journalist, you have the moral responsibility to report on what's happening," she said.
"Palestinians don't just die, they get killed," Eid stressed. "They are actually being subjected to ethnic cleansing, to genocide for the last 75 years."
"And you also mentioned that this is a Hamas-Israel war. This is not it," she said. "And framing it as such is very misleading because it poses the thing that Israel is an equal power, but it's an occupying power and it has the responsibility of protecting all civilian lives and children in Gaza."
"You need, as a journalist, to report on what's happening and say it as it is," Eid asserted.
Eid shared that 30 members of her immediate family—including 17 children—were killed by Israeli occupation forces.
The young journalist also said her best friend, Ain Media photographer Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi, was shot dead by Israeli troops. He is one of at least 20 journalists and 35 United Nations personnel who have been killed by Israeli bombs or bullets since the start of the war.

Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed nearly 5,100 people in Gaza, including more than 2,000 children, while wounding over 15,000 others, destroying almost 170,000 homes, and displacing around 1.4 million residents in what many experts have called a genocidal campaign.
Sky News was forced to apologize over the weekend after another host, Kay Burley, falsely claimed that a guest, Palestinian Ambassador to the U.K. Husam Zomlot, justified the Hamas attack by saying that "Israel had it coming."
The Senate HELP Committee chair noted that "the apparent abuse of the system... is so egregious that it has been characterized as a 'how-to-become-a-billionaire program run by the NIH.'"
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday called for an inspector general investigation into an effort to grant a company tied to an ex-government employee an exclusive patent license for a cancer treatment produced with public resources, as revealed last week by The American Prospect.
Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, demanded a probe of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) patent proposal in a letter to Christi Grimm, inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"I am growing increasingly alarmed that not only has the NIH abdicated its authority to ensure that the new drugs it helps develop are reasonably priced, it may actually be exceeding its authority to grant monopoly licenses to pharmaceutical companies that charge the American people, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs," Sanders wrote. "One particularly egregious example has recently been brought to my attention that I believe demands your immediate attention."
Human papillomavirus (HPV) can lead to six types of cancer and is responsible for "virtually all cervical cancer," according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Last month, NIH proposed granting Scarlet TCR a patent for a T-cell therapy for HPV, which has already gone through a Phase I trial and has a Phase II trial set to wrap up in 2025.
Prospect executive editor David Dayen spoke with James Love of Knowledge Ecology International, a group that tracks drug patent issues and is formally opposing the proposal for Kingston, New Jersey-based Scarlet TCR, which was incorporated in Delaware earlier this year.
As Dayen detailed last week:
After doing some digging, Love traced Scarlet TCR to a former senior investigator and research scholar for immunology with the National Cancer Institute (a division of the NIH) named Christian Hinrichs, who now works at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. The Rutgers campus in New Brunswick is about 12 miles from Kingston, New Jersey, and the mascot of the university is the Scarlet Knight, which could explain Scarlet TCR. Hinrichs also disclosed a financial relationship with Scarlet TCR at a recent American Association for Cancer Research meeting.
The extent of that relationship is unknown. While Love presumes that Hinrichs is either the creator of Scarlet TCR or one of its principal executives, the NIH would not confirm Hinrichs' role to Love, and offered essentially no information about the company. The Prospect attempted to contact the NIH about Scarlet TCR and Hinrichs as well, and did not receive a response. Hinrichs also did not respond to a request for comment.
Dayen also noted that Sanders' office "did not respond when asked if the Scarlet TCR license would be an issue in congressional hearings."
The reporting was published the same day that Sanders held a confirmation hearing for Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, who currently leads NCI but has been nominated by President Joe Biden to direct NIH. Sanders—who earlier this year held up nominations to pressure the administration to take more action on lowering drug prices—has scheduled a panel vote on Bertagnolli for Wednesday.
Sanders did not directly cite the Prospect in his letter to Grimm, but he wrote that "the apparent abuse of the system by the NIH with respect to the exclusive patent license for this cancer therapy is so egregious that it has been characterized as a 'how-to-become-a-billionaire program run by the NIH,'" which is a remark Love made to Dayen.
"Under the Bayh-Dole Act, the NIH is only supposed to provide an exclusive license to a private company on government-owned inventions when the monopoly would be a 'reasonable and necessary incentive' to help advance the product," Sanders stressed. "There does not appear to be anything reasonable and necessary about granting a monopoly for a treatment that was invented, manufactured, and tested by the NIH, is already in late stage trials, and could potentially enrich a former NIH employee who was one of the major government researchers of this treatment."
"Based on current law and the best interest of U.S. taxpayers who paid for this cancer therapy, it would seem to make more sense for the NIH to offer nonexclusive licenses so that multiple manufacturers can produce this important cancer therapy at reasonable and affordable prices," he asserted. "The NIH should be doing everything within its authority to lower the outrageously high price of prescription drugs. It should not be granting a monopoly on a promising taxpayer-funded therapy that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer patients in a way that appears to exceed its statutory authority."
"Today is a moment we have been fighting for for nearly 45 years," said Sen. Ed Markey. "We can see a future where we will no longer be manufacturing, processing, and distributing a chemical known to be deadly."
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday proposed to prohibit all uses of the industrial solvent trichloroethylene, a move cheered by environmental and public health defenders, as well as progressive politicians who support banning the widely used neurotoxin.
The EPA describes trichloroethylene (TCE) as "an extremely toxic chemical known to cause serious health risks including cancer, neurotoxicity, and reproductive toxicity" that is "used in cleaning and furniture care products, degreasers, brake cleaners, and tire repair sealants."
The agency's proposed ban under the Toxic Substances Control Act "would protect people from these health risks by banning the manufacture, processing, and distribution of TCE" for nearly all uses. The chemical and battery industries have fought against prohibition.
"The science is loud and clear," EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Assistant Administrator Michal Freedhoff said at a Monday press conference announcing the proposed ban. "This chemical is so dangerous, even in small amounts, that we don't think any uses can safely continue."
"For far too long, TCE has left a toxic legacy in communities across America," Freedhoff continued. "Today, EPA is taking a major step to protect people from exposure to this cancer-causing chemical. Today's proposal to end these unsafe, unrestricted uses of TCE will prevent future contamination to land and drinking water and deliver the chemical safety protections this nation deserves."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) was joined at a Monday press conference in Woburn, Massachusetts by activist Anne Anderson, whose 12-year-old son Jimmy died of acute lymphocytic leukemia in 1981. Markey hailed Anderson's work while remembering "all those kids who didn't stand a chance against toxic chemical pollution."
"Today is a moment we have been fighting for for nearly 45 years—the banning of TCE," he said. "We can see a future where we will no longer be manufacturing, processing, and distributing a chemical known to be deadly."
"We will no longer be exposing American families, communities, and workers to a toxic chemical legacy that leaves questions, cancer, and catastrophe in its wake," the senator added.
Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, a senior attorney at the environmental legal advocacy group Earthjustice, said in a statement that the "EPA followed the science, listened to impacted communities, and proposed one of the strongest chemical regulations in recent history."
"Some chemicals are simply too harmful to remain on the market," he added. "TCE—which causes cancer, fetal heart defects, Parkinson's disease, and other devastating effects—is one of them."
Scott Faber, senior vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group (EWG), said that the "EPA is once again putting the health of workers and consumers first."
"EWG applauds this move to ban most uses of TCE," Faber added.
If approved, the ban would begin in one year for consumer products and most commercial uses, while implementing "stringent worker protections on the limited remaining commercial and industrial uses that would be phased down over a longer period."
The EPA noted that the proposal advances U.S. President Joe Biden's Cancer Breakthroughs 2020—also known as the Cancer Moonshot—a sweeping effort to develop vaccine-based immunotherapies against an affliction that, according to the World Health Organization, kills nearly 10 million people around the world each year, according to the World Health Organization.
"Today, EPA is taking a vital step in our efforts to advance President Biden's Cancer Moonshot and protect people from cancer and other serious health risks," EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe said in a statement. "The science is loud and clear on TCE. It is a dangerous toxic chemical and proposing to ban it will protect families, workers, and communities."