United Nations, Jan 17 (Prensa Latina) The United Nations’ human rights office urged Alabama to halt its first planned execution of an inmate by nitrogen gas, warning Tuesday that an execution using the method could amount to torture.

Kenneth Eugene Smith, prisoner in Alabama, is expected to be executed Jan. 25 by nitrogen hypoxia, in which an individual is being deprived of the oxygen needed to maintain bodily functions. Nitrogen constitutes 78% of the air inhaled by humans and is harmless if inhaled with oxygen.

The U.N. Human Rights Office is “alarmed” by the planned execution and contends the method could amount “to torture, or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international human rights law,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the office, said.

Shamdasani pointed out that nitrogen gas has never been used as an execution method in the U.S. and that Alabama has no provision for sedation prior to employing the method, even though large animals are often sedated when executed using nitrogen gas.

“We have serious concerns that Smith’s execution in these circumstances could breach the prohibition on torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, as well as his right to effective remedies,” Shamdasani wrote, pointing out these rights are outlined in two international human rights treaties the U.S. is bound by.

She also noted Smith’s appeal and related federal court proceedings have not been completely solved.

While the method is authorized in three states — Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama — Smith’s slated execution would mark the first execution in the U.S. carried out by nitrogen hypoxia. A federal judge ruled last week that the execution can go on as planned, rejecting Smtih’s injunction request.

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled last year the Yellowhammer State can execute an inmate with nitrogen hypoxia, in response to the state attorney general’s request for Smith’s execution.

Smith is one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett in Alabama’s Colbert County.

Those in support of the nitrogen gas method have contended executions using it are painless, and the Alabama attorney general said last year that Sennett’s family has waited “an unconscionable 35 years to see justice served.”

Shamdasani’s remarks come after a panel of U.N. experts — part of the Human Rights Council’s special procedures program — warned earlier this month that the execution method is “untested” and poses the risk of “grave suffering.”

In expressing her concern, Shamdasani further argued the death penalty is “inconsistent with the fundamental right to life,” and called for the U.S. to suspend capital punishment as a whole.

Chae Hui Chol has been approved as ambassador to West African country

Burkina Faso plans to resume diplomatic relations with North Korea, the country’s Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday.

The decision will allow the two countries "to maintain exemplary bilateral cooperation in several areas," Foreign Affairs Minister Olivia Rouamba said at the end of a Council of Ministers meeting.

The West African nation suspended relations with North Korea in 2017 to conform to UN Security Council sanctions over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

Rouamba said the governments of Burkina Faso and North Korea will reportedly be focusing on military equipment, mining, healthcare, agriculture and research

The Burkinabe government has also approved the appointment of a North Korean ambassador to Burkina Faso.

Chae Hui Chol, has been approved as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to Burkina Faso, with residence in Dakar, Senegal, according to a statement from the Ministerial Council.

In the past, Burkina Faso has maintained "very good relations with this country, which was a privileged partner during the period of the August 1983 Revolution," said Rouamba.

The government officially cut off relations in 2017 using a provision recommended by the United Nations to all its member states in its sanctions resolution against Pyongyang.

Faced with a security crisis fueled since 2015 by terrorist attacks, Burkina Faso, under the leadership of Capt. Ibrahim Traore, the leader of the ruling junta, decided to diversify its partnerships to strengthen the fight against terrorism. In January, the transitional authorities broke a military agreement with France, its former colonist.

This is "a way of asserting its authority by contracting diplomatic relations with countries unconsidered by France," Regis Hounkpe, a pan-African expert in geostrategy, told Anadolu.​​​​​​​

The fight against terrorism and the need to face it by its own means or military cooperation is only an additional element of the distancing from France, he said.

Regulators shut down Signature Bank after its shares plunged in the wake of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure

New York-based Signature Bank was shut down by US regulators on Sunday, becoming the third failure in the country’s banking industry in less than a week.

According to a joint statement from the Federal Reserve, US Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the lender “was closed by its state chartering authority.”

The statement from the regulators was issued to announce a new emergency program to protect depositors of failing banks. They explained that they would make a “systemic risk exception” for both Signature and Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a tech and start-up focused lender that was shut down following a bank run last week, allowing the clients of both banks to have full access to their deposits.

“[SVB] depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13… We are announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank… all depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer,” the regulators said, adding that they would use the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund to fully protect all depositors, both insured and uninsured.

Signature was a big lender to the crypto industry. As of December 31, it had $110.4 billion in total assets and $88.6 billion in total deposits, according to a securities filing. New York state officials said the move to close the bank was made “in light of market events” in a bid to protect bank clients and the financial system. In the wake of SVB’s collapse last week, Signature also saw its shares plunge following deposits outflows.

The collapse of Signature is the third significant failure in the US banking industry within the past week. California-based, crypto-focused Silvergate was the first to announce its impending liquidation last Wednesday, followed by the SVB implosion on Friday – the largest US bank collapse since the financial crisis of 2008. Bank failures sparked concerns over the health of the entire US banking system, with many other lenders seeing their stocks plunge.

A report released Thursday by the Anti-Defamation League asserts that in 2022 every “extremist” mass killing in the United States was committed by “right-wing extremists of various kinds.” Of the at least 25 mass murders last year classified by the ADL as “extremist,” the organization concludes that 21 were linked directly to “white supremacists.”

This figure, while slightly less than the 33 documented “extremist” murders in 2021, is more than the 22 recorded in 2020. The ADL found that 84 percent of the killings were linked to “white supremacy,” 8 percent were linked to anti-government/QAnon extremism and another 8 percent to “other” right-wing extremism. Ninety percent of the killings in 2022 were committed with a firearm.

While right-wing extremists every year make up a vast majority of the “extremist-related” killings in the United States, 2022 appears to be the first year the ADL did not record any by alleged “left-wing” extremism. It should be noted that the ADL’s incorrect definition of “left-wing” extremism includes “Black nationalism,” a political ideology that defends the nation-state and capitalist system on a racialist program.

Importantly, all of the “extremist” mass murders identified by the ADL in the US in 2022 were committed by fascists who either had direct connections to the Republican Party, or were inspired by anti-immigrant ideology, one of many important facts omitted in the 36-page report.

The ADL report noted that the largest mass right-wing massacre in the US last year was the grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York in May, committed by neo-Nazi Petyon Gendron. Earlier this month the 19-year-old white supremacist was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of murdering 10 people and injuring three more, all African Americans.

In a 180-page manifesto posted online by Gendron hours before the attack, the fascist terrorist laid out his assassination plans and revealed he was an adherent of the “Replacement Theory,” which posits that Jews, including Holocaust survivor George Soros, are conspiring with the Democratic Party and other institutions to replace the “white race” in the United States with “lesser” races from South America, Asia and Africa.

“Jews are the biggest problem the Western world has ever had,” Gendron wrote, “They must be called out and killed…”

Anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic and other fascist agitation has emerged as the dominant feature of Republican and right-wing rhetoric since Trump’s 2016 campaign. An April 2022 investigation by the New York Times found that in “more than 400 episodes” of his program on Fox News, Tucker Carlson “amplified the idea that a cabal of elites want to force demographic change.” On their programs, Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro have likewise claimed that the Democratic Party is engaged in a plan to “replace” American citizens with “illegals” and “migrants.”

In reality, Biden and the Democrats have adapted virtually all of Trump and the Republicans’ immigration policies, including new measures aimed at preventing refugees from applying for asylum if they enter the US from Mexico.

Despite the Democrats’ anti-immigrant policies, nearly every week, neo-Nazis, Proud Boys or another fascist group is publicly protesting and intimidating LGBTQ persons, Jews, drag shows or alleged communists/socialists. On February 17, neo-Nazis of the Goyim Defense League (GDL) harassed and intimidated Jewish people outside the Chabad of South Orlando in Florida.

In a video posted on social media, GDL founder Jon Minadeo and his small group of Nazi followers insult Jews and threaten their extermination.

Ron DeSantis, aspiring Republican 2024 presidential nominee and Florida governor, has yet to publicly denounce any of the numerous neo-Nazi demonstrations held in Florida since he took office in 2018. The ADL noted that in 2021 Florida had the third most documented anti-Semitic demonstrations, 190, nearly double the 98 recorded in 2017.

The second largest “extremist” mass killing identified by the ADL was at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado on November 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, when Anderson Lee Aldrich, the son of former California Assemblyman Randy Voepel, a supporter of former President Donald Trump’s failed coup, killed five people and injured 17 at the LGBTQ nightclub.

Notably, the ADL report does not include the July 4, 2022 Highland Park Massacre committed by Trump supporter Robert Crimo III, which killed seven people and wounded 48 more. The ADL claims that while they found “bigoted” posts made by Crimo online, they did not “uncover sufficient evidence to confirm any extremist motivation.”

The WSWS has, however, published several articles detailing Crimo’s embrace of anti-Semitic and fascistic ideology. In addition to being a raging anti-Semite, Crimo is an avid Trump supporter, another fact omitted in the ADL report.

Online videos and multiple reports have confirmed that in 2020 Crimo attended four Trump rallies, including a December 7 “Stop the Steal” rally in which one local resident described seeing Crimo with his friends “doing Nazi salutes and screaming statements that they ‘refused to accept a socialist-communist America ... and wouldn’t rest until the Antifa scum and Black Lives Matter monkeys get put in their place.’”

The central role of Trump and the Republican Party in promoting fascist terrorist violence is absent in the ADL’s report. The word “Republican” is mentioned only once, with no link established to right-wing violence. “Donald Trump,” “fascism,” “fascist,” and “Fox News” do not appear at all in the document. The events of January 6 are mentioned in passing once, and never referred to as a right-wing coup orchestrated by Trump and his Republican allies in Congress, the police, military, intelligence agencies and the Supreme Court.

That the ADL does not draw an explicit connection between right-wing mass murders and the Republican Party is revealing. The ADL is closely linked to the Democratic Party and, like the Democrats, seeks to whitewash the ongoing transformation of one of the two main political parties in the US into a fascist political organization.

Abdul and Mohammed Rabbani, arrested from Karachi in 2002, are the latest inmates to be released from US custody.

Two Pakistani brothers held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay military prison for two decades have been freed by US officials and have returned home, officials said.

Abdul, 55, and Mohammed Rabbani, 53, will be reunited with their families after a formal questioning by Pakistani authorities, security officials and a Pakistani senator said on Friday.

The two brothers arrived at an airport in the capital, Islamabad, on Friday. Pakistani Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan, the chairman of the human rights committee in the upper house of Pakistan’s parliament, tweeted that the two brothers had reached Islamabad airport.

Khan said the men were “innocently imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for 21 years”.

“There was no trial, no court proceedings, no charges against them. Congratulations on their release. Thank you Senate of Pakistan,” he wrote on Twitter.

Khan later told The Associated Press that the brothers were being sent to Karachi, the capital of southern Sindh province, where they lived with their families. He said he hoped the men will be reunited with their families soon.

They were the latest inmates to be released from US custody as the country moves towards emptying and shutting down the prison.

The George W Bush administration set it up at a naval base in Cuba for suspects rounded up after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

The releases come months after a 75-year-old Pakistani, Saifullah Paracha, was freed from the Guantanamo Bay prison.

The two brothers were originally transferred to US custody after Pakistani officials arrested them in their home city of Karachi in 2002. US officials accused the two of helping al-Qaeda members with housing and other lower-level logistical support.

The brothers alleged torture while in CIA custody before being transferred to Guantanamo. US military records describe the two as providing little intelligence of value or recanting statements made during interrogations on the grounds they were obtained by physical abuse.

The US military announced their repatriation in a statement. It gave no immediate information on any conditions set by Pakistan regarding their return there.

“The United States appreciates the willingness of the Government of Pakistan and other partners to support ongoing US efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the defence department said.

On Friday, a close family friend of the two brothers told the AP that Pakistani authorities had formally informed the brothers’ family about the release and their return to Pakistan.

The family friend, who is Pakistani and refused to be identified for security reasons, said the younger Rabbani learned painting during his detention at Guantanamo Bay, and that he was expected to bring with him some of those paintings.

He said Ahmed Rabbani frequently went on hunger strikes and prison officials fed him through a tube. He said the man remained on the nutritional supplements.

Guantanamo at its peak in 2003 held about 600 people whom the US considered “terrorists”. Supporters of using the detention facility for such figures contend it prevented attacks.

But critics say the military detention and courts subverted human rights and constitutional rights, and undermined US standing abroad.

Thirty-two detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay, including 18 eligible for transfer if stable third-party countries can be found to take them, the Pentagon said.

Many are from Yemen, a country considered too plagued with war and armed groups, and too devoid of services for freed Yemeni prisoners to be sent there.

Nine of the inmates are defendants in slow-moving military-run tribunals. Two others have been convicted.

Bad weather and high energy costs may result in tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers disappearing from shelves

The UK’s largest grocer, Tesco, has joined rivals Asda, Morrisons and Aldi by slapping limits on purchases of salad vegetables due to supply shortages, the company announced on Wednesday.

Tesco said it decided to limit the sales of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers to three per person. The company noted that it was introducing these limits as a precautionary measure, in order to ensure that more people get the goods they need.

Budget supermarket chain Aldi has also placed a “temporary” three-item limit on these vegetables. Asda capped purchase limits to three per person on eight products, including broccoli and raspberries, while Morrisons limited purchases to two per person on four products, including broccoli.

Analysts say the current troubles stem from two reasons. Firstly, suppliers in Morocco and Spain, the UK's biggest sources of fresh vegetables in the winter, have been suffering from cold temperatures, rain and flooding over the past month, which disrupted harvests and halted deliveries. Secondly, the UK’s own farmers have been struggling to power their greenhouses due to rising energy prices.

According to the British Retail Consortium, which represents all the major UK supermarkets, supply constraints are likely to last a “few weeks,” until the growing season kicks off and shops find alternative suppliers. The UK’s secretary of state for environment, Theresa Coffey, suggested on Thursday that British shoppers should switch to turnips and other seasonal UK vegetables instead of pining for overseas tomatoes.

“A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about aspects of lettuce, and tomatoes and similar.

“But I’m conscious that consumers want a year-round choice and that is what our supermarkets, food producers and growers around the world try to satisfy,” she stated.

Meanwhile, industry experts warn there may be price increases as a result of the shortages in the coming weeks. It comes as food prices in the UK are already rising at their fastest rate in over 40 years, having jumped 16.8% year-on-year in December.

Atomic Heart’s “sublime utopian world” was accused of glorifying the USSR

‘Atomic Heart’, a video game set in an alternate 1950s Soviet Union, topped the charts on the Steam digital sales platform upon its release on Tuesday. The title briefly held the number one spot despite not being available to Russian users of the service.

Developed by the Cyprus-based studio Mundfish, ‘Atomic Heart’ managed to briefly dethrone ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ as the top-selling title on Steam, which is the biggest digital distribution platform for PC gaming. The new release soon slipped to a still-formidable second place in the charts, yielding to the overwhelming popularity of the Harry Potter franchise.

‘Atomic Heart’ is a first-person shooter that puts the player in the shoes of a KGB agent “in a mad and sublime utopian world” of an alternate history USSR, shown as a technological wonder of robotics, albeit with a dark conspiracy brewing. The game’s unique retrofuturistic Soviet dystopia aesthetic has been cited as one of its main draws, although the style has also opened the game up to political controversy.

Ukrainian YouTuber 'Harenko' claimed that ‘Atomic Heart’ glorifies the Soviet Union and the KGB, and called on Western players to boycott it. However, multiple American content creators discarded that notion, citing the subversive nature of ‘Atomic Heart’ as a commentary on Cold War propaganda. Some also criticized developer Mundfish – many of whose staff are Russian – for not taking a stance on the conflict in Ukraine. The developers tweeted in January that they “do not comment on politics or religion” and are a “global team.”

YouTube game critic Luke Stephens argued on Friday that boycott calls appeared to mean that “a lot of people are simply engaging in McCarthyism, dismissing this studio, because it has Russians working within it.” He added that this kind of logic was “a slippery slope.”

The game’s success on Steam cannot be attributed to Russian users, as the digital storefront suspended sales in the country in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. By EarthWeb estimates, there are around 11.5 million Russian users on the platform. Instead, ‘Atomic Heart’ is available for purchase in the country via a service called VK Play.

‘Atomic Heart’ was positively received by critics, with review aggregator Open Critic currently listing it as 74/100 and its Metacritic score standing at 75/100.

In an effort to combat global climate change and extreme weather patterns which have caused severe human and property losses, Vietnam is resolved to plant 1 billion trees in the 2021-2025 period.

Under Directive No. 03/CT-TTg on tasks after the 2023 Tet (Lunar New Year) holidays, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh called for efforts in tree planting and forestation, and asked localities to step up the fight against wildfires by increasing forest protection.

Since it was launched by late President Ho Chi Minh in 1959, the tree planting campaign has become a fine tradition of the entire Party, people and army every spring.

Speaking at the annual tree planting festival at K9-Da Chong relic site, Hanoi’s outlying district of Ba Vi, on January 27, the sixth day of the Year of the Cat, PM Chinh stressed that Vietnam’s forest coverage expanded from 28% in 1990 to over 42% in 2022, absorbing over 70 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The leader highlighted Vietnam's commitment to achieve the net zero emission target by 2050 and expressed his belief that this year’s tree planting campaign will produce positive achievements, helping the country deliver its commitment and contributing to national development.

The northern mountainous province of Tuyen Quang has taken the lead nationwide in forest protection and forest-based economic development, with forest land accounting for 76% of its natural land and forest coverage reaching over 65%.

In his remarks at a tree planting festival launch ceremony in Truong Son commune, Chan Son district, Yen Son commune, Tuyen Quang province, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue expressed his belief that the province will reap better results in the efforts, contributing to building a green Vietnam with sustainable development.

Northern and north-central localities have launched the tree planting campaign every spring while those in southern, south-central and Central Highlands regions start the work the occasion of President Ho Chi Minh’s birthday (May 19), depending on their cultivation schedules.

Localities such as Hung Yen, Hoa Binh and Phu Tho have also actively responded to the call.

Of the 1 billion trees to be planted by the end of 2025, 690 million will be grown in urban and rural areas, and the rest in protected, special, and production forests.

The project aims to protect the ecosystem, improve the scenery, respond to climate change, boost socio-economic development, improve the quality of people's life, and foster the sustainable growth of the country. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has been tasked to be in charge of the work and cooperate with the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment, and authorities of centrally-run provinces and cities to build related annual and five-year plans./.