Abascal, the leader of Spain's far-right party, went to Argentina to congratulate the new right-wing president Milei, and there in an interview indirectly compared Prime Minister Sánchez of Spain to a dictator, by hinting that Spain would someday wish to kill him as Italians killed the fascist dictator Mussolini.

His statement was typical right-wing bullshit, accusing left-wing leaders of the very wrongs that right-wing leaders are visibly doing. Their tactics are the road to fascist dictatorship.

What worries me is the idea of prosecuting the statement as "incitement to violence." The statement in question predicts a desire for violence, but doesn't actually urge violence.

It's clear that Abascal's statement was meant to encourage right-wing hatred that his party is based on, and clear that such hatred sometimes spills out as physical violence. Abascal surely knows this.

But I am still afraid that criminalizing such statements will become a form of repression. Compare this with the widespread state-supported effort to cast the protests against Israel's lightly veiled mass murder in Gaza as "support for terrorism". Protesters in the UK have been threatened with prosecution for "glorifying terrorism" based on statements in support of Palestinians. That is directly comparable to the prosecution of Abascal.

It is also an exaggeration comparable to Abascal's own exaggeration. (A controversial coalition agreement is not tantamount to becoming a dictator.)

Such exaggeration always deserves a rebuke, but criminalizing it is a threat to freedom of speech. That path leads to oppressive practices such as these, found in Thailand.

Some US university presidents were asked by a congressional committee to explain why they did not punish students for stating antisemitic views. They explained that they were defending freedom of speech, which courts have ruled does apply to college students. That includes the right to express any views whatsoever.

They are now facing waves of hatred for respecting the US Constitution.

Subsequently the president of U Penn did resign. The article does not report why she yielded to this pressure.

It appears that opposition to antisemitism, opposition which I join in, is being twisted into an excuse to shut down criticism of Israel's war crimes.

Those are two different issues; condemnation of Israel's war crimes does not logically entail any opinion about Jews, just as condemnation of HAMAS's war crimes does not logically entail any opinion about Palestinians. I condemn those war crimes without antisemitism and without condemning the existence of Israel.

The word "intifada" means "uprising". Palestinians have used different methods for uprising against the occupation, some of which used violence. The occupation itself uses violence too.

Describing Palestine as stretching "from the river to the sea" does not embody antisemitism as such, but it does imply the disappearance of Israel. I oppose that goal, and therefore criticize that phrase, but I respect the freedom of speech of those who disagree with me on this issue.

Many right-wing extremists reject outright the idea that the same moral rules apply to them and to the rest of us. Rep. Stefanik, a right-wing extremist, supports a fascist US presidential contender, the wrecker, who publicly welcomes support from antisemites and even Nazis.

* A group of countries including Australia, the US, UK, Canada and Japan have said they will "not be a co-signatory" to "death certificates" for small island states, and have demanded a stronger agreement at the COP28 summit to deal with fossil fuels and address the climate crisis.*

At least that is pushing in the right direction. But it seems to late to lead to a better agreement this year.

This inadequate agreement was prepared by the UAE, which appears to be using its power in precisely the sort of sabotage we all expected.

*{One] quarter of world’s freshwater fish [species] at risk of extinction, according to assessment.*

The EU has agreed on strict rules on real time surveillance by biometric recognition. These rules seem pretty good to me — they will allow what society needs, but not much more.

It is not clear to me whether any of these limits apply to searching the millions of hours of stored video footage, which increasingly cover every public place. To preserve justice and privacy, that must be subject to he same rules.

And rules must apply to all private entities that collect or accumulate such data. If they cover public entities only, it will be easy to bypass them.

The rules to limit using algorithms to discriminate between individuals seem to be a big step in the right direction. I can't tell from this article whether they go far enough; maybe only experience with the system that has just been enacted will tell us that.