Before voters head to the polls in the general election, another likely-to-be damning indictment of the Tories callous cuts to benefits will come to light. Specifically, the government must publish documents detailing the impacts of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) scrapping the Universal Credit uplift that it had introduced during the pandemic.

DWP Universal Credit uplift

In April 2020, the government increased the rate of Universal Credit by £20 a week. However, by October 2021, the Tories ditched the so-called DWP Universal Credit “uplift”.

Naturally, as the Canary consistently reported at the time, scrapping this would hit multiple marginalised groups the hardest. This included numerous warnings that it would further impoverish:

• Almost 3.5 million children in households claiming the benefit.
• Over a fifth of working-age families with children across the country on average. Moreover, in some constituencies, the cut would hit more than three-quarters of working-age families.
• More than 660,000 low-paid keyworkers.

Predictably, despite these warnings from thinktanks, organisations, and campaigners alike, including footballer Marcus Rashford, the Tories ploughed ahead anyway. Moreover, as the Canary had also detailed, the DWP Universal Credit £20 uplift itself was already woefully inadequate.

Notably, a survey of claimants found the paltry increase to the already pitifully low benefit made little difference to social security claimants. In reality then, it didn’t actually do much to lift many claimants out of poverty.

Now, transparency laws will force the government to finally reveal the real-world impact that dropping its DWP Universal Credit uplift had.

ICO orders DWP to reveal report

Notably, the Tory government had previously produced an analysis assessing the impact of its decision to stop the uplift. In particular, this examined the impacts of extending the benefit increase – which would implicitly also reveal the impact of not doing so.

However, it originally refused to disclose this information via the Freedom of Information Act to the Mirror in 2023. As a result, the Mirror pursued this with the Information Commissioner’s Officer (ICO). As the outlet reported:

The government has refused to release an analysis examining the impact of not extending the support. But in a victory for the Mirror, the Information Commissioners’ Office (ICO) has now ordered the Treasury to disclose the details.

Of course, evading transparency laws has been a consistent past-time of successive Tory administrations. For instance, in November 2023, the Disability News Service finally won a protracted freedom of information battle over DWP Universal Credit. This was over another secret report the department had buried for four years on flaws in the DWP Universal Credit system harming vulnerable claimants.

Significantly, the Mirror reported that the ICO issued its decision notice just hours before Sunak called the election. In other words, this was another announcement the Tories could conveniently sweep under the rug of the sudden surge in election coverage.

DWP Universal Credit – a broken system

Given the numerous warnings on the cut’s impact, it’s not likely the report will show anything new. However, the information should always have been in the public domain. With the election incoming, revealing the after-effects of another callous Tory policy is vital now more than ever.

Despite this, neither major party who will ultimately run the country post-election has so far shown a shred of interest in supporting disabled people and those living in poverty.

As the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey recently pointed out, Labour has launched its campaign and it was tumbleweed on policies for disabled people. Currently, as she highlighted, it hasn’t issued any indication of improving the benefit system. Instead, its focus on “working people” plays into the continuity-Tory back to work blitz.

Moreover, as the Canary also underscored in March, Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has been all over this too.

Ultimately, the impact of the Tory’s cut should be known to the public.

However, while neither party appears to give a shit for disabled people and others its policies push into poverty, it’s a moot point.

Right now, it seems unlikely either will do away with the punitive, wholly inadequate DWP Universal Credit system as a whole – without which, there’ll be no meaningful change for the people its broken social security system has screwed over for years.

Feature image via ODN – DailyMotion

By Hannah Sharland

Climate crisis activists took French fossil fuel firm TotalEnergies to task at its annual general meeting. Unsurprisingly, the climate-wrecking company proved their action warranted, as it announced plans to double-down on fossil fuels.

Activists take on TotalEnergies at AGM

As TotalEnergies shareholders convened for their AGM, Greenpeace activists scaled the building:

WANTED: Patrick Poyanné, CEO of @TotalEnergies is wanted for fuelling the climate crisis

French activists from @greenpeacefr unfolded a 100m2 gigantic banner at the @TotalEnergies' AGM.

Scientists have been warning @TotalEnergies about this catastrophe since early 1970s.… pic.twitter.com/LCpFY6d04v

— Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace) May 24, 2024

They unfurled an enormous wanted poster style banner with TotalEnergies’ boss Patrick Pouyanne’s face:

[ ACTION] Nos activistes sont en ce moment à La Défense car nous recherchons activement le patron de @TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné.

On vous explique tout sur l'AG des #100ansdetrop [Thread 1/10] pic.twitter.com/yZj9PunjH0

— Greenpeace France (@greenpeacefr) May 24, 2024

The banner branded Pouyanne “the leader of France’s most polluting company”.

In March, the company marked its 100 year anniversary. Then too, Greenpeace rained on the corporations celebratory parade. Notably, in a serendipitous ruling, a judge dismissed a legal case TotalEnergies had issued to silence the campaign group.

Meanwhile, several hundred Extinction Rebellion activists gathered near the Paris offices of Amundi. The French asset manager is among TotalEnergies’ biggest shareholders.

The boss of TotalEnergies told shareholders Friday the French energy giant needed to develop new oil fields to meet global demand, as their AGM was picketed by the climate activists.

Predictably, cops came to scenes. As Extinction Rebellion activists occupied Amundi’s offices, French authorities begun issuing a number of arrests. At the TotalEnergies AGM, police quickly acted to protect corporate interests, taking down Greenpeace’s unflattering wanted banner.

Climate strategy and hot air

So while cops shielded the corporate climate criminals from the protesters, inside the AGM, Pouyanne was waxing lyrical about fossil fuels.

First, he claimed that higher oil prices prompted by insufficient fossil fuel output:

would quickly become unbearable for the populations in emerging countries, but also in our developed countries

Of course, TotalEnergies is exploiting oil and gas in a number of these so-called “emerging countries”. For instance, this includes its notorious and human-rights violating East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) in Tanzania and Uganda.

Pouyane purportedly argued that demand for oil was growing in line with the global population. In another predictable display of blatant greenwashing, Pouyanne also promised that TotalEnergies would pursue its “balanced strategy” of developing both fossil fuel and low-carbon energy production.

Unironically, the oil and gas giant boss said that TotalEnergies had provided proof that it was possible:

to be a profitable, or even the most profitable, company while pursuing a transformation

Naturally, at Friday’s meeting, shareholders shored up their profits. Nearly 80% of them approved their company’s woefully inadequate climate strategy. Additionally, over two thirds voted to renew Pouyanne as the company’s CEO.

“Wanted” for crimes against people and the planet

Of course, climate activists and campaigners have repeatedly exposed this as palpable greenwashing bullshit.

As the Canary reported on the 21 May, a new report by Oil Change International revealed the company’s climate catastrophic trajectory. Specifically, its continued emphasis on developing new oil and gas projects will send temperatures soaring well beyond the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°c limit.

TotalEnergies’ latest piety to expanding fossil fuels comes as a group of nonprofits and members of the public have launched legal action against the company. The Canary previously explained that through the case:

they are calling to try the company for involuntary manslaughter and other consequences of climate crisis “chaos”.

Crucially, the case targets the company’s board, including Pouyanne and major shareholders that backed its climate strategy.

As the stakes on climate breakdown grow, fossil fuel companies dig their heels in. However, climate activists and campaign organisations will continue to use all avenues to hold these criminal planet-killing corporations to account.

As climate activists plastered Pouyanne’s ‘wanted’ poster at its AGM, TotalEnergies’ latest shareholder shenanigans only proved their point.

Feature and in-text images via Greenpeace

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

By Hannah Sharland

Unfavourable weather conditions, technical malfunction, sabotage: the crash of the Bell 212 helicopter with the president of Iran Ebrahim Raisi on board continues to be a focal point of discussion on the Middle East agenda. But what is the reality of what happened? And is a theory of US involvement legitimate?

Raisi: what we know so far

The preliminary report issued by the general staff of the Iranian Armed Forces which was supposed to clarify the circumstances of the tragic event, did not put an end to the speculations.

Although the document explicitly states that no impact of bullets or other striking elements was found on the remains of the aircraft, the idea that the presidential helicopter was sabotaged remains on the list of the possible explanations.

However, officials, even Iranians themselves, take great effort to abstain from any statements that could encourage the supporters of this theory.

Perhaps, former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif came the closest to a real accusation: he said that the US is responsible for the crash, but only in the sense that Iran is subjected to US sanctions prohibiting sale of aircraft and technologies.

Judging by Zarif’s words, even in their accusations directed to the US Iranian officials actually consider technical malfunction of a decades old helicopter to be the reason of the incident.

Amazingly, Western officials, experts, and media don’t voice any substantial objections. Spokesman of the State Department Matthew Miller stated that Iran often uses its aircraft well beyond the lifespan due to the punitive measures against the country. Washington does not plan to cancel the sanctions, he added.

Miller’s remarks were followed by multiple articles in the US media. The technical malfunction theory was embraced and promoted by the Washington Post, Forbes, Bloomberg, and other publications. Bell Tech corporation, the manufacturer of the crashed helicopter, insisted it had no working relations with Iran as well.

It is the technical malfunction theory, that has apparently become the main lead, solid? We’ll try to look into it by working with the available data.

Technical malfunction? Weather?

On 19 May, Ebrahim Raisi and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliev took part in an inauguration of a dam on the Araks river at the Iran-Azerbaijan border. After the ceremony Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and Tebriz imam Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem set for Tebriz.

All of them went aboard of the same Bell 212, although there were three aircrafts available. They flew over a mountainous region of the Iranian Eastern Azerbaijan province. Two helicopters arrived safely to their destination, but the president’s aircraft lost radio contact.

After hours of search and rescue operation that was joined by Turkish UAVs and specialists at the request of the Iranians, the emergency responders located the crash site. All passengers, including imam al-Hashem, who had previously managed to respond to a number of phone calls, were found dead.

It should be noted that Raisi initially planned to visit Armenia that day, while Amir-Abdollahian was to inaugurate the dam with Azerbaijan’s Aliev, but the plan had been changed because of diplomatic protocol.

Poor weather conditions were cited as the initial reason for the crash. Indeed, in the first few hours after the presidential helicopter went off the radar local media reported about an extremely heavy fog in the area.

Back then it was speculated that the pilot could have failed to evade obstruction due to low visibility or simply made an emergency landing in accordance with safety regulations. Experts on aviation later stressed that the pilot even had the right to refuse to take off in such weather conditions.

Iran: elements of doubt

However, Golamhossein Esmaili, presidential chief of staff who was aboard another helicopter, explained to the Iranian media that the weather conditions were actually not so unfavorable as it might have seemed.

There was no fog. Maybe in the ravines there was fog, but there was no fog on our flight route. Clouds were slightly above the helicopter.

There were three helicopters flying the same route. Could it mean that none of the pilots believed the fog to be a risk? Or they decided to shrug it off, as well as the regulation that prohibits multiple high-ranking officials from boarding the same aircraft?

This strange chain of coincidences provided a fertile ground for another theory: the president of Iran was assassinated and became a victim of an internal power struggle. Turkish experts point out that Raisi was believed to eventually succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the supreme ruler. After his demise, the list of contestants is down to Khamenei’s son Mojtaba and the speaker of parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.

Casting internal conflicts aside, it could be that Raisi’s death was orchestrated by external actors.

Israel and the US

Both Israel and the US are in confrontation with Iran. They are also allies with Azerbaijan, providing them with motive as well as capability to strike out at the Iranian leader.

At this point it would be premature to accuse Israel. After the recent escalation between Tel-Aviv and Tehran they reached a fragile balance, one that Israel is keen to secure as it continues its military operation in the Gaza Strip. ‘

This is why the Israeli media just hours after the first reports of the helicopter disappearance hurriedly announced that Israel is not responsible for the incident. Or, perhaps, it was not a statement of denial, but a hint: we didn’t do it, but we know who did.

The US chose another tactic: instead of denials they came up with a fully-fledged theory – technical malfunction – which returns us to the cynical statement by Matthew Miller: yes, the helicopter of the Iranian president crashed because of US sanctions, but the Iranians are to blame.

Could it be that Washington bears not circumstantial but rather direct responsibility for the incident?

Iran-Raisi crash: we won’t know yet

There are some arguments in favour of this theory: US special services could have easily reached out to the aircraft manufacturer to establish weak points of the helicopter and select an appropriate way to attack them.

The conclusion about the absence of bullet impact made by the Iranian general staff adds to the possibility that the helicopter was sabotage by other means to cover the tracks.

What were these means, and who used them – this is what the investigation must establish.

Featured image via CEPA

By Hakan Demir

According to a coalition of non-governmental organisations, Europe’s rivers, lakes and ground water contain “alarming” levels of a pesticide-like forever chemical.

TFA forever chemicals

Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) is a very strong acid that we widely use in cosmetics, non-stick pans, and fire extinguishers. Unfortunately though, it is a type of PFA – which we also know as a forever chemical. There are around 10,000 of these. They are able to remain in the environment and accumulate in the bloodstream, bones, and tissue of various organisms, including humans.

It is not known exactly how long it takes for PFAS to degrade, but estimates are between a decade to well over 1,000 years. 

In recent years, scientists have discovered them in water, air, fish and soil in the most remote corners of the earth. However, concerns have started to grow over their possible impact on human health. 

The new report, which was released on Monday 27 May, found that:

All water samples analysed contained PFAS. More than 98 per cent of the total PFAS detected were TFA, a known degradation product of PFAS pesticides and other PFAS.

In total, the European Pesticide Action Network (PAN Europe) and its members analysed over 24 surface and groundwater samples from 10 EU countries and found PFAS in all of them. 

They said the abundance of TFA in particular represented “the largest known area-wide contamination by a man-made chemical”. This well exceeds limits proposed by the EU.

Alarming levels of contamination

In the EU, the drinking water directive limit is 500mg/l for total PFA’s. Shockingly, 79% of the samples had levels exceeding this. 

PAN Europe said in their report: 

The extent of the contamination is alarming and calls for decisive action.

One of the biggest sources of TFA is the use of pesticides. Additionally, certain cooling systems also release them into the atmosphere meaning eventually, they enter the water cycle through rain.  

TFA is highly soluble in water, this makes it the perfect groundwater contaminant. It is also extremely mobile and good at avoiding soil and other natural filters which ordinarily remove pollutants. This allows them to remain in the groundwater for centuries. 

The EU has committed to gradually ban PFA chemicals as they aim for a pollution-free environment. Additionally, since February 2023 the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has had a proposal for a group ban on the manufacture, use and import of PFAS.

Whilst research is still ongoing to understand the risk PFAS pose to human health, so far it suggests they can cause various types of cancer, risks to pregnancy, and changes to both cholesterol levels and liver enzymes. 

PAN Europe have called the findings a ‘’political failure’’ and called for urgent interventions including a rapid ban on PFA’s and rethink on the threat posed by individual chemicals, such as TFA.

Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse

Featured image via Matti Blume – Wikimedia, resized to 1200×900 under licence CC BY-SA 3.0

By HG

A new study warns that half of the world’s mangrove ecosystems are at risk of collapse due to the climate crisis.

Mangroves

For the first time ever the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – known for its red list of threatened species, has taken stock of the world’s mangroves.

Mangroves are groups of trees and shrubs that live in coastal intertidal zones. In total, there are around 80 species of mangrove. They grow at tropical or subtropical temperatures, close to the equator. Around 15% of the world’s coastlines are covered by mangroves, nearing 150,000 square km.

Due to tidal patterns, mangroves flood at least twice per day. Their dense tangle of roots slows the moment of tidal waters, meaning sediment settles and builds up. As a result, this makes them the perfect habitat for fish and other organisms trying to shelter from predators. 

Crucially, mangrove forests also help stabilise coastlines, reduce erosion from storm surges, and currents. They are one of only a handful of trees that can tolerate salt water – meaning they are a vital part of the ecosystem. 

On top of this, mangrove soils are extremely effective carbon sinks, meaning they lock away huge quantities of carbon and stop it from entering the atmosphere. They are able to store nearly three times more carbon than tropical forests of the same size – totalling 11bn tonnes. 

Crucial habitats at risk

Vitally, the new report has for the first time assessed the health of the world’s mangroves in 36 different regions. Notably, it showed that 50% of them are at risk of collapse, with them either categorised as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. 

Grethel Aguilar, IUCN director general said that the assessment:

highlights the urgent need for coordinated conservation of mangroves — crucial habitats for millions in vulnerable communities worldwide.

According to the assessment, 20% of these were at severe risk of collapse.

Many things threaten mangroves, including deforestation, development, pollution, and dam construction. However, this risk is growing because of rising sea-levels and the increased frequencies of severe storms. Ultimately, due to the climate crisis. 

‘Disaster risk reduction’

Marco Valderrabano of IUCN’s told AFP that between 1996 and 2020:

A very good study of mangrove change globally that was published in 2022 indicates about 5,000 square kilometres of mangrove were lost.

The climate crisis is the biggest threat to mangrove ecosystems, with a third of them at risk due to rising sea levels.

If estimates are correct, in the next 50 years a quarter of all mangroves are expected to be underwater. The oceans most severely effected are predicted to be; northwest Atlantic Ocean, the northern Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the South China Sea, and the Gulf of Aden. 

Angela Andrade, chair of the IUCN commission on ecosystem management said: 

Mangrove ecosystems are exceptional in their ability to provide essential services to people, including coastal disaster risk reduction, carbon storage and sequestration, and support for fisheries.

Their loss stands to be disastrous for nature and people across the globe.

Protecting mangroves

Without significant improvement by 2050, the climate crisis will lead to the loss of 1.8bn tonnes of carbon stored in mangroves.

Therefore, looking after mangroves is essential for mitigating the effects of the climate catastrophe. Healthy ecosystems cope better with sea level rises and provide inland protection from the effects of major storms.

Ensuring there is good sediment regulation and allowing mangroves to expand inland will allow them to cope with sea level rises. Importantly, the IUCN also called for the restoration of the mangroves which had already disappeared. 

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Feature image via Armusaofficial/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

By HG

Two new reports have spotlighted the systemic violation of Sami Indigenous rights across Northern Europe.

First, Sweden’s authorities published a scathing report on hate crimes against the Sami community in the Scandinavian country. Now, Finland has also released the findings of a damning new report on rights violations of its Sami Indigenous community.

Both underscore the ongoing battle for Indigenous rights in Europe, against a backdrop of human rights abuses worldwide.

Abuse of Sami Indigenous community

The Sami people live in the northern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, and across the Kola Peninsula. Their communities span Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Russia.

According to the International Working Group on Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), their total population is somewhere between 50,000 to 100,000.

On 10 May, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå) released its first report on hate crimes against the Sami community on a national level.

As Radio Canada reported:

The deliberate targeting of reindeer in Sami areas is one example that sets these incidents apart from typical hate crime patterns, the report said, with perpetrators— often landowners, hunters or farmers—believing they are limited by reindeer herding rights and don’t want the animals in certain areas.

It was the most common crime we saw in the police reports, Lisa Wallin, the study’s project leader, told Eye on the Arctic. “We saw deliberate hit-and-runs, dogs sent to chase or attack reindeer, or reindeer deliberately run over by snowmobiles or shot.”

These incidents usually happen in remote forested areas of northern Sweden and remain unsolved given the lack of eye-witnessesses, the report said.

Moreover, Radio Canada detailed how the report revealed that institutions subject Sami to “increased racist incidents”. Specifically, it identified this in the context of legal proceedings on Indigenous rights.

Truth and reconciliation

Following this, Finnish authorities have since produced a similar report exposing rights violations.

On 20 May, the Sami Truth and Reconciliation Commission dropped its report on the situation for the Indigenous group across Finland.

The government had established the commission in 2021. Specifically, it sought to investigate historical injustices against the Sami, with the aim of preventing their reoccurence.

Crucially, the report noted that the Finnish state continues to repeatedly violate the Sami people’s right to self-determination. This is at the core of indigenous people’s rights.

Martin Scheinin is a human rights professor who compiled the report. He told a press conference that:

In the Supreme Administrative Court, Sami rights have been given a cold shoulder in many respects

Significantly, he noted how regression had occurred over the past decade. Moreover, the report stated that:

Although Finland is still recognised in the UN as a supporter of indigenous rights, positive developments for the Sami people in Finland seem to have stalled or become less consistent

Electoral rights under threat

Sweden is home to over 20,000 Sami people. Meanwhile, some 10,000 Indigenous Sami live in Finland, speaking three different Sami languages.

In 1997, the Swedish parliament acknowledged the Sami. Similarly, since 1995, the Finnish constitution has recognised the Sami as an Indigenous people with a right to maintain and develop their culture.

However, the commission’s report showed how Indigenous rights are still under threat. For instance, Scheinin highlighted that the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court has since 2011 rejected the Sami parliament’s view on who qualifies as eligible to stand and vote in Sami parliamentary elections.

Finland’s legal definition of who can be included in the Sami electoral roll has been deemed outdated by human rights experts. Notably, this is because it does not correspond with the Sami parliament’s own view of eligibility. Specifically, Sami parliament emphasises a person’s connection to one of the Sami languages as the most important criteria.

Next year, Sweden will release a similar report from its truth commission into Sami Indigenous rights.

Green colonialism

Additionally, courts have “rejected the Sami view and often even failed to investigate complaints” in other cases too. In particular, it has done so in cases concerning the Sami people’s traditional livelihoods such as fishing and reindeer herding and plans for new industrial projects in Sapmi – the Sami Indigenous territory.

Crucially, governments and companies have been ramping up green colonialist projects on Sami Indigenous lands across the region. For instance, Norway’s supreme court ruled that wind farms in Sami lands breached their rights under international conventions.

Meanwhile the race for transition minerals – the raw critical materials for the energy transition – has exposed the Sami to more threats. In 2023, Sweden’s state-owned mining company LKAB discovered more than 1 million tonnes of critical minerals under Sami lands. The community now fears this could lead to violations of their rights.

Feature image via Al Jazeera – Youtube

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

By Hannah Sharland

On 21 May, EachOther and LUSH activists took action over the Tories increasing toxic rhetoric on human rights.

Toxic Tory rhetoric on human rights

Over the past four years, government ministers have increasingly ramped up rhetoric demonising human rights campaigners. For instance, former prime minister Boris Johnson coined the phrase ‘‘lefty lawyer’ to malign law firms fighting the government’s corruption. Meanwhile, Suella Braverman referred to human rights campaigners as ‘tofu-eating wokerati”. There have been other cases of government ministers accusing lawyers of being ‘un-british’ and an enemy of the people.

Now as some politicians try to make human rights a dirty word, activists have gathered at Parliament Square to wash away the stigma.

The activists were from award-winning human rights charity EachOther, as well as high street cosmetics brand LUSH.  Protesters took a shower outside the Houses of Parliament, next to giant boxes of shower powder labelled Human Rights.

LUSH and EachOther countering dangerous disinformation

Their action is part of a new campaign to educate the public and counter disinformation on human rights ahead of the next general election.

As the Canary previously reported, EachOther and LUSH launched the campaign in light of the fact that:

In the last five years, the UK has witnessed an increase in threats to minimise, remove or replace human rights laws in the UK – by the government. These are laws that currently protect all of our day-to-day lives and are there as a safety net should we ever need them.

Over the last decade, the UK government has proposed withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – which is now a genuine threat.

Moreover, as EachOther and LUSH have pointed out, Sunak hasn’t ruled out of the UK leaving the ECHR. Of course, this would be an unprecedented move. Specifically, it would spell the first time a nation party to the ECHR has jumped ship on rules it helped to create.

Now, this alarming rhetoric is on the rise as the general election creeps ever closer.

Since Sunak stated that he won’t allow ‘foreign courts’ – referring to the ECHR – to block the controversial Rwanda migration partnership, there has been growing misinformation about the European Court of Human Rights. The European Convention protects over 800 million people, and the European Court has considered over 800,000 cases since it was formed.

EachOther and LUSH have teamed up to set the record straight.

Protecting rights for future generations

Notably, their campaign highlights that the ECHR isn’t in fact, a “foreign court”. In reality, it was a British Conservative politician and future Lord High Chancellor called Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, who was central to drafting the Convention. Winston Churchill was one of its biggest cheerleaders. Importantly, every member has its own judge, including the UK.

Alongside their action in parliament square, the pair have created a product, shower-powder (showder), called ‘Human rights’, which will be available in UK LUSH stores between 16 May to 2 June. ‘Human rights’ sold out in Oxford street in the first two days of launching. LUSH is donating the total sales revenue (minus VAT) from the product to the campaign.

Additionally, EachOther has published a briefing paper, which outlines the damaging rhetoric used in recent years surrounding human rights.

Editor in chief of EachOther Emma Guy stated:

The majority of the public (two-thirds) say they have little or no confidence that they have a say on the decisions made by the government – this is a growing concern for decision making on human rights issues in the UK. Over the past four years, human rights have increasingly been presented in a negative light.

Guy continued:

The way we talk about certain issues is important because it can be used for political gain, to fuel misinformation or to misrepresent something or someone. Today is the start of reminding ourselves that collectively, we can recognise our rights, invoke them and continue to educate each other about them – to protect them for future generations.

Feature image and in-text image via Anna Fuchs/EachOther

By The Canary

Small island states are leading the charge against the climate crisis. Leaders of nine low-lying island nations have won a historic case at the UN’s maritime court. The group sought to hold countries to account for their greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). Now, the ruling means that rich nations will have clean up their act on ocean pollution through climate-wrecking GHG emissions.

Crucially, they have a responsibility to do so for small island nations bearing the brunt of the climate breakdown.

Ocean pollution and the climate crisis

In December 2022, the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS) launched a case at the UN’s maritime court the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).

A collection of small island states had formed the COSIS coalition at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. This comprises of Antigua and Barbuda, Tuvalu, Palau, Niue, Vanuatu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and the Bahamas.

In September 2023, ITLOS began a series of public hearings. As the Canary previously reported on the it:

The island states are asking the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) to determine whether carbon dioxide emissions absorbed by the oceans can be considered pollution. If ITLOS determines so, nations could have specific obligations to prevent it under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The international treaty binds countries to preventing the pollution of the oceans.

ITLOS has now unanimously ruled that this is the case. Specifically, it determined that carbon emissions are pollution under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The UNCLOS treaty binds countries to prevent pollution of the oceans. Crucially, it defines pollution as the introduction of “substances or energy into the marine environment” that harms marine life. However, it does not spell out carbon emissions as a specific pollutant. So, plaintiffs in the case argued it should qualify.

As such, the ruling now obligates nations to reduce their GHG emissions to protect the ocean. Notably, in an expert opinion it said that:

Anthropogenic GHG emissions into the atmosphere constitute pollution of the marine environment

As a result, the court ruled that polluting countries therefore have:

the specific obligation to take all measures necessary to ensure that… emissions under their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage by pollution to other states and their environment

Small island states ‘fighting for their survival’

Ocean ecosystems create half the oxygen humans breathe and limit global heating by absorbing much of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities.

However, increasing emissions can warm and acidify seawaters, harming marine life and ecosystems.

Soaring global sea temperatures are also accelerating the melting of polar ice caps. This causes sea levels to rise. Naturally, this poses an existential threat for small island nations.

The countries that brought the case called the court decision “historic”. Prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, said small island nations were “fighting for their survival”. He emphasized that:

Some will become uninhabitable in the near future because of the failure to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. We demand that the major polluters respect international law, and stop the catastrophic harm against us before it is too late

Global sea surface temperatures hit a monthly record in April for the 13th month in a row, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Rich nations must take responsibility for ocean pollution

So of course, small low-lying islands are shouldering the burden of climate breakdown. Alongside rising sea levels, they are particularly exposed to the impacts of climate-fueled extreme weather. For example, a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) analysis found that small island states had suffered devastating economic impacts from climate-exacerbated extreme weather. During fifty years of climate disasters between 1970 and 2021, for small island states:

one in five disasters had an impact “equivalent to more than five per cent” of GDP, with some disasters wiping out countries’ entire GDP.

Significantly, the ITLOS ruling has now laid out that countries’ climate action may need to go beyond the Paris Agreement for them to meet their legal obligations on marine protection.

Moreover, it found that states with the greatest historic responsibility for the climate crisis must step up and do more. Crucially, they need to address pollution from GHG emissions. The ruling distinguished between those with larger footprints and those least responsible for causing the climate crisis.

For example, an IPCC report highlighted that rich industrialised nations were responsible for approximately 57% of global greenhouse gas emissions between 1850 and 2019. Conversely, the poorest, least industrialised nations and small island states contributed just 0.4% and 0.5% respectively during this period.

The UN maritime court’s ruling echoed UN chief Antonio Guterres’ previous calls for rich nations to take action.

The ‘fates of two global commons’

Importantly, experts have said the ruling could be influential in shaping the scope of future climate litigation involving greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

While the court’s opinion is advisory and non-binding, it will influence how the UN treaty is interpreted around the world. In a press release ClientEarth lawyer Lea Main-Klingst said that:

Next year, states must improve the climate plans they submit to the United Nations – known as their Nationally Determined Contributions – and today’s outcome will be instrumental to push the countries most responsible for the climate crisis to ramp up their ambition.

Amnesty International’s head of strategic litigation Mandi Mudarikwa agreed the ruling was:

likely to inform future climate justice cases in national, regional and international courts

Main-Klingst also said that:

The momentum from today is only set to grow, as 2024 is a year of serious legal reckoning on climate change in international courts.

The Inter-American Court is hearing arguments on how climate change is impacting human rights this month in Brazil and the world’s highest court – the International Court of Justice – will be considering a similar question later this year.

The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) echoed this. CIEL attorney Joie Chowdhury stated that:

For the first time, an international court has recognised that the fates of two global commons – the oceans and the atmosphere – are intertwined and imperilled by the climate crisis

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are due to give their rulings on these two other climate cases in the coming months.

Feature image via Youtube – CPDC NGO

Additional reporting via Agence France-Presse

By The Canary

French fossil fuel giant TotalEnergies will once again feeling the heat in a court of law.

On Tuesday 21 May, three nonprofits and individuals filed a criminal complaint against the company and its top shareholders in Paris. Crucially, they are calling to try the company for involuntary manslaughter and other consequences of climate crisis “chaos”.

The case targets the company’s board, such as its chief executive Patrick Pouyanne, alongside major shareholders that backed its climate strategy. Naturally, this includes key shareholders like US investment firm BlackRock, and Norway’s central bank, Norges Bank.

On the same day they launched the legal action, a new report has singled out TotalEnergies among eight companies setting the world on a trajectory to climate disaster.

TotalEnergies ‘deliberately endangering’ lives

In a statement, the three nonprofits and eight individuals said they accused the group of:

deliberately endangering the lives of others, involuntary manslaughter, neglecting to address a disaster, and damaging biodiversity

Specifically, the nonprofits underscored TotalEnergies’s role in delaying action on the climate crisis. They said that:

TotalEnergies has known the direct link between its activities and climate change for over half a century, since at least 1971… TotalEnergies followed a climate sceptic line in order to waste time, delay decision-making and protect its increasing investments in fossil fuels

Of course, TotalEnergies has also maintained its climate-wrecking business-as-usual. As the Canary previously reported during its investor day in 2023:

TotalEnergies’ green energy trajectory pales in comparison to the company’s fossil fuel expansion plans. By 2030, its solar, wind, and low carbon energy – which includes biofuels, biogas, and hydrogen – will make up just 20% of its energy mix.

Meanwhile, the oil and gas major is intending to develop new fossil fuel projects. Oil Change International has estimated that its expansion plans between 2023 and 2025 alone will generate over 1,600Mt of carbon dioxide over the new project’s lifetime.

Naturally, the company’s 80/20 fossil fuel/green energy mix will also fail to lower its emissions. Despite the vital need for emissions reductions from all sectors, TotalEnergies’s plans will maintain its output at the same level to 2030.

Now, a new report has also spelled out how TotalEnergies’s continued polluting operations are wreaking havoc on the climate. Coinciding with the legal case announcement, Oil Change International published its ‘Big Oil Reality Check’ report.

This analyses the climate pledges and plans of eight international oil and gas companies. Predictably, all of them fall short of keeping to Paris climate goals. Instead of keeping temperatures under 1.5°c above pre-industrial levels, the eight companies will send them soaring over 2.4°c. Moreover, as the report noted, TotalEnergies has:

explicit goals to increase oil and gas production within the next three years or beyond

Time to ‘hold those responsible to account’

The nonprofits filed their complaint at the Paris judicial court three days ahead of TotalEnergies’s annual shareholders meeting. The prosecutor now has three months to decide whether to open a judicial investigation. If it does not go ahead, the plaintiffs can take their case directly before an investigative judge.

Plaintiffs include “victims or survivors of climate-related disasters” in Australia, Belgium, France, Greece, Pakistan, the Philippines and Zimbabwe.

One of the plaintiffs in the latest case is Benjamin Van Bunderen Robberechts. The 17-year-old from Belgium whose friend Rosa died in flash floods in Belgium at the age of 15 in 2021. Van Bunderen founded the non-profit Climate Justice for Rosa in her memory. He said that:

It’s horrible that there are people who value their profits so much more than human lives…I will do everything in my power to fight the climate situation and hold those responsible to account

Of course, it isn’t the first time nonprofits and individuals have put the French oil giant in the hot seat either. For instance, in June, nonprofits took the company to court to stop TotalEnergies proceeding with fossil fuel projects across the world.

However, this new case it taking a new and groundbreaking tack. As the nonprofits stated:

This legal action could set a precedent in the history of climate litigation as it opens the way to holding fossil fuel producers and shareholders responsible before criminal courts for the chaos caused by climate change

In other words, the case could mark a sea change in holding destructive fossil fuel corporations to account. Put simply, TotalEnergies is risking peoples’ lives through the devastating impacts of the climate crisis with its continued reckless fossil fuel profiteering. Plaintiffs will say enough is finally enough.

Feature image via TotalEnergies – Youtube

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

By Hannah Sharland

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has said that the world has degraded up to 50% of the global rangelands. 

All over the world, traditional herders rely on the earth’s open space to support ancient ways of life. They are a cultural bedrock for over half a billion people in more than 100 countries. Many of these are poor and marginalised. 

Unfortunately, the plains, tundra, and savanna that these herders live on are in much greater danger than previously suspected. Notably, a major new report found that capitalist societies and the climate crisis has degraded half of these environments.

Rangelands – a climate ally

Rangelands make up more than half of the world’s land surface and are spread across every continent, except Antarctica. They encompass some of nature’s most incredible views, including the arctic, deserts, mountains, scrubland and wetlands. 

Rangelands are also a cultural bedrock for 500m pastoralist people – who live nomadic lives while herding and caring for animals. Many of these people’s livelihood and wellbeing are directly linked to rangeland health and productivity –  such as the Bedouin people in the middle east, or the Sami people of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Nomadic communities have relied on these ecosystems for thousands of years to produce food and income.

Globally, up to two billion people also rely indirectly on rangelands for the services they provide. 

In Africa, the rangelands support the biggest population of large mammals. There is a globally unique number of species, including elephants, buffalo, rhinoceros, giraffes, lions, leopards, cheetahs and zebras. The future of these animals is directly related to the future of Africa’s rangelands. 

Most importantly, healthy rangelands are a huge asset in the fight against the climate crisis. They lock away carbon in the soil and spur the growth of new vegetation that pulls planet-destroying CO2 from the atmosphere.

Climate crisis fuelled destruction

Several factors, including poor policy, neglect and large-scale rangeland mismanagement have eroded soils. This means releasing carbon, rather than storing it and stripping the earth of the nutrients it needs to support all life forms. 

The UNCCD’s new report says that climate change, urban expansion, population growth, and the conversion of land for farming was fuelling the destruction of rangelands.

Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UNCCD said that we had hugely undervalued rangelands and their “silent demise” had passed mostly unnoticed, despite the stakes being so high. He also told AFP: 

We as humanity have to pay attention to this.

He also said that the “persistent loss and deterioration” of rangelands would be felt beyond pastoralist communities. Thiaw added:

It is part of our heritage.

Losing it would mean not only losing ecosystems and losing the economy, but losing our own culture.

‘Voiceless and powerless’

Crucially, the world has barely studied these lands. 

Protecting these huge rangelands would require policy that better supports pastoralists – the people who understand the land better than anyone else. 

However, the report noted that states and authorities render these communities “voiceless and powerless”. 

Thiaw also commented: 

Marginalised, pastoralists and livestock breeders find it hard to influence development policies. They are voiceless, powerless, and generally, a minority in the political and administrative machinery. Although estimated to number half a billion souls, they are sometimes classified as indigenous peoples or as societal outsiders.

The report did note that: 

The incorporation of indigenous people to rangeland governance is a clear step to help recover these historic landscapes.

And:

The co-creation of knowledge by producers and researchers, and respect for and use of traditional wisdom held by indigenous communities, open new paths for restoring and protecting rangelands.

However, the report was unclear as to whether they actually consulted any indigenous people.

It’s worth noting, whilst the report mentions that marginalised people “find it hard to influence development policies” – this usually means that policy makers have systematically excluded and ignored them. They must do better in providing the seats for everyone to have a place at the table. 

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Feature image via Brendertogo/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

By HG

Scientists have once again shown that the climate crisis is decimating the world’s icy and sole uninhabited continent. In 2023, researchers recorded Antarctica’s lowest ever sea ice extent. Now, a new study has shed light on the role rampant climate breakdown is having on this. Alarmingly, it’s wreaking havoc on unique biodiversity of the southern polar region.

Antarctic sea ice decline

On 20 May, scientists published a damning new study on Antarctic sea ice extent. Specifically, it revealed the key role the climate crisis had in last year’s record-low levels of Antarctic sea ice.

Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) found that the fossil fuel capitalist-driven global heating resulted in a once-in-2,000-year low in ocean surface ice.

Compared to an average winter over the last several decades, the maximum extent of Antarctic sea covered by ice shrank by two million square kilometres. Alarmingly, this equates to an area four times the size of France.

The BAS scientists analysed 18 distinct climate models. Through these, they found that the climate crisis quadrupled the likelihood of such large and rapid melting events. These were the findings of a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Climate crisis a key variable

Understanding the cause of sea ice melt is complex as there are many variables. Notably, scientists have said that ocean water and air temperatures, and wind patterns can effect it.

However, determining the role of climate breakdown is critical. This is particularly so, since ice formation has global impacts from ocean currents to sea-level rise.

As the Canary previously reported, while some scientists believe that wind patterns may be the main cause of Antarctic sea ice loss, scientist have been suggesting climate crisis is likely also a considerable factor. Now, this new study determines that this is the case.

Sea ice itself, which forms from freezing salt water already in the ocean, has no discernable impact on sea levels. Specifically, this is because snow and ice is highly reflective. So, when this gives way to dark blue ocean, the same amount of the Sun’s energy that was bounced back into space is absorbed by water instead. Of course, this accelerates the pace of global heating.

The study’s lead author Rachel Diamond told AFP that:

This is why we were so interested in studying what climate models can tell us about how often large, rapid losses like this are likely to happen

In the Arctic, sea ice has been declining since satellite records began in the 1970s. By contrast, the melt trend in Antarctica is a more recent phenomenon. According to BAS, Antarctic sea ice increased “slightly and steadily” from 1978 until 2015.

However, 2017 brought a sharp decline, followed by several years of low ice levels. Given these trends, BAS researchers also ran projections to see whether the ice would return. Diamond told AFP that:

It doesn’t completely recover to original levels even after 20 years.

Moreover, she explained that this means that:

the average Antarctic sea ice may still stay relatively low for decades to come

Ice loss driving the biodiversity crisis

Co-author Louise Sime laid out the repercussions of this in terms of the ongoing biodiversity crisis. She said that:

The impacts… would be profound, including on local and global weather and on unique Southern Ocean ecosystems – including whales and penguins

For instance, as the Canary’s HG reported in August 2023, another study demonstrated the devastating consequences of sea ice loss on emperor penguin populations. As she reported, the BAS study in Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment found that:

in 2022, extensive regional Antarctic ice loss caused “catastrophic” breeding failures in four major emperor penguin colonies. This is the first time on record a study has documented such widespread colony breeding collapse.

Reared on the ice sheets, they perished when they were plunged into the ocean before they had developed their waterproof feathers. On top of this, it calculated that:

sea ice loss could drive 90% of emperor penguin colonies to extinction by the end of the century. Specifically, this devastating decline will occur if current levels of global warming continue.

This new study once again shows how the intensifying climate crisis is wreaking havoc. Crucially, it is exacerbating sea level rise, destroying vital habitats, and threatening biodiversity. As the evidence continues the mount, the stakes for people and the planet are ever higher.

Feature image via Hannes Grobe/AWI/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY 3.0

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

By The Canary

The Labour Party has set out its flagship idea for energy in a time of climate crisis. The party opined its strategy to “take back control” of energy bills and ensure energy “independence”. Great British Energy – a new publicly-owned company – is its masterplan for this.

However, the pillar of its green energy transition is little more than a smokescreen for propping up corporate capitalism, dressed up like climate justice.

Great British Energy: Labour’s six pledges

On Thursday 16 May, Keir Starmer unveiled six pledges for the first steps his Labour government would take on election.

Among these, Starmer promised that Labour would set up a new:

home-grown, publicly owned clean energy generation company that will see bills cut for good, boost energy security and create jobs.

Aside from the mildly nationalistic pomp, so far, so good. Ostensibly, the party is, for once, setting itself in direct opposition to the Tories. Where the Tories are hostile to the barest waft of public ownership, the Labour party appears to be stepping up.

It is ditto the case with green energy. Over the course of the last year, the Tories have repeatedly shelved its net zero policies. By contrast, Labour is proposing to invest in renewables, green technology, and home insulation.

So, the positive news is, Labour is genuinely proposing to ramp up renewables and the UK’s green energy capacity. However, tempering any enthusiasm, it plans to do this the bad old fashioned way: that is, through unfettered capitalism – just green this time.

Pandering to the private sector

Predictably then, there’s some glaring issues with Labour’s key green policy.

First up, there’s the fact that Great British Energy is effectively, a severely pared back version of Labour’s original green energy plans. Specifically, in February, the party ditched its pledge for £28bn in annual green investment.

Now, as the Canary’s James Wright pointed out, this ‘bold’ new plan offers less than a third of this – just £8.3bn.

Moreover, it’s a far cry from its earlier promise to renationalise a raft of public services. Previously, it had included bringing energy, rail, mail, and water into public ownership. At the time, many accused the party of rolling over to curry favour with the private sector. In short, it was maintaining the status quo that channels public profit to private shareholders.

Unfortunately, this now looks to be the case for its Great British Energy. For one, as a number of people pointed out on X, it is not actually “publicly owned”:

Starmer’s so-called “Great British Energy” is a typical neoliberal con. It won’t be a publicly-owned energy supplier. It will use public money to build green energy infrastructure that private energy companies will then use to keep ripping us off.

It’s socialism for capitalists. https://t.co/bdlELKwb9d

— Frank Owen’s Legendary Paintbrush (@OwenPaintbrush) May 16, 2024

For Context:

Labour’s Great British Energy is NOT planned to be an energy supplier for consumers.

It will be a fund in which the government and private investors put money into towards promising green technologies.

It’s basically a publicly backed green hedge fund.

— Alex Tiffin (@RespectIsVital) May 17, 2024

Instead, as the briefing admits, the company will “de-risk” for the private sector:

Its initial priority will be to co-invest in leading edge energy technologies where this can de-risk and unlock private sector investment.

Essentially then, it’s a ruse to funnel public funds into corporate profit-making.

Fossil fuel companies still win

Labour intends to partially fund this – not fully, as one of its MP candidates was erroneously pushing on X – through a windfall tax on oil and gas companies.

Finally, oil and gas companies will lose out and the British public will see energy bills drop? It might not be that simple.

What we do have is a commitment to stop new oil and gas licences. This is of course a really vital step to tackling the climate crisis. However, what we don’t have is a detailed plan for the phase-out of existing oil and gas overall.

In fairness, this isn’t a fully-costed and detailed blueprint for Labour’s green energy plans. It’s a briefing laying out its pledges ahead of this, theoretically. Naturally then, it’s a little light on the details of the how and where. However, what it does spell out is still telling.

In fact, Labour’s document instead says:

Under Labour’s plans, North Sea oil and gas will continue for decades to come.

A tentative nod to the industry not to worry? Well, it wasn’t the only one. Labour featured fossil fuel companies’ favoured so-called climate ‘solution’ – carbon capture and storage (CCS) – heavily in the briefing.

As the Canary previously highlighted during Labour’s conference in October 2023:

Climate site Desmog has also identified that some of the same industry lobbyists were schmoozing attendees at both party conferences. For example, this included the Carbon Capture and Storage Association. The lobbying body boasts bigwigs in the oil and gas industry among its leadership and general membership.

As the Canary has previously pointed out, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a climate ‘solution’ favoured by fossil fuel companies. This is because CCS lends the industry a lifeline to continue their destructive business-as-usual. It figures that the industry is hedging its bets by sponsoring events at both party conferences.

Moreover, fossil fuel companies could sweep in to steal the spoils for renewables too. Specifically, multinational oil and gas giants have made a show in recent years of diversifying their business operations to greener technologies.

Of course, on the face of it, fossil fuel companies shifting to renewables might seem a good thing. However, given their records on workers, local community rights, and the environment, should these be these be the beneficiaries of Great British Energy’s public-to-private investment pipeline?

Notably, fossil fuel companies have continued their extractive, exploitative business-as-usual in the green energy sector as well.

Who profits?

Ultimately, it matters who Labour’s new green transition plans are for.

The briefing does set out plans for “scaling up municipal and community energy”. However, on closer inspection, it seems to imply that Great British Energy will do this in Scotland and Wales alone – where the shared ownership model already exists.

Alongside this, it plans to develop 20,000 renewable energy projects. These will be a mixture of small to medium scale standalone projects, such as rooftop solar on social housing, as well as large onshore wind and solar farms.

It suggests that:

A proportion of profits from these projects will be distributed back to local communities so they see the benefit of clean power in direct cost of living support – for example, through discounts on energy bills. In the medium-term, local authorities could use the revenue generated by these assets in their local economies.

Of course, this is laudable – but what dent this will actually make in energy bills yet remains to be seen.

On top of this, the lion’s share of profits still end up in the pockets of energy suppliers and generation companies – not communities.

Labour’s has said its clean power plan – with Great British Energy as its focal point – will slash household bills by £1,400 a year by 2030. However, it’s short-shrift for people facing staggering energy bills now.

Great British Energy: corporate capitalism writ large

Overall, Labour’s vision for the future of UK energy actually bothers to map out a plan for a green transition. However, the fact that this is a win says more about the astoundingly dire policies of the Tories.

Sure, there are some positive green steps. Nevertheless, old capitalism habits die hard – and the case of Great British Energy is no exception to this. When push comes to shove, Labour is finding new, more publicly-palatable ways to funnel money from the public purse into the pockets of corporate capitalists.

One thing’s for certain: it’s a far cry from the full-scale nationalised energy sector the public needs.

Feature image via Youtube – the Times and Sunday Times

By Hannah Sharland

International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan has submitted his case to ICC judges that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant should face arrest for war crimes. However, there is every possibility countries like the UK could give them diplomatic protection.

The international crimes include murder and the collective punishment of Palestinians through using starvation as a weapon and intentionally targeting the civilian population.

Since 7 October, Israel has killed at least 35,960 Palestinian people including over 15,000 children.

Starvation as a weapon

Khan’s statement outlines the evidence they have collected:

My Office submits that the evidence we have collected, including interviews with survivors and eyewitnesses, authenticated video, photo and audio material, satellite imagery and statements from the alleged perpetrator group, shows that Israel has intentionally and systematically deprived the civilian population in all parts of Gaza of objects indispensable to human survival.

Israeli’s occupation of Gaza means civilians need over 500 aid trucks to enter per day. But Israel has been letting in only an average of 180 trucks per day.

The systematic withholding of essentials from civilians is compounded through the targeting of aid workers. Analysis from Forensic Architecture shows Israel has attacked aid at least 80 separate times since January.

Forensic Architecture stated that “the frequency and widespread nature of these attacks suggests that Israel is systematically targeting aid.”

A report from Human Rights Watch also suggests that the targeting is intentional. It found eight incidents where Israel attacked aid workers who had shared their coordinates with the state.

According to the UN, Israel has killed at least 254 aid workers since 7 October.

Khan continued:

The effects of the use of starvation as a method of warfare, together with other attacks and collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are acute, visible and widely known, and have been confirmed by multiple witnesses interviewed by my Office, including local and international medical doctors. They include malnutrition, dehydration, profound suffering and an increasing number of deaths among the Palestinian population, including babies, other children, and women.

More war crimes

Khan also notes that Israel targeted civilians while they queue for aid. One instance of this is known as the ‘flour massacre’ where the IDF shot and killed at least 112 Palestinians as they congregated to collect aid on al-Rashid Street in Gaza city.

So Israel has been intentionally starving civilians and then killing them when they seek aid. Khan points out this is a war crime on top of a war crime.

Khan’s statement continues:

The siege also included cutting off cross-border water pipelines from Israel to Gaza – Gazans’ principal source of clean water – for a prolonged period beginning 9 October 2023, and cutting off and hindering electricity supplies from at least 8 October 2023 until today.

The ICC statement raises the question of Western complicity. For instance, UK Labour leader Keir Starmer explicitly stated Israel “has the right” to cut off electricity and water to Gazan civilians, a war crime Khan has noted here.

Khan also sought arrest warrants for the head of Hamas in Gaza Yahya Sinwar and two other Hamas leaders. The alleged crimes include taking hostages, murder and inhumane acts.

ICC Israel: will its leaders be arrested?

Israel is not a member of the ICC and Israeli authorities are presently unlikely to hand over their own leaders. So that leaves the 124 countries party to the ICC, including the UK, to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant.

But Israel’s allies can still attempt to block such an arrest through issuing special diplomatic immunity for Israeli leaders.

In March, the UK Conservative government used such immunity for Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz.

With that in mind, if ICC judges accept Khan’s case, that’s only the first step for justice.

Featured image via Int’l Criminal Court – X and IsraeliPM – YouTube

By James Wright

A shortage of the critical minerals vital to the world’s green transition is brewing. Just as a key international energy body warns of the impending crisis, a rights group has exposed the sector’s soaring scale of human rights abuses.

IEA critical minerals: a looming shortage

On Friday 17 May, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned of a looming shortage of critical minerals. Notably, these are materials that manufacturers use for renewable energy technologies. For instance, this includes minerals for battery and other components to produce EVs and wind turbines – such as iron, lithium, and zinc.

However, the IEA has now said that the sharp drop in prices for these minerals is masking an upcoming shortfall. Specifically, it has attributed this to inadequate levels of investment.

For example, the IEA calculated that announced projects will be able to meet only 70% of copper and 50% of lithium requirements in 2035. This applies to a scenario in which countries worldwide meet their national goals for tackling the climate crisis. Of course, both metals are key for manufacturing electric vehicles.

The IEA forecasts the combined market size of key energy transition minerals is set to more than double to $770bn by 2040 as countries target net zero emissions by mid-century.

IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement that:

The world’s appetite for technologies such as solar panels, electric cars and batteries is growing fast –- but we cannot satisfy it without reliable and expanding supplies of critical minerals

However, a separate report from corporate accountability group has shed light on the toll the expansion is already wreaking on communities across the planet.

Indigenous communities and workers bear the cost

The IEA’s report tentatively applauded progress on community involvement in the critical mineral sector. However, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre’s (BHRRC) research on Thursday 16 May hotly contests this.

The group produces an annual Transition Minerals Tracker report. This records allegations of human rights abuse for critical mineral operations. Gathering these since 2010, the BHRRC has now collated over 630 reports of alleged rights violations in the sector globally. Companies, authorities, and other perpetrators carried out nearly a hundred of these in 2023 alone.

Specifically, the BHRRC has tracked these for seven key minerals: bauxite, cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel and zinc. Companies and countries need these for renewable energy technology, and electrification of transport.

Workers and Indigenous communities bore the brunt of these abuses. Alarmingly, one in four of these allegations related to workers. A further one in four were attacks against human rights defenders (HRDs). Indigenous Peoples reported a disproportionate share of these, with 10% of cases.

Companies swimming in complicity

Damningly, the BHRRC identified that of all the companies associated with at least one allegation of abuse, only 39% have a human rights policy in place.

Of course, some companies were particularly complicit. Notably, BHRRC found that ten companies were associated with more than 50% of all allegations tracked since 2010. These include companies among the most established in the sector. For instance, mining giants China Minmetals, Glencore, Grupo Mexico, First Quantum Minerals, and Solway Group routinely featured in allegations.

On top of this, more than two-thirds of allegations were associated with just 20 companies.

Yet while companies are reaping profits at communities’ expense, these groups are also not benefitting from the global green transition.

Adam Anthony, from financial transparency group Publish What You Pay said companies were rushing to Africa to dig up critical minerals but there was little to show for that on the ground.

For example, Tanzania is extracting manganese and graphite. However, he pointed out that it is producing none of the higher-value green tech items like electric cars or batteries that need these minerals. As such, Anthony argued that:

When we talk about critical minerals, it is also very important to ask – who are they critical for? We don’t receive any value from the extraction at the moment.

IEA’s warnings should prompt “urgent action” on human rights

In light of its report, the Canary spoke to the BHRRC on the IEA’s findings. Caroline Avan is head of natural resources and just transition at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. She told the Canary that:

The IEA’s warning of a looming shortage should prompt even more urgent action to ensure any new mining is done in a way that respects communities’ and Indigenous Peoples’ rights. It is indisputable that we need transition minerals, but policies for demand reduction in new mining are insufficient. We must not – and we don’t need to – forget about human rights in the fight against climate change.

Avan also highlighted the IEA’s advice that companies and countries should shift emphasis to mineral recycling to meet the growing demand. She said:

As the IEA notes in their Global Critical Minerals Outlook, published today, ‘stepping up efforts to recycle, innovate and encourage behavioural change is vital to ease potential strains on supply’.

Notably, the IEA has estimated that some $800bn of investment in mining is required by 2040 to put the world on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. However, it warned that:

without the strong uptake of recycling and reuse, mining capital requirements would need to be one-third higher.

For instance, a UN report in October 2023 calculated the waste of critical minerals from disposed electronics. Significantly, the world squanders nearly US $10bn in critical minerals through these. Instead of ramping up extractive, environmentally destructive mining that harms people and the planet, countries could invest in better recycling infrastructure for the green transition. Avan concluded that:

New extraction should not come at the expense of local communities and their environment. We need an energy transition that is fast, but also fair.

In short, as countries scramble for these vital minerals to power their green transition, workers, Indigenous People, and local communities should not be put in the crosshairs.

Feature image via International Energy Agency – YouTube

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

By Hannah Sharland

A British wildlife conservation group has said it had uncovered thousands of breaches of animal welfare standards at zoos across Europe, and urged improvements – including UK zoos.

According to the Aspinall Foundation, a Kent-based charity – there were more than 3,000 breaches of standards which are set by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). This included 29 different zoos over a 18 month period.

The EAZA has 308 members, including dozens in the UK. Their aim is to ensure its member zoos and aquariums:

maintain the highest standards of care and population management.

As reported in The Times, the EAZA acts as the gold standard to reassure the public that animals are well looked after. However, the report claims the accreditation system isn’t up to scratch. 

UK zoos: causing animals to mentally and physically suffer

Only recently, the Canary reported on the failings of Sea Life in their care of Penguins. Clearly, the problem is far more widespread. The investigation involved 12 European countries and alleges that EAZA failed to ensure compliance, leading to “mentally and physically suffering”.

Researchers saw elephants locked outside their shelters in cold temperatures. They also kept bears in concrete enclosures with no shelter, and unbelievably, a hippo had no access to a pool. 

The Times noted that of UK zoos, Colchester Zoo had 17 breaches, whilst Chester had 12. At Colchester, a rhino, ostrich, and zebra were all left outside for six hours without shelter, despite guidelines on accommodation. Chester had similar allegations of their treatment of elephants, with them leaving them outside for five hours. The most accommodation issues were with elephants, then rhinos, lions, tigers, and giraffes.

Lack of rigorous enforcement

The report listed numerous shortfalls, including the lack of unannounced inspections. It also cast doubt on how rigorous their enforcement was due to their dependency on membership fees.

However, the EASA denies that membership fees have any influence on its screening. They added that this was standard practice in modern professional associations. 

Enclosure furnishings, animal shelter and exercise space ere linked to the majority of breaches. Despite this, member zoos all kept their accredited status. 

Significantly, one of the flaws noted was the seven to 10 year gap between the EAZA accrediting facilities, and them renewing them. They noted it “may result in a decline in standards.” Serious concerns were also raised about how much trust the public and zoos are putting in EAZA. 

Myfanwy Griffith, executive director of EAZA said in response that the report failed to:

truthfully represent the aims and effectiveness of EAZA’s accreditation programme.

Damian Aspinall, chairman of the Aspinall Foundation, condemned the accused zoos for creating a “myth of conservation” and said the EAZA was a:

 pointless organisation unless it’s effective and honest with the public.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Feature image via กสิณธร ราชโอรส/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

By HG

Israel Chemicals LTD (ICL) own Boulby mine in Loftus, North Yorkshire. The very same company is supplying Israel with white phosphorus – which it is using to commit war crimes. 

Propping up a genocide

Israel Corporation control ICL who operate in multiple aspects of the Israeli apartheid regime. They are one of the largest Israeli conglomerates.

In the UK, ICL is selling a ‘sustainable fertiliser’ polyhalite – for which there is actually no evidence it has any unique properties. 

However, ICL’s UK operations is laying cover for its genocidal and colonial complicity in Palestine. By greenwashing its broader environmentally ruinous operations, it is propping up the Israeli apartheid state. ICL also has many illegal quarries on occupied Palestinian land, namely in the West Bank. The company is complicit in the apartheid Israeli regime. 

Critically, ICL is producing white phosphorus at its plant in St Louis, US, which they sell to the US army. They then pass it onto the Israeli army. 

Israel white phosphorous: illegal?

White phosphorus is a chemical substance which ignites instantly upon contact with oxygen. It’s incredibly hard to extinguish and sticks to surfaces like clothes and skin. White phosphorus is extremely harmful to people, no matter the route of exposure. It causes deep and severe burns, breathing problems, along with burning the eyes and respiratory tract. 

According to the World Health Organisation:

The use of white phosphorus may violate Protocol III (on the use of incendiary weapons) of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCCW) in one specific instance: if it is used, on purpose, as an incendiary weapon directly against humans in a civilian setting.

There is plenty of evidence of Israel’s unlawful use of white phosphorus, and not just in Palestine. Amnesty International reported that the Israeli army fired artillery shells containing white phosphorus along Lebanon’s southern border in October 2023. Amnesty International want it investigating as a war crime because it was:

an indiscriminate attack that injured at least nine civilians.

Human Rights Watch also verified Israels’ use of white phosphorus on two locations along the Israel-Lebanon border and over Gaza City’s port.

According to various sources, ICL has been the sole provider of white phosphorus to the US Army. The US Army uses it to produce projectiles filled with the dangerous substance. In the US, ICL has a chemical manufacturing plant in St. Louis. The US government contracted ICL into producing white phosphorus for the US Army, for “a 5-year, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity, fixed-price contract” at $3,342,150. 

Amnesty has suggested that the US army may then be providing the projectiles to the Israeli Army – meaning it is complicit in their war crimes as they are used in highly populated areas such as Gaza.

It’s also worth noting, that there were reports of white phosphorus being shipped to Israel from a shipping service in Detroit. Specifically, this is owned by ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. Notably, ZIM’s parent company is also the Israel Corporation.

Roots in settler-colonialism

The state of Israel established ICL in 1968 as a government-owned company. In 1975, it took over other government owned entities including Dead Sea Works.

Dead Sea Works was originally ‘Palestine Potash’ and was founded by Moise Novomeysky, a Russian mining engineer and head of the Siberian Zionist Center. As early as the mid 1700’s the Palestinians had recognised the Dead Sea’s potential and engaged in salt farming on its shores.

However, Israel systematically excluded Palestinians from economic development in the region. Ultimately, this provided the Zionists the political capital they needed to further their settler-colonial aspirations.

Once Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, it quickly took large areas of land to secure the area around the Dead Sea. Israeli authorities manipulated land codes and stole Palestinian land, including the entire dead sea coastline. The Israeli government privatised ICL in 1992 

Currently, ICL has 10 illegal quarries in the occupied West Bank, according to a report by the Israeli Ministry of Interior. Notably, ICL is also operating in the occupied Syrian Golan. 

The UK is complicit

The Canary contacted ICL for comment, but they did not come back to us by the time of publication.

By allowing ICL to operate a mine in Yorkshire and sell its products in the UK, the country is helping fund the production of white phosphorus, so that Israel can kill and maim Palestinians.

This is only a part of the much bigger picture as ICL operates in 13 different countries across the globe. Each site allows it to build its revenue and ultimately, financially underpin its apartheid and genocide-abetting activities in Gaza and the West Bank. 

ICL is also currently getting away with it’s questionable marketing of its polyhalite fertiliser – a prime example of greenwashing. 

Feature image supplied

By HG

An Israel-based conscientious objector, who spoke at an event to mark International Conscientious Objectors’ Day, has called for support and solidarity for ‘refuseniks’ facing persecution around the world.

Conscientious objectors: under attack in Israel

In the many countries where there is conscription, people refusing military service are often imprisoned or forced to become refugees.

The Israeli conscientious objector, Or, has drawn attention to this widespread human rights abuse. She herself has served multiple prison sentences for her refusal to join the Israeli military.

The call came as International Conscientious Objectors’ Day (15 May) was marked around the world, to raise awareness of the struggles of conscientious objectors and to send them a message of solidarity.

The current war in Israel and Gaza has drawn fresh attention to the stance of Israeli conscientious objectors, who have spoken out against the assault on Gaza and the system of Israeli apartheid and occupation. Eighteen-year-old Tal Mitnick was the first to declare a conscientious objection since October last year and has since been followed by several others.

Moreover, according to the Refuser Solidarity Network, hundreds more Israelis have refused to participate in the war, both conscripts and reservists. Many, knowing the consequences of conscientious objection, seek exemption on mental health grounds.

Young Israelis who declare a conscientious objection are aggressively questioned and can be given repeated sentences in military prison, whilst often facing stigmatisation and ostracism from wider society.

It is a human right

Conscientious objection is recognised a human right, covered under ‘the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion’ in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

However this right is seldom fully upheld by governments. In both Russia and Ukraine, for instance, conscientious objectors face imprisonment for refusing to fight.

In Russia their treatment is especially severe, with conscientious objectors receiving up to ten years in prison. Because of the risks they face, the majority of conscientious objectors to the fighting are likely to be among the hundreds of thousands of people who have left both countries since the Russian invasion.

Or, who is a member of the Israeli feminist and anti-militarist organisation New Profile, said:

Most conscientious objectors stay under the radar because of the social consequences of refusing to join the army.

Supporting conscientious objectors for me is to fight against militarisation around the world, is to speak up for what they believe in, whether they are in Israel, Turkey, Myanmar, North Korea, South Korea, Finland or Iran. To remember the young people making brave choices, saying NO I am not going to kill or get killed, I choose peace.

Members of the UK’s leading pacifist organisation, the Peace Pledge Union, have welcomed Or’s comments. They have previously called on the UK government to offer asylum to Russians fleeing conscription and defended the rights of British COs.

Watch the Peace Pledge Union’s event below:

Featured image via Peace Pledge Union

By The Canary

The Portuguese government has grounded an ecocidal airport that would have decimated a biodiverse wetland. However, it isn’t the end of the climate-wrecking air travel plan. Specifically, the government is still hurtling ahead with plans to build the new airport at a different location. Of course, this will be disastrous for the climate crisis and nature.

Portugal’s airport plans

In 2019, the Portuguese government announced plans to build a new airport outside of Lisbon.

The government planned to build this in the Tagus Estuary, close to Portugal’s capital. However, it is one of the main estuaries in Western Europe and Portugal’s most important wetland for waterbirds.

Moreover, the location is protected as a Special Protection Area (SPA) and Site of Community Importance (SCI) under the EU nature law. Notably, it has special Ramsar wetland status and the government has designated the area a Portuguese Nature Reserve.

The Tagus Estuary regularly hosts up to 200,000 wintering birds. Alongside this, it is the most important place in the country for wintering ducks, waders, and other waterbirds such as flamingos and gulls. Meanwhile, in any given migration season, the Tagus can play host to in excess of 300,000 birds, as it acts as a crucial pit stop for migratory birds on their long journey.

So, in June 2020, ClientEarth and Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves (SPEA, BirdLife Portugal), along with eight Portuguese NGOS, filed a court action with the Lisbon Administrative Court. The environmental groups argued that the Portuguese authorities failed to carry out proper environmental impact assessments.

Specifically, they said that Montijo Airport’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) goes against EU and national law and should be annulled.

An EIS is a document in which the government sets out its assessment of a project’s impact on the environment. EU law requires authorities to carry out a series of assessments to determine a project’s impact on a protected site. Only after it has conducted these assessments, and shown it would cause no harm to the area, can it greenlight a project.

Portugal airport on an “irreplaceable nature reserve”

Now, the government has finally dropped its plans for the new Portugal airport on the biodiverse estuary.

Head of ClientEarth’s Iberian and Mediterranean office Soledad Gallego said:

It is unbelievable that the Portuguese authorities were considering building a new airport on this protected site. The airport would have significantly deteriorated the habitats of this irreplaceable nature reserve and seriously compromised the migratory route from Europe to Africa of birds that depend on this unique area for survival. The decision to abandon building on the Tagus was the only feasible route to take.

Gallego added:

The authorities have clearly realised that building the airport on this internationally protected site would be incompatible with tackling the biodiversity crisis we are facing. The knock-on effects that this project would have had on migratory birds would have been felt well beyond Portugal’s borders.

Flies in the face of climate commitments

The development is part of the government’s plans to increase air traffic capacity in Portugal’s two main cities of Lisbon and Porto. Notably, this includes expansion of infrastructure at Lisbon’s Portela Airport. There, the government intends for air traffic increases of 50%. Meanwhile, it also aims to increase air traffic by 60% at Porto’s Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport. The new Montijo airport in the Tagus Estuary sits alongside these expansions.

According to the community database the Environmental Justice Atlas, this would send air-traffic-related carbon emissions soaring. Crucially, these plans would make it the single largest contributor of carbon pollution in Portugal.

As such, campaigners, scientists, and members of the public have said it flies in the face of the government’s own goal for carbon neutrality by 2050.

And while the government has now dropped plans on the protected site, it now intends to build the new Portugal airport at a different location. In other words, it’s continuing with its mega-polluting air travel project.

Following the launch of the groups’ legal action, the Portuguese authorities announced they would carry out a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). This would determine the most appropriate location for the new airport. The announcement made by Prime Minister Montenegro to now build the airport near Alcochete is the outcome of the SEA.

Of course, climate groups have pointed out that the alternative airport location will still have far-reaching impacts on the environment. Gollego said that:

airports have global climate impacts regardless of where they are built. The Portuguese government should be asking itself whether building a new airport at all is in line with its climate goals and in the best interest of the health of people and nature.

Feature image via Marulvw – Youtube

By The Canary

US President Joe Biden and disgraced ex-President Donald Trump have agreed to hold election debates in June and September.

The two have been taking potshots at each other about their first on-stage meetings in nearly four years. The sudden agreement, ending months of uncertainty over whether the debates would happen at all, came after Biden, 81, challenged his scandal-tinged Republican rival to “make my day.” Trump, 77, quickly responded that he was “ready to rumble.”

Within hours CNN announced it would host the first debate in Atlanta on 27 June, and ABC said it would stage the second on 10 September.

Grandpa Rumble coming to a TV screen near you

With former president Trump leading polls in battleground states, Biden appeared to be trying to seize the initiative by proposing both the dates and an audience-free format for the debates.

It represents a calculated political risk against a supreme political showman, with Biden hoping to use the debates to overcome concerns about his age and remind voters of Trump’s chaotic time in the White House.

When asked by an AFP reporter if he was looking forward to the debates, Biden replied: “I am.”

Earlier, he said in a video on X:

Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal.

Biden also trolled Trump over his criminal hush-money trial in New York, which features a mid-week break, adding:

I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.

Trump’s swift acceptance is in stark contrast to the fact that he’s avoided any debates with his Republican rivals. Perhaps he’s itching to get out of the courtroom after all.

“Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!” he wrote on his Truth Social app, describing Biden as the “WORST debater I have ever faced.” He continued his ramble by saying:

I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds.

CNN confirmed there would be no audience for its June debate. Biden, apparently unable to help himself, tweeted:

I’ve received and accepted an invitation from CNN for a debate on June 27th. Over to you, Donald. As you said: anywhere, any time, any place.

‘Shut up, man’

The last debates between the two men in 2020 were tension-filled affairs, with Biden at one point snapping “will you shut up, man?” as Trump repeatedly talked over him.

It was later revealed that Trump had also tested positive for Covid shortly before that debate, without informing organisers.

This time, Biden’s campaign said it would bypass the debate commission because of its “failure” to meet the needs of voters.

Neither debate was set to involve independent challenger Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy accused Trump and Biden of:

colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70 percent say they do not want.

Ken Miller, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas said:

My guess is that Biden wants to remind people of Trump’s abrasive personality.

Trump’s personality is so hard to forget, isn’t it?

Miller called the debates a “rare chance” for Trump to speak directly to voters, but maintained that:

Presidential debates rarely have had any long-lasting effects on voters’ opinions.

No real choice with Trump vs Biden

How much actual difference is there between Trump and Biden? Bloomberg lay out some of Biden’s achievements during his term and conclude:

Despite economic gains, the president’s approval ratings are dismal.

Now why could that be? Perhaps because Biden’s policies on policing, Israel, and immigration have proven to be in the same vein as Trump’s. Sure, Biden’s policies aren’t covered with the same breathless indignation from the mainstream media, but what’s the actual difference between the two?

Just in 2019, Trump promised $3.3bn in funding to Israel. Reuters estimate that Biden has given about $3.8bn to Israel. The Council on Foreign Relations found that:

The United States has provisionally agreed (via a memorandum of understanding) to provide Israel with nearly $4 billion a year through 2028.

As the council notes, that doesn’t include any supplementary funding given to Israel – with plans of $1bn more a possibility.

What about immigration? Trump certainly broke the rules of polite society with his rants about Mexican people, immigrants in general, and his bloody wall. And Biden? Well, he’s avoided the rapid-fire rambles characteristic of Trump, but when it comes to actual policy they’re not that different. The Washington Post reported:

Since Title 42 ended in May [2023], Biden officials have deported or returned roughly 500,000 people to Mexico and other countries, exceeding Trump’s totals, which averaged roughly 500,000 annually.

The core difference between Biden and Trump, for liberals at least, is that Biden knows how to behave politely in front of the cameras. Unlike Trump, he has a sense of decorum, can stand around in a suit without weirdly hugging a flag and uh… well, that’s about it.

For the rest of the world, there’s no functional difference between the two. Would you prefer bombs raining down in the name of the Democrats or the Republicans?

And for a real treat, you can watch these two scrap for the most social media-worthy soundbite while the US continues to flex its military power worldwide regardless of which presidential figurehead is on top.

By The Canary

Wednesday 15 May marked 76 years since Israel militia, backed by the UK, committed the Nakba against the Palestinian people. It’s arguable it never actually ended. So, to mark the day and send a clear message to warmongering arms manufacturers propping up Israel’s genocidal regime, Palestine Action has hit several targets across the country.

Palestine Action: marking the Nakba with action

First, at UAV Engines Ltd (UEL) factory in Shenstone, Palestine Action activists locked on outside:

Whilst at Teledyne Defence and Space (TDS) in Shipley, activists occupied and dismantled the roof of the factory to bring operations to a halt:

At the Elbit subsidiary UEL, seven activists from Palestine Action locked down the entrance to the weapons factory, using both vehicles and lock-on boxes to prevent any shipments or workers from entering and continuing their complicity in genocide:

The factory is a crucial part of Israel’s war machine because it is owned by Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems — who provide 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet. Specifically, UEL designs and produces engines to power Elbit’s drones, which are used for both the surveillance and bombing of targets during the ongoing genocide.

At Teledyne, Palestine Action activists occupied the factory’s roof and began taking it apart to render the factory inoperable:

Through the occupation, Palestine Action activists halted the production of key components for missile systems – specifically missile filters – exported from the site to Israel.

The US arms maker has often boasted of its involvement with missile products procured by Israel, including the AGM-Harpoon, AIM-120 AMRAAM, and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles – the latter reportedly being used by Israel to strike Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. The site also produces parts fitted in F-35 Fighter jets, such as the Phobos ESM System used in the AN/APG-81 AESA radar (listed as ‘radar warning receiver’ on their radar components page).

All actions were taken to mark 76 years since the Nakba.

The Nakba has never ended

The Nakba, (‘The Catastrophe’ in English) saw Zionist militias, armed and trained by the British Armed Forces, expel over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland. These militias destroyed over 500 towns and villages, and massacred over 13,000 people – including entire families.

This started an ongoing process of disposession and ethnic cleansing, which culminated in the ongoing genocide being waged by the Zionist entity since 7 October 2023.

Since that date, over 35,000 Palestinians have been killed by the settler colonial state, with almost half of that number being children. Not only that, but the survivors are repeatedly being forced to flee on dangerous death marches to “safe places” where Israel’s military will inevitably bombard them again.

A Palestine Action spokesperson said:

It is a common phrase by Palestinians to say: the Nakba is not an event but a process. And just like the actions of Israel today were set in motion by the Nakba, so too was Britain’s complicity.

The Zionist militias which perpetrated the catastrophe were trained by British soldiers, and today we see history repeat when Britain allows the companies we have targeted today to continue with their business backing brutality whilst Israel butchers Palestinians en mass. This is a crime, and one we fully intend to stop. As we have always said: we won’t stop till the Nakba does.

Featured image via Neil Terry Photography and additional images via Neil Terry Photography and Palestine Action

By The Canary

Israel has repeatedly attacked aid workers in Gaza who had previously shared their coordinates with the state.

Aid organisations targeted include World Central Kitchen, Doctors Without Borders, International Rescue Committee, Medical Aid for Palestinians, American Near East Refugee Aid Organisation, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Terrorising humanitarian workers

The UN reports that as of 30 April, Israel has killed at least 254 aid workers in Gaza. The majority of those killed are from UNRWA – the largest aid organisation in Palestine.

In eight instances where Human Rights Watch documents that aid workers shared their location with Israel, the state murdered or injured at least 31 people. Israel also gave no warning before the attacks.

The UK and US governments are additionally complicit. In one of these attacks Israel used a US-made bomb fired from an F16 jet, which includes parts the UK supplied.

And in the World Central Kitchen attack on 1 April, Israel struck aid workers with a Hermes 450 drone that uses a UK-made engine.

Israel has an army unit – the Coordination and Liaison Administration. This says it looks after Palestinian humanitarian needs in Gaza.

Targeted aid workers acting for Doctors Without Borders shared their location with this unit.

Making Gaza uninhabitable for Palestinians

The attacks on aid workers appear to be part of Israel’s strategy to attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians out of Gaza and force them into other countries like Egypt.

Israel’s conduct to aid workers sends them a chilling message and had forced at least 11 organisations to severely scale back their operations. This contributes to making Gaza uninhabitable for Palestinians.

Israel has weaponised starvation against Palestinian people.

The UN reports that 1.1 million people in Gaza are experiencing or facing catastrophic food insecurity. That’s because Israel is restricting the number of aid trucks entering Gaza to an average of 180 per day.

This is well below the over 500 trucks needed, according to a spokesperson for UNRWA.

Since 24 March, Israel has prevented UNRWA from providing food aid in North Gaza.

This means malnutrition is particularly an issue in North Gaza. Oxfam reports that people there are surviving on an average of 245 calories per day – less than a can of beans.

Israel’s collective punishment against the Palestinian people such as through using starvation as a weapon is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

We must ensure Israel faces accountability for such atrocities in the ICC. Or the state will continue to act with impunity.

Featured image via NBC News – YouTube and Doctors Without Borders – YouTube

By James Wright

A housing association – Adra – is torturing a severely chronically ill woman and putting her life at risk. She lives with both Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) and severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). Despite her extreme vulnerability to noise and vibrations due to her ME and EDS, the housing association operating a nearby estate sprung construction work on her without warning.

On top of this, the association is refusing to make basic mitigations that could stop her experiencing “agonising” pain. As a result, they have put her through weeks of suffering that she has described “brings her close to death”.

ME and EDS

Jenny Rowbory has been bed-bound for 19 years with vascular EDS and severe ME.

ME is a chronic systemic neuroimmune disease which affects nearly every system in the body. It can cause day-to-day flu-like symptoms, cognitive impairment, different types of body-wide pain, as well as multiple dysfunctions impacting blood pressure, the heart, lungs, and digestive system. Of course, this is a non-exhaustive list – you can read more about its symptoms here.

Crucially, post-exertional-malaise (PEM) is the hallmark symptom of ME, which entails a disproportionate worsening of many of these symptoms after even minimal physical or mental activities.

Severe ME impacts approximately 25% of people living with the disease. In these cases, people living with severe ME are mostly, if not entirely permanently bed-bound or hospitalised. On top of this, they are often unable to digest food, communicate, or process information and are fully dependent on others for their care.

Meanwhile, EDS is a group of 13 types of chronic, hereditary, genetic connective tissue disorders. Specifically, collagen doesn’t work as it should in people living with EDS. In Jenny’s case, she lives with vascular EDS, which causes fragile blood vessels and hollow organs, at risk of life-threatening rupture.

In addition to these, Jenny also lives with atlantoaxial instability (AAI) and craniocervical instability (CCI). EDS and other connective tissue disorders generally cause these. Both present as increased mobility at junctions in the neck. The two can trigger a range of devastating symptoms. You can read more on these here and here.

Adra Housing Association putting Jenny through “torturous pain”

Now, a housing association in North Wales, near where she lives, is putting her through intense and torturous pain.

Specifically, in April, Adra Housing Association began construction work at a housing estate just 20 metres from Jenny and her family’s private home. The construction work will come within metres of her and is set to last for 33 weeks.

However, due to her chronic diseases, the construction noise and vibrations pose a serious risk to her health. As Jenny wrote in her letter to her Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts:

It is no exaggeration to say that because of my condition, noise is literally torture for me. It is not merely ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘hypersensitivity’, it is unbearable constant agony and also inflicts lasting damage.

Due to reduced blood flow to all my body (because of vascular compression in my unstable neck due to the CCI/AAI due to the EDS), my mitochondria don’t produce the energy needed for my body to function, so even sound acts as a physical exertion on my failing systems.

A few minutes of pneumatic drill or heavy machinery (e.g. the constant engine noise of a dumper truck all day) is torture and is the same exertion as others running marathons – my heart goes into chronic failure. The vibrations of noise also disrupt my heart rhythms. Sound also produces agonising unbearable spine pain, nerve pain and head pain.

Since this would be a devolved matter, Saville-Roberts has since passed on Jenny’s concerns to Member of the Senedd Mabon ap Gwynfor.

The impact of loud construction on Jenny’s vascular EDS alone would be bad enough. However, with her severe ME, AAI, and CCI, this is made significantly worse. As Jenny has detailed, the noise from the construction equipment:

can push people with my condition into a state of sheer exhaustion, often referred to as a “crash” – that can shut the body’s organs and functions down completely. The Mayo Clinic says: “It may take someone weeks, or even months to return to their previous baseline”… I have already deteriorated and the pain is unimaginable.

Ultimately, Jenny is unable to move away from the noise. She also explained in her letter that doing so:

Is too dangerous unless there is the surgery that I need at the end of the journey, which would fix the damage caused by being moved. I also cannot wear ear defenders due to my neck and also being horizontal against a pillow.

Refusing to listen

Given all this, Jenny and her family have requested some simple mitigations to reduce the impact to her health. For instance, this included attaching silencers to the pneumatic drills and erecting acoustic barriers to limit the noise. They also suggested that Adra’s construction team could move the loud equipment a distance from Jenny and turn these off when not in use.

Initially, Adra agreed to have a meeting about this. However, they did not stop construction work until this took place, so continued to put Jenny through immense pain. Despite these reasonable requests, Adra has largely ignored the impact its construction is having on Jenny.

While they did put in place some acoustic panels, a site manager did a decibel reading which showed they’d made little difference to the sound.

Adra has refused to use silencers on the pneumatic drills. In particular, it told the family that this is because silencers for the small pneumatic drills it is using to dig up pavements do not exist.

Conversely, Adra has said that using the larger drills with silencers would also not resolve the issue. It explained that this is because the net noise levels would be much the same. So, Adra has said to the family that they “feel that they’ve done everything they can”.

Adra continuing to ignore the family’s appeal

The Canary contacted Adra for comment. A spokesperson told us:

We fully sympathise with Ms Rowbory’s situation and have been engaging with the family since we were made aware of issues that have been raised, with visits to both the site and Ms Rowbory’s home being undertaken.

We have offered various sound mitigating measures as a sign of goodwill and to show our dedication to finding a solution.

Acoustic sound barriers have been erected around the works to reduce the noise emissions. It is important to note they are designed to lower noise levels and not totally eliminate noise from construction activities. The contractors also regularly take decibel readings to measure and record the sound coming from the site, which have been within permitted levels.

The contractors on site are adhering to best environmental practices when working to minimise noise levels.

We will continue to take reasonable steps to try and find workable solutions and will continue to keep channels of communications with the family open and updated.”

However, Jenny’s mum Ann told the Canary that:

Adra didn’t ‘offer’ various sound mitigating measures, we had to come up with them ourselves, we had to press Adra hard and doggedly, meeting much resistance, to get them to erect the sound panels. But unfortunately the Site Manager’s decibel readings show that the sound barriers have, in his words, “made no significant difference” to the noise level. And it will only be getting louder as the drill moves closer.

Since Adra are offering no effective sound mitigations, we need them to pause work so that we can soundproof Jenny’s bedroom. A sound expert says that it will take four weeks to soundproof the room properly and cost £20,000 to do it effectively.

We would need to wheel out Jenny’s hospital bed from her room, down a ramp and up a ramp into the conservatory while the soundproofing takes place.

Currently the conservatory doesn’t have a door wide enough for her hospital bed to fit into so a builder would need to make a wider door for the conservatory. The conservatory is even closer to the road than Jenny’s room so the noise would be so much louder, which is why we need a pause in the construction work while we undertake the soundproofing.

The “best environmental practices”?

Ultimately, Jenny urgently needs Adra to stop construction and put measures in place to protect her health. Already, it has caused her to deteriorate. Ann told the Canary that:

Adra say they are working to best environmental practices but they did not need consent for the work from Gwynedd Council. Gwynedd Council only requires new builds to get consent. There is no distinction in law between healthy people and ill people I have been told when it comes to noise concerns so the Council are unable to help Jenny.

So Adra may be following the letter of the law as it stands but not its spirit, the reason why it was written in the first place, to protect people. Adra see this issue therefore as only needing their goodwill rather than compliance with any legal requirement.

It is extremely outdated to consider all people have the same hearing but they are sticking to that premise and say Jenny must use PPE like everyone else but because of her health condition, Jenny cannot. That leaves us in nowhere land!

Moreover, on Tuesday 14 May Jenny confirmed on X that Adra has now moved the drill in closer despite all this.

As ever then, classist, profiteering housing associations are never prepared to do the bare minimum for tenants, let alone disabled neighbours living with chronic illnesses. Unsurprisingly, Adra doesn’t look like it’s going to start now.

Jenny and her family are also crowdfunding for the vital surgery she needs. This is only available to her in the US. If you can support her fundraiser, please donate to this here.

Feature image via Facebook – Brenig Construction/the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

It’s 2024, but violence against LGBTQ+ people continues apace. In fact, across Europe, it has rocketed to record levels. This is according to a new Europe-wide survey which revealed the situation for LGBTQ+ people living across the EU, Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia.

Unsurprisingly, the new survey exposed the appalling scale of discrimination that bigots across the board, from employers to healthcare systems, and throughout multiple other public institutions continue to mete out against them.

Europe LGBTQ+ report

On Tuesday 14 May, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) released its new damning report on the state of society for LGBTQ+ people in 2023. Specifically, over 100,000 respondents from across the EU, Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia participated in the FRA’s comprehensive survey. It followed two previous surveys the FRA had conducted first in 2012, and then again in 2019.

Significantly, the report noted that its findings “present a paradox”. On the one hand, it showed a positive uptick in the number of people living openly as LGBTQ+. For instance, the report identified that the share of respondents open about their sexual and gender identity had increased.

In 2019, less than half – 46% – said they were open about this. By contrast, 52% of respondents said they are “often or always” open about being LGBTQ+.

Alongside this, 36% of survey respondents said they had experienced discrimination in the 12 months before the survey. While still over a third, this was down from the 42% respondents reported in 2019.

However, an alarming rise in violence since 2019 has tempered progress in LGBTQ+ living safe and free from hatred.

Notably, 14% of respondents reported experiencing a physical or sexual attack in the five years before the survey was conducted in 2023. Comparatively, 11% of respondents had reported this in 2019.

Of course, some groups shouldered a disproportionate burden of this violence. In particular, bigots had threatened or carried out violence against intersex and trans people far more than the average across the LGBTQ+ community.

In 2019, violence against intersex people across the previous five years had been 22%, but this sky-rocketed to 34% in 2023. Meanwhile, this was the case for 29% of trans women and 23% of trans men in 2023.

Discrimination in all aspects of public life

As well as an increase in violence, the Europe LGBTQ+ report showed that unconscionably high levels of discrimination persists in multiple aspects of public life.

Overall, in the 12 months before the survey, 37% of respondents said that institutions, public services, and people had discriminated against them for being LGBTQ+.

This included 18% in the workplace, 17% in food and drinks venues, and 15% in education settings. For instance, bullying at schools has drastically increased. More than two in three respondents said they had been bullied, a steep increase compared to one out of two in 2019.

Healthcare was also hot on the heels of these public settings, with 14% of respondents reporting that services had discriminated against them.

Notably, the report said that:

LGBTIQ people face severe difficulties in accessing healthcare, in many cases leading to forgoing treatment (5 %), avoiding seeking necessary healthcare (6 %) or being refused treatment by medical professionals (2 %).

A worrying proportion of respondents (10 %) say that they faced such problems in accessing emergency care or that they had to change general practitioner due to negative reactions(5 %).

Similarly, the high rates of discrimination were also the case in housing for 12% of respondents. Moreover, 1% of survey respondents had said this discrimination had pushed them into homelessness. The report highlighted the disproportionate levels of LGBTQ+ people forced into this:

many respondents face difficulties with housing and homelessness that are disproportionate compared with the general population. For example, 6 % of intersex respondents report having to sleep rough in a public space at least once in their life compared with 0.2 % of the general population.

Political football for the far right

Notably, a shameful ecosystem of online bigotry is partly responsible for driving this spike in hate-motivated violence.

Specifically, the report stated that:

Online campaigns inciting hate against LGBTIQ people are spreading disinformation.

Nearly two thirds of respondents said they:

often or always encounter online statements including calls for violence against LGBTIQ people, references to ‘LGBTIQ propaganda’ or ‘gender ideology’, references to LGBTIQ people posing a sexual threat or a threat to ‘traditional values’, considering LGBTIQ people to be ‘unnatural’ or mentally ill, and other forms of hatred.

As the Canary previously reported, the vitriolic tirade of online disinformation has fed into European far-right narratives.

Of course, this is especially prescient ahead of the European Parliament’s 2024 elections in June.

Already, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Europe (IGLA-Europe) has highlighted this hatred in action. In a similar report it published in February, the IGLA-Europe identified an alarming surge in anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech from politicians across the bloc.

Most prominently, political candidates and elected officials directed this towards trans people throughout the continent.

Given this, IGLA-Europe advocacy director Katrin Hugendubel said in February that:

It is in this climate that the European Parliament elections will take place next June. The public discourse is becoming more polarised and violent, particularly against trans people, and the LGBTI community has experienced the highest and most severe violence across Europe in decades.

Overall, the new Europe LGBTQ+ report underscores the stark and ongoing violence, harassment, and discrimination that persist for the LGBTQ+ community. Of course, this upsurge in violence hasn’t occurred in a vacuum. Evidentially, while politicians continue to use LGBTQ+ people as their political football, this violence and discrimination will continue to thrive.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Feature image via Youtube – Planet V

By Hannah Sharland

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is suing the German state after the government took totalitarian measures against Palestine resistance.

Police dispatched 930 officers to shut down the Palestine Congress in Berlin in April and banned Varoufakis as well as other speakers from the country.

Varoufakis: Germany violating “basic rights”

Following that, Varoufakis’ lawyers had three simple questions for the German authorities: which body issued the ban, when was it issued and on what grounds?

But the authorities refused to even answer – citing “national security” grounds and stating that a reply would undermine “proper performance of the duties of the Federal Police and other security services involved in the case”.

It’s unclear how Varoufakis or peaceful event the Palestine Congress represent a “national security” threat.

So Varoufakis is suing the German state for a “violation of his basic rights and defamation”.

The three day event aimed to raise awareness of Israel’s war crimes and German complicity, with organisers stating:

Together, with the voices of the Palestinian movement and the international community, we will denounce Israeli apartheid and genocide. We accuse Germany of being complicit.

The Palestine Conference will see numerous keynote speakers, panels and workshops. It will also be a space for organising and networking within the movement. Together we will discuss the perspectives of our movement on the basis of a common resolution.

Practical steps for actions in the workplace, universities, schools, arts and culture will be discussed and decided upon. An evening cultural programme and Palestinian catering will ensure a sense of community and well-being.

Association Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East was a key organiser.

Germany’s complicity

Instead of banning arms sales to Israel when lawyers were warning of the risk of genocide against the Palestinians, Germany initially increased arms sales to Israel after 7 October.

In 2023 German arms exports to Israel were up 10-fold, with the country supplying €326.5m of military equipment. So Germany is facing accusations of aiding genocide in the International Court of Justice, in a case brought by Nicaragua.

Israel has now killed at least 14,500 Palestinian children since 7 October. Yet it is the people opposing such a historic crime that Germany is banning – not the arms exports.

Wider authoritarian stance

The shutdown of Palestine Congress is part of Germany’s wider crackdown on Palestine solidarity. After 7 October, Germany initially banned most Palestine solidarity protests from going ahead.

When the bans were lifted, protesters were still concerned that freedom of expression was under threat after police seized banners.

Now student protests in the US have spread around Europe. And German police shut down a demonstration at Berlin’s Free University, where they also used pepper spray.

University president Guenter Ziegler said they had police close the protest because it’s “not geared towards dialogue”.

In the face of such suppression, we must uphold the basic freedoms of assembly and expression. In the case of Varoufakis, that means suing the German government.

Featured image via PoliticsJOE – YouTube

By James Wright

Leading wildlife charity Butterfly Conservation is calling on nature enthusiasts across the UK to design a brilliant banner which will have pride of place at the upcoming Restore Nature Now march.

Restore Nature Now: marching in June

Extinction Rebellion, BBC wildlife legend Chris Packham, Butterfly Conservation, and tens of thousands of members of the public will ‘unite for nature’ by joining a legal and family-friendly demonstration on the streets of central London on Saturday 22 June 2024. They will have a simple demand of all political parties: ‘Restore Nature Now‘.

As the Canary previously reported, this demonstration aims to be the biggest gathering of people for nature and climate that the UK has seen. It will be both a celebration of UK nature and a protest for urgent political action on the biodiversity crisis and climate crisis.

Chris Packham said:

As conservationists and environmental groups we have to accept that the dire state of nature – both in the UK and globally – has happened on our watch. So now’s the time for bolder action, stronger demands, braver tactics and a new way of working… together.

Ticking a box, signing a petition, sharing a post-  it’s simply not enough when we are facing the collapse of our living systems. It’s time for all of us to take to the streets, shoulder to shoulder, whoever we are and demand our leaders Restore Nature Now.

Now, Butterfly Conservation has got a way that people can get directly involved before the event:

Use your creativity to speak up for nature!

We're looking for the next generation of campaigners to come up with a banner design to accompany Butterfly Conservation at the #RestoreNatureNow march in London in June.

Find out how to enter https://t.co/kv1vDC3BJJ pic.twitter.com/11yevVpOv1

— Butterfly Conservation (@savebutterflies) May 4, 2024

Stopping the decline of butterflies and moths

The winning design will be printed and held aloft at the head of the wildlife charity’s party as they, along with thousands of others, march to Westminster in London on Saturday 22 June calling for urgent action to ensure nature’s recovery.

The competition, which runs from 3 May – 3 June, is open to anyone still in education and encourages budding creatives and campaigners to create a standout design which shows their support for butterflies and moths and the vital need to protect them.

Crayons, paints, computers – all mediums are welcome, and the winning banner will be chosen by Butterfly Conservation’s brand-new Youth Panel who will be looking out for fun, bold, emotive, and creative designs.

As well as taking pride of place at the head of the Butterfly Conservation team at the march, the winner will also receive a Butterfly Conservation t-shirt to proudly show their support for wildlife.

Julie Williams, Butterfly Conservation’s CEO said:

Our butterflies and moths are under threat. 80% of butterflies have declined since the 1970s. Moth numbers have fallen by at least 33% in that same time. We know what is needed to reverse these declines. It’s time to act.

With sufficient resources we have shown that conservation action works at both local and national level. But current government funding and policies are falling short, and our butterflies and moths can’t wait. We will be marching to make our voice and the voices of our supporters heard.

To enter the competition, send a photograph or scan of your design in a landscape format to socialbutterfly@butterfly-conservation.org along with your name, age and a contact email address or telephone number, by 8pm on Monday 3 June 2024.

More details are here.

Featured image via Iain H Leach – Butterfly Conservation

By The Canary

On Thursday 9 May, Australia unveiled plans to keep burning gas beyond 2050. They claim this would not affect their pledge to reach net zero emissions by that date, as laid out by the UN. However, environmental groups are outraged and branded it a “climate disaster’’.

The deception of ‘natural’ gas

The fossil fuel industry has cleverly and deceptively rebranded methane – derived from fossil fuels, into ‘natural gas’. This purposeful misleading is clear greenwashing and an attempt to create the perception of a ‘clean’ fuel. 

Methane is a colourless and odourless gas that produces far less pollutants than coal, when burned. However, a lot of scientific research demonstrates that when gas is both made and used, it poses a huge risk to the climate and human health. Shockingly, Methane is to blame for 30% of total warming and is the second biggest contributor to the climate catastrophe, after carbon dioxide. 

The Global Methane Pledge (GMP) – which Australia signed – was launched at COP26 by the EU and the US. Significantly, it aims to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels, by 2030. 

Australia has pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050. They recently publicised plans to overhaul its economy with ‘massive investments’ in clean energy production.

Obviously, environmental groups were quick to shoot the strategy down. Jennifer Rayner, advocacy head for the Australian non-profit Climate Council, said the government needed to make a choice between gas or renewable energy:

It can’t do both. 

More gas is a bad bet, against a safe climate future and a thriving clean economy.

Meanwhile Gavan McFadzean, spokesman for the Australian Conservation Foundation said:

Gas is a highly polluting fossil fuel, the burning of which is supercharging bushfires, heatwaves, coral bleaching and flooding in Australia and around the world.

To replace one fossil fuel with another is not a clean energy transition.

Contradicting the Paris Agreement

Australia is continuing to ship gas overseas under the government’s new strategy. It is currently the country’s second biggest export by value. Meaning, they are using this to justify the need to exploit new gas fields. Notably, there is a large consensus across published research that new oil and gas fields are a direct contradiction of the 1.5ºc target laid out in the Paris Agreement. 

Unsurprisingly, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has cast doubt on the need for more gas. Josh Runciman who is an analyst there, told AFP:

Our research has found that further gas exploration and development is definitely not needed. 

Gas exploration expenditure has been falling for the past decade as gas companies pivot to renewable investments or return cash to shareholders.

Australia has committed to slashing carbon emissions by 43% by 2030, on a path to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. Currently gas accounts for nearly one third of Australia’s energy consumption, whereas renewables make up a mere 8.9%.

World bank figures show that Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions per person are some of the highest in the world. At 15.3 tonnes – they surpass even the US levels. 

Australia: blatant hypocrisy

Only this week, Australia and Tuvalu announced the launch of a ‘climate and security pact’ which will come into force this year. Whilst there is a brief mention of ‘bolstering Tuvalu’s coastal defences’ – the pact mainly focuses on security. However, it did include one climate-focused element. Specifically, it offers Tuvalu’s 11,000 residents the right to live in Australia, if rising sea levels destroy their homeland.

In a show of blatant hypocrisy – Australia is offering to house the people of Tuvalu, should sea levels keep rising. Simultaneously, they are directly contributing to the rising sea levels through their continued use of fossil fuels.

Seemingly, Australia isn’t willing to pull their finger out to prevent rising sea levels battering a low-lying island. Essentially, its very plan to continue pumping out gas beyond 2050 will exacerbate the climate crisis.

Ultimately, making the people of Tuvalu climate refugees. 

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Feature image via 7News Australia/Youtube, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

By HG

By The Canary

In its rush to scrap old-style benefits, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is potentially set to strip over 100,000 people of their vital social security. This is because of its so-called ‘managed migration’ process.

Specifically, the DWP has recently announced that it is moving up its timetable for its Universal Credit so-called “managed migration”. The roll-out is forcing those on legacy benefits like Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and Tax Credits to shift over to Universal Credit.

Previously, the DWP planned to complete this by 2028. Now, it has brought this forward in a bid to cut costs. In particular, it intends to notify all old-style benefit claimants by December 2025.

Of course, the new timetable raises serious concerns that many claimants could lose out. This is because, to date, the department’s own statistics show it has already been callously denying Universal Credit to tens of thousands of legacy benefit claimants.

Universal Credit chaos: DWP denying people benefits

As the Canary’s Steve Topple has previously reported, the DWP has already stopped benefits for tens of thousands of claimants.

First, in August 2023, he found that the DWP had denied benefits to 24% of claimants it was forcing to move to Universal Credit. This specifically applied to those it had shifted between July 2022 and March 2023. Notably, Topple identified that this disproportionately impacted women. In particular, women accounted for 79% of those losing out.

Then, in March 2024, Topple found that the DWP’s new data showed that the DWP had stopped benefits for around 20.3% of people. This referred to those it had sent migration notices to up to September 2023. It meant that 31,720 people no longer received state support. Again, women were the worst affected, shooting up to 82.9% of these cases.

The majority of these, in both cases, were people previously claiming Tax Credits.

Therefore, these statistics suggested that huge numbers of Tax Credit claimants could be set to lose their benefits. Crucially, Topple estimated that the DWP would leave nearly 120,000 people without benefits.

Worse than previously thought?

Now, warnings from Citizens Advice (CA) have indicated that the situation could in fact be even worse.

Notably, the CA has raised the alarm over rates of failure for those shifting to Universal Credit. In what appear to be new statistics, the CA has highlighted that the migration process is leaving out around 25% of former claimants.

Moreover, according to the CA, the failure rate rises with age. It said that 20% of legacy claimants in their thirties haven’t completed the transition to Universal Credit. By contrast, this shoots up to 32% for people in their sixties and over.

The Canary is assuming these statistics apply to all types of legacy benefits that the DWP has issued migration notices to. To date, the DWP has directed the bulk of the migration at Tax Credit claimants. However, it has also included a small number of claimants on other benefit types. Therefore, the percentage would not solely refer to rates of denial for Tax Credits claimants.

However, it could still suggest that the number of people set to lose their benefits could now in fact be even higher than previous statistics have indicated.

Full speed ahead

Despite this, the DWP is ploughing on with its plan full-speed ahead. Yet, as Benefits and Work has pointed out, this perhaps isn’t surprising. In particular, this is because the department forecasts huge savings it will make from cutting off these benefits.

Notably, it said that the DWP has estimated that between 2024 and 2029, those losing out on benefits they’re entitled to will save the department £5bn.

On 26 April, the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) issued warnings about the DWP’s “managed migration” failures. Notably, in a report, it raised the alarm about the DWP’s nonchalant response to these statistics to date. In its press release, it noted that:

DWP said it was not concerned that so far 21% of tax credits claimants had not transferred to Universal Credit when invited to do so, even though it has only limited assurance that people who did not switch over are not missing out on benefits they are entitled to.

As such, PAC chair Meg Hillier MP concluded that:

if the transition from legacy benefits to UC fails even an apparently small proportion of people, it will lead to real world misery for thousands. The DWP must make sure that people are not cast into financial hardship due to a bureaucratic change, and that robust support is in place for those vulnerable claimants who need it most.

At the end of the day, the DWP’s rapid roll-out in light of these repeated damning statistics shows one thing for certain. That is, that the Tories “managed migration” is simply about cutting corners and cutting costs. Ultimately, it is shunting as many working-class people as possible into poverty and destitution.

In other words, stripping back the social security net was always the endgame. As ever, squeezing every last drop of so-called ‘savings’ from the most marginalised people in society is toxic Tory ‘welfare’ writ large.

Feature image via Youtube – DWP/the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

A groundbreaking international and community-driven long Covid and myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) conference – ‘Unite To Fight’ – is about to take place for the first time. Already, the event is picking up momentum – with over 7,000 people from across the globe flocking to register in just two weeks.

Of course, it’s only just getting started. Organisers have packed the conference to the rafters with speakers raring to shake up the long Covid and ME/CFS scene.

Unite To Fight 2024 conference

The inaugural #UniteToFight2024 virtual conference will take place on 15 and 16 May.

From its inception, organisers made #UniteToFight2024 a community-focused project. Significantly, the event has been organised by people living with long Covid and ME/CFS, for those living with these debilitating conditions.

Given this, members of the patient community and beyond have flocked to support #UniteToFight2024 since it announced its launch. Impressively, it has drummed up over 7,000 globe-spanning registrations in little more than two weeks.

Moreover, the diverse audience it has drawn in reflects the broad impact and importance of this event. Patients, caregivers, researchers, clinicians, politicians, and journalists have all signed up to participate.

Of course, this groundswell of support is testament to the fact that this first-of-its-kind joint long Covid and ME/CFS conference is doing something rare. Specifically, it is putting patients at the heart of its agenda.

Platforming patients and allies

What you won’t find at this conference? A lobby of psychologising scientists and clinicians fixated on gaslighting patients with inventive new rebrands of graded exercise therapy. Instead, #UnitetoFight is bringing together a distinguished line-up of speakers responsive to patient calls for better biomedical research and support.

In the first instance, it will platform people from both communities. Importantly, the conference has an inclusive focus; it will amplify patient voices in multiple community keynote sessions.

On top of this, scientists, politicians, and journalists fighting together with people living with these debilitating chronic illnesses will take to the stage. Significantly, the event boasts talks from leading scientists spearheading vital biomedical research into long Covid and ME/CFS.

This includes renowned figures such as Akiko Iwasaki, Ron Davis, David Putrino, Carmen Scheibenbogen, Danny Altmann, Resia Pretorius and other experts from the United States, Europe and New Zealand. These esteemed speakers will share their insights, latest research findings, and strategies for tackling the challenges posed by long Covid and ME/CFS.

Unite To Fight: ‘building and encouraging collaboration’

Press Officer of UniteToFight Marco Wetzel said:

Our mission is to build unity and encourage collaboration, advancing understanding and support both in the scientific realm and across the broader community, moving these important discussions from the margins to the mainstream.

Alongside this, he said that the “tremendous support and enthusiasm” for the conference shows that it:

represents a unique opportunity for collaboration, learning, and advocacy in the fight against Long Covid and ME/CFS. Together, we can drive meaningful progress.

Ultimately, the conference looks set to do exactly as it says on the tin. It will unite an eclectic assembly of the patient community and stalwart allies from across the science, political, and media spaces. Crucially, together, they will step up the fight for research, treatments, and justice for all those living with these devastating chronic illnesses.

The conference will take place from 9.00 am to 7.15 pm CEST/ 7.00 am to 5.15 pm GMT on 15 and 16 May. For more information about #UniteToFight2024, including registration details and the full conference program, you can visit its website here.

This article was reproduced from the Chronic Collaboration with permission

Feature image via Unite To Fight.

By The Canary

Donald Trump was forced to sit and listen to a porn star describe in open court a bedroom encounter that he denies ever took place. He is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels over the affair ahead of the 2016 election that brought him to power.

Daniels told the New York court:

When I opened the bathroom door to come out, Mr. Trump had come into the bedroom. The intention was pretty clear, someone stripped down to their underwear posing on the bed waiting for you.

Trump stared ahead during Daniels’ testimony, which often veered into graphic sexual detail despite the judge’s best efforts:

My clothes and shoes were off, I think I still had my bra on. We were in missionary position.

Was he wearing a condom? “No.”

Was it brief? “Yes.”

Judge Juan Merchan appeared wrong-footed by the adult material, ordering Daniels to “just answer the questions” after repeated objections from the defence, several of which he upheld.

Sweary Don

At one point, during a sidebar, Merchan told Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche that the Republican was “cursing audibly” and shaking his head during Daniels’s testimony.

According to excerpts of the official trial transcript Merchan said:

I understand that your client is upset at this point, but he is cursing audibly, and he is shaking his head visually, and that’s contemptuous.

Merchan further explained that Trump’s noise and gestures “has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that,” later adding: “I won’t tolerate that.”

Well, you could argue that perhaps we should all be grateful that Trump isn’t farting and falling asleep anymore.

Merchan said he was raising this during the sidebar, when lawyers huddle with the judge in conversations that are not meant to be audible to the jury or wider courtroom, because “I don’t want to embarrass him.” Of course, Trump usually just embarrasses himself, instead of outsourcing it.

Trump is, of course, the same man who said he liked to “grab” women by the “pussy,” said of a 10 year old girl that he would be “dating her in 10 years,” stated that if Ivanka wasn’t his daughter he would date her, and, much much more.

Unforgettable allegations

Daniels still revealed a plethora of unforgettable allegations.

She told the court Trump called her “honeybunch,” and she described multiple phone calls with him – some of which she put on speakerphone to entertain her friends.

The encounter took place in 2006, she recalled, when Trump had pushed to have dinner with her at a golf tournament.

When she arrived via the penthouse elevator, Trump greeted her in silk or satin pyjamas before changing into casual clothes after she teased him.

“He said it was a bit early, maybe we could talk a little bit and get to know each other,” Daniels said.

She recounted that he asked if she had a boyfriend, about the economics of the porn industry, and the threat of catching a sexually transmitted disease in her job.

“I said well, we were tested every 30 days,” Daniels told the court, occasionally looking straight at Trump, who did not return her gaze.

‘He went to kiss me’

Daniels said their lengthy conversation touched on Trump’s wife Melania – with Trump saying, “we actually don’t even sleep in the same room” – as well as whether Daniels should go on Trump’s show The Apprentice.

In another excruciating comment, Daniels recalled another moment:

He said I reminded him of his daughter because she’s smart and blonde.

When Trump showed her a magazine with him on the cover, Daniels told the court that she had joked:

Someone should spank you with that. He gave me the look that he dared me to do it… so I swatted him with it right on the butt.

In the trial transcript, Merchan detailed that moment as one of the times Trump could be seen shaking his head.

In testimony that was at times calm, and at times uncertain, she said they saw each other the next day, and met again at a function at Trump Tower in New York and in Los Angeles, but they did not have sex again.

Desperate

Trump’s attorneys tried unsuccessfully to have a mistrial declared based on Daniels’s testimony. In fact, Daniels appeared to have gotten under Trump’s skin even before she entered the shabby courtroom in a Manhattan skyscraper. Trump later deleted the following social media post, but he said:

I have just recently been told who the witness is today. This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare.

Of course, how are the poor dears supposed to prepare for testimony from Stormy Daniels during a trial that covers allegations that Trump paid hush money to… erm… Stormy Daniels?

Trump’s lawyers called for a mistrial, saying much of Daniels’ testimony had nothing to do with the fraud charges that the ex-president faces.

The judge denied the request but added “I agree there were some things that were better left unsaid.”

Those words aptly describe Trump’s presidency, and indeed, his entire existence. The trial continues.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Featured image via YouTube/screenshot – The View

By The Canary

This month, Japan is launching a ‘new whaling mothership’ which, shockingly, plans to catch around 379 whales this year.

The new vessel is now the world’s only whaling fleet mothership, owned by Kyodo Senpaku, a seafood company based in Tokyo. It can also both process and store meat on board 

Although the Japanese government has set a catch limit of 379 whales for this year within Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), according to some analysts, this is a relatively small quota for a large vessel. This is fuelling concerns that they will expand into Antarctica.

The International Whaling Commission

The International Whaling Commission was established in 1946 and is the global body responsible for managing whaling and whale conservation. The mandate hasn’t changed since its inception, but now has 88 member countries.

However, today there are many new conservation and animal rights concerns and the IWC programme has expanded. It now includes bycatch and entanglement, ship strikes, ocean noise, pollution and debris, and sustainable whale watching.

Only three countries still allow commercial whaling – Japan, Norway and Iceland. None of which are part of the IWC.

Commercial whale hunting was banned by the IWC in 1986, with the exception of scientific research. Whilst Japan did always technically obey this, they continued to kill a whopping 333 whales each year and stated ‘research purposes’. 

In 1998 Japan started conducting scientific research on whaling in the North Pacific and Antarctic. Countries within the IWC and conservation groups called it commercial whaling in disguise.

Notably, in 2019 Japan withdrew from the IWC. They then announced the resumption of commercial whaling within Japan’s EEZ – but they never announced catch quotas. 

Japan’s history with whaling

Whilst it is a controversial practice, the Japanese government calls it an ‘integral part of Japanese culture’. For example, vending machines selling whale meat are about to open in Japan:

A Japanese whaling company (Kyodo Senpaku) is opening vending machines in Japan to drive up demand for whale meat.

The machines will sell whale; sashimi, bacon, skin, steak, and canned meat.

Prices range from 1,000 yen ($7.70) to 3,000 yen ($23).https://t.co/mP9KWgx7Lp

— Blue Planet Society (@Seasaver) May 5, 2024

However, this cultural claim is contested.

People have documented whaling as far back as the 12th century in Japan. However, the widespread consumption of the meat did not occur until after world war two. Importantly, occupation forces, led by the United States encourage it and poor people started consuming it.

During the 1960’s it peaked, but as other meat became more available once again the consumption of it declined. In the 1960’s, the country was eating around 200 000 tonnes per year. This figure now sits between 1000 and 2000, suggesting the country’s appetite for it is no longer there. 

Whaling companies are also trying to drive up demand, suggesting even further that whale meat is not as popular as they would like us to believe. On 5th May, Blue Planet Society reported via X that:

A Japanese whaling company (Kyodo Senpaku) is opening vending machines in Japan to drive up demand for whale meat.

The machines will sell whale; sashimi, bacon, skin, steak, and canned meat.

Prices range from 1,000 yen ($7.70) to 3,000 yen ($23).

The company also said they had been working with influencers to try and promote the meat, and its place within the country’s traditions.

Aboriginal subsistence

Despite the ban on commercial whaling, the members of the IWC recognise the rights of certain aboriginal peoples to hunt a limited number of whales to meet nutritional and cultural needs. 

Currently, there are Catch Limits for Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling in place for the native people of Alaska, Chukotka, Washington State, Greenland, St Vincent and the Grenadines. Crucially though, Japan is not part of this. 

However, the Whale and Dolphin conservation (WDC) have some concerns about this.

Their website states: 

Over the last few years certain governments and aboriginal subsistence whaling communities have abused the definition by allowing whale meat to enter the commercial exchange chain, with whale meat being sold to tourists and non-native peoples. This has allowed for a blurring of the accepted definition of ASW, which has simply assisted commercial whaling interests to advance their arguments to be allowed to resume commercial whaling.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classified several whale species as near threatened of vulnerable. Other are listed as endangered and critically endangered, including the Sei whale which is regularly hunted by Japan.

Featured image via Wikimedia 

By HG

On Tuesday 7 May, European Union (EU) countries backed the bloc’s first law devoted to combatting violence against women and girls (VAWG). However, the text was a far-cry from enshrining intersectional feminist justice. Notably, the EU’s racist borderisation will continue to expose migrant women to the threat of gender-based violence.

New EU law on VAWG

On the face of it, the new law did take some significant steps on tackling VAWG.

Specifically, the sweeping law aims to protect women in the 27-nation EU from gender-based violence, forced marriages, female genital mutilation, and online harassment. Additionally, it contained provisions addressing non-consensual sharing of intimate images, cyber stalking and harassment, as well as cyber incitement to hatred or violence.

Essentially, it criminalises these offences and sets minimum sentences – ranging from one year to five years in prison depending on the crime.

On top of this, as the European Council’s press release detailed:

The directive also comes with an extensive list of aggravating circumstances, such as committing the offence against a child, a former or current spouse or partner or a public representative, a journalist or a human rights defender, which carry more severe penalties.

Moreover, it also sets out rules on measures of “assistance and protection” that countries must provide to victims of gender-based violence.

However, the new law fell short in a number of crucial areas. Most notably, countries controversially derailed settling on a consent-based definition of rape at the EU level.

The bloc was split on putting this in the directive. Countries including Italy and Greece who wanted a definition of rape in the final text. Meanwhile, nations like France and Germany opposed its inclusion, arguing the EU did not have competence in the matter.

Exposing migrant women to racist immigration

A group of human rights and women’s equality organisations commended aspects of the new law. However, they have also highlighted its major shortcomings.

In particular, they dragged the EU’s law on its failure to protect migrant women. The group, including Amnesty International and Women Against Violence Europe (WAVE), said that:

EU lawmakers yet again silenced women impacted by EU migration policies. The only concrete step forward for migrant women is that the text requires Member States to make shelters available to all women experiencing domestic abuse, regardless of their residence status.

Nonetheless we condemn that the final text does not retain provisions on protecting undocumented women’s personal data from being transmitted to immigration authorities (neither in the context of accessing shelters, nor in terms of accessing justice).

Member States must ensure that women are not deterred from going to the police because of their residence status, by including access to safe reporting in the ongoing revision of the Victims’ Rights Directive

Worse still, in February, a leaked version of the EU’s new directive showed that this didn’t have to be the case. Instead, the earlier text had in fact included a data non-disclosure clause. This would have prevented collusion between domestic violence services and immigration authorities.

Ultimately, the bloc’s white supremacist fortress Europe project has always persecuted migrants seeking safety. So it’s no surprise Europe’s anti-migrant racism is once again putting vulnerable lives at risk. As ever, it shows that there can be no feminist justice, without migrant justice.

Feature image via Youtube – European Commission

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

By Hannah Sharland

As well as killing more than 34,000 people and causing catastrophic levels of hunger and injury, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has also caused massive material destruction.

Corey Scher, a PhD candidate at the City University of New York, has been researching satellite imagery of Gaza. He said:

The rate of damage being registered is unlike anything we have studied before. It is much faster and more extensive than anything we have mapped.

As Israel launches an offensive on Rafah, the last population centre in Gaza yet to be entered by its ground troops, we look at the territory’s shattered landscape seven months into the genocide.

Israel has destroyed three-quarters of Gaza City

Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on the planet, where before the war 2.3 million people had been living on a 365-square-kilometre (140-square-mile) strip of land.

According to satellite analyses by Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek, an associate professor of geography at Oregon State University, 56.9% of Gaza buildings were damaged or destroyed as of April 21, making a total of 160,000.

Scher said:

The fastest rates of destruction were in the first two to three months of the bombardment.

In Gaza City, home to some 600,000 people before Israel’s offensive, the situation is dire: Israel has damaged or destroyed almost three-quarters (74.3%) of its buildings.

Five hospitals now rubble

Gaza’s hospitals have been repeatedly attacked by Israel, all potential violations of international law.

In the first six weeks of Israel’s onslaught “60% of healthcare facilities… were indicated as damaged or destroyed”, Scher said.

The territory’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa in Gaza City, was targeted in two offensives by the Israeli army, the first in November, the second in March.

The World Health Organization said the second operation reduced the hospital to an “empty shell” strewn with human remains.

Five hospitals have been completely destroyed, according to figures compiled by AFP from the OpenStreetMap project, the Hamas health ministry and the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT). Fewer than one in three hospitals – 28% – are partially functioning, according to the UN.

Over 70% of schools damaged

The territory’s largely UN-run schools, where many civilians have sought refuge from the fighting, have also paid a heavy price.

As of April 25, UNICEF counted 408 schools that Israel had damaged, representing at least 72.5% of its count of 563 facilities.

Of those, Israel has completely destroyed 53 school buildings and damaged 274 others by direct fire.

The UN estimates that two-thirds of the schools will need total or major reconstruction to be functional again.

Regarding places of worship, combined data from UNOSAT and OpenStreetMap show 61.5% of mosques have been damaged or destroyed.

Israel has left Gaza more bombed-out than Dresden

The level of destruction in northern Gaza has surpassed that of the German city of Dresden, which was firebombed by Allied forces in 1945 in one of the most controversial Allied acts of World War II.

According to a US military study from 1954, quoted by the Financial Times, the bombing campaign at the end of World War II damaged 59% of Dresden’s buildings.

In late April, the head of the UN mine clearance programme in the Palestinian territories, Mungo Birch, said there was more rubble to clear in Gaza than in Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia more than two years ago.

The UN estimated that as of the start of May, the post-war reconstruction of Gaza would cost between 30 billion and 40 billion dollars.

Additional reporting via AFP

Featured image via AFP – YouTube

By The Canary

Al Jazeera will look to pursue all possible legal action against Israel’s ban on its operations there, the TV network’s news director has said. He likened the actions of the far-right government to ‘something from the 1960s’ – and doubled-down on the media outlet’s coverage of Israel’s genocide, saying it would refuse to “report politely” on the state’s atrocities.

Israel: shutting down Al Jazeera – and the truth

Israel took the Qatar-based station off air after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government voted on Sunday 5 May to shut it down. It was over its coverage of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Al Jazeera English news director Salah Negm said the network would “follow every legal path”:

If there is a possibility of challenging that decision we are going to pursue it until the end.

Under a cabinet decision which Netanyahu said was “unanimous”, authorities raided Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem offices. It shuttered them up, confiscated its equipment, and pulled its team’s accreditations.

Negm said:

The equipment which was confiscated, the loss that we suffered from stopping our broadcast, all of that is subject matter for legal action.

The Israeli government said the order was initially valid for 45 days, with the possibility of an extension.

Hours later, screens in Israel carrying Al Jazeera’s Arabic and English channels went blank, apart from a message in Hebrew saying they had “been suspended in Israel”.

‘An action from the 60s’

The shutdown does not apply to the Israeli-occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, from which Al Jazeera still broadcasts live on Israel’s ongoing genocide.

Al Jazeera immediately condemned Israel’s decision as “criminal”, saying on social media site X that it “violates the human right to access information”.

But Negm downplayed the ban’s impact on Al Jazeera’s coverage of the war and on the public’s ability to access its content, even with its website now blocked in Israel:

It’s an action from the 60s rather than the 21st century to take such a decision of shutting down.

He also said the channel could rely on other sources for information without “people on the ground”:

I know people that have VPN can see us online anytime.

The decision came after Israel’s parliament last month voted to pass a new national security law granting senior ministers powers to ban broadcasts by foreign channels over threats to security.

In his statement, Netanyahu claimed that:

Al Jazeera correspondents have harmed the security of Israel and incited against IDF soldiers.

Al Jazeera: we won’t report “politely” on Israel killing journalists

But Negm questioned which broadcasts the Israeli government considered a security threat, calling the ban an “arbitrary decision”.

Since the start of Israel’s genocide, it has bombed Al Jazeera’s office in the Palestinian territory and killed two of its correspondents. Negm said:

Al Jazeera has lost a few people, their families have suffered so that’s really different from other conflicts in this sense.

Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh was wounded in an Israeli strike in December that killed the network’s cameraman.

Israel killed Dahdouh’s wife, two of their children and a grandson in October, during its bombardment of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp. It then killed Dahdouh’s eldest son, an Al Jazeera staff journalist, alongside another journalist in Rafah in January when it targeted the car they were travelling in with a strike.

Israel has killed at least 97 journalists and media workers since 7 October, among them Palestinians, Israelis, and Lebanese.

Negm said:

That’s not something that we can just report politely. We have to be wary and careful and alert the people of the nature of the war that’s going on and how deadly it is for the people and also for us as a profession.

Featured image via Global News – YouTube

By The Canary

Mining, big agribusiness, and the fossil fuel sectors have unleashed an astronomical spate of attacks on human rights defenders (HRDs) throughout 2023. Crucially, perpetrators linked to companies and projects in these sectors account for the majority of over 600 attacks across the course of the year.

This is according to a new damning report by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC).

Staggering scale of attacks against human rights defenders

On Tuesday 7 May, the BHRRC published its annual briefing on attacks against HRDs.

Alarmingly, the data recorded 630 attacks which directly impacted an estimated 20,000 people. In particular, these were those involved in speaking out against business-related harms during 2023.

The BHRRC records multiple types of attacks against HRDs. It has most frequently recorded cases of judicial harassment (328), killings (87), physical violence (81), and intimidation or threats (80) throughout 2023.

Despite the staggering scale of attacks, the BHRRC impressed that these figures are just the tip of the iceberg. Crucially, this is because the data only reflects what is accessible through public sources of information. As such, the briefing noted that:

many attacks, especially non-lethal attacks (including death threats, judicial harassment and physical violence), never make it to media sources and there remains a significant gap in government monitoring of attacks, the problem is even more severe than these figures indicate. In addition, an “attack” may be against one person named in public sources or against a large number of unidentified people, such as an instance of charges being filed against 11,000 garment workers protesting for higher wages in Bangladesh. Thus, the number of individual HRDs experiencing attacks is higher than the number of attacks mentioned here.

Corporations driving attacks

Although attacks were recorded in almost every sector in 2023, certain extractive sectors stood out. Specifically, the BHRRC found that mining (165), agribusiness (117) and oil, gas & coal (112) were the most prolific sectors connected to attacks.

Of course, the briefing noted that the mining sector is a hotbed for allegations in part due to the drive to transition to greener technology.

For instance, a separate BHRRC report recently documented the soaring number of rights allegations tied to transition minerals in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Largely, companies did not directly perpetrate these attacks directly. Notably, state actors including the police and judicial systems, as well as the military carried out most of these attacks. However, allegations mentioned specific businesses in 50% of these cases. Moreover, as the report stated for instance:

Companies are often connected with attacks on HRDs, even when state actors are the direct perpetrator. This includes calling police or state security forces to disperse peaceful protests; cooperating with state repression, for example by providing services or products enabling surveillance; and obstructing unionisation. Other tactics used by companies to gain control over land and resources, often leading to conflict and attacks, include dividing communities and engaging in inadequate consultation processes.

As such, they have consistently been the most dangerous sectors since BHRRC began documenting these attacks in 2015. In tandem with this, these are of course the very sectors fueling the climate and biodiversity crises in the first place.

Indigenous defenders

Additionally, companies, states, and organised crime outfits perpetrated over three-quarters (78%) of these attacks against people taking action to protect the climate, environment and land rights.

Indigenous Peoples are particularly at risk when fighting for our planet. Since January 2015, the BHRRC has recorded more than 1,000 attacks against Indigenous defenders globally.

The majority of these – 93% – were raising concerns about harms to their lands and territories, our climate and/or the environment.

In 2023 alone, over a fifth of attacks (22%) were against Indigenous defenders. Indigenous defenders protect over 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. However, they comprise approximately 6% of the global population. Over three-quarters (78%) of these attacks against Indigenous defenders took place in Latin America, which has been one of the most dangerous regions for attacks against defenders consistently since 2015.

Voluntary action is “insufficient”

Co-head of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre’s civic freedoms and human rights defender programme Christen Dobson said:

We have been documenting attacks against those speaking out about harmful business activities since 2015 – and every year are appalled at the continued violence against people protecting our rights and planet. Mining, agribusiness, and the fossil fuels sectors – those fuelling the planetary crisis – are yet again connected with the highest number of attacks against human rights and environmental defenders. Companies in these sectors must adopt and implement policy commitments to zero tolerance for attacks on defenders. These sectors also urgently need to shift their practice to prioritise a just transition to renewable energy grounded in respect for human rights, including Indigenous Peoples’ rights to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent. This includes the right to say no.

Many business actors are failing in their responsibility to respect human rights, resulting in harm to people and the environment, fuelling the triple planetary crisis we currently face. Listening to defenders is vital to understanding the risks and harms associated with business activity and to ensuring the transition to green economies is just and benefits workers, environmental defenders and their communities.

Moreover, Dobson noted that companies’ voluntary action is “insufficient”. As such he argued that:

there is an urgent need for robust mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation, grounded in safe and effective stakeholder engagement and containing strong safeguards for human rights defenders. Governments must step in and fulfil their duty to protect the rights of defenders. One critical step is legally recognising and protecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including their rights to self- determination and to their lands, territories and resources.

Feature image via Youtube – Bloomberg Quicktake

By The Canary

According to a new report from the World Bank, changing how we farm could cut global emissions by almost one third. Greenhouse gas emissions could be drastically reduced by simply altering how food is produced around the world. The agrifood industry – which combines agriculture and food – takes into account the whole production process.

It involves the whole journey, from food to plate including manufacture and retail. It is responsible for nearly a third of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. This is one sixth more than the whole world’s heat and electric emissions. 

Middle income countries are responsible for two thirds of emissions, taking seven of the top ten spots for emitters worldwide. The biggest culprits being China, Brazil, and India respectively.

Protecting our planet from agrifood risks

In line with the Paris Agreement on the climate crisis, emissions from agrifood must be cut to net zero by 2050. This is vital to keep global average temperatures from rising above 1.5º from pre-industrial levels. Agrifood emissions alone could make the world miss this target. 

In the foreword to the report, Axel van Trotsenburg, Senior Managing Director for Development Policy and Partnerships at the World Bank said: 

To protect our planet, we need to transform the way we produce and consume food.

Undeniably, the agrifood sector has a huge opportunity. It could single handedly cut nearly a third of global emissions through “affordable and readily available actions.” The new report is urging countries to invest more money in the solutions. 

The report said that middle-income countries should be making changes, including using land in more sustainable ways, and moving to livestock practices that are low-emissions. 

Trotsenburg commented:

Simply changing how middle-income countries use land, such as forests and ecosystems, for food production can cut agrifood emissions by a third by 2030.

Additionally, to pay for the shift to methods that use less emissions, countries should also think about cutting wasteful agriculture subsidies.

Countries like the United States should be doing more to provide technical assistance. Undoubtedly, their high income coupled with being the fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter means they should be “shifting subsidies away from high-emitting food sources.”

Meanwhile, the report added that:

Low-income countries should focus on green and competitive growth and avoid building the high-emissions infrastructure that high-income countries must now replace.

Low-cost climate action

The agrifood industry has the potential to create substantial and low cost climate change action. Unlike other sectors, it has the ability to draw carbon out from the atmosphere through ecosystems and soils. 

The payoffs for investing in reducing agrifood emissions could be huge. Annual investments will need to increase by up to 18 times, to $260bn per year. This would halve current agrifood emissions by 2030 and put the world on track for net zero emissions by 2050. However, estimates show that the benefits in health, economic, and environmental terms could be as much as $4.3tn in 2030. 

Although additional resources would be needed, some of the costs can be covered by shifting money away from wasteful subsidies. Importantly, these costs are less than half the amount the world spends each year on agricultural subsidies. Many of which are both wasteful and harmful for the environment.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Feature image via Lars Plougmann/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

By HG

Friday 3 May marked International Leopard Day. So coinciding with this day of celebration and awareness for the iconic spotted big cat, a global collaboration of organisations has announced the final stages of a enormous operation to rescue two leopards from a life of abhorrent animal rights abuse and trafficking.

On Wednesday, the Born Free Foundation and its international partners succeeded in the tremendous 8,000 mile translocation of two of leopards to their ancestral home in South Africa. There, the pair began their new lives at Born Free’s Big Cat Sanctuary at Shamwari Private Game Reserve.

Born Free’s Leopard rescue

Illegal wildlife traders trafficked mother and daughter Alda and Ginny to a unlawful breeding facility in Śrem near Poznań, Poland. The two are believed to be 14 and eight years old respectively. and traders confined the pair there in dirty, cramped conditions:

That is, until 2017, when authorities raided the animal farm and shut down the facilities.

A team of experts from Belgian wildlife rescue centre, Natuurhulpcentrum (NHC), travelled to collect Alda and Ginny. Alarmingly, they found them with filthy coats and showing signs of malnourishment. Since 2017, the dedicated staff at NHC have cared for the mother and daughter. They have been giving them the specialist care they’ve needed to begin recovering from their ordeal.

An epic journey

Initially intended as a temporary home, NHC has kept Alda and Ginny under their care ever since. During this time, NHC, Born Free and its partners have been working for years to secure all the correct documentation and certificates to rehome them:

Significantly, that re-homing became a reality this week. Alda and Ginny travelled more than 8,000 miles by road and air on international and domestic flights. Eventually, they reached their destination at Born Free’s Big Cat Sanctuary at Shamwari on South Africa’s Eastern Cape.

After their epic journey, on Wednesday the leopards took tentative steps out of their crates into their 2.5 acre bush enclosure. The two began by sniffing the South African soil beneath their paws. Then, they carefully examined their new surroundings:

Within half an hour, the mother and daughter had found each other, and continued enjoying the privacy of the thickets and dense bush:

As a result, Born Free Manager at Shamwari Private Game Reserve Catherine Gillson said:

The dramatic change that Ginny and Alda are about to experience in their lives is going to be a privilege to see. The horrendous conditions that they experienced whilst living in their birthplace of Poland in an illegal breeding centre is going to be a stark contrast to the natural thick vegetation in their enclosures surrounded by their indigenous ancestors on Shamwari Private Game Reserve.

While sadly they can never fully be released to the wild, we hope they will quickly adapt to new environment where they will have natural enrichment, be fed the correct diet and live out their lives in the respectful care of our dedicated Born Free Animal Care Team.

A success for biodiversity and animal rights

The relocation followed Born Free’s similar successful operation in March to rehome two lions rescued from an abusive animal farm in Ukraine.

Notably, Born Free has completed the two momentous relocations in its auspicious 40 year anniversary.

Given this, Born Free’s Head of Policy Dr Mark Jones said:

While the purpose for which these poor leopards and so many other wild animals were illegally bred and kept in the Polish facility isn’t entirely clear, it’s highly likely that, if they hadn’t been rescued, their future would have been very bleak indeed.

The trade in wild animals, both legal and illegal, is a major cause of biodiversity loss, and one of the principal risk factors for the emergence of future pandemics, as well as being devastating for the individual welfare of countless wild animals.

Born Free works tirelessly to end the illegal trade in wildlife, and to ensure any legal trade is robustly regulated to protect the welfare of affected animals and eliminate any associated risks to wildlife conservation and animal or human health.

We were instrumental in the development and recent revision of the European Commission’s Action Plan Against Wildlife Trafficking and are promoting the need for an international agreement to combat the illicit trade in wildlife, always with the aim of keeping wildlife in the wild, where it belongs.

Feature image and in-text images via Born Free Foundation

By The Canary

Media watchdog group Reporters Without Borders warned of declining government support for press freedom. The group, otherwise known by its French acronym RSF, unveiled its annual world rankings on Friday 3 May. In their report RSF found:

the situation is “very serious” in 31 countries, “difficult” in 42, “problematic” in 55, and “good” or “satisfactory” in 52 countries. In other words, the environment for journalism is “bad” in seven out of ten countries, and satisfactory in only three out of ten.

Norway retained its top position, while Eritrea came last, taking over from last year’s lowest-ranked country, North Korea.

Press freedom threatened

But the watchdog warned that politicians across a wide range of countries were targeting the media. It said:

Some political groups fuel hatred and distrust of journalists by insulting them, discrediting them, and threatening them. Others are orchestrating a takeover of the media ecosystem.

It singled out Argentina under newly elected President Javier Milei, down 26 places to 66th. RSF found his decision to shutter public press agency Telam a “worrisome symbolic act”.

RSF also highlighted Italy under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Currently, a member of Meloni’s coalition is trying to acquire news agency AGI.

Respondents in three-quarters of countries (138) reported to RSF that political actors were often involved in disinformation and propaganda. They also found that this was systematic in 31 countries.

RSF said there was “spectacular mimicry of Russian repressive methods” across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, stretching as far as Serbia, “where pro-government media carry Russian propaganda and the authorities threaten exiled Russian journalists”.

Greece was ranked worst in Europe (88th overall), coming below Hungary and Poland.

Despite improvements in its score, Greece was criticised over its continued failure to deal with a scandal around wiretapping journalists by the intelligence service and the murder of veteran crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz in 2021.

Repression

The most challenging region remained the Middle East and North Africa, where the situation was “very serious” in nearly half the countries, with Qatar now the only country where the situation was not classified either as “difficult” or “very serious.”

RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire said that the volatility of turbulent rankings was down to a particular reason:

The volatility is also the consequence of growth in the fake content industry, which produces and distributes disinformation and provides the tools for manufacturing it.

The report found that in two-thirds of the 180 countries evaluated, respondents said that political actors were involved in disinformation campaigns:

The difference is being blurred between true and false, real and artificial, facts and artifices, jeopardising the right to information. The unprecedented ability to tamper with content is being used to undermine those who embody quality journalism and weaken journalism itself.

According to RSF, artificial intelligence had no small part to play either:

The remarkable development of artificial intelligence is wreaking further havoc on the media world, which had  already been undermined by Web 2.0. Meanwhile, Twitter owner Elon Musk is pushing an arbitrary, payment-based approach to information to the extreme, showing that platforms are quicksand for journalism.

Now in its 22nd year, the RSF report is based on data collected by the group about abuses against journalists, and questionnaires sent to professionals, researchers, and rights defenders.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Featured image by Unsplash/Engin Akyurt

By The Canary

A woman living with severe myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) in Australia is desperately appealing for help to leave an abusive household.

The neglect and abuse the Australian state, healthcare system, disability, and domestic violence support services have routinely subjected her to has created a perfect storm – trapping her in this indefensible situation.

Her appalling and increasingly life-threatening circumstances underscores the systemic failure of services and support for both ME/CFS and domestic violence.

Layers of chronic illness: severe ME/CFS and long Covid

Anna – a person living with very severe myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) living in Melbourne – is urgently seeking help to escape domestic abuse. She reached out to the Canary and hopes that telling her story will draw attention to her critical situation.

ME/CFS is a chronic systemic neuroimmune disease which impacts at least 65 million people worldwide. The devastating disease affects nearly every system in the body. It causes day-to-day flu-like symptoms, cognitive impairment, body-wide different forms of pain, as well as multiple dysfunctions impacting blood pressure, the heart, lungs, and digestive system. However, this is a non-exhaustive list.

Crucially, post-exertional-malaise (PEM) is the hallmark symptom of ME/CFS, which entails a disproportionate worsening of many of these symptoms after even minimal physical or mental activities.

Anna has lived with ME/CFS for over 20 years. Like many living with ME/CFS, Anna also deals with a number of other debilitating chronic illnesses. These include endometriosis, hypothyroidism, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), and adrenal disease, among others.

And for Anna, long Covid has compounded her condition. As the Canary’s Steve Topple has previously highlighted, during the pandemic, people living with ME/CFS have been “at heightened risk”. Primarily, this is due to the post-viral nature of the disease.

Firstly, research has identified that in a significant number of cases, ME/CFS is a viral-onset disease. This means that it is generally triggered by a viral infection. Most significantly however, multiple studies have shown that in people with ME/CFS, the body’s immune system is “chronically activated”.

In effect, this means the body continues to fight a virus that is no longer present. Given this, people living with the post-viral disease have been particularly vulnerable. As Topple articulated, this is:

Not least because, if they catch the virus, their bodies might again behave like it has never left them. But also because the symptoms of coronavirus may be severely exacerbated for these people.

In other words, contracting Covid-19 may cause a relapse in ME/CFS, essentially worsening a person’s condition. This is what Anna feels happened to her after catching the coronavirus in May 2020, and then in 2022. In March 2024, family members once again exposed her to the virus. Consequently, Anna currently lives at the severe end of the disease’s scale.

Severe ME/CFS – life with a devastating disease

Approximately 25% of people living with ME/CFS fall into the severe or very severe classification for the disease. In these cases, people with severe ME/CFS are mostly, if not entirely permanently bed-bound. What’s more, people living with the severe level of the disease are sometimes unable to digest food, communicate, or process information.

As a result, this also means that the stories of people living with severe ME/CFS regularly go untold. Anna herself is bed-bound and both the PEM and brain fog – a form of cognitive impairment – impact her ability to communicate. In particular, verbal communication is challenging, since the brain fog affects her language and information processing abilities.

For this reason, Anna spoke to the Canary via X through a series of short exchanges not in real-time. Moreover, mental exertion can cause a PEM “crash” – a worsening of symptoms. There was also therefore the risk that composing messages could impact Anna’s health.

Given this, as far as possible and with Anna’s permission, the Canary tried to build a picture of Anna’s situation using her X. There, when she is able, Anna has been documenting her experience and reaching out for support. Anna also pointed the Canary to information she has published on her personal fundraiser.

However, despite the significant risks to her health, Anna bravely decided to speak out. This is because the medical establishment and state in Australia are catastrophically failing to help Anna with her worsening health and dangerous living circumstances.

Australia’s state and medical neglect trapping Anna in domestic abuse

Anna explained to the Canary that local GPs have repeatedly refused care, dismissed her chronic pain, and left her without vital medications. Alongside this, Australia’s disability welfare agency has denied her financial and service support, while setting a mountain of barriers to access it.

So, to sum up, Anna’s more immediate needs include:

• Obtaining a new disability advocate who can help her with her day-to-day liaison with different services.
• Finding a new GP familiar with and supportive of patients living with severe ME and other chronic health conditions.
• Access to Australia’s disability welfare scheme, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

However, right now, Anna feels that her most pressing concern is getting away from her abusers who are making her condition inordinately worse.

Yet, Anna is locked in a vicious circle. That is, the lack of treatment for her chronic illnesses and support for her disabilities is trapping her in domestic abuse. In other words, while she is entirely bed-bound with the disease, without sufficient financial aid, and the necessary care, she is of course unable to escape her abuser.

Disabled people at greater risk of domestic violence

Research has shown that disabled people are more likely to experience domestic abuse than non-disabled people. For example, UK Office for National Statistics data found that rates of domestic abuse from 2019 to 2020 were nearly three times higher for disabled people. Moreover, disabled women were over two times more likely to be subjected to domestic abuse than non-disabled women.

And not only are disabled women more likely to experience it in the first place, but their disability makes them vulnerable to additional forms of domestic violence. In particular, these often centre round the survivor’s dependency for daily care.

What’s more, disabled survivors of domestic abuse often face a number of additional barriers getting out of abuse. This includes for instance, access to transport, finances, and safe, supported accommodation.

Of course, much of this applies to Anna. Since she is chronically ill and disabled, and owing to the abysmal state support, Anna hasn’t currently the financial resources, mobility, or wellness to build a life away from her abuser.

Domestic abuse compounding her ME/CFS

Anna told the Canary that her domestic abuser regularly neglects her nutritional needs – sometimes leaving her for days without food.

On top of this, during the height of Australia’s blistering summer heat between December and February, Anna’s abuser refused her air conditioning. Like many living with ME/CFS, Anna experiences autonomic dysfunction – known as dysautonomia – which can affect blood pressure, heart rate, digestion, and body temperature. So, as Melbourne’s temperatures soared, Anna was left to suffer the impacts this had on her already horrendous health.

Then, at the end of March, another abusive family member forced a visit on Anna. The family member’s stay ramped up the over-stimulating environment, triggering Anna’s PEM. At the start of April, Anna updated the Canary on her situation. She said:

there’s no stopping them it’s been 2 days heavy noise I barely survived today need out they are blocking healthcare and food.

More alarming still, the forced visit exposed Anna to another bout of Covid. All this caused Anna to miss a vital cardiology appointment she had been waiting over 18 months for. Given her rapidly worsening situation, she told the Canary:

I need to get out… I can’t survive here. Getting too weak eat anything when chance I need out. Big weight loss I don’t know who help.

No access to domestic abuse services for disabled people

When Anna has sought help at Australia’s domestic abuse shelters, she has found they have no provision available for disabled survivors of violence. This is because women’s refuge services are generally under-equipped to address the care needs of disabled people. On top of this, services do not typically design them with accessibility in mind.

Meanwhile, when Anna approached a social worker and disability advocate in hospital, her care worker prevented her from accessing help. Naturally, reaching out for help in a domestic abuse situation can come at great personal risk to the survivor. This is especially the case when services refuse support. As Anna explained in an X post:

I only went bc I was promised help. I got none & could’ve ended up homeless if my abuser realised what was happening bc I was trying to get away from him too but there was nowhere for disabled. No shelters or longterm housing. I don’t know why I’ve been mismanaged so badly.

In other words, the abandonment by these healthcare professionals actively put Anna at risk of further abuse. Moreover, they failed to recognise the very real dangers for Anna in reaching out for their help.

Vitally, their failure to provide refuge or long-term housing could have pushed her into homelessness. This of course, would have been especially dangerous to Anna as a disabled bed-bound person living with her severe chronic illnesses.

Trauma and chronic illness

Anna’s experience exposes the gap in support and lack of suitable housing for disabled survivors. Yet, this glaring oversight sits in the context of studies and surveys that have shown that survivors of domestic abuse have a higher risk of contracting long-term chronic illnesses. Notably, a 2019 study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence identified that female survivors of domestic abuse are at nearly double the risk of developing fibromyalgia and ME/CFS.

Given the impact of trauma on a survivor’s health, this is perhaps unsurprising. Neuroscientist Bruce McEwen from Rockefeller University has explored the link between chronic illness and domestic violence. An article from the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma explained McEwen’s research. In particular, it detailed how traumatic memories can:

generate cytokines, chemical messengers that elevate inflammation in nearly every system in the body.

Similarly, ME/CFS is a neurological disease which also causes inflammation in the central nervous system and affects multiple other systems in the body. In light of this, it’s easy to see how more than a decade trapped in domestic abuse could have contributed to Anna’s worsening ME/CFS.

And Anna herself has articulated the devastating impact the domestic abuse has had on her health:

Can’t explain how 10+ years of abuse killed me inside & worsened me to very severe illness continuing to worsen. I gave myself until end of the year to escape . I don’t have money, medical care, health or resources to help myself. Help me if you can. I don’t want to die here.

A vicious circle of violence

In effect, Anna’s abuser, Australia’s government, medical and domestic abuse services have locked her into a vicious circle of violence. Again, Anna has poignantly this summed up:

Getting away from abuse when you’re disabled is impossible. Trying for years. It’s the ultimate punishment to be both sick & abused. How am I meant to get any better in this environment? I just wish all these agencies that are meant to help realised disabled people are real too.

In other words, Anna is unable to get the rest she needs while she is trapped in domestic abuse. In turn, since she is sick, she is unable to escape this abusive situation. Ironically, doing so might enable her condition to improve. All the while, abusive doctors, systemic neglect by the healthcare system, and domestic abuse services which fail disabled survivors, is maintaining this. Meanwhile, a welfare system which coerces people living with ME/CFS into harmful treatments also perpetuates this.

Until these institutions cease this pattern of systemic violence, more people like Anna will continue to suffer.

On top of this, the paucity of joined-up, intersectional-orientated thinking between services is nothing new either. It will be something painfully familiar to people living with ME/CFS and other chronic illnesses accessing healthcare and support across the board, as a recent Europe-focused survey showed for instance. What it invariably means is that facilities helping vulnerable groups are passing the buck on those marginalised by multiple oppressions.

Given decades of the Australian state and services failing people living with ME/CFS, change isn’t going to come from within. For that reason, Anna mused to the Canary how she hoped someone would take her in.

However, it’s a damning indictment when one of the wealthiest countries on the planet places a chronically ill woman at the mercy of medically unqualified, albeit well-meaning strangers for care – and without assurance for her safety.

Increasingly, the ME/CFS community has been having to fill the gaps left by useless governments and non-profits.

Now, Anna needs solidarity of the chronically ill community and its allies to hold these institutions and services to account for leaving her behind. Moreover, she is urgently appealing for their aid in finding safe, ME/CFS-appropriate accommodation, with adequate care in place.

Because for Anna, as with undoubtedly many other women living with severe ME/CFS, help sure as hell isn’t coming from the so-called ‘safety nets’ that exist.

How you can help Anna in Australia

If you are/know of a service provider for domestic violence or other services equipped to help Anna, please contact her.

Support Anna financially as she prepares to build a life away from abuse. Her international crowd-funder can be found here. If you live in Australia you can send support to @halcionandon through Beem

For her safety, the Canary hasn’t published Anna’s real name, or identifying information and contact details. However, you can reach her via X or contact me at h.a.sharland@protonmail.com to pass on information.

Feature image via Hannah Sharland

By Hannah Sharland

A new report released today shows commercial banks are still heavily funding coal, eight years on from the Paris Agreement. Since 2021 alone they have provided $470bn in support to the coal industry.

The Paris Agreement

To try and counter the climate crisis, world leaders at the COP21 in Paris agreed upon the historic Paris Agreement. It aims to guide nations to substantially decrease their greenhouse gas emissions to hold the global temperature increase to well below 2ºc above pre-industrial levels. Ultimately, it is aiming for only 1.5ºc above those levels. It recognises that this would drastically reduce the risks of the climate crisis. 

Banks were encouraged to align their portfolios with the agreement. This included engaging with governments to “develop mandatory decarbonisation pathways”. It was also noted that banks have a “pivotal role in facilitating change”. 

According to Urgewald, 2021 was supposed to be a turning point for green energy and moving away from coal. The International Energy Agency issued its Net Zero by 2050 scenario, highlighting the need for a rapid transition out of coal. It was also the year in which COP26 in Glasgow agreed to accelerate the phase-down of coal and in which commercial banks launched the Net Zero Banking Alliance.

Katrin Ganswindt, Director of Financial Research at Urgewald said:

2021 should have been a turning point. Yet our data shows that banks are still injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into the industry, which is our climate’s worst enemy.

Net Zero Banking Alliance

The UN-convened, bank-led Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) is a group of banks globally that are committed to funding climate change action. It aims to transition the real economy to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Banks that join have to sign the commitment statement. There are several guidelines they must adhere to, but most importantly: 

Banks shall use widely accepted science-based decarbonisation scenarios to set both long-term and intermediate targets that are aligned with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.

Now, Urgewald – a German environment campaign group, along with BankTrack, Rainforest Action Network, Reclaim Finance, Friends of the Earth Japan, and nine other NGOs released new research on commercial banks’ support for the coal industry. The data shows that commercial banks provided $470bn in loans and underwriting to the industry between January 2021 and December 2023. 

As joining the NZBA is entirely voluntary, many of the banks featured in the report are not part of it. Clearly a voluntary alliance doesn’t go far enough. 92% of the $470b came from commercial banks based in seven countries, meaning the NZBA is completely insufficient. 

China funnelled far more into the coal industry than any other country, a total of $324.4bn. The US total stood at $49.7bn, followed by Japan ($23.6bn), Canada ($12.6bn), India ($10.7bn) Indonesia ($6.8bn), and the UK ($6.5bn).

Banks investment choices in coal raising questions

In 2023 alone, commercial banks’ support for the coal industry equaled almost $136bn. This is only 20% less than it was in 2016, the year the Paris Agreement came into force. Worryingly, nowhere near the reduction level needed and raises the question: Why is commercial banks’ support for the coal industry still so high?

Ganswindt commented: 

Out of the 638 banks covered in our research, only around 140 have significantly decreased their lending and underwriting services for the coal industry since 2016. 423 banks are still roughly at the same level, while 75 banks have actually increased their support for the coal sector

Eight years after the Paris Agreement came into force, the public needs to know which banks are failing to roll back their support for the coal industry.

Most notably, Jefferies Financial Group increased its investment in coal power more than any other bank. From 2016 to 2023 there was a 40,471% increase in the amount it was ploughing into the coal industry. Jeffries is not part of the Net Zero Banking alliance, however it does state on their website:

As outlined in our most recent ESG report, our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from our global offices, data centers, aviation and vehicle fleet have achieved net zero carbon emissions.

Interestingly, Jefferies is reporting on its environmental impact through CDP:

 a global nonprofit that runs the world’s leading environmental disclosure platform.

However, CDP has faced controversy for several reasons. Firstly, they use carbon offsetting which can have negative consequences for the environment. Most importantly, it doesn’t reduce emissions. CDP has also reported that less than half of the companies reporting to them are including any of their supply chain emissions.

They have also noted that these are on average 11.4 times higher than operational emissions. 

‘Net-zero impact’

The Bank of America invested 30% more in coal power in 2023 than they did in 2016, when the Paris Agreement was put into play. 

Their website also states: 

For years, our financing commitment has focused on providing capital that supports innovative solutions to climate change and other environmental challenges.

Other US banks who increased how much they were pushing into coal power, included US Bancorp and PNC Financial Services.

In total, US banks invested $19.8bn into the coal industry in 2023, a 22% increase from 2021. Similarly in Canada, most of the country’s top commercial banks doubled down on coal. On the other hand, in Europe there was a 51% decline in coal financing. However, the European Central Bank warned in January 2024: 

Currently banks’ credit portfolios are substantially misaligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement, leading to elevated transition risks for roughly 90% of these banks.

Clearly, the NZBA doesn’t go far enough and banks need holding to account for funnelling so much money into fossil fuels. 

As Ganswindt warned: 

Although some banks in some countries have definitely moved in the right direction, the ‘good’ banks are still far outnumbered by the ‘bad’ and the ‘ugly’. And initiatives like the Net Zero Banking Alliance have delivered net-zero impact up to now. What we need is a wind of change from regulators.

Voluntary coal exclusion policies are necessary and good, but it often takes years of public pressure to achieve them – and time is running out.

Featured image via Wikimedia

By HG

Oil giants have been spreading disinformation as part of a decades-long campaign to shut down important environmental policies. 

A new report from US congressional Democrats is the culmination of a nearly three year investigation into Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, The American Petroleum Institute (AI) and the Chamber of Commerce. It shows the substantial efforts these fossil fuel companies go to in order to deceive both the public and investors on the impact of their products on the climate. It also shows how they are actively undermining global efforts to curb the climate crisis. 

Purposeful deception

Oil companies are set to stand trial in 32 different lawsuits. These showed that oil companies own research, including Exxon, BP, and Shell projected the dangers of the climate crisis years ago. 

Back in 1957, Scientists working at what is now Exxon mobil published a paper on the dilution of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the ocean. The paper states: 

Although appreciable amounts of carbon dioxide have undoubtedly been added from soils by tilling of land, apparently a much greater amount has resulted from the combustion of fossil fuels.

In September 2015, reporting by Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times revealed that Big Oil companies, such as Exxon Mobil, knew that burning fossil fuels was a major contributor to climate change. Of course, companies publicly rejected the reporting at the time. An early draft of Exxon’s response accused reporters of “journalistic malpractice”.  However, new documents show that internally, fossil fuel companies did not dispute the findings. 

In emails from 2016, Alan Jeffers – a Media Relations manager for Exxon Mobil, sent the following to Corporate Communications Advisor, Pamela Kevelson, who happens to still work for Exxon. 

It’s true that InsideClimate News originally accused us of working against science but ultimately modified their accusation to working against policies meant to stop climate change, such as Kyoto. 

I’m ok either way since they were both true at one time or another

This damning email – of which multiple were released by the Senate yesterday show a clear admission, whilst Exxon were publicly rejecting the claims. 

In an even more disturbing email from 2015, Pamela Kevelson said:

They saw an opportunity to concoct a story that ExxonMobil was publicly sowing doubt on climate change while secretly planning to profit from it. Why did they see that? Because that’s what they wanted to see. It is a common trap for journalists to assume the worst of large corporations…

Not only did she deny allegations, she blamed the journalists who were trying to hold Exxon to account.

Dangerous propaganda

The new investigation also demonstrates that oil companies have been trying to portray natural gas as a climate-friendly fuel. Simultaneously, they acknowledged internally that significant scientific evidence suggests the emissions from natural gas are as harmful as coal. Therefore, they are incompatible with scientific emissions reduction targets.  

In 2016, Chevron announced its support for the Paris Agreement and called it a ‘’good first step”. The internal documents suggest they never genuinely committed to the agreement, or changed their position to cosy up to the Trump Administration.

Maryland Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, who co-authored the report with Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse told AFP:

Big Oil has run campaigns to confuse and mislead the public while working unceasingly to lock down a fossil fuel future.

Big Oil continues to conceal the facts about their business model and obscure the actual dangers of fossil fuels, including natural gas, in order to block the climate action we need.

Notably, fossil fuel giants also rely on trade associations to spread misleading narratives and to lobby against climate action. By using trade associations, think tanks, and other nonprofits they are able to influence public policy proposals. Top offenders include the API and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, along with several others. 

New emails between the fossil fuel executives and these groups demonstrate how the companies have influenced these organisations. This has allowed them to both amplify and lobby for Big Oil’s messaging and unpopular proposals.

The new report clearly lays out that Industry communications brushed aside scientists’ warnings. Choosing to emphasise the uncertainty around climate science, rather than the actual science. 

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Feature image via GuavaTrain/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

By HG

Rampant extractive, exploitative capitalism is rearing its ugly head – but this time, it’s over the transition to greener, cleaner energy. As the world grapples with the transition away from fossil fuels to tackle the climate crisis, nations have been on the hunt for the vital minerals needed to power this shift to renewable technologies. Now, a new report has exposed over 400 abuse allegations tied to these transition minerals across Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Transition minerals: a litany of abuse allegations

On Tuesday 30 April, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre published a damning new report. Specifically, this identified a litany of abuse allegations linked to the development, extraction, and processing of transition minerals in countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA).

In the report, the Centre identified 20 critical transition minerals. Effectively, these are materials that manufacturers use for renewable energy technologies. This includes minerals for battery and other components to produce EVs. For example, this included minerals like copper, iron, lithium, and zinc.

Of course, these minerals are vital as countries ramp up efforts to shift away from climate-wrecking fossil fuels. Invariably, nations are turning to green technology in order to meet their domestic and international climate commitments. At COP28, nations agreed to triple the global capacity of renewables this decade. As the Canary’s HG reported however, the big players at the G7 are currently falling short of this pledge. Nonetheless, as countries make moves in this direction, the pressure for supplies of transition minerals will creep up.

However, it’s in this context that the Centre has previously revealed a shocking litany of abuse allegations over transition minerals in other regions. As the Canary previously reported for instance, a report it produced in March 2023 on the Andean region of South America revealed that:

corporations are inflicting damage on the environment and the territories of peasant farmers and indigenous peoples.

Similarly, a separate Business and Human Rights Resource Centre analysis from May 2023 revealed that mines in the Philippines and Indonesia had impacted the health of nearby communities.

Now, the Centre has turned its attention to the EECA region, which is fast becoming a new hotspot for Europe’s supply.

Harming workers and communities

Titled ‘Fuelling injustice: Transition mineral impacts in Eastern Europe & Central Asia’, the report looked at the human rights and environmental abuses linked to transition minerals in the EECA region.

Alarmingly, it identified a total of 421 allegations of abuse across 16 countries between 2019 and 2023. It documented allegations in the following: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The allegations detailed a number of human rights and environmental impacts such as labour rights violations, air, soil, and water pollution, and harm to the health of people living and working near mining and processing infrastructure.

Of course, workers and communities bore the brunt of these human rights and environmental abuses. Allegations impacted workers in 185 instances, with communities hot on their heels at 178 cases.

As the report noted, for communities these allegations mostly caused environmental impacts, such that:

Water pollution accounted for 29% of all impacts on communities, closely followed by air pollution (27%) and soil pollution (22%).

Alongside this, mining and mineral processing also impacted local community livelihoods in 16% of the allegations. These included reports of:

roads destroyed by open quarries, damaged or collapsed houses, pollution of agricultural and grazing lands, and water contamination.

Overall, occupational health and safety violations was the top human rights impact associated with transition mineral mining in the region, accounting for 64% of all impacts on workers.

On top of this, the report found workplace deaths linked to 28% of allegations impacting them, with 52 recorded allegations. Meanwhile, workplace injuries (18%) were also a major concern. Further to this, labour rights issues accounted for 20% of allegations. These included, among other issues, unpaid and underpaid wages, access to information about terms of work contracts, workplace discrimination, long working hours and violations of freedom of association.

Europe’s drive for transition minerals

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Europe has been attempting to cut its dependence on it for its source of transition minerals. However, despite a mass of sanctions, it has continued to to plough billions into mining companies linked to the Kremlin.

For instance, investigative outlet Investigate Europe found that Europe imported critical minerals to the tune of €13.7bn between March 2022 and July 2023. And the Centre’s new report has laid out the human costs of this.

Notably, Russia topped the analysis for the number of abuse allegations, at 112 reports associated with transition mineral mining and processing.

In March, the EU Commission put forward its proposals for the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). Ostensibly, this is partly in response to the EU’s growing need for critical minerals for the green energy transition. Notably, the bloc currently relies on supplies from Russia and China and wants to change this.

Given this, the CRMA plans to break this dependency and aims for instance for:

• Extraction from Europe to meet 10% of the EU’s consumption
• Processing capacity to meet 40% of its consumption

So, as part of this CRMA strategy, the EU is seeking ‘strategic partnerships’ with other mineral-rich nations.

It has already signed strategic partnerships with two countries in the EECA region (Ukraine and Kazakhstan). As well as this, it has initiated negotiations on a strategic partnership with Uzbekistan.

However, non-profits have already raised their concerns over these. In particular, they have noted the lack of transparency and consultation with local communities. In tandem with this, they pointed out the agreements’ insufficient human rights protection safeguards and responsible business conduct requirements.

For example, in a briefing, they highlighted that:

In the draft CRMA, the language on environmental impacts, human rights and engagement with local communities remains vague, failing to mention key international instruments or standards.

In addition to this, they underscored how:

Efforts to analyse Strategic Partnerships are hampered by a concerning lack of transparency in negotiations and the lack of an inclusive, deliberative, truly participatory, consultation process. Communities impacted by mining, and trade unions, environmental and human rights NGOs have not been consulted, and key stakeholders have had to rely on press releases with incomplete information

Exposing the “scale and severity of human rights abuse”

As such, the new research points to the urgent need for significant changes in the EECA mining sector. Crucially, this will be vital if countries are to achieve a fast and fair energy transition.

Senior researcher for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre Ella Skybenko said:

While we can all agree the rapid transition to clean energy is essential for the survival of our planet, it is extremely concerning to see this happening at the cost of further harm to human rights and the environment. Our research exposes the scale and severity of human rights abuses and environmental damage caused by mining and processing transition minerals in EECA. The companies responsible for this must no longer be able to enjoy impunity.

A just transition to clean energy must centre on three core principles: shared prosperity, human rights and social protection, and fair negotiations. Disappointingly, in the EECA region, all three of these principles are currently missing when it comes to transition minerals project development, extraction and processing. There is an urgent need to transform existing business models in the EECA extractive sector if we are to ensure the transition to clean energy is just and sustainable – and does not come at the expense of people and the environment.

Ultimately, the green energy transition should be just and fair. However, the new report shows that while the usual extractive capitalists are in the driving seat, it’s a far cry from either.

Feature image via Youtube – Kyiv Post

By Hannah Sharland

This week, delegates at the INC dismissed a motion to reduce plastic production by 40% in the next 15 years. 

On Tuesday 30 April, negotiations wrapped up at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4) plastic pollution talks. Held in Ottawa, these talks are crucial before the final negotiations in South Korea later this year. The aim of these talks is advancing an ‘’international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment.’’

Many have seen the talks as a step closer to a world-first pact. Alarmingly though, delegates chose to dismiss the motion to reduce the production of these plastics.

Aquatic ecosystems in danger

As the Canary reported last week, plastic pollution poses a threat to human health and also has severe consequences for the environment and economy. Studies have found plastic nearly everywhere. Recently, a plastic bag was discovered in the deepest known point of our oceans – the Mariana Trench.

Every year, over 19m tonnes of plastic waste enters lakes, rivers, and seas, ultimately polluting aquatic ecosystems. As expected, this is endangering over 900 marine and coastal species. 

Worryingly, the annual production of plastic has more than doubled – to 460m tonnes in the last 20 years. 

Over 99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels, which account for 75% of all greenhouse gas emissions. This means that plastic generated from fossil fuels is directly impacting the rise in greenhouse gases. 

A change in energy is not enough

This week’s negotiations picked up where talks in Kenya finished five months ago. Delegates from 175 countries discussed a draft of what is to become a global treaty on ending the ever-growing problem of plastic pollution. 

Canadian parliamentary secretary Julie Dabrusin said the talks in Ottawa saw “a massive, monumental change in the tone and in the energy” compared with the previous round:

I’m really optimistic that we can get to an agreement by the end of the year… to end plastic pollution by 2040.

However, whilst some officials may be seeing this as a win – the important details of the cap on plastic production did not make it into the draft text. This continues to be a major stumbling block. 

Both Peru and Rwanda proposed a motion to cut plastic production by 40% in the next 15 years. This would be in line with the 2015 Paris agreement climate goals. Appallingly, delegates shot down this motion. 

This week, a simultaneous meeting of the G7 is taking place in Italy – where hopefully, environment ministers will commit to reducing plastic production. As the French delegation noted: 

the level of plastic pollution is unsustainable and that its increase is alarming.

Unnecessary pressure on decision makers

There is a clear consensus on the need for a plastics pollution treaty. However, oil-producing nations and the plastics industry – who favour recycling – continue to put unnecessary pressure on decision makers. 

Only last week, we reported that fossil fuel lobbyists had turned up in droves to sabotage INC-4. Predictably, this created a huge power imbalance, with seven times more lobbyists showing up than the 28 representatives of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus.

To top this off, the number of lobbyists who registered was three times greater than the 58 independent scientists. 

Willingness isn’t enough from the INC over plastic

Ana Rocha, speaking on behalf of Global South nations, said there had been: 

a growing willingness to address primary plastic polymers under the treaty.

It is clear that willingness isn’t enough, as Greenpeace’s Graham Forbes told AFP: 

You cannot end plastic pollution if you do not reduce the amount of plastic we produce.

This treaty will succeed or fail based on the extent to which it addresses and reduces plastic production. Nothing else will work if we don’t get that right.

Alejandra Parra, from Latin America, called recycling a “false option”.

She said that most plastic isn’t recycled and cannot be. Additionally, melting the plastics into new forms releases toxins and carbon emissions. Collecting and sorting recyclable them is also relatively expensive.

It’s unsurprising that a motion to reduce plastic production was shut down in the presence of so many fossil fuel lobbyists.

These are the very people who produce plastic and whose businesses would take a direct hit. Without a clear consensus between both the INC and the G7 – whose meetings seem to be both simultaneous and on the same topic, but on different continents – that we will struggle to make any real progress.

Willingness is simply not enough. 

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Feature image via CaptainDarwin/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

By HG

The US opposes a potential International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for Israeli officials such as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

That’s no surprise. As part of its spending package in March, the US congress passed a bill that would reduce funding to the Palestinian Authority if Palestinians initiate or support an ICC investigation into Israeli war crimes.

The Palestinian Authority is a limited governing power in the Israeli occupied West Bank.

The US’s bogus rationale for stopping a Netanyahu arrest warrant

Now, the US says it opposes an ICC warrant for Israelis because the ICC has “no jurisdiction”. But that’s not true. While Israel is not party to the ICC, Palestine joined the court in 2015.

Russia is also not party to the ICC, but that didn’t stop the court in 2023 issuing an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for war crimes in Ukraine, which can accept the court’s jurisdiction on a case basis.

So the ICC can issue a warrant for Israeli crimes committed in Palestine.

Indeed, US president Joe Biden welcomed the international warrant for Putin, even though the US is also not signed up to the court.

The difference is Israel is a staunch ally of the US, which supplies the state with $3.8bn per year in military aid. Apparently it thus doesn’t matter that Israel has killed over 14,500 Palestinian children since 7 October.

The other reason the US is giving for opposing ICC action is the claim that it could stop a potential truce between Hamas and Israel.

But current proposals are only for a temporary ceasefire of 40 days, then Israel’s genocidal assault would continue. Other than the release of a number of political detainees on both sides, it’s not a long-term solution.

The ICC has no police force and relies on complying countries to arrest suspects. 124 nations are currently member states of the ICC, meaning Netanyahu and other Israelis could face arrest in these countries, if ICC prosecutor Karim Khan and judges issue a warrant.

“Timely, independent examination”

After a visit to Palestine and Israel in December, Khan said:

Credible allegations of crimes during the current conflict should be the subject of timely, independent examination and investigation. On this visit, I again stressed that the clear legal principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality must be complied with so that the protection of the law is rendered meaningful for those who need it.

I emphasised that not only must the letter of the law be complied with, but also the spirit upheld. International humanitarian law and the provisions of the Rome Statute are there to protect the most vulnerable.

The ICC is a ‘court of last resort’ and only acts if the nation in question is failing to prosecute for war crimes. It has issued a total number of 42 arrest warrants and its judges have convicted 10 suspects since its establishment in 2002.

Under Donald Trump, the US previously put economic and travel sanctions on ICC prosecutors for their investigation into US military torture in Afghanistan.

Following US pressure on the ICC, Khan later stated that the Afghanistan investigation would “deprioritise” US war crimes, looking more at forces such as the Taliban.

With that in mind, we must ensure that the ICC does not submit to pressure over the prosecution of Netanyahu and Israeli authority figures. Otherwise, war crimes will continue with impunity.

Featured image via IsraeliPM – YouTube and Associated Press – YouTube

By James Wright

Content warning: this article contains graphic images and videos of violence and cruelty towards animals which readers may find upsetting

Disturbing footage captured at a mink farm in Poland has unveiled multiple instances of animal rights abuse, including the throwing and striking of animals against wooden and metal components of cages. The farm is owned by the Dutch Van Ansem family who oversee one of Poland’s largest mink farms, with additional operations in Latvia, Romania, and the US.

The investigation was conducted by Anima International who worked with an undercover investigator employed at the farm for five weeks.

The collected footage shows workers engaging in brutal treatment of the animals: minks being struck on their heads and bodies with bare hands, fists, and clubs, as well as being forcibly hit against metal and wooden parts of the cages, and even trampled upon.

WARNING: some viewers will find the below video extremely distressing:

Additionally, workers were observed grabbing the animals by their tails, sometimes twisting them, before forcibly hurling the minks into cages or transport carts. The cages were frequently found to be filthy and covered in fur, with many minks exhibiting severe bleeding:

Bogna Wiltowska, Director of Investigations at Anima International, said:

The brutal treatment of animals on fur farms is not an isolated incident, but rather a systemic issue. Time and time again, undercover footage has brought this fact to light. This time, we have documented violence against animals on a farm belonging to the influential Van Ansem family, which purportedly upholds high standards of animal welfare, as evidenced by certifications like WelFur. However, the reality depicted in numerous recordings from the farm speaks otherwise.

The Van Ansems, a Dutch family with a history in mink farming dating back to the 1960s, established their first farm in Poland as early as 1991:

Since then, they have expanded their operations to include farms in Romania, the USA, and Latvia. The farms owned by the Van Ansems are among the largest in Poland, with each farm housing tens of thousands to several hundred thousand minks on average.

Marta Korzeniak, campaign manager at Anima International, said:

The animal abuse exposed by our activist should be the final push for the Polish government to proceed with the work on the fur farming ban proposal. Similar images have been published countless times over the last 12 years. The animals cannot wait any longer – the fur industry is socially unaccepted and harmful. We urge our Prime Minister Donald Tusk to start working on the fur ban bill proposal immediately.

Poland is currently the biggest fur producer in Europe and the second-largest in the world – after China.

Despite overwhelming support from the majority of Polish people for a fur ban, previous efforts to abolish fur farming in the country have been thwarted by the fur lobby.

However, a new proposal for a fur ban bill is set to be introduced in the coming weeks, which includes a transitional period of five years and provisions for compensation to farmers. Anima International anticipates that the findings of this investigation will serve as a decisive catalyst for the implementation of a fur farming ban in Poland.

Featured image and additional images via Anima International 

By The Canary

Over the past few decades, China’s investment in Brazil’s Amazon region has significantly grown and broadened, particularly in sectors like agriculture, mining, infrastructure, and energy. However, this influx has sparked concerns about its environmental and social consequences. As debates intensify, the delicate balance between economic development and ecological preservation remains uncertain.

This year marked the 50th anniversary of Sino-Brazilian diplomatic relations, yet their initial connection traces back to 1881 with the establishment of the first diplomatic mission.

Brazil’s relationship with China intensified with the formation of BRICS in 2009, an intergovernmental organization consisting of Brazil, China, Russia, India, and South Africa. Additionally, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates have also become part of the group.

China-Brazil: a profitable partnership

China stands as Brazil’s largest trading partner. In 2023, bilateral trade between the two nations totalled US$ 157 billion, with Brazil’s exports to China reaching US$104 billion.

A study published by the Brazil-China Business Council (CEBC) in 2023 highlighted the considerable export potential of Brazil’s northern region to China, with projections exceeding US$11 billion.

Just like many other collaborations Brazil has established with other nations, its partnership with China seems to stand out as one of the most profitable. This is primarily due to China’s extensive population and its crucial push for expansion and industrial progress to satisfy the significant needs of its people.

While Chinese projects and investments in Brazil appear beneficial for both parties, concerns arise regarding their alignment with sustainable development standards, particularly in the Amazon region.

There’s apprehension that these initiatives could contribute to widespread deforestation, degradation, and climate change, undermining the region’s role as a carbon sink. Such degradation heightens the risk of zoonotic diseases emerging and spreading, posing a substantial public health threat to both Brazil and the global community.

João Cumarú, researcher at Plataforma CIPÓ (an independent non-profit research institute) and master’s student in Chinese politics and diplomacy at SIRPA (复旦大学, Fudan University, China), explained to the Canary:

There are notable examples and commendable practices within Chinese territory. However, it’s essential to conduct a thorough analysis to determine whether these practices will be replicated in territories beyond China’s borders.

Livestock

In 2023, China imported 2.2 million tons of meat from Brazil, totalling over US$ 8.2 billion.

According to the Brazilian Institute of Geographics and Statistics (IBGE), the number of cattle slaughtered in the country reached 29.8 million in 2022, marking a 7.5% rise from the previous year. In 2023, beef production surged to 8.91 tons in 2023, reflecting an 11.2% increase compared to 2022.

China is the primary destination for Brazilian exports of beef, pork, and chicken. There are a total of 144 authorized slaughterhouses in Brazil for export to China, with the majority owned by Brazilian JBS, the world’s largest meat producer. However, JBS has been associated with issues such as deforestation, conflicts, and environmental degradation in the Amazon rainforest and the Cerrado regions.

João Gonçalves, senior director for Brazil at Mighty Earth, told the Canary:

Through our satellite monitoring we are still finding rampant destruction driven by the meat and soy industries in Brazil. Brazilian beef giant JBS is sourcing from suppliers who are destroying nature with impunity. Our latest research identified a total of 105 deforestation cases linked to JBS, covering over 185,000 hectares of deforestation in the Amazon and the Cerrado.

JBS’ plans to ramp up beef exports to China will mean more cattle and more land grabs, with all the negative impact that brings for forests and the Indigenous communities and wildlife that depend on them. JBS has big expansion plans, including listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Access to more funds will lead to more nature destruction. We’re urging the US Securities and Exchange Commission to block JBS’ proposed listing on the NYSE over its continued, outsized impact on climate change and Brazil’s precious biomes.

In March, Carlos Fávaro, the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, and Food Supply (MAPA), announced that an extra 38 Brazilian meat processing facilities had been approved to export meat and meat products to China:

This is a significant moment for both sides. China will receive high-quality meats at competitive prices, ensuring agricultural products for its population, while Brazil gains the certainty of job creation, opportunities, and the growth of the Brazilian economy. It’s a historic day in the Brazil-China trade relationship, a historic day for our agriculture.

In 2023, JBS was part of a delegation sent by Brazil’s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to China, aiming to negotiate a new export agreement between the two nations.

Lula doesn’t appear hesitant to conceal his unwavering support for JBS and the growth of cattle farming in the country, irrespective of the environmental consequences, such as deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and the violation of traditional and indigenous communities’ rights.

Cattle farming contributes to around 80% of deforestation in the Amazon region. The primary states for cattle production in the Brazilian Amazon are Mato Grosso, Pará, and Rondônia.

The process of forests being converted into pasturelands results in elevated temperatures, altered precipitation patterns, and the escalation of extreme weather events. These conditions disrupt climate regulation and the water cycle essential for crop production in Brazil, resulting in considerable losses.

Dr Peter Alexander, senior lecturer in global food systems and security at The University of Edinburgh, told the Canary:

We must consume less meat, reduce food waste, establish a more efficient and equitable system, and address pressing human health concerns such as malnutrition and obesity. How can we tackle these challenges within a system that currently fails to promote such outcomes? Moreover, how do we transform this system to prioritise these objectives? These questions linger, as these issues are often considered politically risky and potentially detrimental to electoral success.

Soya

China’s voracious appetite for agricultural commodities extends to soya, as it remains the world’s leading importer, with Brazil standing as the largest producer globally.

In the 2022/2023 crop season, Brazil achieved yet another milestone, setting a record by harvesting around 154.6 million tonnes of soya, reflecting a remarkable 23% increase compared to the previous year’s production of 125.5 million tonnes. In 2023, China soya imports from Brazil reached 69.95 million tonnes, a 29% increase from the previous year.

Brazil has implemented a soya moratorium agreement, where participating companies pledge not to buy soya from farms where soya cultivation has led to deforestation of land in the Amazon biome after July 22, 2008. This initiative aims to eradicate deforestation from the soy production process.

Despite numerous pledges from China National Cereals, Oil and Foodstuffs Co (Cofco) to combat deforestation and improve its supply chains, an inquiry by Repórter Brasil revealed that in 2021, the company sourced soya from deforested regions in Mato Grosso state, situated within both the Cerrado and Amazon regions, through indirect suppliers.

Chinese companies have substantially expanded their footprint in Brazil via mergers and acquisitions. For instance, Hunan Dakang of the Shanghai Pengxin group holds a 57% stake in Fiagril, a Brazilian company specializing in supplying agricultural inputs such as soy, corn, fertilisers, and offering technical support to farmers.

When asked about the trade volume between Brazil and China and Brazil’s dependency resulting from it, Cumarú told the Canary:

Presently, China might view Brazil as a significant market and a commodities exporter. However, historical trends suggest they won’t rely solely on one supplier to fulfil their requirements. There’s a trend towards diversifying energy sources and advancing technologies for land development and restoration within China. The Brazilian government should closely monitor this trend.

Furthermore, our focus shouldn’t be solely on investment expectations; we must also enhance and integrate gains from these investments. A crucial aspect where we’ve fallen short is technology transfer, which could potentially decrease Brazil’s dependence on China.

As soya production expands, the development of logistical corridors becomes necessary to facilitate the flow of grains to ports, thereby reducing freight costs. This has prompted numerous investments in infrastructure, including road and railway projects.

Infrastructure

Chinese investments in Amazonian infrastructure primarily focus on the construction of dams, roads, ports, and railway systems. These initiatives aim to improve transportation routes and lower the costs associated with exporting commodities to China.

The China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) holds an 80% stake in the Brazilian construction firm, Concremat, and engages in numerous projects across the Amazon region.

The logos of both CCCC and Concremat are featured on Brazil’s National Department of Transport Infrastructure (DNIT) website in connection with the paving of the BR-319 highway in the Amazon. This highway stretches 885.9 km, linking the central Amazonian capital, Manaus, to Porto Velho, situated at the forest’s southern edge.

The paving of BR-319 highway has the potential to trigger widespread deforestation, environmental degradation, biodiversity decline, displacement of indigenous communities, increased spread of infectious diseases, surge in illegal mining and logging, and escalation of organised crime.

Last year, Pará’s governor, Helder Barbalho, signed an agreement in Beijing, China, in the presence of the deputy president of China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), paving the way for the construction of Ferrovia do Pará. This railway will connect Marabá with the port of Vila do Conde in Barcarena.

Another significant project is Ferrogrão (EF-170), a 933 km greenfield railway venture designed to connect Sinop, in Mato Grosso state, to Itaituba, in Pará state. This railway passes through environmentally protected areas and indigenous territories within the Amazon region.

In 2022, greenfield ventures predominantly characterized the entry of Chinese investments into Brazil, accounting for 59% of the total number of projects.

Ferrogrão has received support from major agribusiness players such as Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus, and Amaggi, motivated by their primary goal of exporting commodities to China and Europe at reduced expenses. However, this project raises concerns about increased deforestation, degradation, and environmental violations. It’s set to impact numerous indigenous communities, including the Kayapó, Mundukuri, and Panará peoples, who denounce the railway as the “rails of destruction.”

Precious minerals

The Brazilian Amazon is a focal point for the extraction of raw materials as part of national and state economic development agendas. Consequently, the region is witnessing various socio-economic and environmental challenges.

Brazil is a powerhouse in the global mining industry, with significant production and export capabilities in both raw and processed minerals. This includes vital resources such as iron, gold, copper ore, and bauxite—the primary source material for alumina and aluminium.

Bacarena, located in the Pará state, serves as crucial hub for these activities. The region is home to substantial bauxite deposits, concentrated mainly in three key districts: Trombetas, Almeirim, and Paragominas-Tiracambú. This positions Brazil as one of the world’s largest holders of bauxite potential.

In a webinar organised by CEBC in February, Ricardo Biscassi, head of external affairs for Brazilian mining company Vale and CEBC director, disclosed:

The total iron ore exports from Brazil in 2023 to all countries were 380 million tonnes. Of this total, 64%, that is, 242 million tonnes, were sent to China, showing the relevance that China has in the iron ore market, and obviously in the steel market…of these 242 million tons that were exported to China, 76% came from Vale.

In February, a Chinese delegation consisting of representatives from Zhuhai Sino-Lac Chain Co., Guangdon Nonfengbao, and Hohai University, visited the state of Pará, declaring their intent to invest in various sectors within the region, including collaborating on a biofertilizer project with the Federal Rural University of Amazonia (Ufra).

One of the key attractions for Chinese investors in the state of Pará is the municipality of Bacarena, which falls within Brazil’s Export Processing Zone (EPZ). This zone provides a variety of incentives, such as tax exemptions, making it highly attractive to foreign investors.

Approximately 60% of what is produced in Pará, the second largest state in the Amazon region, is exported to China. In 2023, the mineral sector comprised 84% of Pará’s foreign sales. Iron accounts to 80% of these exports, serving as an indispensable material for China’s civil construction market.

Cumarú told the Canary:

There’s a lingering question that remains unresolved. While it’s understood that the Chinese government has implemented green credit policies for companies operating internationally, such as guidelines for overseas mining ventures, there’s uncertainty regarding the level of compliance with these policies. It seems that there isn’t a significant commitment from the Chinese side. Considering China’s substantial investment and trade volumes, this undeniably raises concerns.

In April, Brazil’s Foreign Trade Chamber (Camex) decided to increase the import tax on 11 steel products by up to 25%, aiming to reduce steel imports from China. This action was taken in response to the substantial influx of Chinese steel flooding the Brazilian market at discounted rates.

Lithium represents yet another incredibly valuable resource. China has set its sights on a potential joint venture or acquisition of the Canadian mining company, Sigma, situated in the state of Minas Gerais. The objective is to enhance the battery production operations of Chinese firm BYD in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas. BYD has begun to build a car factory in in Camaçari, in the state of Bahia, an investment of approximately US$ 3 billion.

We must remain mindful of water scarcity as an additional global challenge. Projections indicate that by as soon as 2030, global demand for freshwater is anticipated to exceed the available supply by 40 to 50%, affecting both brown and green manufacturing sectors. There’s a possibility that Chinese manufacturing, currently concentrated in Asia, might shift towards countries abundant in water resources, such as Brazil, including the Amazon region.

Energy

China has made significant investments in Brazil’s energy sector. The State Grid Brazil Holding S.A., a Chinese state-owned energy company, holds control over 24 national power transmission companies in Brazil, including those operating in the Amazon region.

State Grid has announced plans to invest $3.6 billion to upgrade energy transmission lines in Brazil, along with an extra $38 billion in the Brazilian energy sector. They secured a bid to construct 1,500 km of lines across Maranhão, Tocantins, and Goiás states, which includes building substations. Additionally, the company is already managing the 2,500 km Belo Monte UHVDC transmission project.

In December 2023, State Grid secured the largest power transmission auction in Brazil, gaining rights to construct over 4,471 km of new transmission lines across the states of Goiás, Maranhão, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Tocantins.

Another Chinese state-owned enterprise, the Three Gorges Corporation, manages 12 hydroelectric power plants, three of which are situated in the Amazon region. These include Cachoeira Caldeirão in the state of Amapá, Santo Antonio do Jari on the border between the states of Pará and Amapá, and the São Manoel hydroelectric power plant situated on the Teles Pires River, bordering the states of Mato Grosso and Pará.

Numerous infrastructure development initiatives in the Amazon region have sparked controversy due to their potential to escalate deforestation, degradation, urbanisation, traffic, and conflicts in remote rainforest areas. These projects directly affect traditional and indigenous communities, alongside the environment.

The Belo Monte hydroelectric dam and reservoir, located along the Xingu River in the Amazon region of Pará, serve as an example of the detrimental impact that large-scale infrastructure projects can have on biodiverse areas, including the displacement of communities, increased deforestation, and degradation of the aquatic ecosystem of the Xingu River.

Intellectual property

The Amazon rainforest is emerging as a key market for bioproducts, drawing attention both nationally and internationally for its wealth of opportunities in promoting a bioeconomy.

By 2022, Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) had identified 43,400 patents for innovations involving Amazonian flora filed globally. China led the count with 18,965 applications, followed by the USA with 3,778.

The patenting of products derived from Amazonian genetic resources without fair sharing of benefits with local communities and without respecting their rights raises significant concerns. Given the Amazon’s vast wealth of genetic material, this situation could potentially fuel the illicit trafficking of forest products (biopiracy).

China-Brazil relations: on high alert

There are numerous uncertainties regarding the socio-environmental consequences of some Chinese investments in the Amazon region and Brazil, as well as how the local population will gain from the extensive exploitation of natural resources and the development of infrastructure in environmentally delicate zones such as the Amazon.

The increased demand from China for commodities could lead to a rampant exploitation of Brazil’s and the Amazon’s natural resources and deepening the country’s dependence on China.

Cumarú told the Canary about the dynamics of Chinese foreign policy:

One of the principles guiding Chinese foreign policy is non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations. They adhere to the rules of engagement in the countries where they invest, effectively absolving themselves from issues they may be directly or indirectly involved in.

The call for a more proactive approach from the Chinese government can only gain traction if it originates from the Brazilian government, led by the president and the relevant ministries.

In April, China and Brazil entered into a bilateral agreement that includes collaboration in television between China Media Group’s Xinhua News Agency and Brasil Communications Company (EBC). In 2019, Grupo Bandeirantes in Brazil also signed an agreement with China Media Group, focusing on joint productions and sharing content.

The ministries of culture from Brazil and China gathered on April 25 to explore opportunities for cultural exchange between the two countries, covering cinema, publications, libraries, museums, heritage, and copyright.

There are increasing concerns about potential efforts to influence, regulate, and limit information dissemination in Brazil, as there are questions whether China might seek to promote its political, economic, and social ideologies. Such actions could potentially pose risks to both the environment, including the Amazon region, and the sovereign interests of the Brazilian population.

The future of the Amazon, Brazil, and global environmental sustainability is heavily influenced by the relationship between Brazil and China. With their considerable power, these two key players have the potential to address the ongoing environmental destruction and protect indigenous rights in the region. The world will be watching closely the developments of this partnership.

The BRICS Policy Center has not responded to a request for an interview.

Featured image via Reuters

By Monica Piccinini

On Monday 29 April the Group of Seven (G7) convened for two days of climate crisis talks in Turin. This was their first big political meeting since the UN’s annual climate negotiations in November.

Environment ministers from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US held discussions after the UN warned that excuses for failing to take bold actions on the climate crisis were ‘’not acceptable’’. This is off the back of a new report by science and policy institute Climate Analytics, which shows the G7 is falling far short of its targets.  

The G7 makes up around 38% of the global economy and was responsible for 21% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2021, according to the institute.

G7: a bunch of underachievers?

Not a single member of the G7 is on course to meet their emission reduction targets for 2030. Shockingly, they are only set to achieve “at best around half of what is needed”. 

This was despite the fact that all G7 nations suffered wildfires, flooding and a variety of other climate crisis-driven disasters in 2023.

Whilst France is expected to push for the G7 to phase out coal by 2030, Japan is reluctant to set a date. Meanwhile, Germany – Europe’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is unwilling to move away from gas, as is Italy. Of course, this is ironic given the devastating forest fires that ravaged Italy last summer. 

And it seems UN climate chief, Simon Stiell agrees. On Monday, he told G7 countries it was “utter nonsense” to argue they couldn’t take bolder actions to tackle the crisis. 

He told environment ministers in Turin: 

I often hear in forums like this one that, ‘we cannot possibly move too far forward, lest we predetermine the outcome of negotiations'” at the UN level

It is utter nonsense to claim the G7 cannot — or should not — lead the way on bolder climate actions.

Stiell also said there was “no reason” why the world’s most developed economies “cannot collaborate to make bolder strides”. This would “boost what is possible within the global climate negotiations”.

He continued: 

G7 leading from the front — particularly through much deeper emissions cuts, and bigger and better climate finance this year — is not only entirely doable.

It is essential, if we are to avoid a global economic disaster.

Excuses are not an option

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw countries agree to: 

Substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to hold global temperature increase to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change

This decade, we need to slash emissions in half for this to become a reality.

Alarmingly though, they continue to rise and of course, this is powered by the burning of fossil fuels. 

Last year in Dubai, countries agreed to ‘’transition away’’ from fossil fuels and triple global renewables capacity this decade. However, climate think tank Ember has produced new analysis on the G7’s renewables progress. Currently they are falling short of meeting their tripling commitment and are just on track to double capacity. 

Notably also, nations failed to agree important details on funding. At the talks in Turin, countries will likely make more commitments on funds for adaptation to climate change. Italy has said the G7 would discuss ‘’innovative’’ financing models amid calls for more accessible finance for vulnerable countries.

This has long been a sticking point. As the Canary has previously reported, poorer countries are unable to foot the bill and rich countries often trap them in debt, which they further exploit, in the pursuit of fossil fuels. 

But as Stiell suggested:

Challenging budget conditions’ is not an acceptable excuse for failing to deliver substantial new public climate finance pledges.

It is clear that countries in the Global North should be using their political clout, technologies and wealth to push forwards in the pursuit to phase out fossil fuels. But, it does throw up some questions. What is the point of the G7 when we are not seeing concrete progress towards targets, and is it just for show? Ultimately, the only solution to the climate crisis is real action. 

Feature image via U.S. Department of State/Wikimedia, cropped and resized to 1200 by 900, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Additional reporting via Agence France-Press

By HG

As garbage piles up and the heat rises in genocide-ravaged Gaza, flies and mosquitoes proliferate in crowded Rafah city and life becomes even more grim for people Israel has displaced who are living in tents.

Gaza: the strain is becoming intolerable

Last week, temperatures already topped 30°c, turning the makeshift shelters made from plastic tarps and sheets into sweltering ovens.

On a sliver of land on the outskirts of the far-southern city on the Egyptian border, about 20 of these tents have been erected, all shaded by a large sheet stretched above them.

But the thin, dark cloth is no match for the blazing sun that has sent temperatures rising fast in late April, making it harder to preserve scarce potable water and food.

Ranine Aouni al-Arian is a Palestinian woman Israel displaced from the devastated nearby city of Khan Yunis. She told Agence France-Presse (AFP):

The water we drink is warm. The children can’t bear the heat and the mosquito and fly bites anymore.

She was holding a baby whose face was covered in insect bites and said that she struggles to find “a treatment or a solution”.

Around her, swarms of flies and other insects were buzzing incessantly.

Aala Saleh, from Jabalia in the north of Gaza, told AFP:

It’s the first time we see so many, because of the pollution and the waste discarded everywhere.

He said sleeping has become nearly impossible inside his tent, “because we wake up from the mosquito bites, and our main concern is to kill these insects”.

Amid the heat and unsanitary conditions, he said he worried about “the spread of disease”.

Israel has created a “living hell”

The World Health Organization warned in January of a leap in infectious diseases such as hepatitis A, blamed on Israel’s continuing onslaught causing unsanitary conditions in camps.

UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, said in a post on X last week that:

Waste continues piling up & running water is scarce… As the weather gets warmer, the risk of disease spreading increases.

Rafah hosts about 1.5 million displaced, according to the UN, more than half of the Gaza Strip’s population which has been besieged and bombarded by Israel for nearly seven months.

On the streets, garbage accumulates as large rubbish containers overflow after basic services broke down long ago amid Israel’s worst ever attack on Gaza – amounting to a ‘plausible’ genocide.

The Israeli army has relentlessly pounded the small Palestinian territory since 7 October. Its military operation has killed at least 34,488 people in Gaza, mostly women and children.

Late last month, an UN report said Israel has also destroyed:

waste collection vehicles, facilities and medical waste treatment centres… [leaving] municipalities scrambling to cope with the escalating crisis.

Hanane Saber, a 41-year-old displaced by Israel says her children can no longer bear the steamy tent. Her voice barely audible above the sound of Israeli drones and plane, she told AFP:

We’re living in hell… I’m exhausted from the heat, on top of mosquitoes and flies everywhere that bother us day and night.

Daily tasks such as “cooking and cleaning” or preparing bread dough “are conducted inside the tent in stifling heat”, said Mervat Alian, a displaced woman from Gaza City:

It’s as if we were living in a grave, life doesn’t exist anymore.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse

Featured image via TRT World – YouTube

By The Canary

Police arrested over 100 pro-Palestine demonstrators at Northeastern university in Boston on 27 April. Students are protesting Israel’s occupation, apartheid and genocide against the Palestinians across US universities.

The key reason Northeastern university gave for shutting down the encampment and having pro-Palestine protestors arrested was someone shouting “kill the jews”. A university statement reads:

The use of virulent antisemitic slurs, including ‘Kill the Jews,’ crossed the line… We cannot tolerate this kind of hate on our campus. Earlier this morning the Northeastern University Police Department (NUPD) — in cooperation with local law enforcement partners — began clearing an unauthorized encampment on the university’s Boston campus

But it turns out it was a pro-Israel agitator who shouted “kill the jews, anybody on board?”, as video footage shows. The Palestine solidarity protestors booed in response:

this is a video of the incident I mentioned, provided by an organizer with Huskies For A Free Palestine/HFP.NEU

The student in the greenish blue sweatshirt holding the Israeli flag is a counter-protester pic.twitter.com/2KnUuFAkam

— Tori Bedford (@Tori_Bedford) April 27, 2024

Elsewhere and at Northeastern, universities are citing allegations of antisemitism to shut down pro-Palestine protests. President Joe Biden has also called the protests “antisemitic”.

But Israel’s apologists have long weaponised antisemitism to silence criticism of Israel.

Former Israeli government minister Shulamit Aloni has admitted:

Well, it’s a trick we always use it… It’s very easy to blame people who criticise certain acts of the Israeli government as antisemitic and to bring up the Holocaust and the suffering of the Jewish people and that justifies everything we do to the Palestinians

So people must identify real antisemitism before restricting the right to freedom of expression.

Northeastern Jewish students condemned the arrests and one said:

It was the closest I’ve felt to any community. It was really sad to see what was such a beautiful liberation zone completely destroyed

Police, meanwhile, assured the pro-Israel counter protestors they wouldn’t be arrested.

In response to challenges on the arrests, Vice President for Communications Renata Nyul said:

The fact that the phrase ‘Kill the Jews’ was shouted on our campus is not in dispute. The Boston Globe, a trusted news organization, reported it as fact. There is also substantial video evidence. Any suggestion that repulsive antisemitic comments are sometimes acceptable depending on the context is reprehensible. That language has no place on any university campus.

But the Boston Globe has now issued corrections and reported that it was a pro-Israel agitator who shouted the vile slur.

Northeastern activists Huskies for a Free Paletine called out the university in a statement:

After deploying campus police, city police, and state police on peaceful activist students, Northeastern Administration published an entirely false and fabricated narrative that members of our encampment engaged in hate speech early this morning

The conduct of Northeastern administration has been deplorable as they continue to defame their students and take away from the main cause of Huskies for a Free Palestine: to divest from Israeli Apartheid and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.

Professor Mathew Noah Smith had joined the encampment on 25 April. He said:

I hope Northeastern is not weaponising anti-semitism to justify arresting the protesting students… the students there… were clear in standing against all forms of hate and violence.

Genocide and apartheid

It’s not just the ongoing genocide where Israel has killed or injured one in fifty Gazan children. Israeli apartheid is also part of why students are protesting. As Amnesty International summarises:

Israel imposes a system of oppression and domination against Palestinians across all areas under its control: in Israel and the (Occupied Palestinian Territories), and against Palestinian refugees, in order to benefit Jewish Israelis. This amounts to apartheid as prohibited in international law.

Laws, policies and practices which are intended to maintain a cruel system of control over Palestinians, have left them fragmented geographically and politically, frequently impoverished, and in a constant state of fear and insecurity.

Amnesty’s report shows how Israel uses military rule and a system of discrimination to oppress Palestinians.

With such injustices in mind, there must be solidarity with the students and others protesting. We should opt for a constructive approach to peace in the Middle East.

Featured image via Tori Bedford – X

By James Wright

A UN committee – the UNCRPD – has slammed the UK government’s abhorrent treatment of disabled people. Now, Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) across the UK have spoken out about the damning verdict.

UNCRPD reports “grave and systemic” rights violations

On Wednesday 24 April, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) ruled that the UK government had failed to halt the “grave and systemic” violation of the human rights of disabled people across the country.

This report followed the UNCRPD’s inquiry in March, where, as the Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey detailed:

the government absolutely showed itself up by trying to make it sound like it cared about disabled people – and the UN special rapporteurs consequently dragged them over the coals.

So now, the UNCRPD has issued its scathing conclusions on a litany of government failures and deliberate discriminatory policies against disabled people. Charlton-Dailey explained again that:

The UNCRPD report pulls the government up on many things – including benefits deaths, Work Capability Assessment (WCA) reforms, the institutionalisation of disabled people, and British Sign Language (BSL).

It lambasted everything from indefensibly low benefits, to the government’s callous Work Capability Assessment reforms, and its plans to snoop on disabled people’s bank accounts with AI.

Crucially, at both the inquiry and in the subsequent report, the UNCRPD dragged the government over the coals for failing to follow up on recommendations from the last time. Specifically, as the Canary’s Steve Topple articulated in March, this wasn’t the first time the UN had hauled it in front of the committee:

Every so often, the UNCRPD monitors countries to see if they are acting in line with the CRPD’s articles or not. The last time the committee looked at the UK was in 2016 – and the report was damning. Then, in August 2017, the UNCRPD followed up on its report; this included its chair accusing the government of creating a “human catastrophe” for disabled people. Yet in 2018 the government effectively whitewashed the UNCRPD report.

DDPOs provided much of the vital evidence the committee used at the inquiry and to collate the report. Now, they are speaking out about its conclusions, and the government’s shameful conduct throughout the process.

DDPOs speak out

Andy Greene is a disability rights activist on the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC). The group triggered the UNCRPD’s special inquiry. He said that:

The process of evidence gathering, taking witness testimony and objective scrutiny of policy and its impact, is one that’s very difficult to ridicule or dismiss. The facts speak for themselves. As such, the inquiry vindicates the experiences of Deaf and Disabled people whose voices are too often ignored.

Meanwhile musician, campaigner and fellow DPAC steering group member John Kelly said the report is:

damning on the lack of this government listening to our real lived experiences as Disabled people and doing anything to support what we really need which is to live and contribute in our community as equal citizens along with our peers.”

Spokesperson for DPAC Northern Ireland Dermot Devlin said:

DPAC NI thank the UN Committee for their work and due diligence on our behalf and call on the Westminster Government to properly implement the recommendations of the 2016 inquiry and the current report.

The absence of Government in Northern Ireland has failed Disabled people here. With the Executive now restored, bringing forward a Disability Strategy that addresses the Committee’s recommendations must be an absolute priority.

Svetlana Kotova is director of campaigns and justice at Inclusion London. In a press release she said that:

This report is a damning verdict on the government’s track record in upholding our human rights…It is shocking that our country that positions itself as a world leader is yet again found to breach our rights on a systematic level.

It is also shocking that the government has failed to listen to the UN in the past and has actively dismissed the previous recommendations….Inclusion London welcomes the report and urge the government and the opposition to take it seriously and develop policies on welfare reform, employment and independent living that comply with the UK’s obligations under the UNCRDP.

As a result, Kotova argued that:

The report shows that the current system is not fit for purpose and the government cannot carry on punishing Disabled people.”

UNCRPD hears of institutionalisation and benefit deaths

Notably, DDPOs underscored the reports clear findings that the current environment the government has fomented for disabled people in the UK contravenes their human rights.

Among the many areas where the committee expressed it was “deeply concerned” were:

• the social care recruitment crisis follow EU withdrawal.
• the inadequacies of social care support provision to cover anything more than “bare subsistence”.
• incarceration of Disabled people “in secure psychiatric facilities due to a lack of community-based support”.
• “disabled people who are housebound due to inadequate support to access the community”.
• “abuse, mistreatment and the increasing use of restraints, restrictive practices and… unexpected deaths in the mental health care system”.

Dorothy Gould is founder of grassroots organisation Liberation. People with personal experience of mental distress and trauma lead the group. On the report’s identification of medical abuse and the carceral response to people in mental health distress, Gould said:

it is an utter disgrace that many of us are forced into institutions, continue to be locked up against our will in places such as psychiatric hospitals and continue to be forcibly treated and abused, in complete breach of human rights which other citizens hold.

Of course, the UNCRPD also drew attention to the horrendous and appalling scale of benefit deaths that the government has repeatedly caused. Notably, the report called for the government to appropriately “redress” its legislation and policy that are causing these tragic deaths. Alongside this, it said the government should implement appropriate “reparation measures for the victims’ families”.

Alison Turner is daughter-in-law of Errol Graham, who starved to death after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) stopped his benefits. On the findings of the report she said:

I am pleased that the report highlighted the need for proper review and monitoring of the deaths of benefit claimants… It shows that this government has learned nothing and cares not for its direct actions to cause harm.

Government “contempt” is “wilful and calculated”

DDPOs also called out the UK government’s appalling last-minute back out of the original session. Initially, the UNCRPD had scheduled the meeting for 28 August. However, just six days before the deadline for written evidence submissions to the inquiry, the government pulled out.

By this point, many cash-strapped DDPOs had already booked their flights and accommodation to attend.

The result was that the committee, which is made up of Deaf and Disabled members from around the world, had to split the oral evidence section of the inquiry into two separate sessions.

CEO for Disability Wales Rhian Davies slammed the government’s evasive behaviour:

The UK Government’s approach to this review has been utterly disrespectful and matches the contempt shown to Disabled people for over a decade. We deserve better and we demand better.

Echoing this, UK Coalition co-ordinator and disabled activist Ellen Clifford said:

The government’s attitude towards the UN special inquiry is evidence that their treatment of Deaf and Disabled people is wilful and calculated. This is reflected in the damning findings of the report.

The limitations of the inquiry process are that there are just too many deliberate rights violations to include in one report.

However, the report validates the experiences of Deaf and Disabled people across the UK and is a much-needed counter to government rhetoric claiming they are “protecting the most vulnerable” when they are doing the exact opposite.

UK media “drowned out and demonised” disabled people

While the DDPOs largely directed their criticisms at the UK government, disabled president of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) Natasha Hirst took aim at the press.

Specifically, she made a call to all journalists to reflect on the evidence in the report. Crucially, she pulled them up on their role perpetuating inaccurate and harmful government rhetoric:

There has never been a more important time for journalists and the wider media industry to tackle harmful negative rhetoric against disabled people.

I call on journalists to take time to understand the concerns raised by the UN Committee and scrutinise why the Government is so keen to dismiss their failure to uphold disabled people’s human rights.

Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations have thoroughly evidenced the harm caused by policy changes and cuts to services and yet the UK Government is intent on pushing this even further.

Disabled people’s voices need to be heard and not drowned out and demonised by people who have never experienced the sharp end of the social security system.

As journalists, we should report ethically to hold power to account, and not be complicit in the scapegoating of disabled people.

Naturally, the mainstream media were predictably doing exactly that in March. As the Canary’s Steve Topple documented, the BBC acted as a mouthpiece for the government, effectively whitewashing the inquiry.

Tory’s “onslaught” of harm

Of course, since the inquiry in March even, the Tories have ramped up their war on disabled people. So, some DDPOs honed in on the government’s latest machinations to punch down on them.

Disability Rights UK CEO Kamran Mallick said:

Under this Government, the UK has lost its status as a nation that leads in disability rights to one that is actively attacking Disabled people.

In just the last week we have seen an onslaught of new policy proposals and legislation which will not only harm us but also lead to avoidable deaths…

At a time when we’re all struggling to make ends meet and cannot access the healthcare and support that we need, the Government are scapegoating Disabled people for a failing economy.

We are not at fault for simply existing. The Government are at fault for their complete disregard for international treaties and contempt for Disabled people’s rights.

In tandem with this, spokesperson for the Black Triangle campaign in Scotland John McArdle stated that:

To proceed with the plans announced by Conservative Prime Minister Sunak last Friday will definitely lead to a surge in deaths by suicide and other avoidable harm which falls short of death but is nonetheless catastrophic.

The U.K. has abrogated the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People by its treatment of Deaf and Disabled people in the UK.

Feature image via UN Web TV

By Hannah Sharland