the real world
exposing how greed, corruption, injustice, and imperialism impacts the world
and exposes the leaders who benefit
Aug 23, 2019
Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men
Mahatma Gandhi
articles
*Amazon rainforest fires: global leaders urged to divert Brazil from 'suicide' path
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The Amazon Is Dying and Bolsonaro Is Fanning the Flames
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*US and EU Accept Dire Consequences for Refugees to Keep Them Out
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*UK faces food, fuel and drug shortages, says contested leaked document
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Pacific summit ends in tears as Australia dilutes climate warning, dismaying at-risk islanders
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump’s Oil Sanctions Leave Russian Exporters $1 Billion Richer
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Guatemala elects hardline president who opposes Trump immigration deal
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump Bullies Guatemala Into Siphoning Asylum Seekers
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Extreme water stress affects a quarter of the world's population, say experts
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*SFO names four Petrofac managers over multimillion-pound bribe scheme
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Why is Trump imposing tariffs on China and how could it affect global economy?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Amazon gold miners invade indigenous village in Brazil after its leader is killed
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The world knows what is happening to the Uighurs. Why has it been so slow to act?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Black Member of Swedish Parliament Endures Years of Racism
(EXCERPT BELOW)
*opinion: Boris Johnson: the clown is crowned as the country burns in hell
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Britain’s New Prime Minister Is Nationalist, Racist and Vain. Sound Familiar?
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Yingying Zhang murder: anger in China as US killer of scholar spared death penalty
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*World hunger on the rise with more than 820 million at risk, UN report says
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*20 million children not vaccinated in 2018: UN warns against ‘stagnation’
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MIDDLE EAST DICTATORS BUY SPY TECH FROM COMPANY LINKED TO IBM AND GOOGLE
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Nearly 40% of Toronto homes not owner-occupied, new figures reveal
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Philippines senator defends police over toddler's death in drugs raid
(ARTICLE BELOW)
funnies(at the end)
*World Highlights*
8/23/19
*MYANMAR
Bangladesh bid to repatriate Rohingya stalls as refugees refuse
Myanmar troops' sexual violence against Rohingya shows 'genocidal intent': U.N. report
Facebook shuts some Myanmar social media accounts
*BREXIT: Macron to Johnson: Too late for new deal
Amazon rainforest
Remember this criminal was elected!!!
Amazon rainforest fires: global leaders urged to divert Brazil from 'suicide' path
Experts say international pressure may be only way to sway Bolsonaro government
Jonathan Watts
The Guardian
Fri 23 Aug 2019 05.56 EDT
International pressure may be the only way to stop the Brazilian government from taking a “suicide” path in the Amazon, one of the country’s most respected scientists has said, as the world’s biggest rainforest continues to be ravaged by thousands of deliberate fires.
The large number of conflagrations – set illegally to clear and prepare land for crops, cattle and property speculation – has prompted the state of Amazonas to declare an emergency, created giant smoke clouds that have drifted hundreds of miles, and sparked international concerns about the destruction of an essential carbon sink.
“Our house is burning,” tweeted the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who called for emergency talks on the subject at this week’s G7 summit. But the response to the crisis has been mixed: while Norway and Germany have halted donations to the Brazilian government’s Amazon fund, the EU has recently signed a trade deal with South America, and the UK spent this week focusing on post-Brexit business with Brazil.
On Wednesday, the UK trade minister Conor Burns was shaking hands with his counterparts in Brasilia and declaring a desire to “deepen relations”. Asked about the fires, he declined to comment but reportedly said Bolsonaro’s government had “legitimate ambitions to bring prosperity to its people”.
Scientists say the ongoing destruction will have dire consequences for Brazil and the world.
Carlos Nobre, a senior researcher with the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo, said the surge in deforestation was taking the rainforest closer to a tipping point beyond which swaths of the usually humid forest would become a dry savannah, with dire consequences for the climate, wildlife and forest dwellers.
Nobre said deforestation was on course to rise by 20-30% this year and was “very likely” to pass 10,000 sq km for the first time in more than 10 years. The trend has been worsening for several years, but it has accelerated under Bolsonaro, who has weakened the environment agency and expressed support for miners, farmers and loggers.
“The situation is very bad. It will be terrible,” Nobre told the Guardian. “A very large number of these fires are due to the cultural push that ministers are giving. They are pushing deforestation because it is good for the economy. Those who do illegal deforestation are feeling empowered.”
Nobre co-authored a study last year that predicted the southern, eastern and central regions of the Amazon would reach an irreversible stage of degradation once 20%-25% of the forest was cleared. This was not expected for 20-25 years, but Nobre said the tipping point was likely to be brought forward by about five years if this year’s rate of forest destruction continued.
In the five days to Wednesday, there were 7,746 fires in Brazil, according to data from the country’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). This follows a 278% rise in deforestation last month. The figures are preliminary, but a rising trend has been observed by other satellite monitoring systems.
Brazil has recorded more than 72,000 fires this year, an84% increase on the same period in 2018, according to the INPE. Not all were forest fires, but more than half were in the Amazon.
In one of the worst affected municipalities, Porto Velho, environmental activists said there were fires around the city and the streets were filled with smoke.
“People are scared. The hospitals are full of people with respiratory diseases. In 60 years, this is the first time I feel difficulty breathing,” said Ivaneide Bandeira Cardozo, the coordinator of the environmental organisation Kanindé. “It’s a thousand times worse than in other years.
“Bad farmers think they can commit all kinds of illegality because they will suffer no punishment … It seems Brazil has no law, that all the laws are in tatters.”
In the soya frontier state of Mato Grosso, which has had more fires than anywhere else in Brazil this year, burning has been detected inside indigenous lands and nature reserves.
The vast majority of Brazilians want to protect the forest, according to opinion polls, but the government has prioritised business interests. Bolsonaro announced this week that he would resume mega-hydro projects in the Amazon that were halted on environmental grounds. His son has proposed a bill in Congress that would further weaken protections around indigenous territory and nature reserves.
Nobre said one of the few remaining ways to prevent a dangerous loss of forest was through external protests and consumer actions.
“Politicians in Brazil pay more attention to international pressure than the voice of Brazilians,” he said. “I think international pressure is essential to reverse this tragic pathway. The agriculture sector in Brazil is very concerned that European consumers won’t buy Brazil produce. This may be the ultimate way to stop the Brazilian government from a suicide of the Amazon, which will have terrible consequences for the climate and for Brazil.”
These concerns were echoed by Thomas Lovejoy, a co-author of the tipping point study. In more than 50 years working in the Brazilian rainforest, he said this was one of its darkest moments, he said.
“There have always been some ups and downs, but the overall trajectory has been towards improvement. Now, Brazil is headed in the other direction.
“Under normal circumstances, the outside world would endeavour to help, but this Brazilian government is not interested in help.”
The scientists said there were already signs the tipping point was drawing closer. The dry season in the southern and eastern Amazon was more than 20 days longer than it was 30 years ago, droughts were more common, and plants that relied on high humidity were declining. In deforested areas, these trends were more pronounced.
Nobre said: “If the dry season extends two to three weeks more we will reach a critical moment. If it lasts longer than four months, this is the climate envelope of a savannah.”
Global heating is a major factor. As in Siberia, Alaska and California, climate breakdown is expected to make fires more frequent and more widely spread. Some of the biggest fires this week have been in the Bolivian Amazon, where deforestation has also been accelerating. According to Europe’s Copernicus satellite monitoring agency, this was the origin of the smoke that darkened the sky in São Paulo, thousands of miles away, on Monday.
There have been more large fires in Colombia and eastern Brazil this week than in the Amazon, where many agricultural burn-offs are in deforested areas.
In the Brazilian Amazon, only Amazonas state has registered a record for fires so far in August. Globally, huge fires in the Arctic have been even further from the norm, but Brazil remains the centre of concern because the problem is more immediately manmade.
Bolsonaro has tried to deflect blame. He sacked the head of the space agency and said the satellite data was a lie. His chief of staff claimed European environmental concerns were a plot to constrain Brazil’s economic growth. His foreign minister tweeted that it was a tactic by the international left. This week, he suggested, entirely without evidence, that environmental groups might have started the fires to embarrass his government.
This last allegation was condemned on Thursday in a letter signed by 118 civil society organisations. “The president doesn’t need NGOs to burn the image of Brazil in the world,” they wrote.
Concerns about the deteriorating situation have prompted protests at Brazil’s embassies. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has also urged Brazil to take action. “In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected,” he tweeted.
Macron said he would put the matter on the agenda of the G7 summit in France this weekend, while celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Madonna and Cristiano Ronaldo have also raised the alarm.
In Brazil, a petition by the campaign group Avaaz asking the government to halt illegal deforestation has received 1.1m signatures. Federal prosecutors in Pará state are investigating why environmental inspections have declined and military police are absent from inspection operations, where they used to provide protection.
Some foreign governments and conservation groups are trying to deal directly with Brazilian state governments and NGOs rather than going through the national authorities.
The UK, however, has been more focused on building post-Brexit business relations. Brazil’s international trade minister, Marcos Troyjo, said that along with ongoing negotiations with the US, Burns’s visit was a sign that Brazil continued to have the trust of the outside world.
“I think there can be no more concrete proof that not only is Brazil open for business but the international community is willing to do business with Brazil,” he said.
The UK’s stance was condemned by Friends of the Earth. The campaigner Guy Shrubsole said: “If this is what we are prepared to do to line up trade deals, rather than take a world-stage opportunity to protect the obviously irreplaceable Amazon, you have to wonder where our priorities lie. The UK government shouldn’t trade with any countries who are ignoring their Paris climate change commitments, least of all Bolsonaro’s Brazil when they’re burning their forests down to sell us and the world soya and beef.”
The large number of conflagrations – set illegally to clear and prepare land for crops, cattle and property speculation – has prompted the state of Amazonas to declare an emergency, created giant smoke clouds that have drifted hundreds of miles, and sparked international concerns about the destruction of an essential carbon sink.
“Our house is burning,” tweeted the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who called for emergency talks on the subject at this week’s G7 summit. But the response to the crisis has been mixed: while Norway and Germany have halted donations to the Brazilian government’s Amazon fund, the EU has recently signed a trade deal with South America, and the UK spent this week focusing on post-Brexit business with Brazil.
On Wednesday, the UK trade minister Conor Burns was shaking hands with his counterparts in Brasilia and declaring a desire to “deepen relations”. Asked about the fires, he declined to comment but reportedly said Bolsonaro’s government had “legitimate ambitions to bring prosperity to its people”.
Scientists say the ongoing destruction will have dire consequences for Brazil and the world.
Carlos Nobre, a senior researcher with the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo, said the surge in deforestation was taking the rainforest closer to a tipping point beyond which swaths of the usually humid forest would become a dry savannah, with dire consequences for the climate, wildlife and forest dwellers.
Nobre said deforestation was on course to rise by 20-30% this year and was “very likely” to pass 10,000 sq km for the first time in more than 10 years. The trend has been worsening for several years, but it has accelerated under Bolsonaro, who has weakened the environment agency and expressed support for miners, farmers and loggers.
“The situation is very bad. It will be terrible,” Nobre told the Guardian. “A very large number of these fires are due to the cultural push that ministers are giving. They are pushing deforestation because it is good for the economy. Those who do illegal deforestation are feeling empowered.”
Nobre co-authored a study last year that predicted the southern, eastern and central regions of the Amazon would reach an irreversible stage of degradation once 20%-25% of the forest was cleared. This was not expected for 20-25 years, but Nobre said the tipping point was likely to be brought forward by about five years if this year’s rate of forest destruction continued.
In the five days to Wednesday, there were 7,746 fires in Brazil, according to data from the country’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE). This follows a 278% rise in deforestation last month. The figures are preliminary, but a rising trend has been observed by other satellite monitoring systems.
Brazil has recorded more than 72,000 fires this year, an84% increase on the same period in 2018, according to the INPE. Not all were forest fires, but more than half were in the Amazon.
In one of the worst affected municipalities, Porto Velho, environmental activists said there were fires around the city and the streets were filled with smoke.
“People are scared. The hospitals are full of people with respiratory diseases. In 60 years, this is the first time I feel difficulty breathing,” said Ivaneide Bandeira Cardozo, the coordinator of the environmental organisation Kanindé. “It’s a thousand times worse than in other years.
“Bad farmers think they can commit all kinds of illegality because they will suffer no punishment … It seems Brazil has no law, that all the laws are in tatters.”
In the soya frontier state of Mato Grosso, which has had more fires than anywhere else in Brazil this year, burning has been detected inside indigenous lands and nature reserves.
The vast majority of Brazilians want to protect the forest, according to opinion polls, but the government has prioritised business interests. Bolsonaro announced this week that he would resume mega-hydro projects in the Amazon that were halted on environmental grounds. His son has proposed a bill in Congress that would further weaken protections around indigenous territory and nature reserves.
Nobre said one of the few remaining ways to prevent a dangerous loss of forest was through external protests and consumer actions.
“Politicians in Brazil pay more attention to international pressure than the voice of Brazilians,” he said. “I think international pressure is essential to reverse this tragic pathway. The agriculture sector in Brazil is very concerned that European consumers won’t buy Brazil produce. This may be the ultimate way to stop the Brazilian government from a suicide of the Amazon, which will have terrible consequences for the climate and for Brazil.”
These concerns were echoed by Thomas Lovejoy, a co-author of the tipping point study. In more than 50 years working in the Brazilian rainforest, he said this was one of its darkest moments, he said.
“There have always been some ups and downs, but the overall trajectory has been towards improvement. Now, Brazil is headed in the other direction.
“Under normal circumstances, the outside world would endeavour to help, but this Brazilian government is not interested in help.”
The scientists said there were already signs the tipping point was drawing closer. The dry season in the southern and eastern Amazon was more than 20 days longer than it was 30 years ago, droughts were more common, and plants that relied on high humidity were declining. In deforested areas, these trends were more pronounced.
Nobre said: “If the dry season extends two to three weeks more we will reach a critical moment. If it lasts longer than four months, this is the climate envelope of a savannah.”
Global heating is a major factor. As in Siberia, Alaska and California, climate breakdown is expected to make fires more frequent and more widely spread. Some of the biggest fires this week have been in the Bolivian Amazon, where deforestation has also been accelerating. According to Europe’s Copernicus satellite monitoring agency, this was the origin of the smoke that darkened the sky in São Paulo, thousands of miles away, on Monday.
There have been more large fires in Colombia and eastern Brazil this week than in the Amazon, where many agricultural burn-offs are in deforested areas.
In the Brazilian Amazon, only Amazonas state has registered a record for fires so far in August. Globally, huge fires in the Arctic have been even further from the norm, but Brazil remains the centre of concern because the problem is more immediately manmade.
Bolsonaro has tried to deflect blame. He sacked the head of the space agency and said the satellite data was a lie. His chief of staff claimed European environmental concerns were a plot to constrain Brazil’s economic growth. His foreign minister tweeted that it was a tactic by the international left. This week, he suggested, entirely without evidence, that environmental groups might have started the fires to embarrass his government.
This last allegation was condemned on Thursday in a letter signed by 118 civil society organisations. “The president doesn’t need NGOs to burn the image of Brazil in the world,” they wrote.
Concerns about the deteriorating situation have prompted protests at Brazil’s embassies. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, has also urged Brazil to take action. “In the midst of the global climate crisis, we cannot afford more damage to a major source of oxygen and biodiversity. The Amazon must be protected,” he tweeted.
Macron said he would put the matter on the agenda of the G7 summit in France this weekend, while celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Madonna and Cristiano Ronaldo have also raised the alarm.
In Brazil, a petition by the campaign group Avaaz asking the government to halt illegal deforestation has received 1.1m signatures. Federal prosecutors in Pará state are investigating why environmental inspections have declined and military police are absent from inspection operations, where they used to provide protection.
Some foreign governments and conservation groups are trying to deal directly with Brazilian state governments and NGOs rather than going through the national authorities.
The UK, however, has been more focused on building post-Brexit business relations. Brazil’s international trade minister, Marcos Troyjo, said that along with ongoing negotiations with the US, Burns’s visit was a sign that Brazil continued to have the trust of the outside world.
“I think there can be no more concrete proof that not only is Brazil open for business but the international community is willing to do business with Brazil,” he said.
The UK’s stance was condemned by Friends of the Earth. The campaigner Guy Shrubsole said: “If this is what we are prepared to do to line up trade deals, rather than take a world-stage opportunity to protect the obviously irreplaceable Amazon, you have to wonder where our priorities lie. The UK government shouldn’t trade with any countries who are ignoring their Paris climate change commitments, least of all Bolsonaro’s Brazil when they’re burning their forests down to sell us and the world soya and beef.”
The Amazon Is Dying and Bolsonaro Is Fanning the Flames
BY Dahr Jamail, Truthout
PUBLISHED August 22, 2019
The Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest on planet Earth. Generating half its own rainfall and holding 20 percent of all the world’s rivers within its borders, it covers an area two-thirds the size of the contiguous 48 United States, and produces 20 percent of the oxygen in the world’s atmosphere.
There are more than 1,100 tributaries of the Amazon River alone, with seventeen of them longer than one thousand miles. The rainforest also creates “flying rivers,” — massive streams of airborne moisture that develop above the canopy and move with the clouds and rainfall patterns across the entire continent of South America.
Many scientists believe the Amazon is the most important source of biodiversity on the planet, and statistics back that up. It contains thousands of species of birds and trees, an estimated 2.5 million species of insects, and at least 3,000 species of fish in the Rio Negro alone, with new species being discovered all the time. A new species is discovered, on average, every other day.
And now, the Amazon is on fire. Wildfires are incinerating the rainforest at a record pace, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE as it is commonly referenced). INPE recently stated that there has been an 80 percent increase in wildfires in the Amazon, compared to the same period from last year.
Smoke from the burning rainforest has blotted out the sky over Sao Paulo, a city more than 1,700 miles from the fires, while satellite imagery shows smoke from the fires having spread all the way to the Atlantic coast, covering half of Brazil, and even covering parts of Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru.
Crossing Thresholds
Thomas Lovejoy has worked in Brazil’s Amazon since 1965, but he is the first to say that “we’ve barely scratched the surface” in terms of our understanding of that rainforest, as he told Truthout during an interview in 2017. He was director of the World Wildlife Fund in the U.S. for 14 years, and has been given the nickname “the godfather of biodiversity,” having coined the term “biodiversity” himself. One of his reports, alone, led to more than half of the Amazon rainforest being put under protection.
During our interview, Lovejoy gave dire warnings of things to come, including the heartbreaking wildfires we are seeing now.
He noted that emissions limits that have been agreed to internationally will not prevent catastrophe. In a 2013 op-ed for The New York Times entitled “The Climate Change Endgame,” he wrote, “It is abundantly clear that the target of a 2-degree Celsius limit to climate change was mostly derived from what seemed convenient and doable without any reference to what it really means environmentally. Two degrees is actually too much for ecosystems.”
That is exactly what the current Amazon wildfires indicate, as the planet has warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius (1.2°C) since the industrial revolution began, and will clearly continue warming.
“Think about what it means overall,” Lovejoy said of what the planet will look and feel like when it reaches 2°C (a benchmark it is now guaranteed to far exceed). “It means a world that will have sea levels four to six meters higher. It means a world without tropical coral reefs — as we can already see those impacts now — and probably a whole bunch of thresholds will be crossed that we can’t predict.”
When a tropical rainforest is healthy, it sequesters CO2 from the atmosphere, but when rainforests are degraded by drought, wildfires, human-caused fires, clear-cutting and human development, they release most or all of their stored carbon back into the atmosphere. The 2010 Amazon drought released as much carbon dioxide as the annual emissions of Russia and China combined, Oxford University scientists observed.
Given increasing drought and wildfire patterns, we can most likely expect to see the demise of the Amazon, possibly even before 2100.
Bolsonaro: The Tropical Trump
According to INPE, deforestation across the Amazon had already accelerated by 60 percent in June, compared to the same time period last year, as radical right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s horrific environmental policies began to take effect.
Last month, Greenpeace labeled Bolsonaro and his right-wing government a “threat to climate equilibrium,” while the World Wildlife Fund, like many scientists, has warned that if the Amazon reaches a tipping point, it could become a dry savannah and will no longer be capable of supporting much of the wildlife that exists there today.
Instead of sequestering carbon and generating water and rainfall, the Amazon will instead become a net emitter of carbon, and the planet will lose most of its oxygen-producing function. Meanwhile, the loss of the Amazon’s biodiversity will be beyond devastating for the planet.
Bolsonaro, like Trump in the U.S., has worked at breakneck speed to eliminate environmental regulations. He has opened up the Amazon for logging, agribusiness and mining since he took power this January.
In a particularly Trumpian moment, Bolsonaro recently made the baseless claim that environmental NGOs were responsible for the wildfires. Speaking to a steel industry congress in the capital city of Brasilia, The Guardian reported that Bolsonaro said, “On the question of burning in the Amazon, which in my opinion may have been initiated by NGOs because they lost money, what is the intention? To bring problems to Brazil.”
Bolsonaro was likely using this speech as a deflection and diversion from his real plans for the Amazon. Recently leaked documents show that Bolsonaro intends to use hate speech to further isolate and marginalize minority groups living in the Amazon, in order to move forward with predatory projects like dams that would have devastating environmental impacts.
“Development projects must be implemented on the Amazon basin to integrate it into the rest of the national territory in order to fight off international pressure for the implementation of the so-called ‘Triple A’ project,” read one of the slides from the leaked Powerpoint. “To do this, it is necessary to build the Trombetas River hydroelectric plant, the Óbidos bridge over the Amazon River, and the implementation of the BR-163 highway to the border with Suriname.”
Hence, Bolsonaro’s attacks directed at NGOs are likely part of the extreme right-wing leader’s development plans for the Amazon.
There are more than 1,100 tributaries of the Amazon River alone, with seventeen of them longer than one thousand miles. The rainforest also creates “flying rivers,” — massive streams of airborne moisture that develop above the canopy and move with the clouds and rainfall patterns across the entire continent of South America.
Many scientists believe the Amazon is the most important source of biodiversity on the planet, and statistics back that up. It contains thousands of species of birds and trees, an estimated 2.5 million species of insects, and at least 3,000 species of fish in the Rio Negro alone, with new species being discovered all the time. A new species is discovered, on average, every other day.
And now, the Amazon is on fire. Wildfires are incinerating the rainforest at a record pace, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE as it is commonly referenced). INPE recently stated that there has been an 80 percent increase in wildfires in the Amazon, compared to the same period from last year.
Smoke from the burning rainforest has blotted out the sky over Sao Paulo, a city more than 1,700 miles from the fires, while satellite imagery shows smoke from the fires having spread all the way to the Atlantic coast, covering half of Brazil, and even covering parts of Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru.
Crossing Thresholds
Thomas Lovejoy has worked in Brazil’s Amazon since 1965, but he is the first to say that “we’ve barely scratched the surface” in terms of our understanding of that rainforest, as he told Truthout during an interview in 2017. He was director of the World Wildlife Fund in the U.S. for 14 years, and has been given the nickname “the godfather of biodiversity,” having coined the term “biodiversity” himself. One of his reports, alone, led to more than half of the Amazon rainforest being put under protection.
During our interview, Lovejoy gave dire warnings of things to come, including the heartbreaking wildfires we are seeing now.
He noted that emissions limits that have been agreed to internationally will not prevent catastrophe. In a 2013 op-ed for The New York Times entitled “The Climate Change Endgame,” he wrote, “It is abundantly clear that the target of a 2-degree Celsius limit to climate change was mostly derived from what seemed convenient and doable without any reference to what it really means environmentally. Two degrees is actually too much for ecosystems.”
That is exactly what the current Amazon wildfires indicate, as the planet has warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius (1.2°C) since the industrial revolution began, and will clearly continue warming.
“Think about what it means overall,” Lovejoy said of what the planet will look and feel like when it reaches 2°C (a benchmark it is now guaranteed to far exceed). “It means a world that will have sea levels four to six meters higher. It means a world without tropical coral reefs — as we can already see those impacts now — and probably a whole bunch of thresholds will be crossed that we can’t predict.”
When a tropical rainforest is healthy, it sequesters CO2 from the atmosphere, but when rainforests are degraded by drought, wildfires, human-caused fires, clear-cutting and human development, they release most or all of their stored carbon back into the atmosphere. The 2010 Amazon drought released as much carbon dioxide as the annual emissions of Russia and China combined, Oxford University scientists observed.
Given increasing drought and wildfire patterns, we can most likely expect to see the demise of the Amazon, possibly even before 2100.
Bolsonaro: The Tropical Trump
According to INPE, deforestation across the Amazon had already accelerated by 60 percent in June, compared to the same time period last year, as radical right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro’s horrific environmental policies began to take effect.
Last month, Greenpeace labeled Bolsonaro and his right-wing government a “threat to climate equilibrium,” while the World Wildlife Fund, like many scientists, has warned that if the Amazon reaches a tipping point, it could become a dry savannah and will no longer be capable of supporting much of the wildlife that exists there today.
Instead of sequestering carbon and generating water and rainfall, the Amazon will instead become a net emitter of carbon, and the planet will lose most of its oxygen-producing function. Meanwhile, the loss of the Amazon’s biodiversity will be beyond devastating for the planet.
Bolsonaro, like Trump in the U.S., has worked at breakneck speed to eliminate environmental regulations. He has opened up the Amazon for logging, agribusiness and mining since he took power this January.
In a particularly Trumpian moment, Bolsonaro recently made the baseless claim that environmental NGOs were responsible for the wildfires. Speaking to a steel industry congress in the capital city of Brasilia, The Guardian reported that Bolsonaro said, “On the question of burning in the Amazon, which in my opinion may have been initiated by NGOs because they lost money, what is the intention? To bring problems to Brazil.”
Bolsonaro was likely using this speech as a deflection and diversion from his real plans for the Amazon. Recently leaked documents show that Bolsonaro intends to use hate speech to further isolate and marginalize minority groups living in the Amazon, in order to move forward with predatory projects like dams that would have devastating environmental impacts.
“Development projects must be implemented on the Amazon basin to integrate it into the rest of the national territory in order to fight off international pressure for the implementation of the so-called ‘Triple A’ project,” read one of the slides from the leaked Powerpoint. “To do this, it is necessary to build the Trombetas River hydroelectric plant, the Óbidos bridge over the Amazon River, and the implementation of the BR-163 highway to the border with Suriname.”
Hence, Bolsonaro’s attacks directed at NGOs are likely part of the extreme right-wing leader’s development plans for the Amazon.
US and EU Accept Dire Consequences for Refugees to Keep Them Out
BY Reva Dhingra, Truthout
PUBLISHED August 19, 2019
In July, news broke that the Trump administration was weighing the possibility of admitting zero refugees for resettlement in 2020 — a move unprecedented in the history of the U.S. refugee admissions program. Since January 2019, the U.S. government has forced thousands of asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico while their claims are being processed, which has exposed asylum-seekers to assault, sexual violence and even kidnapping.
Following economic threats, Trump announced a deal to designate Guatemala as a “safe third country,” which would enable the United States to deport asylum-seekers who transited through Guatemala back to the country despite Guatemala having one of the highest homicide and domestic violence rates in the world. According to the Migration Policy Institute, Guatemala itself was one of the top three countries of origin for asylum-seekers in 2017 (the latest data available), and thousands continue to flee the country.
These recent policy shifts, along with the horrifying conditions at U.S. migrant jails, have prompted condemnation from politicians, activists and citizens alike. Yet the United States is sadly not alone in its hostility toward those fleeing violence and persecution.
Amid the growing politicization of refugee and migrant flows, Western governments have adopted measures to keep refugees outside of their borders, in first-destination, developing countries. While the United States has used the threat of tariffs and cuts in foreign assistance to force countries such as Guatemala and Mexico to stem the flow of asylum-seekers, European countries have adopted a combination of increased border enforcement and financial assistance to refugee-hosting and origin countries.
Such assistance is critical. About 80 percent of the world’s nearly 26 million refugees are located in developing countries often ill-equipped to deal with the economic and infrastructural pressures of additional populations without help. Yet increasingly, Western donors are making financial aid to refugee-hosting and origin countries explicitly contingent on increased border enforcement that would halt the onward movement of migrants and refugees rather than upholding their basic human rights. The United States and Europe are willing to accept increasingly dire consequences for refugees in order to keep them out.
Efforts to support refugees in first-destination countries — the primarily developing countries where they first flee to — have intensified in the wake of the European refugee crisis. From 2015-2016 alone, the European Union (EU) received nearly 2.5 million first-time asylum applications. In September 2016, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. The declaration committed an additional $4.5 billion for refugee responses worldwide and a temporary increase in resettlement slots. At the same time, it emphasized foremost a need to support the developing and first-destination countries hosting the vast majority of refugees.
Despite the declaration’s promises to uphold refugee rights, containment was an explicit goal of many initiatives launched to address the European refugee crisis. The March 2016 EU-Turkey deal was one of multiple strategies deployed — including ads placed in Middle Eastern newspapers — to deter potential EU refugee applicants.
The deal, which aid organizations and rights groups heavily criticized, would have permitted EU member states to send migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers arriving at their borders back to Turkey. In exchange, the EU committed6 billion euros in financial assistance, as well as eased restrictions on visas for Turkish citizens, renewed consideration of its EU membership bid and limited refugee resettlement.
Though, in practice, the EU has largely avoided sending asylum-seekers to Turkey due to legal challenges, the policy has had its desired result. The combination of dire conditions in migrant detention camps in Greece and increased border enforcement in Turkey has drastically reduced the number of individuals arriving from Turkey.
This has come at the expense of unfulfilled promises to refugees for access to public services and safe asylum in the country. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have documented the Turkish government’s suspension of refugee registration, forced deportations back to Syria, and denial of health care and education. Nevertheless, the EU has largely ignored these issues in favor of continuing its funding for Turkey.
Perhaps the most egregious example of prioritizing containment at the expense of rights has been the refoulement of migrants and asylum-seekers to Libya. Disagreement over allocation of refugees and asylum-seekers within the EU prompted the end of the boat patrol program that brought individuals rescued in the Mediterranean to Italy. Instead, the EU has collaborated with war-torn Libya in sending migrants and asylum-seekers to the country before they reach the EU, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on migrant detention centers and training the Libyan coast guard.
As violence continues to rage between factions vying for control of the government, migrants and asylum-seekers in Libya have found themselves in the crosshairs. On July 3, an airstrike by a rebel militia on a Libyan migrant detention center killed approximately 50 migrants and asylum-seekers. Yet European leaders have offered little more than empty calls for the Libyan government to ensure their safety. Meanwhile, asylum-seekers and migrants continue to die by the hundreds at sea.
Increased funding for developing countries to address growing global displacement is crucial but not enough. In February 2016, for example, the Jordanian government signed a compact promising increased access to education and labor market participation for Syrian refugees in exchange for billions of dollars in grants, loans and preferential EU trade agreements. Instead of being contingent on containing refugees, the agreement made funding conditional on the number of work permits issued for refugees.
Yet the compact and broader Syrian refugee relief effort has struggled from mismanagement, poor design and underfunding. Access to legal work has improved but is still limited, and more than 80 percent of Syrian refugees in Jordan live below the poverty line. Domestic economic challenges and issues with the compact’s design have meant that the government is simply incapable of meeting most of the terms of the compact without political backlash. Refugees’ situation in Jordan indicates that even ostensibly well-intentioned efforts to support them in developing countries will fall short without better coordination and design in addition to more funding.
Furthermore, while developing countries have gone above and beyond in opening their doors to individuals fleeing conflict, they have little incentive to uphold refugee rights when developed countries are willing to send migrants and asylum-seekers back to war zones rather than allow them entry. Increased funding may therefore not benefit refugees without moving away from the securitized approach that currently defines Western policy.
The latest policies by the Trump administration, therefore, take place in a global context increasingly hostile to refugees and asylum-seekers. The containment approach adopted by Western countries has limited the flow of asylum-seekers for now, as the number of people applying for asylum in Europe had decreased to pre-2015 levels, and the number of daily arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border has fallen.
But this strategy has come at immense human costs that will only compound in the future. For vulnerable refugees — such as political activists, LGBTQ+ individuals, unaccompanied minors and families with disabled members — adequate support is simply impossible without third-country resettlement. Rather than using the developing world as a holding cell, developed countries instead have a responsibility to open their borders to asylum-seekers and refugees.
Following economic threats, Trump announced a deal to designate Guatemala as a “safe third country,” which would enable the United States to deport asylum-seekers who transited through Guatemala back to the country despite Guatemala having one of the highest homicide and domestic violence rates in the world. According to the Migration Policy Institute, Guatemala itself was one of the top three countries of origin for asylum-seekers in 2017 (the latest data available), and thousands continue to flee the country.
These recent policy shifts, along with the horrifying conditions at U.S. migrant jails, have prompted condemnation from politicians, activists and citizens alike. Yet the United States is sadly not alone in its hostility toward those fleeing violence and persecution.
Amid the growing politicization of refugee and migrant flows, Western governments have adopted measures to keep refugees outside of their borders, in first-destination, developing countries. While the United States has used the threat of tariffs and cuts in foreign assistance to force countries such as Guatemala and Mexico to stem the flow of asylum-seekers, European countries have adopted a combination of increased border enforcement and financial assistance to refugee-hosting and origin countries.
Such assistance is critical. About 80 percent of the world’s nearly 26 million refugees are located in developing countries often ill-equipped to deal with the economic and infrastructural pressures of additional populations without help. Yet increasingly, Western donors are making financial aid to refugee-hosting and origin countries explicitly contingent on increased border enforcement that would halt the onward movement of migrants and refugees rather than upholding their basic human rights. The United States and Europe are willing to accept increasingly dire consequences for refugees in order to keep them out.
Efforts to support refugees in first-destination countries — the primarily developing countries where they first flee to — have intensified in the wake of the European refugee crisis. From 2015-2016 alone, the European Union (EU) received nearly 2.5 million first-time asylum applications. In September 2016, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants. The declaration committed an additional $4.5 billion for refugee responses worldwide and a temporary increase in resettlement slots. At the same time, it emphasized foremost a need to support the developing and first-destination countries hosting the vast majority of refugees.
Despite the declaration’s promises to uphold refugee rights, containment was an explicit goal of many initiatives launched to address the European refugee crisis. The March 2016 EU-Turkey deal was one of multiple strategies deployed — including ads placed in Middle Eastern newspapers — to deter potential EU refugee applicants.
The deal, which aid organizations and rights groups heavily criticized, would have permitted EU member states to send migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers arriving at their borders back to Turkey. In exchange, the EU committed6 billion euros in financial assistance, as well as eased restrictions on visas for Turkish citizens, renewed consideration of its EU membership bid and limited refugee resettlement.
Though, in practice, the EU has largely avoided sending asylum-seekers to Turkey due to legal challenges, the policy has had its desired result. The combination of dire conditions in migrant detention camps in Greece and increased border enforcement in Turkey has drastically reduced the number of individuals arriving from Turkey.
This has come at the expense of unfulfilled promises to refugees for access to public services and safe asylum in the country. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch have documented the Turkish government’s suspension of refugee registration, forced deportations back to Syria, and denial of health care and education. Nevertheless, the EU has largely ignored these issues in favor of continuing its funding for Turkey.
Perhaps the most egregious example of prioritizing containment at the expense of rights has been the refoulement of migrants and asylum-seekers to Libya. Disagreement over allocation of refugees and asylum-seekers within the EU prompted the end of the boat patrol program that brought individuals rescued in the Mediterranean to Italy. Instead, the EU has collaborated with war-torn Libya in sending migrants and asylum-seekers to the country before they reach the EU, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on migrant detention centers and training the Libyan coast guard.
As violence continues to rage between factions vying for control of the government, migrants and asylum-seekers in Libya have found themselves in the crosshairs. On July 3, an airstrike by a rebel militia on a Libyan migrant detention center killed approximately 50 migrants and asylum-seekers. Yet European leaders have offered little more than empty calls for the Libyan government to ensure their safety. Meanwhile, asylum-seekers and migrants continue to die by the hundreds at sea.
Increased funding for developing countries to address growing global displacement is crucial but not enough. In February 2016, for example, the Jordanian government signed a compact promising increased access to education and labor market participation for Syrian refugees in exchange for billions of dollars in grants, loans and preferential EU trade agreements. Instead of being contingent on containing refugees, the agreement made funding conditional on the number of work permits issued for refugees.
Yet the compact and broader Syrian refugee relief effort has struggled from mismanagement, poor design and underfunding. Access to legal work has improved but is still limited, and more than 80 percent of Syrian refugees in Jordan live below the poverty line. Domestic economic challenges and issues with the compact’s design have meant that the government is simply incapable of meeting most of the terms of the compact without political backlash. Refugees’ situation in Jordan indicates that even ostensibly well-intentioned efforts to support them in developing countries will fall short without better coordination and design in addition to more funding.
Furthermore, while developing countries have gone above and beyond in opening their doors to individuals fleeing conflict, they have little incentive to uphold refugee rights when developed countries are willing to send migrants and asylum-seekers back to war zones rather than allow them entry. Increased funding may therefore not benefit refugees without moving away from the securitized approach that currently defines Western policy.
The latest policies by the Trump administration, therefore, take place in a global context increasingly hostile to refugees and asylum-seekers. The containment approach adopted by Western countries has limited the flow of asylum-seekers for now, as the number of people applying for asylum in Europe had decreased to pre-2015 levels, and the number of daily arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border has fallen.
But this strategy has come at immense human costs that will only compound in the future. For vulnerable refugees — such as political activists, LGBTQ+ individuals, unaccompanied minors and families with disabled members — adequate support is simply impossible without third-country resettlement. Rather than using the developing world as a holding cell, developed countries instead have a responsibility to open their borders to asylum-seekers and refugees.
UK faces food, fuel and drug shortages, says contested leaked document
Kate Holton, William James - Reuters
AUGUST 17, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will face shortages of fuel, food and medicine if it leaves the European Union without a transition deal, according to leaked official documents reported by the Sunday Times, but whose interpretation was contested by ministers.
Setting out a vision of jammed ports, public protests and widespread disruption, the Times said the forecasts compiled by the Cabinet Office set out the most likely aftershocks of a no-deal Brexit rather than the worst case scenarios.
But Michael Gove, the minister in charge of coordinating no-deal preparations, challenged that, saying that the documents did set out a worst case scenario and that planning had been accelerated in the last three weeks.
The Times said up to 85% of lorries using the main channel crossings “may not be ready” for French customs, meaning disruption at ports would potentially last up to three months before the flow of traffic improves.
The government also believes a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, will be likely as current plans to avoid widespread checks will prove unsustainable, the Times said.
“Compiled this month by the Cabinet Office under the codename Operation Yellowhammer, the dossier offers a rare glimpse into the covert planning being carried out by the government to avert a catastrophic collapse in the nation’s infrastructure,” the Times reported.
Responding to one of the authors of the Sunday Times article on Twitter, Gove said: “Yellowhammer is a worst-case scenario - v significant steps have been taken in the last 3 weeks to accelerate Brexit planning.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said it did not comment on leaked documents.
A government source blamed the leak on an unnamed former minister who wanted to influence negotiations with the EU.
“This document is from when ministers were blocking what needed to be done to get ready to leave and the funds were not available. It has been deliberately leaked by a former minister in an attempt to influence discussions with EU leaders,” said the source, who declined to be named.
Earlier, asked about the Yellowhammer documents, energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng told Sky News there was “a lot of scaremongering around” and that Britain would be fully prepared for an Oct. 31 no-deal exit.
NO TURNING BACK
The United Kingdom is heading towards a constitutional crisis at home and a showdown with the EU as Johnson has repeatedly vowed to leave the bloc on Oct. 31 without a deal unless it agrees to renegotiate the Brexit divorce.
After more than three years of Brexit dominating EU affairs, the bloc has repeatedly refused to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement which includes an Irish border insurance policy that Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, agreed in November.
Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Twitter he had signed a piece of legislation which set in stone the repeal of the 1972 European Communities act - the laws which made Britain a member of the organisation now known as the EU.
Though his move was largely procedural, in line with previously approved laws, Barclay said in a statement: “This is a clear signal to the people of this country that there is no turning back (from Brexit).”
A group of more than 100 lawmakers wrote to Johnson calling for an emergency recall of parliament to discuss the situation.
“We face a national emergency, and parliament must now be recalled in August and sit permanently until October 31 so that the voices of the people can be heard, and that there can be proper scrutiny of your government,” the letter said.
Johnson will this week tell French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Westminster parliament cannot stop Brexit and a new deal must be agreed if Britain is to avoid leaving the EU without one.
The prime minister is coming under pressure from politicians across the political spectrum to prevent a disorderly departure, with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn vowing this week to bring down Johnson’s government in early September to delay Brexit.
It is, however, unclear if lawmakers have the unity or power to use the British parliament to prevent a no-deal departure - likely to be the United Kingdom’s most significant move since World War Two.
Opponents of no deal say it would be a disaster for what was once one of the West’s most stable democracies. A disorderly divorce, they say, would hurt global growth, send shockwaves through financial markets and weaken London’s claim to be the world’s preeminent financial centre.
Brexit supporters say there may be short-term disruption from a no-deal exit but that the economy will thrive if cut free from what they cast as a doomed experiment in integration that has led to Europe falling behind China and the United States.
Setting out a vision of jammed ports, public protests and widespread disruption, the Times said the forecasts compiled by the Cabinet Office set out the most likely aftershocks of a no-deal Brexit rather than the worst case scenarios.
But Michael Gove, the minister in charge of coordinating no-deal preparations, challenged that, saying that the documents did set out a worst case scenario and that planning had been accelerated in the last three weeks.
The Times said up to 85% of lorries using the main channel crossings “may not be ready” for French customs, meaning disruption at ports would potentially last up to three months before the flow of traffic improves.
The government also believes a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, will be likely as current plans to avoid widespread checks will prove unsustainable, the Times said.
“Compiled this month by the Cabinet Office under the codename Operation Yellowhammer, the dossier offers a rare glimpse into the covert planning being carried out by the government to avert a catastrophic collapse in the nation’s infrastructure,” the Times reported.
Responding to one of the authors of the Sunday Times article on Twitter, Gove said: “Yellowhammer is a worst-case scenario - v significant steps have been taken in the last 3 weeks to accelerate Brexit planning.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said it did not comment on leaked documents.
A government source blamed the leak on an unnamed former minister who wanted to influence negotiations with the EU.
“This document is from when ministers were blocking what needed to be done to get ready to leave and the funds were not available. It has been deliberately leaked by a former minister in an attempt to influence discussions with EU leaders,” said the source, who declined to be named.
Earlier, asked about the Yellowhammer documents, energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng told Sky News there was “a lot of scaremongering around” and that Britain would be fully prepared for an Oct. 31 no-deal exit.
NO TURNING BACK
The United Kingdom is heading towards a constitutional crisis at home and a showdown with the EU as Johnson has repeatedly vowed to leave the bloc on Oct. 31 without a deal unless it agrees to renegotiate the Brexit divorce.
After more than three years of Brexit dominating EU affairs, the bloc has repeatedly refused to reopen the Withdrawal Agreement which includes an Irish border insurance policy that Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, agreed in November.
Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Twitter he had signed a piece of legislation which set in stone the repeal of the 1972 European Communities act - the laws which made Britain a member of the organisation now known as the EU.
Though his move was largely procedural, in line with previously approved laws, Barclay said in a statement: “This is a clear signal to the people of this country that there is no turning back (from Brexit).”
A group of more than 100 lawmakers wrote to Johnson calling for an emergency recall of parliament to discuss the situation.
“We face a national emergency, and parliament must now be recalled in August and sit permanently until October 31 so that the voices of the people can be heard, and that there can be proper scrutiny of your government,” the letter said.
Johnson will this week tell French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the Westminster parliament cannot stop Brexit and a new deal must be agreed if Britain is to avoid leaving the EU without one.
The prime minister is coming under pressure from politicians across the political spectrum to prevent a disorderly departure, with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn vowing this week to bring down Johnson’s government in early September to delay Brexit.
It is, however, unclear if lawmakers have the unity or power to use the British parliament to prevent a no-deal departure - likely to be the United Kingdom’s most significant move since World War Two.
Opponents of no deal say it would be a disaster for what was once one of the West’s most stable democracies. A disorderly divorce, they say, would hurt global growth, send shockwaves through financial markets and weaken London’s claim to be the world’s preeminent financial centre.
Brexit supporters say there may be short-term disruption from a no-deal exit but that the economy will thrive if cut free from what they cast as a doomed experiment in integration that has led to Europe falling behind China and the United States.
Australians are led by fools like Trump!!!
Coal producers and Racists win!!!
Pacific summit ends in tears as Australia dilutes climate warning, dismaying at-risk islanders
August 16, 2019
By Agence France-Presse - Raw Story
A Pacific summit has descended into tears, recriminations and shouting between pro-coal Australia and low-lying island nations facing an existential threat from climate change.
The annual Pacific Island Forum wrapped up in Tuvalu late Thursday with Australia and the group’s 17 other members sharply at odds, potentially undermining Canberra’s efforts to curb China’s growing influence in the region.
“There were serious arguments and even shouting, crying, people, leaders were shedding tears,” Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga told Australia’s national broadcaster ABC after the summit broke up with a communique with “watered down” language on global warming.
The group had gathered in Funafuti hoping to issue a compelling global call to action from nations on the frontline of climate change ahead of UN talks in New York next month.
But Sopoaga conceded that a climate statement and communique released in the early hours of Friday morning after 12 hours of tense negotiations fell short of expectations.
“I think we can say we should’ve done more work for our people,” he told reporters.
The joint statements refer to a climate crisis and reiterate previous warnings that global warming is the most serious threat facing the Pacific.
“The time to act is now,” the leaders said.
But there was no direct mention of ending coal-fired power, while calls to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius and achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050 were couched as suggestions rather than demands.
“We came together in a nation that risks disappearing to the seas, but unfortunately, we settled for the status quo in our communique,” Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama tweeted.
“Watered-down climate language has real consequences like water-logged homes, schools, communities, and ancestral burial grounds.”
‘Strong exchange’
Sopoaga said Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was behind the compromised language.
“We expressed very strongly during our exchange, between me and Scott, I said: ‘You are concerned about saving your economy in Australia… I am concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu’,” he said.
Morrison, who has long championed Australia’s lucrative coal industry, concedes climate change is real but insists it can be managed in a way that does not hurt the economy.
He denied differences with Pacific Island leaders over climate would damage Australia’s “Pacific step-up”, a push to restore Canberra’s leadership credentials in the region and push back against Beijing’s diplomatic inroads.
“We showed up, we’re stepping up, and it’s getting on,” the Australian leader said.
Australia, the largest and wealthiest Pacific Island Forum member, fears that China’s long-term plan is to establish a military base in the Pacific.
Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Malielegaoi said this week that Pacific leaders would not turn away a generous aid donor.
“Their enemies (Australia and its allies) are not our enemies,” he said.
The annual Pacific Island Forum wrapped up in Tuvalu late Thursday with Australia and the group’s 17 other members sharply at odds, potentially undermining Canberra’s efforts to curb China’s growing influence in the region.
“There were serious arguments and even shouting, crying, people, leaders were shedding tears,” Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga told Australia’s national broadcaster ABC after the summit broke up with a communique with “watered down” language on global warming.
The group had gathered in Funafuti hoping to issue a compelling global call to action from nations on the frontline of climate change ahead of UN talks in New York next month.
But Sopoaga conceded that a climate statement and communique released in the early hours of Friday morning after 12 hours of tense negotiations fell short of expectations.
“I think we can say we should’ve done more work for our people,” he told reporters.
The joint statements refer to a climate crisis and reiterate previous warnings that global warming is the most serious threat facing the Pacific.
“The time to act is now,” the leaders said.
But there was no direct mention of ending coal-fired power, while calls to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius and achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050 were couched as suggestions rather than demands.
“We came together in a nation that risks disappearing to the seas, but unfortunately, we settled for the status quo in our communique,” Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama tweeted.
“Watered-down climate language has real consequences like water-logged homes, schools, communities, and ancestral burial grounds.”
‘Strong exchange’
Sopoaga said Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was behind the compromised language.
“We expressed very strongly during our exchange, between me and Scott, I said: ‘You are concerned about saving your economy in Australia… I am concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu’,” he said.
Morrison, who has long championed Australia’s lucrative coal industry, concedes climate change is real but insists it can be managed in a way that does not hurt the economy.
He denied differences with Pacific Island leaders over climate would damage Australia’s “Pacific step-up”, a push to restore Canberra’s leadership credentials in the region and push back against Beijing’s diplomatic inroads.
“We showed up, we’re stepping up, and it’s getting on,” the Australian leader said.
Australia, the largest and wealthiest Pacific Island Forum member, fears that China’s long-term plan is to establish a military base in the Pacific.
Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Malielegaoi said this week that Pacific leaders would not turn away a generous aid donor.
“Their enemies (Australia and its allies) are not our enemies,” he said.
The Traitor Trump placed sanctions on Iran/Venezuela to benefit the Russians!!!
Trump’s Oil Sanctions Leave Russian Exporters $1 Billion Richer
Dina Khrennikova and Anya Andrianova - Bloomberg - Yahoo News
August 16, 2019
(Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s sanctions against Iran and Venezuela have inadvertently increased demand for a Russian brand of crude oil, boosting revenues for the nation’s exporters.
Russian oil companies received at least $905 million in additional revenues between November and July, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The calculation is based on difference between the Urals spread to the Brent benchmark over the period compared to the five-year average.
The sanctions added to a jump in demand for Russian crude in the wake of output cuts from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and their partners. As a result, Russia’s Urals blend of crude has started to regularly trade at a premium to Brent.
“There is a shortage of competing heavier, sourer crude right now as a result of sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, but also because of OPEC+’s current production cut agreement,” Konstantsa Rangelova, analyst at JBC Energy, said by email. “Urals in the Mediterranean is at an all-time high.”
The Bloomberg calculations are based on terminal data, oil loading programs for Russian ports and information from a trader monitoring S&P Global Platts oil assessments. The estimate doesn’t include any of the overall effect on Brent prices from Trump’s policies or the OPEC+ deal, just the shift in relative prices.
The U.S. announced sanctions against Venezuela in late January and removed the remaining waivers for buyers of Iranian oil from May. The measure created a shortage of the heavy, sour kind of crude that the two export, a variety similar to that produced in Russia. While this oil is considered to be of lower quality, some refineries are built to process it and switching to other grades is costly.
Russia’s total oil export revenues totaled $58.5 billion in the first half of the year, according to the Federal Customs Service. Last year’s revenues reached $129 billion.
Rare Premium
Urals has traditionally traded at a discount to Brent. Over the past five years, a barrel of the Russian crude was on average $1 cheaper than the benchmark in the Mediterranean and $1.63 cheaper than in Northwest Europe, a spokesman for S&P Global Platts said in an emailed comment, citing the company’s price assessment data.
The discount shrank last November after Trump restricted global purchases of Iranian oil, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and information from the trader. Since the beginning of 2019 the Urals discount to Brent in Northwest Europe has regularly turned into a premium of as much as $0.86 per barrel, the data show. In the Mediterranean region, a traditional domain of Iranian oil, the premium has at times grown to more than $1 per barrel.
The spread may shrink soon as the end of the summer driving season and start of autumn maintenance at European refineries curbs demand for Urals, Rangelova said.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s sanctions against Iran and Venezuela have inadvertently increased demand for a Russian brand of crude oil, boosting revenues for the nation’s exporters.
Russian oil companies received at least $905 million in additional revenues between November and July, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The calculation is based on difference between the Urals spread to the Brent benchmark over the period compared to the five-year average.
The sanctions added to a jump in demand for Russian crude in the wake of output cuts from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and their partners. As a result, Russia’s Urals blend of crude has started to regularly trade at a premium to Brent.
“There is a shortage of competing heavier, sourer crude right now as a result of sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, but also because of OPEC+’s current production cut agreement,” Konstantsa Rangelova, analyst at JBC Energy, said by email. “Urals in the Mediterranean is at an all-time high.”
The Bloomberg calculations are based on terminal data, oil loading programs for Russian ports and information from a trader monitoring S&P Global Platts oil assessments. The estimate doesn’t include any of the overall effect on Brent prices from Trump’s policies or the OPEC+ deal, just the shift in relative prices.
The U.S. announced sanctions against Venezuela in late January and removed the remaining waivers for buyers of Iranian oil from May. The measure created a shortage of the heavy, sour kind of crude that the two export, a variety similar to that produced in Russia. While this oil is considered to be of lower quality, some refineries are built to process it and switching to other grades is costly.
Russia’s total oil export revenues totaled $58.5 billion in the first half of the year, according to the Federal Customs Service. Last year’s revenues reached $129 billion.
Rare Premium
Urals has traditionally traded at a discount to Brent. Over the past five years, a barrel of the Russian crude was on average $1 cheaper than the benchmark in the Mediterranean and $1.63 cheaper than in Northwest Europe, a spokesman for S&P Global Platts said in an emailed comment, citing the company’s price assessment data.
The discount shrank last November after Trump restricted global purchases of Iranian oil, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and information from the trader. Since the beginning of 2019 the Urals discount to Brent in Northwest Europe has regularly turned into a premium of as much as $0.86 per barrel, the data show. In the Mediterranean region, a traditional domain of Iranian oil, the premium has at times grown to more than $1 per barrel.
The spread may shrink soon as the end of the summer driving season and start of autumn maintenance at European refineries curbs demand for Urals, Rangelova said.
low turnout and voters choose a fool and sellout to lead!!!
Guatemala elects hardline president who opposes Trump immigration deal
Ex-prisons chief Alejandro Giammattei says he will seek to modify controversial pact with US
Nina Lakhani in Mexico City
The Guardian
Mon 12 Aug 2019 05.01 EDT
Guatemala’s Alejandro Giammattei delivers a victory speech after winning Sunday’s presidential election. Photograph: Johan Ordóñez/AFP/Getty Images
A conservative law and order hardliner promising to reinstate the death penalty and deploy soldiers on to the streets has been elected the new president of Guatemala.
Alejandro Giammattei, 63, a former prisons chief backed by the country’s economic and military power brokers, trounced his opponent Sandra Torres, a former first lady, to win Sunday’s presidential race on his fourth attempt by securing 58% of the vote.
Despite the landslide victory, the low turnout triggered immediate questions about Giammattei’s legitimacy: about 60% of eligible voters abstained after both candidates failed to inspire hope in the Central American country, where tens of thousands of people flee extreme poverty, famine, violence and corruption every month.
Giammattei’s triumph comes amid growing tension with the US over migration and asylum. Shortly before his victory, Giammattei said he wanted to change a controversial migration deal signed with the US by his predecessor, Jimmy Morales.
More than 250,000 Guatemalans, mainly unaccompanied children and families, have been apprehended at the US border since October 2018 – compared with 115,722 in the previous 12 months. Giammattei says he will stop the exodus by prioritising corruption, employment and security.
He has criticised the “safe third country” agreement signed by Donald Trump and Morales which, if enforced, would make migrants and refugees who have passed through Guatemala ineligible for protection in the US.
Instead, they would be deported to Guatemala which has been deemed a safe place to seek refugee. In 2018, the homicide rate in Guatemala was 22.4 per 100,000 people – four times higher than the US national average.
Guatemala is the most dangerous country in the world for environment and land defenders, with at least 16 killed in 2018 – up from three in 2017 – most of them indigenous Mayans, according to research by the UK anti-graft NGO Global Witness.
Giammattei says he will seek to modify the controversial pact, which was signed last month amid threats by Trump’s administration to block Guatemalan exports and impose tariffs on billions of dollars in remittances.
Details of the agreement remain murky, and currently face judicial and congressional obstacles in the US and Guatemala.
The president-elect must act now to stop the deal, according to the congresswoman Sandra Morán. “We’ve still not seen any documents, only what’s been in the press, so it’s an agreement which right now cannot be actioned. Trump will keep insisting, so Giammattei and his transition team must get involved now.”
It’s unclear how Guatemala would cope with an influx of desperate people from El Salvador, Honduras and beyond, given that it is the poorest country in Central America where 47% of children are chronically malnourished.
The migrant exodus is predominantly from rural regions where Guatemala’s 24 indigenous communities battle against dire economic, social and environmental conditions fuelled by land inequalities, racism and the climate crisis.
Indigenous people comprise almost half of Guatemala’s 17m population, but have the lowest access to healthcare, land, housing, education and jobs, and little political and economic power. Figures show around 80% of indigenous people live in poverty, 40% in extreme poverty, with malnourishment rates rising to over 70% in some communities.
“Local and international experts agree that the main issue to tackle in Guatemala is extreme poverty … instead, Giammattei is promising austerity, harsher anti-terrorism laws, repression of poor and indigenous communities, militarisation and the death penalty,” said Renata Avila, a human rights lawyer and director of Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente, an NGO focused on increasing citizen participation in Latin America. “In a country where the median age is 22 years old, the obvious decision for many will be to migrate.”
During his campaign, Giammattei – who was charged, jailed and then cleared over numerous extrajudicial killings during his time as director of prisons – pledged to fight corruption.
Yet Giammattei is backed by the same powerful network of elites who helped Morales orchestrate the demise of the UN-backed International Commission against Impunity (Cicig). Morales, who was elected in 2015 on an anti-corruption platform, defied court orders and public opinion to oust the international crime fighting force after corruption investigations targeted him, his family and his political backers.
On Sunday, Giammattei confirmed that he will not renew Cicig’s mandate, which ends next month.
“Giammattei’s victory is a huge blow to the fight against corruption and impunity. He rejects Cicig and a strong justice system, so we’re going back to a time when extrajudicial killings were committed with impunity,” said Jorge Santos, general coordinator of Udefegua, an NGO which documents crimes against human rights defenders.
Giammattei will be sworn in for a four-year term in January 2020.
RELATED: Guatemala Is Not a “Safe Third Country.” Decades of US Policy Made It That Way.
Alejandro Giammattei, 63, a former prisons chief backed by the country’s economic and military power brokers, trounced his opponent Sandra Torres, a former first lady, to win Sunday’s presidential race on his fourth attempt by securing 58% of the vote.
Despite the landslide victory, the low turnout triggered immediate questions about Giammattei’s legitimacy: about 60% of eligible voters abstained after both candidates failed to inspire hope in the Central American country, where tens of thousands of people flee extreme poverty, famine, violence and corruption every month.
Giammattei’s triumph comes amid growing tension with the US over migration and asylum. Shortly before his victory, Giammattei said he wanted to change a controversial migration deal signed with the US by his predecessor, Jimmy Morales.
More than 250,000 Guatemalans, mainly unaccompanied children and families, have been apprehended at the US border since October 2018 – compared with 115,722 in the previous 12 months. Giammattei says he will stop the exodus by prioritising corruption, employment and security.
He has criticised the “safe third country” agreement signed by Donald Trump and Morales which, if enforced, would make migrants and refugees who have passed through Guatemala ineligible for protection in the US.
Instead, they would be deported to Guatemala which has been deemed a safe place to seek refugee. In 2018, the homicide rate in Guatemala was 22.4 per 100,000 people – four times higher than the US national average.
Guatemala is the most dangerous country in the world for environment and land defenders, with at least 16 killed in 2018 – up from three in 2017 – most of them indigenous Mayans, according to research by the UK anti-graft NGO Global Witness.
Giammattei says he will seek to modify the controversial pact, which was signed last month amid threats by Trump’s administration to block Guatemalan exports and impose tariffs on billions of dollars in remittances.
Details of the agreement remain murky, and currently face judicial and congressional obstacles in the US and Guatemala.
The president-elect must act now to stop the deal, according to the congresswoman Sandra Morán. “We’ve still not seen any documents, only what’s been in the press, so it’s an agreement which right now cannot be actioned. Trump will keep insisting, so Giammattei and his transition team must get involved now.”
It’s unclear how Guatemala would cope with an influx of desperate people from El Salvador, Honduras and beyond, given that it is the poorest country in Central America where 47% of children are chronically malnourished.
The migrant exodus is predominantly from rural regions where Guatemala’s 24 indigenous communities battle against dire economic, social and environmental conditions fuelled by land inequalities, racism and the climate crisis.
Indigenous people comprise almost half of Guatemala’s 17m population, but have the lowest access to healthcare, land, housing, education and jobs, and little political and economic power. Figures show around 80% of indigenous people live in poverty, 40% in extreme poverty, with malnourishment rates rising to over 70% in some communities.
“Local and international experts agree that the main issue to tackle in Guatemala is extreme poverty … instead, Giammattei is promising austerity, harsher anti-terrorism laws, repression of poor and indigenous communities, militarisation and the death penalty,” said Renata Avila, a human rights lawyer and director of Fundación Ciudadanía Inteligente, an NGO focused on increasing citizen participation in Latin America. “In a country where the median age is 22 years old, the obvious decision for many will be to migrate.”
During his campaign, Giammattei – who was charged, jailed and then cleared over numerous extrajudicial killings during his time as director of prisons – pledged to fight corruption.
Yet Giammattei is backed by the same powerful network of elites who helped Morales orchestrate the demise of the UN-backed International Commission against Impunity (Cicig). Morales, who was elected in 2015 on an anti-corruption platform, defied court orders and public opinion to oust the international crime fighting force after corruption investigations targeted him, his family and his political backers.
On Sunday, Giammattei confirmed that he will not renew Cicig’s mandate, which ends next month.
“Giammattei’s victory is a huge blow to the fight against corruption and impunity. He rejects Cicig and a strong justice system, so we’re going back to a time when extrajudicial killings were committed with impunity,” said Jorge Santos, general coordinator of Udefegua, an NGO which documents crimes against human rights defenders.
Giammattei will be sworn in for a four-year term in January 2020.
RELATED: Guatemala Is Not a “Safe Third Country.” Decades of US Policy Made It That Way.
Trump Bullies Guatemala Into Siphoning Asylum Seekers
New Deal Could Force Central American Refugees to Stop Long Before They Reach the U.S. Border
By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor
Two weeks after signing a hurry-up deal with Guatemala to siphon off thousands of asylum seekers at the U.S. border from El Salvador and Honduras, no one still quite knows how the systems are supposed to work now.
It was a “deal” in which Donald Trump figuratively held an economic gun to the head of President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala to declare the nation a “safe third country,” making it possible to require migrants passing through Guatemala toward the United States to make their asylum request to Guatemala instead. It also makes it easier for U.S. authorities to deport those who came through Guatemala to that country immediately.
So, it is pretty clear what the United States got in the deal, but from what has been made public, what Guatemala got was a reprieve from a travel ban, on tariffs and a trade snub or unrelated harsh terms on allowing immigrants from Guatemala from sending home money.
In other words, the United States was the bully here.
But what Guatemala also got was a huge headache. No one knows what the processes would involve for accepting returning migrants, or the pace of deportations that can be supported, or how exactly the transportation and housing for returnees would work, especially if they are being returned not to their home country. How to keep them safe would be another unanswered question.
Last year, Guatemala granted 257 asylum requests, per The New York Times. Now they will have tens of thousands of applicants for asylum. Not surprisingly, they have no infrastructure in place to handle that kind of wild increase.
Asylum Seekers Ineligible in U.S.
These “safe third country agreements” are rare. We have one with Canada, but that’s about it. The European Union has one with Turkey. The deal, which still must be ratified by a reluctant Guatemalan legislature, would make asylum seekers ineligible for protection in the United States if they had traveled through Guatemala and did not first apply for asylum there. Under the agreement, the American authorities would be allowed to return those migrants to Guatemala, relieving pressure on the American immigration system. Guatemalan and Mexican asylum seekers, however, would not be affected.
The Times has found that “It appears that no such agreement has been signed with a nation that is as ill-equipped as Guatemala to deal with asylum seekers and keep them safe, experts say. Though homicide rates there have fallen sharply in the last decade, the country remains among the deadliest in the world. Crime, impunity and corruption are rife, and critics argue that it is unable to meet the safety requirements demanded by the deal.” Our U.S. State Department has issued alerts about rampant violence and lousy law enforcement.
The Times found a draft plan circulating among American officials which suggests that initially a limited number of migrants would be sent to Guatemala each week — perhaps several hundred in a month. That would be a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands that have been seeking asylum each month at the border with Mexico. Last year, about 62,000 people from El Salvador and Honduras petitioned for asylum in the United States, according to the United Nations. Most of them entered the country through the southwest border.
Elizabeth Oglesby, a Latin American Studies professor at the University of Arizona, says that “forcing Guatemala into this agreement will jeopardize the lives of tens of thousands of asylum seekers, destabilize Guatemala and the Central American region and drive migration rates even higher.”
Guatemala Isn’t Safe
She says that draft plan could even be interpreted in a way as to allow deportation there of migrants who did not pass through Guatemala, but could go there to start their process. And, she says that Guatemala is not a safe third country, and it’s ludicrous to argue that it is. Poverty, violence, organized crime and institutional corruption are among the deepest in the hemisphere. In fact, most migrants and asylum seekers who arrive at the U.S. southern border are coming from Guatemala.
Under U.S. and international law, the United States is obligated to hear asylum requests unless an alternative “safe third country” is stipulated through a bilateral agreement. Such a “safe third country” must provide security and due process for asylum seekers.
This is just the latest battle in the war on migrants. The Trump administration has issued a new — and in Ogleby’s words blatantly illegal — rule declaring asylum seekers ineligible to petition for U.S. asylum if they had passed through any country on their way to the United States.
Some asylum seekers sent back to Mexico under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program have been reportedly raped, extorted and murdered at the hands of gangs and organized crime. In Guatemala, it would be worse. The Guatemalan state does not have even a minimal ability to provide safe and secure conditions for asylum seekers — it can’t provide those conditions for its own citizens.
And, by pressuring Guatemala’s government to defy in-count court orders, Trump’s threats are eroding Guatemala’s democratic gains.
Just what American values were we underscoring in the name of protecting our borders?
It was a “deal” in which Donald Trump figuratively held an economic gun to the head of President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala to declare the nation a “safe third country,” making it possible to require migrants passing through Guatemala toward the United States to make their asylum request to Guatemala instead. It also makes it easier for U.S. authorities to deport those who came through Guatemala to that country immediately.
So, it is pretty clear what the United States got in the deal, but from what has been made public, what Guatemala got was a reprieve from a travel ban, on tariffs and a trade snub or unrelated harsh terms on allowing immigrants from Guatemala from sending home money.
In other words, the United States was the bully here.
But what Guatemala also got was a huge headache. No one knows what the processes would involve for accepting returning migrants, or the pace of deportations that can be supported, or how exactly the transportation and housing for returnees would work, especially if they are being returned not to their home country. How to keep them safe would be another unanswered question.
Last year, Guatemala granted 257 asylum requests, per The New York Times. Now they will have tens of thousands of applicants for asylum. Not surprisingly, they have no infrastructure in place to handle that kind of wild increase.
Asylum Seekers Ineligible in U.S.
These “safe third country agreements” are rare. We have one with Canada, but that’s about it. The European Union has one with Turkey. The deal, which still must be ratified by a reluctant Guatemalan legislature, would make asylum seekers ineligible for protection in the United States if they had traveled through Guatemala and did not first apply for asylum there. Under the agreement, the American authorities would be allowed to return those migrants to Guatemala, relieving pressure on the American immigration system. Guatemalan and Mexican asylum seekers, however, would not be affected.
The Times has found that “It appears that no such agreement has been signed with a nation that is as ill-equipped as Guatemala to deal with asylum seekers and keep them safe, experts say. Though homicide rates there have fallen sharply in the last decade, the country remains among the deadliest in the world. Crime, impunity and corruption are rife, and critics argue that it is unable to meet the safety requirements demanded by the deal.” Our U.S. State Department has issued alerts about rampant violence and lousy law enforcement.
The Times found a draft plan circulating among American officials which suggests that initially a limited number of migrants would be sent to Guatemala each week — perhaps several hundred in a month. That would be a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands that have been seeking asylum each month at the border with Mexico. Last year, about 62,000 people from El Salvador and Honduras petitioned for asylum in the United States, according to the United Nations. Most of them entered the country through the southwest border.
Elizabeth Oglesby, a Latin American Studies professor at the University of Arizona, says that “forcing Guatemala into this agreement will jeopardize the lives of tens of thousands of asylum seekers, destabilize Guatemala and the Central American region and drive migration rates even higher.”
Guatemala Isn’t Safe
She says that draft plan could even be interpreted in a way as to allow deportation there of migrants who did not pass through Guatemala, but could go there to start their process. And, she says that Guatemala is not a safe third country, and it’s ludicrous to argue that it is. Poverty, violence, organized crime and institutional corruption are among the deepest in the hemisphere. In fact, most migrants and asylum seekers who arrive at the U.S. southern border are coming from Guatemala.
Under U.S. and international law, the United States is obligated to hear asylum requests unless an alternative “safe third country” is stipulated through a bilateral agreement. Such a “safe third country” must provide security and due process for asylum seekers.
This is just the latest battle in the war on migrants. The Trump administration has issued a new — and in Ogleby’s words blatantly illegal — rule declaring asylum seekers ineligible to petition for U.S. asylum if they had passed through any country on their way to the United States.
Some asylum seekers sent back to Mexico under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program have been reportedly raped, extorted and murdered at the hands of gangs and organized crime. In Guatemala, it would be worse. The Guatemalan state does not have even a minimal ability to provide safe and secure conditions for asylum seekers — it can’t provide those conditions for its own citizens.
And, by pressuring Guatemala’s government to defy in-count court orders, Trump’s threats are eroding Guatemala’s democratic gains.
Just what American values were we underscoring in the name of protecting our borders?
Extreme water stress affects a quarter of the world's population, say experts
Qatar, Israel and Lebanon top list of places with worst shortages, as climate crisis threatens more ‘day zeroes’
Emily Holden and Vidhi Doshi
The Guardian
Tue 6 Aug 2019 07.00 BST
A quarter of the world’s population across 17 countries are living in regions of extremely high water stress, a measure of the level of competition over water resources, a new report reveals.
Experts at the World Resources Institute (WRI) warned that increasing water stress could lead to more “day zeroes” – a term that gained popularity in 2018 as Cape Town in South Africa came dangerously close to running out of water.
Qatar, Israel and Lebanon were ranked as the most water stressed countries in the world, with Badghis in Afghanistan and Gaborone and Jwaneng in Botswana the world’s most water-stressed regions.
WRI said the data reveals a global water crisis that will require better information, planning and water management.
“Water matters,” said Betsy Otto, global director for water at WRI. “We’re currently facing a global water crisis. Our populations and economies are growing and demanding more water. But our supply is threatened by climate change, water waste and pollution.”
The global research organisation compared the water available to the amount withdrawn for homes, industries, irrigation and livestock.
In the 17 countries facing extremely high water stress, agriculture, industry, and municipalities were found to be using up to 80% of available surface and groundwater in an average year. When demand rivals supply, even small dry spells, which are set to increase because of the climate crisis, can produce dire consequences.
Twelve of the 17 high-risk countries were in the Middle East and North Africa.
The level of water stress in India, a country of more than 1.3 billion people, was striking, experts noted. India ranked 13th in the report.
In July, taps in the southern city of Chennai ran dry and satellite photographs showing an empty lake in the city went viral on social media.
“The recent water crisis in Chennai gained global attention, but various areas in India are experiencing chronic water stress as well,” said Shashi Shekhar, former secretary of India’s ministry of water resources, and senior WRI fellow.
Although the US did not have high levels of water stress overall, a handful of states – including New Mexico and California – were found to be facing significant strains on their water supplies that will only intensify with global heating.
New Mexico was found to have “extremely high” pressure on water availability. The state’s score is on par with the United Arab Emirates and Eritrea.
In 2012, two-thirds of the US experienced drought, said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist for the Agriculture Department.
California, which experienced a drought in 2011 that did not subside until a couple of years ago, is expected to see huge population growth, while facing temperatures up to five degrees warmer and rising sea levels, said Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the California Water Resources Control Board.
World Bank research has emphasised that “while the consequences of drought are often invisible, they are significant and cause ‘misery in slow motion”.
The report paints a worrying image of water risk and warns of other social and political problems attached to water shortages.
Around the world, stress on water supplies can exacerbate conflict and migration, threaten food supplies and pose risks for water-dependent industries, including mining and manufacturing, WRI notes.
“The picture is alarming in many places around the globe, but it’s very important to note that water stress is not destiny. What we can’t afford to do any longer is pretend that the situation will resolve itself,” said Otto.
“With respect to climate change we know that in many places what we’re going to be seeing is more erratic, more unpredictable hydrology, precipitation. Either too much or too little, often in the same places.”
Experts at the World Resources Institute (WRI) warned that increasing water stress could lead to more “day zeroes” – a term that gained popularity in 2018 as Cape Town in South Africa came dangerously close to running out of water.
Qatar, Israel and Lebanon were ranked as the most water stressed countries in the world, with Badghis in Afghanistan and Gaborone and Jwaneng in Botswana the world’s most water-stressed regions.
WRI said the data reveals a global water crisis that will require better information, planning and water management.
“Water matters,” said Betsy Otto, global director for water at WRI. “We’re currently facing a global water crisis. Our populations and economies are growing and demanding more water. But our supply is threatened by climate change, water waste and pollution.”
The global research organisation compared the water available to the amount withdrawn for homes, industries, irrigation and livestock.
In the 17 countries facing extremely high water stress, agriculture, industry, and municipalities were found to be using up to 80% of available surface and groundwater in an average year. When demand rivals supply, even small dry spells, which are set to increase because of the climate crisis, can produce dire consequences.
Twelve of the 17 high-risk countries were in the Middle East and North Africa.
The level of water stress in India, a country of more than 1.3 billion people, was striking, experts noted. India ranked 13th in the report.
In July, taps in the southern city of Chennai ran dry and satellite photographs showing an empty lake in the city went viral on social media.
“The recent water crisis in Chennai gained global attention, but various areas in India are experiencing chronic water stress as well,” said Shashi Shekhar, former secretary of India’s ministry of water resources, and senior WRI fellow.
Although the US did not have high levels of water stress overall, a handful of states – including New Mexico and California – were found to be facing significant strains on their water supplies that will only intensify with global heating.
New Mexico was found to have “extremely high” pressure on water availability. The state’s score is on par with the United Arab Emirates and Eritrea.
In 2012, two-thirds of the US experienced drought, said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist for the Agriculture Department.
California, which experienced a drought in 2011 that did not subside until a couple of years ago, is expected to see huge population growth, while facing temperatures up to five degrees warmer and rising sea levels, said Joaquin Esquivel, chair of the California Water Resources Control Board.
World Bank research has emphasised that “while the consequences of drought are often invisible, they are significant and cause ‘misery in slow motion”.
The report paints a worrying image of water risk and warns of other social and political problems attached to water shortages.
Around the world, stress on water supplies can exacerbate conflict and migration, threaten food supplies and pose risks for water-dependent industries, including mining and manufacturing, WRI notes.
“The picture is alarming in many places around the globe, but it’s very important to note that water stress is not destiny. What we can’t afford to do any longer is pretend that the situation will resolve itself,” said Otto.
“With respect to climate change we know that in many places what we’re going to be seeing is more erratic, more unpredictable hydrology, precipitation. Either too much or too little, often in the same places.”
UK: SFO names four Petrofac managers over multimillion-pound bribe scheme
Allegation about oil contracts was made by the Serious Fraud Office in a court document
Rob Evans and David Pegg
The Guardian
Sun 4 Aug 2019 13.35 BST
Four senior managers at a multinational oil firm have been accused in a court document of taking part in a scheme to pay multimillion-pound bribes to land contracts.
The accusation has been made by the Serious Fraud Office, which is investigating suspected corruption and money laundering involving the multinational Petrofac.
The allegation was made in a charging document filed in criminal proceedings against David Lufkin, a former Petrofac executive who pleaded guilty to bribery earlier this year.
The SFO alleges that the quartet of senior managers acted with Lufkin. No charges have been laid against the four executives and being named in the indictment does not constitute evidence of their involvement or any proof of guilt.
Petrofac and one of the four said they were concerned that they had been identified in the charges against Lufkin by the SFO without any attempt by the prosecutors to interview or speak to them.
“This is materially prejudicial to the rights and reputation of our people and the company, and also denies them any opportunity to answer the allegations,” said a Petrofac spokesperson, who added that the four executives retained the firm’s full trust and confidence.
Petrofac was co-founded by Ayman Asfari, a major donor to the Conservative party. He and his wife have given almost £800,000 to the party since 2009. He is currently the firm’s owner and chief executive.
In May 2017 he was arrested and interviewed under caution by the SFO and released without charge. He has not been charged with any offence and is not named in the charges against Lufkin.
David Cameron had appointed Asfari in 2014 to be one of the government’s “business ambassadors”, given the task of “promoting the UK’s excellence internationally”. The initiative was ended this year.
With offices in 24 countries and employing more than 11,000 people, Petrofac designs and constructs facilities for the oil and gas industry, receiving revenue of more than £5bn last year.
However, its share price crashed upon the announcement of the SFO investigation in 2017 and has struggled to recover since.
In February, Lufkin, 51, previously global head of sales for Petrofac International Limited, pleaded guilty to 11 counts of offering bribes between 2011 and 2016 in an attempt to secure contracts in Saudi Arabia worth £2.7bn and contracts in Iraq worth £566m. Lufkin has yet to be sentenced.
In the detail of the charges against Lufkin, the SFO names the four senior managers – George Salibi, ES Sathyanarayanan, Mani Rajapathy and Paolo Bonucci – and alleges they acted with Lufkin.
A lawyer for Salibi said he “emphatically denies any suggestion of wrongdoing. He is dismayed at the SFO’s wrongful naming of him, in circumstances where he has never been charged with any offence, nor even spoken to, let alone interviewed, by the SFO in relation to any aspect of the charge on which he is named.”
Sathyanarayanan, Rajapathy and Bonucci declined to comment.
A Petrofac spokesperson said: “No charges have been brought against any Petrofac group company or any serving officers or employees since this investigation began.
“Since February we have conducted extensive additional investigations and have not found – nor been provided by the SFO with – any evidence to support the naming of any employees in those charges. On this basis, they continue to have the full trust and confidence of the company.
“We find it concerning that some individuals have been named in the charges against David Lufkin without any attempt being made by the SFO to interview or speak to them. This is materially prejudicial to the rights and reputation of our people and the company, and also denies them any opportunity to answer the allegations.
“Notwithstanding this, we continue to engage with the SFO to aid their work and support them in bringing this investigation to conclusion with pace and focus.”
Petrofac’s co-founder Maroun Semaan is also named in connection with six of the counts against Lufkin. Semaan died in 2017. His family has denied his involvement in any wrongdoing on his behalf and he was also not arrested or interviewed.
The SFO said it could not comment as the two-year investigation into the alleged unlawful use of agents in a number of countries continues.
The accusation has been made by the Serious Fraud Office, which is investigating suspected corruption and money laundering involving the multinational Petrofac.
The allegation was made in a charging document filed in criminal proceedings against David Lufkin, a former Petrofac executive who pleaded guilty to bribery earlier this year.
The SFO alleges that the quartet of senior managers acted with Lufkin. No charges have been laid against the four executives and being named in the indictment does not constitute evidence of their involvement or any proof of guilt.
Petrofac and one of the four said they were concerned that they had been identified in the charges against Lufkin by the SFO without any attempt by the prosecutors to interview or speak to them.
“This is materially prejudicial to the rights and reputation of our people and the company, and also denies them any opportunity to answer the allegations,” said a Petrofac spokesperson, who added that the four executives retained the firm’s full trust and confidence.
Petrofac was co-founded by Ayman Asfari, a major donor to the Conservative party. He and his wife have given almost £800,000 to the party since 2009. He is currently the firm’s owner and chief executive.
In May 2017 he was arrested and interviewed under caution by the SFO and released without charge. He has not been charged with any offence and is not named in the charges against Lufkin.
David Cameron had appointed Asfari in 2014 to be one of the government’s “business ambassadors”, given the task of “promoting the UK’s excellence internationally”. The initiative was ended this year.
With offices in 24 countries and employing more than 11,000 people, Petrofac designs and constructs facilities for the oil and gas industry, receiving revenue of more than £5bn last year.
However, its share price crashed upon the announcement of the SFO investigation in 2017 and has struggled to recover since.
In February, Lufkin, 51, previously global head of sales for Petrofac International Limited, pleaded guilty to 11 counts of offering bribes between 2011 and 2016 in an attempt to secure contracts in Saudi Arabia worth £2.7bn and contracts in Iraq worth £566m. Lufkin has yet to be sentenced.
In the detail of the charges against Lufkin, the SFO names the four senior managers – George Salibi, ES Sathyanarayanan, Mani Rajapathy and Paolo Bonucci – and alleges they acted with Lufkin.
A lawyer for Salibi said he “emphatically denies any suggestion of wrongdoing. He is dismayed at the SFO’s wrongful naming of him, in circumstances where he has never been charged with any offence, nor even spoken to, let alone interviewed, by the SFO in relation to any aspect of the charge on which he is named.”
Sathyanarayanan, Rajapathy and Bonucci declined to comment.
A Petrofac spokesperson said: “No charges have been brought against any Petrofac group company or any serving officers or employees since this investigation began.
“Since February we have conducted extensive additional investigations and have not found – nor been provided by the SFO with – any evidence to support the naming of any employees in those charges. On this basis, they continue to have the full trust and confidence of the company.
“We find it concerning that some individuals have been named in the charges against David Lufkin without any attempt being made by the SFO to interview or speak to them. This is materially prejudicial to the rights and reputation of our people and the company, and also denies them any opportunity to answer the allegations.
“Notwithstanding this, we continue to engage with the SFO to aid their work and support them in bringing this investigation to conclusion with pace and focus.”
Petrofac’s co-founder Maroun Semaan is also named in connection with six of the counts against Lufkin. Semaan died in 2017. His family has denied his involvement in any wrongdoing on his behalf and he was also not arrested or interviewed.
The SFO said it could not comment as the two-year investigation into the alleged unlawful use of agents in a number of countries continues.
Why is Trump imposing tariffs on China and how could it affect global economy?
The US is threatening to impose tariffs on a further $300bn of Chinese goods
Richard Partington
The Guardian
Fri 2 Aug 2019 13.06 BST
Global stocks fell sharply on Friday after Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on $300bn (£247.6bn) of Chinese goods in a rapid escalation of the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
Why is Trump imposing tariffs on China?
Trump is applying pressure to try to force China to narrow the trade deficit – the gap between imports and exports – between the two countries. He complains that China buys fewer US goods than the US buys from China, a gap worth $419.5bn last year. He has also accused Chinese firms of stealing US companies’ intellectual property and called for Beijing to alter its rules.
How do tariffs work?
Tariffs are border taxes imposed by one country or economic bloc on goods shipped from a trading partner. The idea is to drive up the cost of those goods to make them less attractive to consumers than domestic produce. The taxes are paid by buyers of goods when they cross the border into the country imposing the tariff.
What is the scale of the latest threat?
Trump is threatening tariffs of 10% on $300bn of Chinese imports. The White House already levies tariffs of 25% on $250bn of Chinese goods. Adding both together would mean roughly all Chinese imports to the US face higher taxes. China sold $539.7bn of goods to the US last year.
What other tariffs are in place?
Beijing has retaliated with tariffs of up to 25% on US goods worth $113bn. China is constrained by how much further it can go, given that total exports to the US were worth $120.1bn last year. However, the trade war has extended beyond tariffs before, with rules to make life difficult for US or Chinese companies, such as the US blacklisting the Chinese technology company Huawei.
How could it affect the global economy?
The International Monetary Fund has said the US-China trade war is dragging on global growth. Last month it said the conflict would cut growth by 0.1 percentage points in 2019 and 2020 from its April forecasts, at 3.2% and 3.5% respectively. International trade growth has stalled and business investment has been paused because of the uncertainty over trade. Factory output has stalled in several countries including the UK, Germany and Italy, with a knock-on impact on growth. Central banks including the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank are under pressure to cut interest rates as a consequence.
Is a peace deal in sight?
The escalation from Trump was a surprise and China has said it will not be intimidated – a sign that the conflict will not dissipate quickly. Economists believe tariffs could just be a negotiating tactic and the US president has flip-flopped before, raising hopes of a resolution. Trump could also expand his trade war to involve other nations, as well as the EU. He has tariffs on car imports in his sights, ostensibly to protect the US auto industry. Economists say imposing car tariffs on the EU would dramatically escalate the global trade war and further damage global growth.
Why is Trump imposing tariffs on China?
Trump is applying pressure to try to force China to narrow the trade deficit – the gap between imports and exports – between the two countries. He complains that China buys fewer US goods than the US buys from China, a gap worth $419.5bn last year. He has also accused Chinese firms of stealing US companies’ intellectual property and called for Beijing to alter its rules.
How do tariffs work?
Tariffs are border taxes imposed by one country or economic bloc on goods shipped from a trading partner. The idea is to drive up the cost of those goods to make them less attractive to consumers than domestic produce. The taxes are paid by buyers of goods when they cross the border into the country imposing the tariff.
What is the scale of the latest threat?
Trump is threatening tariffs of 10% on $300bn of Chinese imports. The White House already levies tariffs of 25% on $250bn of Chinese goods. Adding both together would mean roughly all Chinese imports to the US face higher taxes. China sold $539.7bn of goods to the US last year.
What other tariffs are in place?
Beijing has retaliated with tariffs of up to 25% on US goods worth $113bn. China is constrained by how much further it can go, given that total exports to the US were worth $120.1bn last year. However, the trade war has extended beyond tariffs before, with rules to make life difficult for US or Chinese companies, such as the US blacklisting the Chinese technology company Huawei.
How could it affect the global economy?
The International Monetary Fund has said the US-China trade war is dragging on global growth. Last month it said the conflict would cut growth by 0.1 percentage points in 2019 and 2020 from its April forecasts, at 3.2% and 3.5% respectively. International trade growth has stalled and business investment has been paused because of the uncertainty over trade. Factory output has stalled in several countries including the UK, Germany and Italy, with a knock-on impact on growth. Central banks including the US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank are under pressure to cut interest rates as a consequence.
Is a peace deal in sight?
The escalation from Trump was a surprise and China has said it will not be intimidated – a sign that the conflict will not dissipate quickly. Economists believe tariffs could just be a negotiating tactic and the US president has flip-flopped before, raising hopes of a resolution. Trump could also expand his trade war to involve other nations, as well as the EU. He has tariffs on car imports in his sights, ostensibly to protect the US auto industry. Economists say imposing car tariffs on the EU would dramatically escalate the global trade war and further damage global growth.
Amazon gold miners invade indigenous village in Brazil after its leader is killed
Brazil’s police have been urged to investigate a ‘very tense situation’ in Amapá state
Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
The Guardian
Sun 28 Jul 2019 06.00 BST
Dozens of gold miners have invaded a remote indigenous reserve in the Brazilian Amazon where a local leader was stabbed to death and have taken over a village after the community fled in fear, local politicians and indigenous leaders said. The authorities said police were on their way to investigate.
Illegal gold mining is at epidemic proportions in the Amazon and the heavily polluting activities of garimpeiros – as miners are called – devastate forests and poison rivers with mercury. About 50 garimpeiros were reported to have invaded the 600,000-hectare Waiãpi indigenous reserve in the state of Amapá on Saturday.
The men were spotted days after the murder of Emyra Waiãpi, a community leader, whose body was found near the village of Mariry early on Wednesday.
Indigenous people evacuated Mariry and fled to the bigger village of Aramirã – where shots were fired on Saturday. Indigenous leaders and local politicians have called for urgent police help, fearing a bloodbath.
“The garimpeiros invaded the indigenous village and are there until today. They are heavily armed, they have machine guns. That is why we asking for help from the federal police,” said Kureni Waiãpi, 26, a member of the tribe who lives in the nearest town of Pedra Branca do Amapari, two hours away and 189km from Amapá state capital Macapá. “If nothing is done they will start to fight.”
“We have a very tense situation,” said Beth Pelaes, mayor of Pedra Branca do Amapari, who said the tribe are very traditional and allow only authorised visitors.
The crisis was revealed on Saturday by Randolfe Rodrigues, a senator for Amapá state, who received desperate audio messages pleading for police and army help from Jawaruwa Waiãpi, a local councillor and leader. Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso was among those who shared the tribe’s appeal for help on Saturday.
“I ask the Brazilian authorities for help, in the name of the dignity of Brazil in the world, hear this cry,” Veloso said in a video recorded in Mexico City, where he is on tour.
Kureni Waiãpi said Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro had encouraged invasions like this. “It is because he, the president, is threatening the indigenous peoples of Brazil,” he said.
Senator Rodrigues blamed Bolsonaro’s repeated promises to allow mining on protected indigenous reserves, where it is currently prohibited, for the first invasion of Waiãpi land in decades. In the 1970s, the tribe was almost wiped out by disease after their land was invaded by gold prospectors. In 2017, the then-president Michel Temer moved to open the vast Renca reserve the tribe’s land falls within to mining but backed off after an international outcry.
“The Jair Bolsonaro government is encouraging this conflict, encouraging garimpeiros to enter. Their hands are dirty,” Senator Rodrigues said.
Recently Bolsonaro compared indigenous people living traditional lives on their reserves to “prehistoric men”. On Saturday he once again talked up the mineral riches in the Raposa Serra do Sol and Yanomami reserves – currently inundated with thousands of garimpeiros.
“I’m looking for the ‘first world’ to explore these areas in partnership and add value. That’s the reason for my approximation with the United States. That’s why I want a person of trust in the embassy in the USA,” Bolsonaro said on Saturday, according to the O Globo newspaper. His plans to appoint his congressman son, Eduardo, as Brazil’s US ambassador have caused an outcry in Brazil.
Kureni Waiãpi said the body of Emyra Waiãpa was found with stab wounds early on Wednesday morning in a river near his village of Mariry. On Friday, local man Arawyra Waiãpa and his wife spotted a group of men they believed to be garimpeiros at their plantation near the village. The community fled to the bigger village of Aramirã. Shots were fired near Aramirã around 6pm local time on Saturday but nobody was hurt. “I think the garimpeiros are shooting to scare the Waiãpi,” Kureni Waiãpi said.
Federal and Amapá police were heading to the area, a spokeswoman from Brazil’s indigenous agency FUNAI said. “For now there are no records of conflict, although a death has been confirmed, but no details of the circumstances. The place is difficult to access,” she said.
The state government of Amapá said it was “engaging all efforts to support federal police in the investigation” and had sent an elite troop of police to accompany officers sent to the area.
Illegal gold mining is at epidemic proportions in the Amazon and the heavily polluting activities of garimpeiros – as miners are called – devastate forests and poison rivers with mercury. About 50 garimpeiros were reported to have invaded the 600,000-hectare Waiãpi indigenous reserve in the state of Amapá on Saturday.
The men were spotted days after the murder of Emyra Waiãpi, a community leader, whose body was found near the village of Mariry early on Wednesday.
Indigenous people evacuated Mariry and fled to the bigger village of Aramirã – where shots were fired on Saturday. Indigenous leaders and local politicians have called for urgent police help, fearing a bloodbath.
“The garimpeiros invaded the indigenous village and are there until today. They are heavily armed, they have machine guns. That is why we asking for help from the federal police,” said Kureni Waiãpi, 26, a member of the tribe who lives in the nearest town of Pedra Branca do Amapari, two hours away and 189km from Amapá state capital Macapá. “If nothing is done they will start to fight.”
“We have a very tense situation,” said Beth Pelaes, mayor of Pedra Branca do Amapari, who said the tribe are very traditional and allow only authorised visitors.
The crisis was revealed on Saturday by Randolfe Rodrigues, a senator for Amapá state, who received desperate audio messages pleading for police and army help from Jawaruwa Waiãpi, a local councillor and leader. Brazilian singer Caetano Veloso was among those who shared the tribe’s appeal for help on Saturday.
“I ask the Brazilian authorities for help, in the name of the dignity of Brazil in the world, hear this cry,” Veloso said in a video recorded in Mexico City, where he is on tour.
Kureni Waiãpi said Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro had encouraged invasions like this. “It is because he, the president, is threatening the indigenous peoples of Brazil,” he said.
Senator Rodrigues blamed Bolsonaro’s repeated promises to allow mining on protected indigenous reserves, where it is currently prohibited, for the first invasion of Waiãpi land in decades. In the 1970s, the tribe was almost wiped out by disease after their land was invaded by gold prospectors. In 2017, the then-president Michel Temer moved to open the vast Renca reserve the tribe’s land falls within to mining but backed off after an international outcry.
“The Jair Bolsonaro government is encouraging this conflict, encouraging garimpeiros to enter. Their hands are dirty,” Senator Rodrigues said.
Recently Bolsonaro compared indigenous people living traditional lives on their reserves to “prehistoric men”. On Saturday he once again talked up the mineral riches in the Raposa Serra do Sol and Yanomami reserves – currently inundated with thousands of garimpeiros.
“I’m looking for the ‘first world’ to explore these areas in partnership and add value. That’s the reason for my approximation with the United States. That’s why I want a person of trust in the embassy in the USA,” Bolsonaro said on Saturday, according to the O Globo newspaper. His plans to appoint his congressman son, Eduardo, as Brazil’s US ambassador have caused an outcry in Brazil.
Kureni Waiãpi said the body of Emyra Waiãpa was found with stab wounds early on Wednesday morning in a river near his village of Mariry. On Friday, local man Arawyra Waiãpa and his wife spotted a group of men they believed to be garimpeiros at their plantation near the village. The community fled to the bigger village of Aramirã. Shots were fired near Aramirã around 6pm local time on Saturday but nobody was hurt. “I think the garimpeiros are shooting to scare the Waiãpi,” Kureni Waiãpi said.
Federal and Amapá police were heading to the area, a spokeswoman from Brazil’s indigenous agency FUNAI said. “For now there are no records of conflict, although a death has been confirmed, but no details of the circumstances. The place is difficult to access,” she said.
The state government of Amapá said it was “engaging all efforts to support federal police in the investigation” and had sent an elite troop of police to accompany officers sent to the area.
The world knows what is happening to the Uighurs. Why has it been so slow to act?
A reluctance to offend China and an information blackout has meant the persecution of the ethnic minority has gone under the radar. But pressure for change is building
Kate Lyons
The Guardian
Sat 27 Jul 2019 01.00 BST
On Wednesday, Sadam Abdusalam went to Australia’s federal Parliament House for the first time and spent almost 12 hours meeting politicians – meetings he has spent almost two years hoping for – in which he pleaded for their help to bring his wife and nearly two-year-old son home.
Last week Abdusalam’s story was broadcast on Four Corners, detailing how his wife and son are trapped in China because they are Uighurs – ethnic minority Muslims.
It was not the first time he had told his story publicly – he first did so to Buzzfeed in February, and then to Guardian Australia in April, when Guardian Australia revealed there were at least five Australian children trapped in China due to the country’s increasingly brutal crackdown on Uighur people in the far-west region of Xinjiang.
But it was the first time Abdusalam had revealed his identity, and feels as though things might finally be shifting for his family. He hopes his wife and son might soon be able to come to Australia – ideally in time for his son’s second birthday on 31 August – meaning he could meet his son for the first time.
“[The MPs] said: ‘Don’t think we forget about you, we will keep working’,” says Abdusalam, who has been trying to get a meeting with the foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, and the immigration minister, David Coleman, for months. He spent 18 months battling the home affairs department, which initially refused to recognise his son’s Australian citizenship.
While Abdusalam is grateful for the support the government is showing his family now, he says on his recent trip to Canberra he struggled with a question the entire Uighur community is grappling with.
“I wanted to tell them: ‘Where have you been the last few years?’”
It is almost a year since the United Nations reported that an estimated one million people, mostly Uighurs, were being held in detention centres across Xinjiang and urged China to release them.
Even before then, there were regular reports that Uighurs were subject to extraordinary surveillance, required to give blood, DNA and biometric face scans, forced to hand over their passports, denied permission to leave Xinjiang and detained in huge numbers. China has finally been forced to admit the detention centres exist, but still insists they are “vocational training centres”. Uighurs may be held there for crimes such as having a beard, having a Muslim name, having WhatsApp on their phone, having family members who live abroad, or for no apparent reason at all.
But it was only two weeks ago that a statement was issued by 22 countriescondemning China’s treatment of Uighur and other minorities. So why has it taken so long for the world to care about the plight of the Uighurs?
‘No one wants to talk’
“It has been taking a surprisingly long time,” says Nury Turkel, chairman of the Uyghur Human Rights Project in Washington. “There are a couple of reasons: one is obviously the China factor. It’s a big country, kind of a reckless country, governments are often very careful to take a stand.”
James Leibold, an associate professor in politics and Asian studies at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, says China’s economic clout and other countries’ reluctance to rock the trade boat is clearly a factor, but there are others.
Most people in the west have not heard of Uighurs or Xinjiang – a very remote part of China – and awareness of their plight has not been championed by a figure well-known in the west, as the Tibetan situation was by the Dalai Lama.
Then there is the difficulty in getting information out of Xinjiang. China has restricted access to foreign journalists, other than those taken on bizarre propaganda tours, so reporters have largely been left to rely on accounts of escapees and the diaspora as well as satellite imagery to try to piece together what is going on there.
“The informational warfare that’s occurring at present … gives cover to governments or allows governments not to respond because they will say: ‘We don’t really know what’s happening’,” says Leibold.
China has exacted severe retribution against those who have spoken out, including Abdusalam’s wife who, since the Four Corners broadcast, has been taken in by police almost every day and questioned for three or four hours.
“They have been telling her to tell me to keep my mouth shut,” says Abdusalam. “She’s really frightened.”
“No one wants to talk, with good reason,” says Leibold.
‘Slow-burning act of cultural genocide’
China has also walked a “very deliberate and very careful” line in committing serious human rights abuses without perpetrating the sort of physical violence that might attract widespread global condemnation, says Elaine Pearson, the Australia director of Human Rights Watch.
“I think part of the reason this is under the radar is that people aren’t overtly being killed or raped or tortured.” Despite this, Pearson says what China is doing in Xinjiang is “absolutely terrifying”.
“They are blueprinting a way of eradicating Muslim identity from a population and I think that’s something we should all be quite scared about.
“We spend so much time and energy on this religious freedom debate in Australia; well here’s a group of people that are about to be exterminated in terms of their religion,” says Pearson.
Leibold says a “subtle, unarticulated bias against Islam” may also go some way to explain why the “slow-burning act of cultural genocide” in Xinjiang has not gained traction in western countries.
“Muslims unfortunately have very little sympathy globally at the moment. There is this spectre of Islamophobia globally that sits behind this issue,” says Leibold.
Turkel believes things have shifted in recent months. In Washington DC, where he is based, there is momentum for legislation enforcing targeted sanctions at senior Chinese officials.
But Australia could do more, he says. “I would like to see the Australian government be a little more steady and outspoken,” he says, particularly in light of the five Australian children, including Abdusalam’s, who are trapped in Xinjiang, unable to return home to their Australian parents.
“It should keep Australian politicians awake at night.”
Last week Abdusalam’s story was broadcast on Four Corners, detailing how his wife and son are trapped in China because they are Uighurs – ethnic minority Muslims.
It was not the first time he had told his story publicly – he first did so to Buzzfeed in February, and then to Guardian Australia in April, when Guardian Australia revealed there were at least five Australian children trapped in China due to the country’s increasingly brutal crackdown on Uighur people in the far-west region of Xinjiang.
But it was the first time Abdusalam had revealed his identity, and feels as though things might finally be shifting for his family. He hopes his wife and son might soon be able to come to Australia – ideally in time for his son’s second birthday on 31 August – meaning he could meet his son for the first time.
“[The MPs] said: ‘Don’t think we forget about you, we will keep working’,” says Abdusalam, who has been trying to get a meeting with the foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, and the immigration minister, David Coleman, for months. He spent 18 months battling the home affairs department, which initially refused to recognise his son’s Australian citizenship.
While Abdusalam is grateful for the support the government is showing his family now, he says on his recent trip to Canberra he struggled with a question the entire Uighur community is grappling with.
“I wanted to tell them: ‘Where have you been the last few years?’”
It is almost a year since the United Nations reported that an estimated one million people, mostly Uighurs, were being held in detention centres across Xinjiang and urged China to release them.
Even before then, there were regular reports that Uighurs were subject to extraordinary surveillance, required to give blood, DNA and biometric face scans, forced to hand over their passports, denied permission to leave Xinjiang and detained in huge numbers. China has finally been forced to admit the detention centres exist, but still insists they are “vocational training centres”. Uighurs may be held there for crimes such as having a beard, having a Muslim name, having WhatsApp on their phone, having family members who live abroad, or for no apparent reason at all.
But it was only two weeks ago that a statement was issued by 22 countriescondemning China’s treatment of Uighur and other minorities. So why has it taken so long for the world to care about the plight of the Uighurs?
‘No one wants to talk’
“It has been taking a surprisingly long time,” says Nury Turkel, chairman of the Uyghur Human Rights Project in Washington. “There are a couple of reasons: one is obviously the China factor. It’s a big country, kind of a reckless country, governments are often very careful to take a stand.”
James Leibold, an associate professor in politics and Asian studies at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, says China’s economic clout and other countries’ reluctance to rock the trade boat is clearly a factor, but there are others.
Most people in the west have not heard of Uighurs or Xinjiang – a very remote part of China – and awareness of their plight has not been championed by a figure well-known in the west, as the Tibetan situation was by the Dalai Lama.
Then there is the difficulty in getting information out of Xinjiang. China has restricted access to foreign journalists, other than those taken on bizarre propaganda tours, so reporters have largely been left to rely on accounts of escapees and the diaspora as well as satellite imagery to try to piece together what is going on there.
“The informational warfare that’s occurring at present … gives cover to governments or allows governments not to respond because they will say: ‘We don’t really know what’s happening’,” says Leibold.
China has exacted severe retribution against those who have spoken out, including Abdusalam’s wife who, since the Four Corners broadcast, has been taken in by police almost every day and questioned for three or four hours.
“They have been telling her to tell me to keep my mouth shut,” says Abdusalam. “She’s really frightened.”
“No one wants to talk, with good reason,” says Leibold.
‘Slow-burning act of cultural genocide’
China has also walked a “very deliberate and very careful” line in committing serious human rights abuses without perpetrating the sort of physical violence that might attract widespread global condemnation, says Elaine Pearson, the Australia director of Human Rights Watch.
“I think part of the reason this is under the radar is that people aren’t overtly being killed or raped or tortured.” Despite this, Pearson says what China is doing in Xinjiang is “absolutely terrifying”.
“They are blueprinting a way of eradicating Muslim identity from a population and I think that’s something we should all be quite scared about.
“We spend so much time and energy on this religious freedom debate in Australia; well here’s a group of people that are about to be exterminated in terms of their religion,” says Pearson.
Leibold says a “subtle, unarticulated bias against Islam” may also go some way to explain why the “slow-burning act of cultural genocide” in Xinjiang has not gained traction in western countries.
“Muslims unfortunately have very little sympathy globally at the moment. There is this spectre of Islamophobia globally that sits behind this issue,” says Leibold.
Turkel believes things have shifted in recent months. In Washington DC, where he is based, there is momentum for legislation enforcing targeted sanctions at senior Chinese officials.
But Australia could do more, he says. “I would like to see the Australian government be a little more steady and outspoken,” he says, particularly in light of the five Australian children, including Abdusalam’s, who are trapped in Xinjiang, unable to return home to their Australian parents.
“It should keep Australian politicians awake at night.”
Black Member of Swedish Parliament Endures Years of Racism
By Lauren Floyd - Atlanta Black Star
July 25, 2019
One of only two Black members of the more than 240-member Swedish Parliament, recounts years of racism he’s encountered as a member of Parliament and human rights advocate.
In an exclusive interview with Atlanta Black Star, Momodou Jallow talks about having to move six times because of threats to lynch him and his family.
He said he had to take a man to court six times before Swedish officials would jail him for circulating doctored photos of Jallow as a naked, escaped slave in chains.
In a related case the United Nations is investigating, Jallow said a man was allowed to sell the photos of him for $500 and $700 a pop at the Danish Parliament.
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Neil Nelson: For several readers who might not be familiar with you, can you provide a brief overview of both your personal and professional background?
Momodou Jallow: My name is Momodou Malcolm Jallow, and as you mentioned I was born and raised in West Africa in a little country called The Gambia. And I grew up there, and when I was a teenager, I left Gambia for Sweden, which is in Europe.
So I’ve been living in Sweden, close to 30 years now. I’m 43 years old, so I’ve spent most of my life living in Sweden. My educational background is: I studied political science, and I’ve been working my whole life to try to fight against racism and discrimination. I normally describe myself as a human rights defender because that’s what I’ve been doing most of my life.
So I have had the privilege to lead some organizations around Europe. One of the biggest organizations that I’ve led is called the European Network Against Racism, which is one of Europe’s biggest anti-racism and human rights organization. Nationally, I’ve been working with organizations and I have my own organization, which is the Pan-African Movement for Justice, and the main objective of that organization is to fight against all forms of racism against people of African descent, both nationally and internationally.
And for the past few years also, I’ve been an elected official, a member of the Swedish Parliament, one of the few. I think we have two people of African descent out of 249 members of Parliament.
I feel privileged and very honored to have had that chance and possibility to be able to represent my district, which is the third largest city in Sweden called Malmo. I’ve been working in Parliament now and trying to raise those issues concerning people of African descent, but also issues concerning, poor and working class people and their plight.
My whole life, I’ve been working on issues concerning human rights, especially, particularly for people of African descent at different levels, like I said, at national levels, but also international level.
I’m a member of what is called the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe is one of the biggest, if not the biggest human rights organization. So I’m a member of that big institution, and I try to raise issues concerning human rights and trying to raise issues concerning poor and working class people.
And basically my intentions have always been — throughout these past 10 years, and I’ve returned to the U.S. every year — to try to create a bridge and build an alliance across the Atlantic, so that we can tell our stories here because most Americans do not know that the realities for Black people here are very similar to the realities of Black people in Europe.
Nelson: Well, thank you for that brief introduction, and I appreciate that. You’ve really provided us a really great breadth of information about the work you’ve been doing. One of the things that I’ve heard you mention in the past was that when you mention that you are a member of the Swedish Parliament, folks are often surprised. How many Black MPs are there in the Swedish parliament?
Jallow: We have two black MPS. There’s myself, and then there’s the young lady with Somali background that also came in. So we have two out of 249 MPs in Sweden.
Nelson: I see, and what has been your general experience interacting with the other members of Parliament?
Jallow: I’m glad you asked that question. It’s very interesting because I remember the first time I got into Parliament, people spoke English to me when they saw me in the corridors because they assumed that I can not be a member of Parliament as a Black man. So they spoke English to me. They didn’t speak Swedish. They assumed I could not speak Swedish.
In fact, I remember the day that we had the opening ceremony. First day that we’re opening the Parliament — so many dignitaries and old prime ministers and the king, you know, the royal family — everybody was there. And I remember one of the previous prime ministers that was invited to come, he shook my hand. He was calling me an ambassador. He thought I was an ambassador from an African country. So he took my hand, shook it and said, ‘it’s really nice to meet you again Mr. ambassador,’ in English.
So throughout that time I was there – he’s looking at me – he assumed that I am an ambassador from somewhere else. I am not a member of Parliament, so I had to respond in Swedish to him and say, I’m sorry you got the wrong person. I am a member of the Swedish Parliament.
And this continues in so many different ways that I quite often am reminded of the systematic and the structural racism and discrimination that I face in that country because very often I’m reminded that I do not belong in that setting. And I see that in so many different ways.
In fact, it bothered me because the last time that it happened, I was with my daughter, and my daughter saw how they were treating me.
I remember we had visitors. In the Parliament, we have a place for guests that can listen to our debates and then we have the chamber. And when we were getting in, I was with my daughter. So it was a long line, and of all the people that came with visitors, the visitors were ushered to the visitors’ area, and all the members of Parliament are ushered to the chamber.
My colleagues, we’re in a long queue. And all my colleagues that are members of Parliament were ushered to the chamber, and their families and friends were ushered to the visitors’ area. But when I came with my daughter, they ushered me to the visitors’ area, and they were speaking English to me.
They said, this way sir, and one of my colleagues that was in front of me turned around and said: ‘Wait a minute, why are asking him that? He’s a member of Parliament. He’s going with us.’
And even after my colleague said that and I had my badge with my name, and it said member of Parliament with my picture, this lady still continued speaking English to me, and telling me:
‘Oh, I’m sorry, you can go to the chamber,’ as if you know, like I’m a member of Parliament who can’t speak the language.
So, you have this subtle ways of excluding an individual, which for me, is like it happens on a daily basis.
It’s amazing that Black people have been historically living in Sweden. I think the first Black person that we know on record came in the 1700s is called Gustav Badin. And this Gustav Badin was an enslaved Black man that was given as gift to the royal family, and he lived in the castle for many years until he died.
So Sweden has been in contact with Black people for many years, because Sweden, in contradiction to what many people know about Sweden, Sweden has been part and parcel on the Transatlantic Slave Trade. They have sent black people.
They in fact build a castle called San Cadilist Boy in Ghana. It’s still in existence there. If you go to Ghana, you can see. It’s a slave boat where all the enslavers would come and meet and have their enslaved African descent transport them from there to the Caribbean. It was built by the Swedish government. It was built by the king. So Sweden has been part and parcel of this historical oppression that Black people have had to go through.
So to pretend that Black people are quite new in Sweden, is just a fad. It’s not real because they have been encountering Black people for many, many years. In fact, the United Kingdom, abolished slave trade in 1807. Sweden continued 40 years after the United Kingdom abolition of slave trade. They continued until 1847. That’s when they abolished the slave trade.
So, they were exporting iron because Swedish iron was considered one of the best kinds of iron. They’re exporting iron that was used by slave traders to exchange and enslave Black people. So they were exporting this to many countries that were slave traders. So there has been a history when it comes to the encounter between Africans, Black people and Sweden. It’s very telling as to what kind of country it is.
A lot of people say, well listen, you have the opportunity to be in Parliament. That’s progress. That’s good. You know, I’m not saying that’s not good, but you cannot just use that as an excuse, that one Black man slipped through the cracks and got in, and then you think everything is all right. For me, it’s about human rights. It’s about, civil rights. It’s about every person that live in that country should have the right, the possibility, the opportunity to be able to aspire and reach their aspiration and make it real.
My skin color becomes an issue when I apply for a job. It becomes an issue when I’m in school. Our children, children of African descent, they go through hell in school because they are harassed by their classmates because they are black.
Even teachers would ask students, ‘where you come from.’ I have daughters and my daughters are born and raised in Sweden. They’re Swedish. They don’t know anything else, so we call them Afro-Sweds. They have an Afro-Sweds, African descent. And their teachers would ask them, ‘where are you from,’ and they would say, ‘I’m from Malmo,’ which is the city that I live. And the teachers would say, ‘well, you cannot be from Malmo because you’re Black.’ And I’m like, wait a minute. What? You can’t be Black and Sweden? You can’t be Black and born and raised in this country? You should be able to do that.
I mean, you have South Africa. You have a lot of white people there. And if you tell them they are not South Africans, that will be something else. So we’re facing this problem that for people of African descent there are huge disparities in labor and employment. We now have a report that has just been released. And that report shows that as a Black man and woman in Sweden, the more educated you are, the higher your degree, the bigger the pay gap between you and the rest of the Swedish population.
I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying. I mean, this doesn’t exist anywhere. In most countries, the more education you have, then the better possibilities you have. And the pay gap will not go down because you have a higher education.
But according to this report, if you are a Black person and you live in Sweden, if you have a pHd, the pay gap is a lot bigger compared to your Filipino, then if you have a high school diploma compared to other people.
So, what this means to us is it’s difficult to tell our people, you need to educate yourself. Educate yourself because you’re going to somehow reap financial rewards I’m talking about.
So we have a huge problem in the housing market. We have a huge problem when it comes to access to justice. We’ve seen police brutality at a level that you can’t even understand. We’ve seen racial profiling. I’m a member of Parliament, and I have a passport that says I’m a member of Parliament. I’ve got that passport because I’m a member of Parliament, and so I can travel freely without having any problems.
And every time I travel, even though I’m a member of Parliament, I’m always stopped, and they always say it’s random checking, random, you know visitation. So they would stop me, and they would ask a lot of questions. And they would do some tests, and I’m tired of that.
Even when I travel in my committee at the Parliament, with all the white people that are members of Parliament. We travel as a committee to the United States or somewhere else. All of them would pass through security, and I’m always stopped. They always ask:
‘Is this your passport. Are you a member of Parliament?’[...]
In an exclusive interview with Atlanta Black Star, Momodou Jallow talks about having to move six times because of threats to lynch him and his family.
He said he had to take a man to court six times before Swedish officials would jail him for circulating doctored photos of Jallow as a naked, escaped slave in chains.
In a related case the United Nations is investigating, Jallow said a man was allowed to sell the photos of him for $500 and $700 a pop at the Danish Parliament.
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Neil Nelson: For several readers who might not be familiar with you, can you provide a brief overview of both your personal and professional background?
Momodou Jallow: My name is Momodou Malcolm Jallow, and as you mentioned I was born and raised in West Africa in a little country called The Gambia. And I grew up there, and when I was a teenager, I left Gambia for Sweden, which is in Europe.
So I’ve been living in Sweden, close to 30 years now. I’m 43 years old, so I’ve spent most of my life living in Sweden. My educational background is: I studied political science, and I’ve been working my whole life to try to fight against racism and discrimination. I normally describe myself as a human rights defender because that’s what I’ve been doing most of my life.
So I have had the privilege to lead some organizations around Europe. One of the biggest organizations that I’ve led is called the European Network Against Racism, which is one of Europe’s biggest anti-racism and human rights organization. Nationally, I’ve been working with organizations and I have my own organization, which is the Pan-African Movement for Justice, and the main objective of that organization is to fight against all forms of racism against people of African descent, both nationally and internationally.
And for the past few years also, I’ve been an elected official, a member of the Swedish Parliament, one of the few. I think we have two people of African descent out of 249 members of Parliament.
I feel privileged and very honored to have had that chance and possibility to be able to represent my district, which is the third largest city in Sweden called Malmo. I’ve been working in Parliament now and trying to raise those issues concerning people of African descent, but also issues concerning, poor and working class people and their plight.
My whole life, I’ve been working on issues concerning human rights, especially, particularly for people of African descent at different levels, like I said, at national levels, but also international level.
I’m a member of what is called the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe is one of the biggest, if not the biggest human rights organization. So I’m a member of that big institution, and I try to raise issues concerning human rights and trying to raise issues concerning poor and working class people.
And basically my intentions have always been — throughout these past 10 years, and I’ve returned to the U.S. every year — to try to create a bridge and build an alliance across the Atlantic, so that we can tell our stories here because most Americans do not know that the realities for Black people here are very similar to the realities of Black people in Europe.
Nelson: Well, thank you for that brief introduction, and I appreciate that. You’ve really provided us a really great breadth of information about the work you’ve been doing. One of the things that I’ve heard you mention in the past was that when you mention that you are a member of the Swedish Parliament, folks are often surprised. How many Black MPs are there in the Swedish parliament?
Jallow: We have two black MPS. There’s myself, and then there’s the young lady with Somali background that also came in. So we have two out of 249 MPs in Sweden.
Nelson: I see, and what has been your general experience interacting with the other members of Parliament?
Jallow: I’m glad you asked that question. It’s very interesting because I remember the first time I got into Parliament, people spoke English to me when they saw me in the corridors because they assumed that I can not be a member of Parliament as a Black man. So they spoke English to me. They didn’t speak Swedish. They assumed I could not speak Swedish.
In fact, I remember the day that we had the opening ceremony. First day that we’re opening the Parliament — so many dignitaries and old prime ministers and the king, you know, the royal family — everybody was there. And I remember one of the previous prime ministers that was invited to come, he shook my hand. He was calling me an ambassador. He thought I was an ambassador from an African country. So he took my hand, shook it and said, ‘it’s really nice to meet you again Mr. ambassador,’ in English.
So throughout that time I was there – he’s looking at me – he assumed that I am an ambassador from somewhere else. I am not a member of Parliament, so I had to respond in Swedish to him and say, I’m sorry you got the wrong person. I am a member of the Swedish Parliament.
And this continues in so many different ways that I quite often am reminded of the systematic and the structural racism and discrimination that I face in that country because very often I’m reminded that I do not belong in that setting. And I see that in so many different ways.
In fact, it bothered me because the last time that it happened, I was with my daughter, and my daughter saw how they were treating me.
I remember we had visitors. In the Parliament, we have a place for guests that can listen to our debates and then we have the chamber. And when we were getting in, I was with my daughter. So it was a long line, and of all the people that came with visitors, the visitors were ushered to the visitors’ area, and all the members of Parliament are ushered to the chamber.
My colleagues, we’re in a long queue. And all my colleagues that are members of Parliament were ushered to the chamber, and their families and friends were ushered to the visitors’ area. But when I came with my daughter, they ushered me to the visitors’ area, and they were speaking English to me.
They said, this way sir, and one of my colleagues that was in front of me turned around and said: ‘Wait a minute, why are asking him that? He’s a member of Parliament. He’s going with us.’
And even after my colleague said that and I had my badge with my name, and it said member of Parliament with my picture, this lady still continued speaking English to me, and telling me:
‘Oh, I’m sorry, you can go to the chamber,’ as if you know, like I’m a member of Parliament who can’t speak the language.
So, you have this subtle ways of excluding an individual, which for me, is like it happens on a daily basis.
It’s amazing that Black people have been historically living in Sweden. I think the first Black person that we know on record came in the 1700s is called Gustav Badin. And this Gustav Badin was an enslaved Black man that was given as gift to the royal family, and he lived in the castle for many years until he died.
So Sweden has been in contact with Black people for many years, because Sweden, in contradiction to what many people know about Sweden, Sweden has been part and parcel on the Transatlantic Slave Trade. They have sent black people.
They in fact build a castle called San Cadilist Boy in Ghana. It’s still in existence there. If you go to Ghana, you can see. It’s a slave boat where all the enslavers would come and meet and have their enslaved African descent transport them from there to the Caribbean. It was built by the Swedish government. It was built by the king. So Sweden has been part and parcel of this historical oppression that Black people have had to go through.
So to pretend that Black people are quite new in Sweden, is just a fad. It’s not real because they have been encountering Black people for many, many years. In fact, the United Kingdom, abolished slave trade in 1807. Sweden continued 40 years after the United Kingdom abolition of slave trade. They continued until 1847. That’s when they abolished the slave trade.
So, they were exporting iron because Swedish iron was considered one of the best kinds of iron. They’re exporting iron that was used by slave traders to exchange and enslave Black people. So they were exporting this to many countries that were slave traders. So there has been a history when it comes to the encounter between Africans, Black people and Sweden. It’s very telling as to what kind of country it is.
A lot of people say, well listen, you have the opportunity to be in Parliament. That’s progress. That’s good. You know, I’m not saying that’s not good, but you cannot just use that as an excuse, that one Black man slipped through the cracks and got in, and then you think everything is all right. For me, it’s about human rights. It’s about, civil rights. It’s about every person that live in that country should have the right, the possibility, the opportunity to be able to aspire and reach their aspiration and make it real.
My skin color becomes an issue when I apply for a job. It becomes an issue when I’m in school. Our children, children of African descent, they go through hell in school because they are harassed by their classmates because they are black.
Even teachers would ask students, ‘where you come from.’ I have daughters and my daughters are born and raised in Sweden. They’re Swedish. They don’t know anything else, so we call them Afro-Sweds. They have an Afro-Sweds, African descent. And their teachers would ask them, ‘where are you from,’ and they would say, ‘I’m from Malmo,’ which is the city that I live. And the teachers would say, ‘well, you cannot be from Malmo because you’re Black.’ And I’m like, wait a minute. What? You can’t be Black and Sweden? You can’t be Black and born and raised in this country? You should be able to do that.
I mean, you have South Africa. You have a lot of white people there. And if you tell them they are not South Africans, that will be something else. So we’re facing this problem that for people of African descent there are huge disparities in labor and employment. We now have a report that has just been released. And that report shows that as a Black man and woman in Sweden, the more educated you are, the higher your degree, the bigger the pay gap between you and the rest of the Swedish population.
I don’t know if you understand what I’m saying. I mean, this doesn’t exist anywhere. In most countries, the more education you have, then the better possibilities you have. And the pay gap will not go down because you have a higher education.
But according to this report, if you are a Black person and you live in Sweden, if you have a pHd, the pay gap is a lot bigger compared to your Filipino, then if you have a high school diploma compared to other people.
So, what this means to us is it’s difficult to tell our people, you need to educate yourself. Educate yourself because you’re going to somehow reap financial rewards I’m talking about.
So we have a huge problem in the housing market. We have a huge problem when it comes to access to justice. We’ve seen police brutality at a level that you can’t even understand. We’ve seen racial profiling. I’m a member of Parliament, and I have a passport that says I’m a member of Parliament. I’ve got that passport because I’m a member of Parliament, and so I can travel freely without having any problems.
And every time I travel, even though I’m a member of Parliament, I’m always stopped, and they always say it’s random checking, random, you know visitation. So they would stop me, and they would ask a lot of questions. And they would do some tests, and I’m tired of that.
Even when I travel in my committee at the Parliament, with all the white people that are members of Parliament. We travel as a committee to the United States or somewhere else. All of them would pass through security, and I’m always stopped. They always ask:
‘Is this your passport. Are you a member of Parliament?’[...]
opinion: Boris Johnson: the clown is crowned as the country burns in hell
It’s 33C in London, 0.2% of the nation has spoken and a DUDE has lied his way about bananas and condoms to high office
Hannah Jane Parkinson - The Guardian
Tue 23 Jul 2019 15.45 BST
Well, here we are then. Someone who could easily be rejected as a Guess Who character for looking too ridiculous is now to lead the country. A man whose DNA profile is the exact same as a Bernard Manning joke. A man who mentioned the 20 hustings he had taken part in, approximately 30 seconds after Conservative party chairman Brandon Lewis talked of the 16 hustings held.
With 8,000 members of the Johnson family watching on – and Jeremy Hunt, looking for all the world like a sub who’s never gonna get off the bench and knows it – Boris Johnson was announced as the new leader of the Conservative party, and, in short order, the new prime minister. Elected by a staggering 0.2% of the nation, we can’t say it isn’t the will of the people.
It’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it, when the new leader of the country opens his inaugural speech with: “There may be people here who wonder quite what they have done!” – having to address the fact that many people in the room are coming to terms with the fact they’ve got shit on their shoe.
“Do you look daunted?!” he boomed, “You don’t look remotely daunted to me!” Which was met with a Spectoresque wall of silence, a number of faces as white as Elizabeth I’s, and a solitary cry of: “No!”. Probably from Matt Hancock, who has the sucking-up power of a Dyson, but not one of those ones with balls.
Johnson’s speech wasn’t so much circuitous as re-routed entirely around the North Circular. In the most excruciating moment, he mentioned that “Deliver, Unite, Defeat” was not the greatest campaign slogan he might have chosen, because it spelled out “DUD”. You just know that he came up with that campaign slogan purely so that he could make this quip, which wasn’t even good. He then added an extra letter, E, for “energise”, saying: “DUDE, we are going to energise this country!”
I have never, ever wanted to DIE more. How about a different brand, Boris? I’m thinking more: “Dithering, Idiot, Clown, Klutz.” You see, Johnson can’t even negotiate with his own hands to clap properly, let alone with an entire European bloc:..
I don’t really know what to say myself. I don’t understand how a man can lie his way about bananas and condoms to high office. I don’t understand how a man whose entire prep for anything seems to consist of drawing a cock and balls – but in Latin! – on a sheet of paper, ends up in high office.
I don’t understand how a man can be recorded offering to facilitate the assault of a journalist and reach high office. I don’t understand how a man can be fired twice for cavalierly making stuff up and reach high office. I don’t understand how a man whose entire personality is a job-lot sold off from a closing down joke shop can reach high office. A racist, an inveterate liar, a man who makes Machiavelli look misunderstood and Pinocchio button-nosed.
It’s 33C outside in London. You can’t tell whether people are crying or sweating. We can’t do anything until we get a say – which, this time, we did not. So we beat on, against the sun, borne back ceaselessly into hell.
With 8,000 members of the Johnson family watching on – and Jeremy Hunt, looking for all the world like a sub who’s never gonna get off the bench and knows it – Boris Johnson was announced as the new leader of the Conservative party, and, in short order, the new prime minister. Elected by a staggering 0.2% of the nation, we can’t say it isn’t the will of the people.
It’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it, when the new leader of the country opens his inaugural speech with: “There may be people here who wonder quite what they have done!” – having to address the fact that many people in the room are coming to terms with the fact they’ve got shit on their shoe.
“Do you look daunted?!” he boomed, “You don’t look remotely daunted to me!” Which was met with a Spectoresque wall of silence, a number of faces as white as Elizabeth I’s, and a solitary cry of: “No!”. Probably from Matt Hancock, who has the sucking-up power of a Dyson, but not one of those ones with balls.
Johnson’s speech wasn’t so much circuitous as re-routed entirely around the North Circular. In the most excruciating moment, he mentioned that “Deliver, Unite, Defeat” was not the greatest campaign slogan he might have chosen, because it spelled out “DUD”. You just know that he came up with that campaign slogan purely so that he could make this quip, which wasn’t even good. He then added an extra letter, E, for “energise”, saying: “DUDE, we are going to energise this country!”
I have never, ever wanted to DIE more. How about a different brand, Boris? I’m thinking more: “Dithering, Idiot, Clown, Klutz.” You see, Johnson can’t even negotiate with his own hands to clap properly, let alone with an entire European bloc:..
I don’t really know what to say myself. I don’t understand how a man can lie his way about bananas and condoms to high office. I don’t understand how a man whose entire prep for anything seems to consist of drawing a cock and balls – but in Latin! – on a sheet of paper, ends up in high office.
I don’t understand how a man can be recorded offering to facilitate the assault of a journalist and reach high office. I don’t understand how a man can be fired twice for cavalierly making stuff up and reach high office. I don’t understand how a man whose entire personality is a job-lot sold off from a closing down joke shop can reach high office. A racist, an inveterate liar, a man who makes Machiavelli look misunderstood and Pinocchio button-nosed.
It’s 33C outside in London. You can’t tell whether people are crying or sweating. We can’t do anything until we get a say – which, this time, we did not. So we beat on, against the sun, borne back ceaselessly into hell.
Britain’s New Prime Minister Is Nationalist, Racist and Vain. Sound Familiar?
BY Sasha Abramsky, Truthout
PUBLISHED July 23, 2019
This week, after years of scrabbling for power, Boris Johnson becomes the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, and by extension, prime minister of the country. He has trod the path to power in stages. In recent years, he opportunistically sided with the pro-Brexit side in the 2016 referendum, a key endorsement that undermined then-Prime Minister David Cameron and helped push the “yes” vote to victory. Then he helped to systematically undermine the next prime minister, Theresa May, as she tried to untangle the impossible Gordian knot of Brexit. Then, he wooed enough conservative members of parliament (MPs) in the Conservative Party’s byzantine leadership election process to ensure that he would become a front-runner candidate. And, finally, he convinced a majority of the party’s 160,000 members — a disproportionately white, affluent, suburban and rural electorate — to vote for him, and his nationalistic vision of Britain, over his opponent, the current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. Johnson beat Hunt by a wide margin, winning 92,153 votes while Hunt tallied 46,656.
Johnson’s turnaround is remarkable for a man who found himself in the political wilderness a couple of years ago, forced to resign his position as foreign secretary after refusing to bend to Theresa May’s will over how to conduct Brexit negotiations with the European Union.
Boris Johnson has long craved power – not to implement any grand ideological agenda, but rather to show the world that he’s a big enough man to rise to the top. He is, as many critics have pointed out, without a true political core, his project more one of personal vanity than of principle.
The new British leader has, over the years, repeatedly ideologically reinvented himself to suit the changing mood of the country and, in the process, has gone from being the consummate fine-wine-swilling, urbane journalist, to being an improbable populist. Like Trump, he has a somewhat colorful personal life, yet appeals overwhelmingly to a core base looking to reimpose a more traditional sense of morality on a diverse population. This part of the electorate is seeking, in its imperial nostalgia, to “Make Britain Great Again.” Johnson, like Brexit itself, has become an avatar for those disaffected with the arc of history.
Educated at Eton, the much-storied boarding school for Britain’s elite, and then as a classicist at Balliol College, Oxford (the alma mater of this writer, too, and long the training ground of many of Britain’s top politicians and journalists), Johnson prides himself on his quick wit, his erudition, and his ability to bring an opponent to heel with a few well-timed insults and humorous put-downs. He has always fashioned himself as Churchillian in style and in temperament, and a few years back, wrote a book about Churchill that critics saw as a thinly veiled attempt to appropriate the man’s reputation for himself.
Once upon a time, when Johnson was running for the presidency of the prestigious Oxford Union debating club, he tried to broaden his appeal by calling himself an environmentalist rather than a conservative. He lost that election — but established enough of a reputation in the somewhat closed world of Oxford debating that he was able to win the presidency a year later.
As a journalist in the 1990s, he made a name for himself while reporting out of Brussels for the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper by ruthlessly lampooning European Union bureaucracy and regulations. His stories were frequently more fiction than hard news. Yet they were entertaining, and, more to the point, they played into a growing anti-European narrative in a country that had joined the European Economic Community, as it was then called, late in the day, and had never wholeheartedly embraced the idea of closer economic and political integration with its continental neighbors. Johnson was shockingly “anti-political-correctness” and anti-European. To his opponents, his stances simply meant he was retrograde, his openly racist comments putting him beyond the pale. To his supporters, he was simply telling it like it is.
In the same way as Trump established a loyal fan base through “The Apprentice,” so Johnson used his columns and his feature articles to build a personal brand that he would, subsequently, migrate over to the world of politics.
Johnson was elected to parliament, from a parliamentary constituency just outside of Oxford, in 2001, and re-elected in 2005. He took on what The New Yorker termed a “Bertie Wooster” persona: a gaffe-prone, blundering, somewhat lovable upper-class twit, somebody who would trip over his own tongue one minute and his own feet the next. He hogged the spotlight: His larger-than-life appearance, his sometimes-outrageous personal behavior and his carefully honed exaggerations all became fodder for the British press. Within a few years, even though he was only a junior MP, he was one of the most recognizable politicians in the country.
In 2008, Johnson used all of this political capital to make a run for mayor of London. Once again, he reinvented himself to suit the needs of his moment. He promised not a rash of far-right Conservative policies, but a host of big, and sometimes quirky, infrastructure projects. He wanted a new airport on the Thames estuary, new bus systems for the city, rent-a-bike infrastructure, even, bizarrely, a ski-park, on artificial snow, in a shopping mall in East London. Few of his large projects ever came to fruition; many were outright disasters.
But Johnson didn’t just tout big-spending projects. He also marketed himself, to the sophisticated city’s electorate, as a moderate, an environmentalist, a supporter of diversity and LGBTQ rights. Despite having written homophobic criticisms of gay culture in the 1990s and early 2000s, by 2010 he was leading Pink Pride marches and supporting marriage equality.
Friends and foes alike acknowledged that Johnson was entertaining: a blustering, somewhat hard-drinking character, riding around London on his bike, his mop of hair blowing in the wind, making huge speeches about the grandeur of the capital city, and larding his talk with historical references and Latin phrasing.
But underneath the charming veneer, Johnson was also ruthless. Within hours of taking office, he forced Ian Blair — the police commissioner for the capital, who was facing a series of investigations — to resign. It was an act that infuriated the British Home Office, which supposedly exercises control over senior policing appointments, but one that delighted the Conservative Party’s base, which had long agitated for new leadership of the Metropolitan police. And it was a harbinger of what would come after Johnson returned to Parliament, as MP for Uxbridge and Ruislip, in 2015 and spent the next four years stabbing allies in the back and clearing a path for his ultimate route to the premiership.
It was in those years that he began honing his hard-right credentials, and surrounding himself with a cast of characters who would, a few years later, prove to be central figures in the push to convince a majority of British voters to cast ballots in favor of leaving the EU. He allied himself with the ardent Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, and began making increasingly inflammatory speeches on immigration and cozying up to the neo-fascist firebrand Nigel Farage. He reshaped his economic policies to reflect a hard right, Thatcherite emphasis on cutting social spending and slashing top-rate taxes.
Now, Johnson is prime minister. He has pledged to take Britain out of the EU, with or without a deal, by October 31, and has even broached the notion of “proroguing” Parliament — refusing to let MPs sit to debate his strategy — as a way of ramming through Britain’s exit. He is hell-bent on closer relations, trade and otherwise, with Trump’s U.S. (even though at one point he slammed Trump for his “stupefying ignorance”) even if it means acquiescing to the president on such issues of sovereignty as who should sit as the U.K.’s ambassador in Washington. And he is fully committed to a tax-and-regulation-slashing domestic agenda.
Does Johnson believe any of this? It doesn’t really matter. He is a politician in keeping with the broader trends of our moment: opportunistic, vain, open to fueling nationalist sentiments to aid his political prospects, adept at manipulating discontent to break open a hidebound political system.
Boris Johnson, prime minister, is now a duly elected member of the resurgent global strongman’s club.
Johnson’s turnaround is remarkable for a man who found himself in the political wilderness a couple of years ago, forced to resign his position as foreign secretary after refusing to bend to Theresa May’s will over how to conduct Brexit negotiations with the European Union.
Boris Johnson has long craved power – not to implement any grand ideological agenda, but rather to show the world that he’s a big enough man to rise to the top. He is, as many critics have pointed out, without a true political core, his project more one of personal vanity than of principle.
The new British leader has, over the years, repeatedly ideologically reinvented himself to suit the changing mood of the country and, in the process, has gone from being the consummate fine-wine-swilling, urbane journalist, to being an improbable populist. Like Trump, he has a somewhat colorful personal life, yet appeals overwhelmingly to a core base looking to reimpose a more traditional sense of morality on a diverse population. This part of the electorate is seeking, in its imperial nostalgia, to “Make Britain Great Again.” Johnson, like Brexit itself, has become an avatar for those disaffected with the arc of history.
Educated at Eton, the much-storied boarding school for Britain’s elite, and then as a classicist at Balliol College, Oxford (the alma mater of this writer, too, and long the training ground of many of Britain’s top politicians and journalists), Johnson prides himself on his quick wit, his erudition, and his ability to bring an opponent to heel with a few well-timed insults and humorous put-downs. He has always fashioned himself as Churchillian in style and in temperament, and a few years back, wrote a book about Churchill that critics saw as a thinly veiled attempt to appropriate the man’s reputation for himself.
Once upon a time, when Johnson was running for the presidency of the prestigious Oxford Union debating club, he tried to broaden his appeal by calling himself an environmentalist rather than a conservative. He lost that election — but established enough of a reputation in the somewhat closed world of Oxford debating that he was able to win the presidency a year later.
As a journalist in the 1990s, he made a name for himself while reporting out of Brussels for the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper by ruthlessly lampooning European Union bureaucracy and regulations. His stories were frequently more fiction than hard news. Yet they were entertaining, and, more to the point, they played into a growing anti-European narrative in a country that had joined the European Economic Community, as it was then called, late in the day, and had never wholeheartedly embraced the idea of closer economic and political integration with its continental neighbors. Johnson was shockingly “anti-political-correctness” and anti-European. To his opponents, his stances simply meant he was retrograde, his openly racist comments putting him beyond the pale. To his supporters, he was simply telling it like it is.
In the same way as Trump established a loyal fan base through “The Apprentice,” so Johnson used his columns and his feature articles to build a personal brand that he would, subsequently, migrate over to the world of politics.
Johnson was elected to parliament, from a parliamentary constituency just outside of Oxford, in 2001, and re-elected in 2005. He took on what The New Yorker termed a “Bertie Wooster” persona: a gaffe-prone, blundering, somewhat lovable upper-class twit, somebody who would trip over his own tongue one minute and his own feet the next. He hogged the spotlight: His larger-than-life appearance, his sometimes-outrageous personal behavior and his carefully honed exaggerations all became fodder for the British press. Within a few years, even though he was only a junior MP, he was one of the most recognizable politicians in the country.
In 2008, Johnson used all of this political capital to make a run for mayor of London. Once again, he reinvented himself to suit the needs of his moment. He promised not a rash of far-right Conservative policies, but a host of big, and sometimes quirky, infrastructure projects. He wanted a new airport on the Thames estuary, new bus systems for the city, rent-a-bike infrastructure, even, bizarrely, a ski-park, on artificial snow, in a shopping mall in East London. Few of his large projects ever came to fruition; many were outright disasters.
But Johnson didn’t just tout big-spending projects. He also marketed himself, to the sophisticated city’s electorate, as a moderate, an environmentalist, a supporter of diversity and LGBTQ rights. Despite having written homophobic criticisms of gay culture in the 1990s and early 2000s, by 2010 he was leading Pink Pride marches and supporting marriage equality.
Friends and foes alike acknowledged that Johnson was entertaining: a blustering, somewhat hard-drinking character, riding around London on his bike, his mop of hair blowing in the wind, making huge speeches about the grandeur of the capital city, and larding his talk with historical references and Latin phrasing.
But underneath the charming veneer, Johnson was also ruthless. Within hours of taking office, he forced Ian Blair — the police commissioner for the capital, who was facing a series of investigations — to resign. It was an act that infuriated the British Home Office, which supposedly exercises control over senior policing appointments, but one that delighted the Conservative Party’s base, which had long agitated for new leadership of the Metropolitan police. And it was a harbinger of what would come after Johnson returned to Parliament, as MP for Uxbridge and Ruislip, in 2015 and spent the next four years stabbing allies in the back and clearing a path for his ultimate route to the premiership.
It was in those years that he began honing his hard-right credentials, and surrounding himself with a cast of characters who would, a few years later, prove to be central figures in the push to convince a majority of British voters to cast ballots in favor of leaving the EU. He allied himself with the ardent Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, and began making increasingly inflammatory speeches on immigration and cozying up to the neo-fascist firebrand Nigel Farage. He reshaped his economic policies to reflect a hard right, Thatcherite emphasis on cutting social spending and slashing top-rate taxes.
Now, Johnson is prime minister. He has pledged to take Britain out of the EU, with or without a deal, by October 31, and has even broached the notion of “proroguing” Parliament — refusing to let MPs sit to debate his strategy — as a way of ramming through Britain’s exit. He is hell-bent on closer relations, trade and otherwise, with Trump’s U.S. (even though at one point he slammed Trump for his “stupefying ignorance”) even if it means acquiescing to the president on such issues of sovereignty as who should sit as the U.K.’s ambassador in Washington. And he is fully committed to a tax-and-regulation-slashing domestic agenda.
Does Johnson believe any of this? It doesn’t really matter. He is a politician in keeping with the broader trends of our moment: opportunistic, vain, open to fueling nationalist sentiments to aid his political prospects, adept at manipulating discontent to break open a hidebound political system.
Boris Johnson, prime minister, is now a duly elected member of the resurgent global strongman’s club.
Yingying Zhang murder: anger in China as US killer of scholar spared death penalty
Brendt Christensen has never revealed the whereabouts of Yingying Zhang, whom he raped and then decapitated in Illinois
Lily Kuo in Beijing, and agencies
The Guardian
Fri 19 Jul 2019 01.35 BST
A US former doctoral student has been spared the death penalty for kidnapping and murdering a 26-year-old Chinese scholar, prompting widespread anger in China.
Last month, 30-year-old Brendt Christensen was convicted for abducting Zhang Yingying from a bus stop, then raping, choking and stabbing her before beating her to death with a bat and decapitating her.
Prosecutors had called for the death penalty, which Zhang’s family also supported, but after eight hours of deliberation, a jury in Peoria, Illinois, was unable to reach a unanimous decision. Christensen will automatically receive a sentence of life behind bars without the possibility of parole.
News of Christensen’s sentencing spread quickly in China, where it was widely reported. On the microblog Weibo, details of the case were among four of the top trending topics, with many cursing the jury and the US legal system.
Zhang’s boyfriend Hou Xiaolin has said that he does not accept the court’s decision. Speaking to media after the sentencing on Thursday, he said: “The result today seems to tell me that I can kill [anyone] … with all kinds of cruel methods and I will not die for it … I’d better act as a loner and then people will not think I’m a dangerous [person].. The result today encourages people to do crimes and [I] will never agree with that.”
One user said: “In prison he will be taken care of for the rest of his life. He intentionally killed someone and yet the jury still does not sentence him to death. What are they thinking?” One commentator posted: “This is proof the American justice system is not fair”.
Others reflected on how Christensen would have been treated in China, where thousands of prisoners are believed to be executed each year. “Now I think the death penalty is at the very least a way to comfort the victim’s family,” another said, in a comment that was liked by users more than 19,000 times.
Zhang’s case has shocked families in China, where many send their children to study abroad in the US. In 2018, there were more than 300,000 Chinese students in the country, according to the US Department of State’s bureau of educational and cultural affairs.
On 9 June 2017, Christensen posed as an undercover officer and lured Zhang into his car. Prosecutors said he most likely forced Zhang into a duffel bag that he bought online days earlier and carried her up to his apartment. Once inside, he raped and killed her.
Upon hearing the sentencing, Christensen lowered his head and smiled at his mother when he heard that his life would be spared.
Zhang’s parents, who travelled from China to attend the trial, pleaded with Christensen to reveal what he did with their daughter’s remains so that they can be taken back to their home country. Prosecutors indicated in court filings that Christensen may have destroyed Zhang’s body.
Speaking through an interpreter, her father, Ronggao Zhang, said: “If you have any humanity left in your soul, please end our torment. Please let us bring Yingying home.”
Among the most poignant testimony during the penalty phase came from Zhang’s mother, Lifeng Ye. She told jurors how the family was devastated by the loss of her beloved daughter, who had aspired to become a professor and to help her working class family financially.
“How am I supposed to carry on living?” she said in testimony by video. “I really don’t know how to carry on.”
Ye said Christensen dashed the dreams of Zhang, who was doing post-graduate research in agricultural science at the University of Illinois, and those of her family. Yingying was killed months before she had planned to get married.
“My daughter did not get to wear a wedding dress,” Lifeng Ye said. “I really wanted to be a grandma.”
Christensen’s parents took the witness stand, too, and appealed to jurors to spare their son’s life. Both said they loved him unconditionally.
Michael Christensen said the thought of his son being executed was unbearable, prompting Brendt Christensen to break down crying in a rare display of emotion.
Ellen Williams, his mother, told jurors that Christensen’s crime was “horrible” and that she thinks about Zhang’s family “at least five times a day and how horrible this must be for them”. She said her son was extremely bright, kind and considerate.
Brendt Christensen was raised in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. He began his studies in Champaign at the University of Illinois’s prestigious doctoral program in physics in 2013.
Despite his academic achievements, Christensen had suffered mental health problems for years, the defence said, and had tried to get help in dealing with homicidal fantasies in the months before killing Zhang.
“What happened next was a ... battle between Brendt and his demons that little by little, he lost,” his lawyer Julie Brain said.
Last month, 30-year-old Brendt Christensen was convicted for abducting Zhang Yingying from a bus stop, then raping, choking and stabbing her before beating her to death with a bat and decapitating her.
Prosecutors had called for the death penalty, which Zhang’s family also supported, but after eight hours of deliberation, a jury in Peoria, Illinois, was unable to reach a unanimous decision. Christensen will automatically receive a sentence of life behind bars without the possibility of parole.
News of Christensen’s sentencing spread quickly in China, where it was widely reported. On the microblog Weibo, details of the case were among four of the top trending topics, with many cursing the jury and the US legal system.
Zhang’s boyfriend Hou Xiaolin has said that he does not accept the court’s decision. Speaking to media after the sentencing on Thursday, he said: “The result today seems to tell me that I can kill [anyone] … with all kinds of cruel methods and I will not die for it … I’d better act as a loner and then people will not think I’m a dangerous [person].. The result today encourages people to do crimes and [I] will never agree with that.”
One user said: “In prison he will be taken care of for the rest of his life. He intentionally killed someone and yet the jury still does not sentence him to death. What are they thinking?” One commentator posted: “This is proof the American justice system is not fair”.
Others reflected on how Christensen would have been treated in China, where thousands of prisoners are believed to be executed each year. “Now I think the death penalty is at the very least a way to comfort the victim’s family,” another said, in a comment that was liked by users more than 19,000 times.
Zhang’s case has shocked families in China, where many send their children to study abroad in the US. In 2018, there were more than 300,000 Chinese students in the country, according to the US Department of State’s bureau of educational and cultural affairs.
On 9 June 2017, Christensen posed as an undercover officer and lured Zhang into his car. Prosecutors said he most likely forced Zhang into a duffel bag that he bought online days earlier and carried her up to his apartment. Once inside, he raped and killed her.
Upon hearing the sentencing, Christensen lowered his head and smiled at his mother when he heard that his life would be spared.
Zhang’s parents, who travelled from China to attend the trial, pleaded with Christensen to reveal what he did with their daughter’s remains so that they can be taken back to their home country. Prosecutors indicated in court filings that Christensen may have destroyed Zhang’s body.
Speaking through an interpreter, her father, Ronggao Zhang, said: “If you have any humanity left in your soul, please end our torment. Please let us bring Yingying home.”
Among the most poignant testimony during the penalty phase came from Zhang’s mother, Lifeng Ye. She told jurors how the family was devastated by the loss of her beloved daughter, who had aspired to become a professor and to help her working class family financially.
“How am I supposed to carry on living?” she said in testimony by video. “I really don’t know how to carry on.”
Ye said Christensen dashed the dreams of Zhang, who was doing post-graduate research in agricultural science at the University of Illinois, and those of her family. Yingying was killed months before she had planned to get married.
“My daughter did not get to wear a wedding dress,” Lifeng Ye said. “I really wanted to be a grandma.”
Christensen’s parents took the witness stand, too, and appealed to jurors to spare their son’s life. Both said they loved him unconditionally.
Michael Christensen said the thought of his son being executed was unbearable, prompting Brendt Christensen to break down crying in a rare display of emotion.
Ellen Williams, his mother, told jurors that Christensen’s crime was “horrible” and that she thinks about Zhang’s family “at least five times a day and how horrible this must be for them”. She said her son was extremely bright, kind and considerate.
Brendt Christensen was raised in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. He began his studies in Champaign at the University of Illinois’s prestigious doctoral program in physics in 2013.
Despite his academic achievements, Christensen had suffered mental health problems for years, the defence said, and had tried to get help in dealing with homicidal fantasies in the months before killing Zhang.
“What happened next was a ... battle between Brendt and his demons that little by little, he lost,” his lawyer Julie Brain said.
British voters are just as stupid as Americans voters
World hunger on the rise with more than 820 million at risk, UN report says
July 15, 2019
By Agence France-Presse - Raw Story
More than 821 million people suffered from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition worldwide last year, the United Nations reported Monday — the third year in a row that the number has risen.
After decades of decline, food insecurity began to increase in 2015 and reversing the trend is one of the 2030 targets of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
But getting to a world where no one is suffering from hunger by then remains an “immense challenge,” the report said.
“The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” was produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other UN agencies including the World Health Organization.
“To safeguard food security and nutrition, it is critical to already have in place economic and social policies to counteract the effects of adverse economic cycles when they arrive, while avoiding cuts in essential services, such as health care and education, at all costs,” it said.
The authors said a “structural transformation” was needed to include the poorest people in the world, a move they said would require “integrating food security and nutrition concerns into poverty reduction efforts” while tackling gender inequality and the exclusion of certain social groups.
Malnutrition remains widespread in Africa, where around 20 percent of the population is affected, and in Asia where more than 12 of people experience it. In Latin America and the Caribbean, seven percent of people are affected.
Adding the number of people suffering from famine to those hit by food insecurity gives a total of more than two billion.
The FAO said current efforts were insufficient to meet the goal of halving the number of children whose growth is stunted by malnutrition by 2030.
Around 149 million children currently suffer from hunger-related growth delays.
At the same time, the report notes that obesity and excess weight are both on the rise in all regions, with school-age children and adults particularly affected.
After decades of decline, food insecurity began to increase in 2015 and reversing the trend is one of the 2030 targets of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
But getting to a world where no one is suffering from hunger by then remains an “immense challenge,” the report said.
“The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World” was produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other UN agencies including the World Health Organization.
“To safeguard food security and nutrition, it is critical to already have in place economic and social policies to counteract the effects of adverse economic cycles when they arrive, while avoiding cuts in essential services, such as health care and education, at all costs,” it said.
The authors said a “structural transformation” was needed to include the poorest people in the world, a move they said would require “integrating food security and nutrition concerns into poverty reduction efforts” while tackling gender inequality and the exclusion of certain social groups.
Malnutrition remains widespread in Africa, where around 20 percent of the population is affected, and in Asia where more than 12 of people experience it. In Latin America and the Caribbean, seven percent of people are affected.
Adding the number of people suffering from famine to those hit by food insecurity gives a total of more than two billion.
The FAO said current efforts were insufficient to meet the goal of halving the number of children whose growth is stunted by malnutrition by 2030.
Around 149 million children currently suffer from hunger-related growth delays.
At the same time, the report notes that obesity and excess weight are both on the rise in all regions, with school-age children and adults particularly affected.
20 million children not vaccinated in 2018: UN warns against ‘stagnation’
July 15, 2019
By Agence France-Presse - Raw Story
Almost 20 million children missed out on potentially life-saving vaccinations last year, the UN said Monday, as surging measles cases highlighted “dangerous” gaps in efforts to shield kids from preventable illness.
Last year, 19.4 million children were “not fully vaccinated”, the World Health Organization and the UNICEF children’s agency said in an annual report — up from 18.7 million in 2017 and about 18.5 million the year before.
This all pointed to a “dangerous stagnation of global vaccination rates, due to conflict, inequality and complacency,” the United Nations agencies said.
The comparative birth rate was not provided, but they warned the global quest for widespread vaccination against life-threatening disease has stagnated.
A case in point: the global coverage rate for a key vaccine combination against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and measles has been stalled at 86 percent since 2010, it said, describing the rate as “not sufficient”.
Some 350,000 measles cases were reported globally last year — more than double the 2017 number, a “real-time indicator” of the quest to expand vaccine coverage, UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore said in a statement.
In April, the WHO said 2019 was set to be worse, with preliminary data showing reported measles cases in the first quarter 300 times higher than the same period in 2018.
There was some progress too.
By last year, 90 countries — though largely wealthy ones — integrated the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine into their national programmes, thus making it available to one in three girls worldwide, the UN said.
The vaccine is given to girls, and recently also to boys, against a sexually-transmitted virus type that causes a range of cancers, including of the cervix.
– ‘Outright false information’ –
A worldwide resurgence of measles is partly blamed on the so-called “anti-vax” movement based on fake science wrongly linking vaccines to side effects including autism.
This has discouraged many parents, particularly in the United States but increasingly in Europe, from taking their children for their shots.
The director of the WHO’s vaccines department, Kate O’Brien, told reporters in Geneva the UN was “concerned about the proliferation of misinformation (and) outright false information,” online.
But she stressed that “access” remained the main obstacle. Countries with the weakest public health systems still have the lowest vaccination rates, though coverage in sub-Saharan Africa rose from 50 percent in 1999 to 76 percent last year.
– ‘Backsliding’ –
A number of countries with coverage formerly well above 90 percent, have regressed, the data showed.
In Brazil for example, application of the first dose of a measles vaccine fell to 84 percent last year from a high of 99 percent.
Ecuador saw a similar drop for the first measles dose, while in the Philippines coverage fell from 87 percent to 67 percent from 2010 to 2018.
The “reasons for backsliding include complacency, lack of investment in public health, conflict, and in some places lack of trust in vaccines,” the UN said.
Last year, 19.4 million children were “not fully vaccinated”, the World Health Organization and the UNICEF children’s agency said in an annual report — up from 18.7 million in 2017 and about 18.5 million the year before.
This all pointed to a “dangerous stagnation of global vaccination rates, due to conflict, inequality and complacency,” the United Nations agencies said.
The comparative birth rate was not provided, but they warned the global quest for widespread vaccination against life-threatening disease has stagnated.
A case in point: the global coverage rate for a key vaccine combination against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and measles has been stalled at 86 percent since 2010, it said, describing the rate as “not sufficient”.
Some 350,000 measles cases were reported globally last year — more than double the 2017 number, a “real-time indicator” of the quest to expand vaccine coverage, UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore said in a statement.
In April, the WHO said 2019 was set to be worse, with preliminary data showing reported measles cases in the first quarter 300 times higher than the same period in 2018.
There was some progress too.
By last year, 90 countries — though largely wealthy ones — integrated the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine into their national programmes, thus making it available to one in three girls worldwide, the UN said.
The vaccine is given to girls, and recently also to boys, against a sexually-transmitted virus type that causes a range of cancers, including of the cervix.
– ‘Outright false information’ –
A worldwide resurgence of measles is partly blamed on the so-called “anti-vax” movement based on fake science wrongly linking vaccines to side effects including autism.
This has discouraged many parents, particularly in the United States but increasingly in Europe, from taking their children for their shots.
The director of the WHO’s vaccines department, Kate O’Brien, told reporters in Geneva the UN was “concerned about the proliferation of misinformation (and) outright false information,” online.
But she stressed that “access” remained the main obstacle. Countries with the weakest public health systems still have the lowest vaccination rates, though coverage in sub-Saharan Africa rose from 50 percent in 1999 to 76 percent last year.
– ‘Backsliding’ –
A number of countries with coverage formerly well above 90 percent, have regressed, the data showed.
In Brazil for example, application of the first dose of a measles vaccine fell to 84 percent last year from a high of 99 percent.
Ecuador saw a similar drop for the first measles dose, while in the Philippines coverage fell from 87 percent to 67 percent from 2010 to 2018.
The “reasons for backsliding include complacency, lack of investment in public health, conflict, and in some places lack of trust in vaccines,” the UN said.
MIDDLE EAST DICTATORS BUY SPY TECH FROM COMPANY LINKED TO IBM AND GOOGLE
Ryan Gallagher - The Intercept
July 12 2019, 2:00 a.m.
IT IS THE size of a small suitcase and can be placed discreetly in the back of a car. When the device is powered up, it begins secretly monitoring hundreds of cellphones in the vicinity, recording people’s private conversations and vacuuming up their text messages.
The device is one of several spy tools manufactured by a Chinese company called Semptian, which has supplied the equipment to authoritarian governments in the Middle East and North Africa, according to two sources with knowledge of the company’s operations.
As The Intercept first reported on Thursday, since 2015, Semptian has been using American technology to help build more powerful surveillance and censorship equipment, which it sells to governments under the guise of a front company called iNext.
Semptian is collaborating with IBM and leading U.S. chip manufacturer Xilinx to advance a breed of microprocessors that enable computers to analyze vast amounts of data more quickly. The Chinese firm is a member of an American organization called the OpenPower Foundation, which was founded by Google and IBM executives with the aim of trying to “drive innovation.”
Semptian, Google, and Xilinx did not respond to requests for comment. The OpenPower Foundation said in a statement that it “does not become involved, or seek to be informed, about the individual business strategies, goals or activities of its members,” due to antitrust and competition laws. An IBM spokesperson said that his company “has not worked with Semptian on joint technology development,” and refused to answer further questions.
Semptian’s equipment is helping China’s ruling Communist Party regime covertly monitor the internet and cellphone activity of up to 200 million people across the East Asian country, sifting through vast amounts of private data every day.
But the company’s reach extends far beyond China. In recent years, it has been marketing its technologies globally.
After receiving tips from confidential sources about Semptian’s role in mass surveillance, a reporter contacted the company using an assumed name and posing as a potential customer. In emails, a Semptian representative confirmed that the company had provided its surveillance tools to security agencies in the Middle East and North Africa — and said it had fitted a mass surveillance system in an unnamed country, creating a digital dragnet across its entire population.
The mass surveillance system, named Aegis, is designed to monitor phone and internet use. It can “store and analyze unlimited data” and “show the connections of everyone,” according to documents provided by the company.
“We have installed Aegis in other countries [than China] and covered the whole country,” stated Semptian’s Zhu Wenying in an April email. He declined to provide names of the countries where the equipment has been installed, saying it was “highly sensitive, we are under very strict [nondisclosure agreement].”
Similar equipment has been used for years by Western intelligence agencies and police. However, thanks in part to companies like Semptian, the technology is increasingly finding its way into the hands of security forces in undemocratic countries where dissidents are jailed, tortured, and in some cases executed.
“We’ve seen regular and shocking examples of how surveillance is being used by governments around the world to stay in power by targeting activists, journalists, and opposition members,” said Gus Hosein, executive director of London-based human rights group Privacy International. “Industry is selling the whole stack of surveillance capability at the network, service, city, and state levels. Chinese firms appear to be the latest entrants into this competitive market of influence and data exploitation.”
Asked whether there were any countries it would refuse to deal with in the Middle East and North Africa, Zhu wrote that Iran and Syria were the only two places that were off limits. The company was apparently willing to work with other countries in the region — such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Sudan, and Egypt — where governments routinely abuse human rights, cracking down on freedom of speech and peaceful protest.
Documents show that Semptian is currently offering governments the opportunity to purchase four different systems: Aegis, Owlet, HawkEye, and Falcon.
Aegis, Semptian’s flagship system, is designed to be installed inside phone and internet networks, where it is used to secretly collect people’s email records, phone calls, text messages, cellphone locations, and web browsing histories. Governments in most countries have the power to legally compel phone and internet providers to install such equipment.
Semptian claims that Aegis offers “a full view to the virtual world,” enabling government spies to see “location information for everyone in the country.” It can also “block certain information [on the] internet from being visited,” censoring content that governments do not want their citizens to see.
The Owlet and Falcon devices are smaller scale; they are portable and focus only on cellphone communications. They are the size of a suitcase and can be operated from a vehicle, for example, or from an apartment overlooking a city square.
When the Owlet device is activated, it begins tapping into cellphone calls and text messages that are being transmitted over the airwaves in the immediate area. Semptian’s documents state that the Owlet has the capacity to monitor 200 different phones at any one time.
“Massive interception is used to intercept voice and SMS around the system within the coverage range,” states a document describing Owlet. It adds that there is an “SMS keyword filtering” feature, suggesting that authorities can target people based on particular phrases or words they mention in their messages.
The Falcon system, unlike Owlet, does not have the capability to eavesdrop on calls or texts. Instead, it is designed to track the location of targeted cellphones over an almost 1-mile radius and can pinpoint them to within 5 meters, similar in function to a device known as a Stingray, used by U.S. law enforcement.
When Falcon is powered up, it will “force all nearby mobile phones and other cellular data devices to connect to it,” and can help government authorities “find out the exact house which the targets [are] hiding in,” according to Semptian’s documents.
Falcon comes equipped with a smaller, pocket-size device that can be used by a government agent to pursue people on foot, tracking down the location of their cellphones to within 1 meter.
The fourth system Semptian sells to governments, HawkEye, is a portable, camera-based platform that incorporates facial recognition technology. It is designed to be placed in any location to create a “temporary surveillance scene,” the company’s documents say.
HawkEye scans people as they walk past the camera and compares images of their faces to photographs contained in “multi-million-level databases” in real time, triggering an alert if a particular suspect is identified.
Zhu, the Semptian employee, wrote that some of these tools had been provided to authorities in the Middle East and North Africa region, known as MENA. “Aegis, Falcon and HawkEye are our new solutions for [law enforcement agency] users,” wrote Zhu. “All the three products have successful stories and some in MENA.”
Elsa Kania, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a policy think tank, said that Semptian’s exports appear to fit with a broader trend, which has seen Chinese companies export surveillance and censorship technologies in an effort to tap into new markets while also promoting China ideologically.
“The Chinese Communist Party seeks to bolster and support regimes that are not unlike itself,” Kania said. “It is deeply concerning, because we are seeing rapid diffusion of technologies that, while subject to abuses in democracies, are even more problematic in regimes where there aren’t checks and balances and an open civil society.”
The device is one of several spy tools manufactured by a Chinese company called Semptian, which has supplied the equipment to authoritarian governments in the Middle East and North Africa, according to two sources with knowledge of the company’s operations.
As The Intercept first reported on Thursday, since 2015, Semptian has been using American technology to help build more powerful surveillance and censorship equipment, which it sells to governments under the guise of a front company called iNext.
Semptian is collaborating with IBM and leading U.S. chip manufacturer Xilinx to advance a breed of microprocessors that enable computers to analyze vast amounts of data more quickly. The Chinese firm is a member of an American organization called the OpenPower Foundation, which was founded by Google and IBM executives with the aim of trying to “drive innovation.”
Semptian, Google, and Xilinx did not respond to requests for comment. The OpenPower Foundation said in a statement that it “does not become involved, or seek to be informed, about the individual business strategies, goals or activities of its members,” due to antitrust and competition laws. An IBM spokesperson said that his company “has not worked with Semptian on joint technology development,” and refused to answer further questions.
Semptian’s equipment is helping China’s ruling Communist Party regime covertly monitor the internet and cellphone activity of up to 200 million people across the East Asian country, sifting through vast amounts of private data every day.
But the company’s reach extends far beyond China. In recent years, it has been marketing its technologies globally.
After receiving tips from confidential sources about Semptian’s role in mass surveillance, a reporter contacted the company using an assumed name and posing as a potential customer. In emails, a Semptian representative confirmed that the company had provided its surveillance tools to security agencies in the Middle East and North Africa — and said it had fitted a mass surveillance system in an unnamed country, creating a digital dragnet across its entire population.
The mass surveillance system, named Aegis, is designed to monitor phone and internet use. It can “store and analyze unlimited data” and “show the connections of everyone,” according to documents provided by the company.
“We have installed Aegis in other countries [than China] and covered the whole country,” stated Semptian’s Zhu Wenying in an April email. He declined to provide names of the countries where the equipment has been installed, saying it was “highly sensitive, we are under very strict [nondisclosure agreement].”
Similar equipment has been used for years by Western intelligence agencies and police. However, thanks in part to companies like Semptian, the technology is increasingly finding its way into the hands of security forces in undemocratic countries where dissidents are jailed, tortured, and in some cases executed.
“We’ve seen regular and shocking examples of how surveillance is being used by governments around the world to stay in power by targeting activists, journalists, and opposition members,” said Gus Hosein, executive director of London-based human rights group Privacy International. “Industry is selling the whole stack of surveillance capability at the network, service, city, and state levels. Chinese firms appear to be the latest entrants into this competitive market of influence and data exploitation.”
Asked whether there were any countries it would refuse to deal with in the Middle East and North Africa, Zhu wrote that Iran and Syria were the only two places that were off limits. The company was apparently willing to work with other countries in the region — such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Sudan, and Egypt — where governments routinely abuse human rights, cracking down on freedom of speech and peaceful protest.
Documents show that Semptian is currently offering governments the opportunity to purchase four different systems: Aegis, Owlet, HawkEye, and Falcon.
Aegis, Semptian’s flagship system, is designed to be installed inside phone and internet networks, where it is used to secretly collect people’s email records, phone calls, text messages, cellphone locations, and web browsing histories. Governments in most countries have the power to legally compel phone and internet providers to install such equipment.
Semptian claims that Aegis offers “a full view to the virtual world,” enabling government spies to see “location information for everyone in the country.” It can also “block certain information [on the] internet from being visited,” censoring content that governments do not want their citizens to see.
The Owlet and Falcon devices are smaller scale; they are portable and focus only on cellphone communications. They are the size of a suitcase and can be operated from a vehicle, for example, or from an apartment overlooking a city square.
When the Owlet device is activated, it begins tapping into cellphone calls and text messages that are being transmitted over the airwaves in the immediate area. Semptian’s documents state that the Owlet has the capacity to monitor 200 different phones at any one time.
“Massive interception is used to intercept voice and SMS around the system within the coverage range,” states a document describing Owlet. It adds that there is an “SMS keyword filtering” feature, suggesting that authorities can target people based on particular phrases or words they mention in their messages.
The Falcon system, unlike Owlet, does not have the capability to eavesdrop on calls or texts. Instead, it is designed to track the location of targeted cellphones over an almost 1-mile radius and can pinpoint them to within 5 meters, similar in function to a device known as a Stingray, used by U.S. law enforcement.
When Falcon is powered up, it will “force all nearby mobile phones and other cellular data devices to connect to it,” and can help government authorities “find out the exact house which the targets [are] hiding in,” according to Semptian’s documents.
Falcon comes equipped with a smaller, pocket-size device that can be used by a government agent to pursue people on foot, tracking down the location of their cellphones to within 1 meter.
The fourth system Semptian sells to governments, HawkEye, is a portable, camera-based platform that incorporates facial recognition technology. It is designed to be placed in any location to create a “temporary surveillance scene,” the company’s documents say.
HawkEye scans people as they walk past the camera and compares images of their faces to photographs contained in “multi-million-level databases” in real time, triggering an alert if a particular suspect is identified.
Zhu, the Semptian employee, wrote that some of these tools had been provided to authorities in the Middle East and North Africa region, known as MENA. “Aegis, Falcon and HawkEye are our new solutions for [law enforcement agency] users,” wrote Zhu. “All the three products have successful stories and some in MENA.”
Elsa Kania, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a policy think tank, said that Semptian’s exports appear to fit with a broader trend, which has seen Chinese companies export surveillance and censorship technologies in an effort to tap into new markets while also promoting China ideologically.
“The Chinese Communist Party seeks to bolster and support regimes that are not unlike itself,” Kania said. “It is deeply concerning, because we are seeing rapid diffusion of technologies that, while subject to abuses in democracies, are even more problematic in regimes where there aren’t checks and balances and an open civil society.”
funnies
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